Dash
Next to Mag and his grandfather Philip loved his dog Dash better than
anything else in the world. He was a ragged little terrier with a head
much too large for his body, a short stump of a tail, and an awkward
way of getting under people’s feet and of tumbling all over himself
when he ran; but he was a marvel of faithfulness and affection, and
could do a multitude of the clever tricks which Philip delighted to
teach him.
He had come to the door of the cottage one wild, stormy night, and had
wailed so piteously outside that Mag said at last:
“Go, Philip, lad, unbolt the door; it is likely some poor dog perishing
in the storm. We are not so poor but we can give the poor thing food
and shelter for the night.”
So Philip ran and opened the door, and the little dog ran in and
cowered shivering before the fire; he was very wet and dirty, and so
thin that the bones in his poor little body stood out in a way that was
quite pitiful to see; he had a jagged end of rope about his neck, as
though he had broken away from some place of confinement; his feet were
cut and bleeding, as though he had travelled a long distance; and he
had a general air of being quite done up and exhausted.
Philip brought him some food and water, and you should have seen the
look of gratitude in the creature’s eyes as he wagged his poor little
stump of a tail, stopping now and then, hungry as he was, to lick the
kind hand that fed him. Philip made a comfortable bed for him beside
the fire, but next morning when he awoke and sat up in his own little
bed, which stood beside his mother’s, there was his small new friend
sitting gravely beside him, quietly waiting for him to awake. Later,
when Mag missed her little boy from her side, she discovered him, still
in his night-clothes, rolling about on the floor, in play with the dog.
“Oh, mother!” he cried when she called to him, “please may I keep him
for my very own? Only see how we love each other already!”
And Mag, her great love for her boy shining in her dark eyes, laid her
hand kindly on the little dog’s shaggy head.
“Sure, ye may keep the creature, Philip,” she said, “provided his
proper owner does na’ call for him.”
But no one ever came to claim him, and from that day Philip and Dash
were inseparable, except during the hours when Philip was down in the
mine with his mother; there the dog was not allowed to follow his young
master, but he would go with him every morning to the entrance of the
shaft, and stand looking down, after the car which carried the miners
to their work had started on its downward journey. When it was quite
out of sight he would turn with a whimper and trot home again with a
business-like air, seldom stopping to play with other dogs by the way,
and staying very quietly and obediently with the old grandfather for
the rest of the day. But at the exact hour when it was to be expected
that the car would come up again from the mine, bringing the men, with
Philip and his mother, there would be Dash waiting for them, and ready
to escort them home each night with as much joy as though he had not
seen them for a month. No one ever knew how the little fellow could
always be sure of the exact time when Philip might be expected, but he
was never known to be late, except on one occasion when his grandfather
had gone to a neighbor’s, leaving Dash locked in the cottage. He must
have managed to climb out of the window, which was several feet above
the ground, for he came galloping down the road just as the miners were
saying:
“Ah, Philip, lad, thy friend is failing thee the night.”
Dash came by his name in quite an extraordinary way.
“Ye may depend upon it, such a clever dog has a handle to him already,”
said Philip’s grandfather when the boy suggested that his pet should
have a name.
“But however could we guess the right one?” said Philip doubtfully.
Nevertheless he began to mention over in the little animal’s hearing
several names common to dogs, such as Rover, Gyp, Sport, and the like,
while his dumb playmate stood before him, wagging his short tail as
much as to say:
“I wish I could help you, master, but you haven’t struck it yet, my
boy.”
Mag was sitting as usual by the table with the lamp, sewing quietly,
but though she said little she would glance up now and then from her
work and look lovingly at the little group before the fire. Suddenly
she spoke: “I have thought of a name for the dog,” she said. “Perhaps
he may be called--Dash.” She spoke the name emphatically, with a slight
pause before it, and instantly the dog flew to her side as though she
had called him, and stood wagging his tail and looking from Mag to
Philip, saying as plainly as a dog could:
“That’s my name--did you call me?”
“Oh, mother!” said Philip, clapping his hands with delight and
surprise, “that is his name, I am sure of it--only see how knowing he
looks! Here, Dash! Dash!”
“Here, Dash! Dash!” echoed Mag, almost smiling with the pleasure and
excitement which she shared with her little son; and the dog ran wildly
from one to the other, barking and frisking about for joy, as though
delighted to be no longer a stray and nameless cur, but a dog with a
name, and therefore with some claim to respectability.
“However did you guess it, mother?” asked Philip afterward.
