MORE LESSONS
It was in February that Father and Mother began going away from home
for three and four days at a time. William usually went with them, but
once the Master went. Each time they came back they brought a bunch
of pretty ribbons, blue and red and yellow and white, and William put
them in a glass case in the harness room where there were lots more. Of
course we asked Mother where the ribbons came from and she said from
the dog shows and told us about them. But we didn’t understand very
well. It seemed that the ribbons were prizes given to Father and Mother
because they were such fine dogs, and William and the Master and every
one was very pleased and proud each time Father and Mother came home.
Father was proud, too. He got more ribbons than Mother. I didn’t think
that was fair, but Mother didn’t seem to mind. After each show Father
would be very lazy and just lie around and look proud and Mother would
fetch him bones. But after a day or two Father would forget to be proud
and find his own bones. It wasn’t much fun for Freya and I when Father
was being proud, because he slept a lot and if we made the least noise
Mother would say “Hush, children! Your father is taking a nap and you
mustn’t waken him. Go somewhere else and play.” So we were glad when
the dog shows stopped for a while.
Freya and I were to learn about dog shows for ourselves, though. When
we were almost a year old William began putting a leash on my collar
and Freya’s and walking us about. At first I didn’t like it at all. It
made me quite nervous to have that strap holding me back. The first
time William put it on I stood still and he kept tugging at it and
saying “Come on, now, Fritzie! Come on now!” I was quite willing to go
with him, but I didn’t like the feeling of that collar up around my
ears. Still, it didn’t do any good to put my feet out and hold back
because William dragged me, and when I found that out I decided I’d run
away from him. So I started off in a hurry. But there was that horrid
strap, and when I’d gone a little ways my feet went out from under me
and I turned a somersault. That frightened me and I ran off in another
direction. But each time that leash stopped me. Then I began to run
around William in circles and howl and presently, when I couldn’t run
any more, because the leash was wrapped around William’s legs, I gave
a final tug and William fell over on his back in a flower-bed where
there were some sweet peas just coming up. He was very angry. I saw
that at once and so I tried my best to get away from there. But the
more I tried to run the angrier William got. You see, he couldn’t get
the strap from around his legs and so he couldn’t get on his feet. And
just then I heard the Baby clapping her hands and Nurse saying “Why,
William! Whatever are you doing there?”
And then William was so surprised and felt so silly that he let go
the leash and I pulled it loose and ran as hard as I could run to the
stable and crawled behind the flower-pots. But of course he found me
and pulled me out. He always did. Sometimes now I wonder why I didn’t
find a better place to hide in.
Well, William had his way in the end and I got so I didn’t mind being
on the leash and would walk along ahead of him quite nicely. Freya had
to learn too. She didn’t mind it as much as I had, but then she never
had much spirit. After we got used to the leash William would put a
flat box in the middle of the carriage room floor and make us get up
on it and stand there for minutes at a time. I didn’t see much fun in
that, and at first when he got me on the box I jumped right down again.
But he was very――very――Now what was it that Mother said he was? Oh,
patient; that was it; very patient. That was what Mother called it, but
I said he was stubborn.
Anyway, he kept at me until I did just what he wanted me to, and after
a while I didn’t mind standing on the box, although I couldn’t see much
sense in it and it seemed a dreadful waste of time. But Mother told us
what it was all for, and then I was quite willing to do what William
wanted. You see, we were being trained for the dog shows. I thought
that was very nice because it meant going on a journey, just as Father
and Mother had, and bringing back a lot of pretty ribbons. Father
said, though, that if I didn’t behave better than I’d been behaving I
wouldn’t get any ribbons. Father can be quite gruff at times. Freya was
so excited about it that she could talk of nothing else.
“Won’t it be fine,” she would say, “to be in a show and have hundreds
of people admiring you and patting you and saying what a lovely dog you
are? I know I shall just love it, Fritz!”
Girl-dogs are always vain, you see. Vanity is not becoming in dogs any
more than in Two-Legged Folks and so I growled and said: “I guess no
one will look twice at you, Miss Stuck-Up! You’re much too homely.”
That made Freya cry and she ran off to ask her mother if it was so.
Of course she really wasn’t homely. I only said that so she wouldn’t
be vain and proud. Freya in some ways was a better looking dog than I
was. Her coat was what the Master called “perfectly wonderful.” It was
very black and very shiny; just like satin. And her ears were fine and
long and silky. And she had nice eyes, too, and a good tail. My tail
had a place on the tip where there was no hair. Poor William troubled
a lot about that spot and rubbed it with grease for weeks and weeks.
The grease didn’t seem to do much good, though. Perhaps I licked it
off too soon. That place never has got quite right and I don’t think
it ever will. But even if Freya was a little better looking than I,
she couldn’t run as fast or dig as deep or do useful things as well as
I could. I was lots stronger and bigger. Mother said that was as it
should be; that girl-dogs were not supposed to be as big and brave and
strong as boy-dogs.
Well, William taught us all sorts of things that Spring. It was a good
deal of a bother, but the thought of being taken to the dog show helped
me to be patient and go through with it. After we had been in training
for a month or more I asked Mother when the show was to be and she
said she didn’t know; that maybe it wouldn’t come for a long time. I
didn’t like that and I had made up my mind that there wasn’t any use in
going through with so many lessons if nothing was to come of it when,
one morning, the Master came down to the stable.
“Well, how are they getting on, William?” he asked.
“Fair, sir,” said William. “Freya takes to it like the lady she is,
sir, but Young Fritz is slower. He’s as stubborn as his father, sir.”
Now I thought that very unkind of William after all the trouble I had
taken to please him, and just to show that my feelings were hurt I
sneaked off and got behind the flower-pots. But I could hear what they
were saying in the carriage room, and pretty soon the Master said:
“Well, I think we’ll try them out at the Oak Cliff Show in June. It’s
nearby and there’s only one day of it. They’re bound to be nervous the
first time and a small show is a good one to start them with.”
I pricked up my ears at that, because it was already the last of May,
and crawled out from back of the flower-pots.