ZIP AND PETER-KINS
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Several days after this Zip was asleep on the seat of the buggy in front
of the house of one of the doctor's patients who was so very ill that he
had been visiting there each day for a week. Consequently Zip, as usual,
had called on every dog and cat in this neighborhood. To-day he thought he
would sleep instead of running around to visit and making the doctor wait
and whistle for him to come back. But presently he was awakened by hearing
the doctor's whistle across the street. He was up in a moment looking in
all directions, for though he heard him, he could not see his master. He
leaped out of the buggy and ran across the street, from where the sound
seemed to come. As he ran the whistle was repeated loud and shrill, but
no doctor could Zip see.
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"He must be hiding behind that thick bush in the yard," decided Zip. So he
crawled under the fence and went nosing around the shrubbery, but the
doctor was not there. He sniffed here and there, but could not get so much
as a tiny whiff of the doctor's scent. He stood still at last, with ears
standing up straight and one foot held off the ground, as he did when
listening intently.
Again he heard the doctor whistle right over his head. He looked up to see
if the doctor was in an aeroplane, but all he discovered was the clear,
blue sky. Then a laugh sounded behind him and, turning quickly, he saw
Miss Belinda Simpkin's pet Poll-parrot swinging on the limb of a tree,
laughing at him.
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This was too much for Zip's dignity. To have a Poll-parrot make a fool of
him! So he ran to the tree where she sat and barked furiously up at her.
But to make Zip still more angry, Polly kept on whistling and laughing at
him. She had heard the doctor whistle for Zip every day and had learned to
imitate him perfectly. She really was a very smart bird, and everyone in
the village knew of Miss Belinda's parrot and monkey, for they were always
doing exceedingly smart, mischievous things, some of which I will tell you
about, but now I must finish relating what happened to Zip.
He was still looking angrily at Polly when he heard a queer chattering and
squeaking noise up in a tree behind him and, turning to look, he saw a
gray object drop from one of the limbs. He looked down at the ground,
expecting to see whatever it was drop under the tree, but nothing landed.
Still he knew he had seen something start to fall. What could it be that
could stop in mid-air, for there was no other branch under the one from
which it had dropped on which it could catch. But when he glanced up, what
should he discover but Miss Belinda's pet monkey swinging by its tail from
the branch on which it had been sitting!
Now Zip hated monkeys as a cat does rats. How as nice a little old maiden
lady as Miss Belinda could stand it to live all alone in a house with only
a parrot and a monkey for companions was more than he could understand.
Zip ignored the monkey and began barking again at the parrot, telling her
just to wait until another day, that he would come back and get even with
her yet, and that the next time he left it would be with a mouthful of her
tail feathers.
"Help! Help!" screeched Polly. And her voice was so nearly like that of a
human that the doctor, hearing it, hurried across the street to see who
was calling for aid. As he opened the gate to go into the yard, something
tore past him. Looking around to see what it was, he beheld Zip running
for all he was worth, with a little gray monkey perched on his back,
clinging to his silver collar which the Judge had given to him.
The doctor was about to go to his rescue when Zip dove under the fence,
which knocked off the monkey, and he rolled over and over on the ground,
dazed for several seconds. He had hit his head on the fence so hard that
it had stunned him. The doctor took a step forward to pick him up when
again he heard that piercing scream, "Help! Help! Help!" that seemed to
come from the upper window of Miss Belinda's cottage.
"Gracious!" exclaimed the doctor. "Someone must be trying to kill Miss
Belinda!" and he started for the cottage, intending to break down the door
if it should be locked. Before he had gone two steps, the voice he heard
before called once more, "Help! Help! Beat it! Beat it!" and then, looking
up, he saw Polly.
"You rascal!" said the doctor, shaking his finger in a playful manner at
her. "You surely did fool me! But I must go and see if Zip has killed your
playfellow."
When he reached the gate, he found the monkey sitting up rubbing his head
with his forefoot and running slowly toward home on three legs. Seeing he
was all right, the doctor whistled for Zip to come, but no Zip appeared.
So after calling him once or twice more, the doctor concluded he did not
wish to come back for fear the monkey would get him again and try to take
a free ride.
"He probably has trotted home across lots," thought the doctor, "or else
he may be waiting for me part way home."
On hearing the doctor whistle, the monkey ran to the side of the road,
jumped up on the fence and ran along its top until he reached Miss
Belinda's yard. Once there, he ran up a tall tree to a place of safety,
where no dogs could reach him, and there the doctor left him, rubbing his
head.
As Zip trotted home across lots, he made up his mind that he would go to
Miss Belinda's every day until he had a chance to get even not only with
Polly, but with the monkey too. For I am sorry to say that Zip was a very
revengeful dog, and he never forgot an injury, at least not until he had
paid back in like coin anything he had suffered.
"You may rest assured," he said to himself, "that I shall take one at a
time, however, and look around well before tackling either one, to see
that the other is nowhere about."
Miss Belinda was out when all this happened, so was very much alarmed when
she returned to see Peter-Kins hopping around on two legs, holding his
head with his hands. And still more so when she took him in her arms and
saw that there was a big bump on his forehead the size of a hen's egg,
which was still swelling and by this time threatening to close one eye.
"You poor darling little pet! Did you fall out of the tree and bump your
head? I is _so_ sorry," and talking such baby talk to him, she carried him
off into the house to put witch hazel and a bandage on his head.
All this time Polly kept screaming, "Help! Help! Help!"
"Someone must have thrown a stone and hurt Peter-Kins," decided Miss
Belinda, "or Polly would not be calling for help. The next time I go out,
I will shut them in the house so nothing can happen to them."