“I don’t know exactly, myself,” said Mag, “unless it is,” she added
slyly, “that your friends the coal fairies whispered the name in my
ear.” And Philip blushed, for he was secretly a little ashamed of what
he felt to be rather foolish sport for a boy who was earning his four
shillings a week in the mine.
From this time on Philip was never conscious of the lack of
companionship, which, in the days before Dash came, he had sometimes
felt so sadly; for from henceforth he had a constant playfellow, who
was always sweet-tempered and eager to frolic and play, yet ready
too, at a sign from his young master, to lie quietly down beside him
when Philip was tired of playing and wanted to pore over his books;
for although the boy could not read, yet it was his chief delight to
look at the pictures in some volumes which he had found one day packed
carefully away in an old trunk, and which Mag told him had belonged to
his father. There were fortunately many illustrations in these books,
and he had his own way of enjoying them, by making up stories for the
pictures as he went along, to Dash, who was a most attentive listener,
and who really seemed to enjoy the recital quite as much as Philip.
He would lie quite still before the fire, with his black nose thrust
in between the pages of the book, and his sharp, bright eyes fixed
attentively on Philip’s face; occasionally he would thump contentedly
on the floor with his tail, and at such times Mag would look up from
her work to smile lovingly at her boy, as in a low voice he would weave
his pretty fancies about the pictures; sometimes, too, she would break
in with suggestions.
“I think I could help ye there, Philip,” she would say. “I remember
your father told me summat about that picture; it was one he was always
over-fond of, an’ sometimes he would try to tell me about what was in
the books. I wish I could remember better for your sake, my lad.”
It was really pathetic to see with what attention she had tried to
follow the narrative or explanation, and it was quite wonderful how
much of the recital she could recall, in almost the exact words in
which she had heard it.
“How clever my father must have been!” said Philip thoughtfully, and
Mag would reply proudly.
“Of course he was, lad; he could read out of the book just as smooth as
talking.”
And then she would usually lapse into silence again, and perhaps say no
more that evening. And Philip loved his father’s books, and longed to
be able to master their contents.
One of the overseers at the mine, who was regarded as quite a scholar
by the ignorant miners, had noticed Philip’s interest in the newspaper
which he sometimes brought down into the mine to be glanced over at
odd moments when the men were all at work around him and he had little
to do but keep a general eye on the others. One day in a burst of
kindly feeling he pointed out some of the letters in the head-lines of
the paper to Philip, and explained how, when put together, they made
words and sentences. Finding the boy an apt pupil and very eager to
learn, he became quite interested in teaching him to read, in much the
same way as he might have found amusement in training an intelligent
dog to fetch and carry, or to stand up and beg. To Philip this opened a
whole world of wonder and delight. To be sure he did not learn at once,
and sometimes weeks would pass when his friend would find no time to
teach him; but the boy waited patiently, and meanwhile he had his own
way of enjoying the gradual acquaintance which he was making with the
great Alphabet Family, from A, the dignified and rather stern father,
and B, the fat, good-natured mother of the flock, down to the youngest
letter of the family, funny little crooked Baby Z.
Every evening during the time of those first lessons in the rudiments
of learning, Philip could scarcely wait to get home, so anxious was
he to tell Dash of the new letters which he had learned from the
overseer’s paper.
“Isn’t it funny, Dash?” he would say. “Here is M--him I have
known quite well for over a week, and always thought he was a very
well-behaved and polite young letter, and here to-day, right in the
middle of a page, I find him standing on his head; and--did ye ever see
the like?--he’s changed his name and calls himself W. And then here is
O--I always knew him the minute I saw him. He seems almost to jump out
at me from the page, he’s that round and fat and easy to remember; and
now only see here, Dash, they have gone and put a little handle on him,
something like your tail, you see, and now he is called Q.”
So Dash and Philip studied the alphabet together, and the little boy,
from weaving fancies about the letters and the pictures in his father’s
books, came to have long waking dreams, which were so beautiful that he
longed to tell his mother about them; but somehow when he tried to put
them into words, Mag did not seem to understand, but would only shake
her head and say kindly:
“Thy head grows dull, Philip, from sitting so much in the house. Go now
an’ have a run with Dash in the fresh air.”
And sometimes when Philip would be loath to leave his book, his mother
would shake her head more decidedly, and perhaps push him gently out of
the house, closing the door behind him; while Philip, knowing that it
was only love which prompted her seeming harshness, would shake himself
out of his dreamy mood, and cry, “Come, Dash, mother is right; let’s
have a race. One, two, three! Go!” And away they would both scamper.