THE MAD DOG SCARE
The primary and grammar grades, and the high school, were in beautiful
brick buildings side by side at this end of Milton. The little folk had
a large play yard, as well as basement recreation rooms for stormy
weather. The Parade Ground was not far away, and the municipality of
Milton did not ornament the grass plots there with "Keep Off the Grass"
signs.
No automobiles were allowed through the street where the schools were at
the hours when the children were going to or coming from school.
Besides, two big policemen--the very tallest men on the force--were
stationed at the crossings on either side to guide the school children
through the danger zone.
However, Tess usually waited for Dot after school so that the smallest
Corner House girl should not have to walk home alone. It happened one
afternoon during these first few weeks of school, while Tess was waiting
with some of her classmates for the smaller girls, that Sammy Pinkney,
Iky Goronofsky, and half a dozen other boys of Tess' age, came whooping
around from the boys' entrance to the school, chasing a small,
disreputable dog that ran zigzag along the street, acting very
strangely.
"Oh, Tess!" cried Alfredia Blossom, the colored girl, "see those boys
chasin' that poor dog. I declar'! ain't they jest the wust--"
"Oh, dear me, Alfredia!" urged Tess, gravely, "_do_ remember what Miss
Shipman tells you. 'Worst,' not 'wust.'"
"I'm gwine to save dat dog!" gasped Alfredia, too disturbed by the
circumstances to mind Tess' instructions.
She darted out ahead of the boys. Sammy Pinkney yelled at the top of his
voice:
"Let that dog alone, 'Fredia Blossom! You want to catch hydrophobia?"
"Wha' dat?" demanded Alfredia, stopping short and her eyes rolling.
"That dog's mad! If he bites you you'll go mad, too," declared Sammy,
coming puffing to the spot where the little girls were assembled.
At this startling statement some of the girls screamed and ran back into
the yard. There they met the smaller girls coming forth, and for a time
there was a hullabaloo that nearly deafened everybody on the block.
Said Sammy with disgust:
"Hoh! if hollerin' did any good, those girls would kill all the mad dogs
in the State."
As it was, the police officer at the corner used his club to kill the
unfortunate little animal that had caused all the excitement. The
S. P. C. A. wagon came and got the poor dead dog, and the doctors at
the laboratory examined his brain and sent word to the newspapers that
the animal had actually been afflicted with rabies.
It was a strange dog; nobody knew where it had come from. It had bitten
several other dogs in his course as far as the school. Some of these
dogs were sent to the pound to be watched; but some foolish owners would
not hear of sacrificing their pets for the general good. So, within a
fortnight there was a veritable epidemic of rabies among the dogs of
Milton.
One man lost a valuable horse that was impregnated with the poison from
being bitten by the stable dog that had been his best friend.
The order went forth that all dogs should be muzzled and none should be
allowed on the street save on a leash. Sammy was very careful to keep
Buster chained. Buster had not many friends in the neighborhood at best.
So Sammy took no chances with his bulldog.
As for Tom Jonah, the old dog was such a universal pet, and was so
kindly of disposition that nobody thought of including him in the
general fear of the canine dwellers in Milton.
Tom Jonah was old, and had few teeth left. He was troubled now and then
with rheumatism, too; and he seldom left the Corner House yard save to
accompany the girls on some expedition. He went with them often in the
automobile, especially when they went picnicking on Saturdays. He and
Scalawag were very good friends, and sometimes he accompanied the little
folks in their afternoon rides around the Parade Ground.
But as soon as the mad-dog scare started the girls were all very careful
about letting Tom Jonah go off the premises. He was too old and
dignified a dog to run out to bark at passing teams, or to follow
strange dogs to make their acquaintance. Therefore the Kenways and Neale
O'Neil thought it was not necessary for poor old Tom Jonah to wear an
ugly and irritating muzzle all the time. The old fellow hated the thing
so!
"I don't blame poor Tom Jonah for not liking to wear that old thing,"
Dot said thoughtfully. "It's worse than the bit in Scalawag's mouth. And
see how Billy Bumps hates to be harnessed up. Supposin'," added the
smallest Corner House girl, "_we_ had to put on a harness and have our
mouths tied up when we started for school. Oh! wouldn't it be dreadful?"
"I guess it would, Dot Kenway," Tess agreed vigorously. "I guess it
isn't so much fun being a dog or a horse or even a goat."
"Huh!" growled Sammy who had become pretty well tired of school by this
time; "anyway, they don't have to study," and he looked as though he
would willingly change places with almost any of the pets about the old
Corner House.
Neale always walked to school with the little folks now, for Ruth was
fearful that there might be other dogs loose afflicted with the terrible
disease. A panic among little children is so easily started. She could
trust Neale to have a watchful care over Dot and Tess.
Nothing so bad as that happened; but there did come a day when tragedy
because of the mad-dog scare stalked near to the Corner House.
The dog-catchers were going about town netting all the stray dogs they
could find. Foolish people who would not obey the law deserved to lose
their pets. And if they wished to, if the dogs were pronounced perfectly
healthy at the pound, the owners could appear and claim their pets by
paying two dollars.
This last fact, however, was something the little Corner House girls and
Sammy Pinkney knew nothing about. They had a horror of "the dog
catchers." The collecting agents of the S. P. C. A. are bugbears in most
communities. When the children saw the green van, with its screened door
in the back, and heard the yapping of the excited dogs within, Dot and
Tess stuffed their fingers in their ears and ran.
The children did not understand that stray dogs were likely to be bitten
as those other dogs had been by one afflicted with the rabies; and that
it was much more humane to catch the unmuzzled animals, that nobody
cared for, and dispose of them painlessly, than to have them become
diseased and a menace to the neighborhood.
To make the children understand that it was dangerous to play with
strange dogs was a difficult matter. The little Corner House girls were
prone to be friendly with passing animals.
All hungry and sore-eyed kittens appealed to Tess and Dot; the wag of a
dog's tail was sufficient to interest them in its owner; each horse at
the curb held a particular interest, too. They were trusting of nature,
these little girls, and they trusted everybody and everything.
In coming home from school one afternoon Neale was in a hurry to do an
errand, and he left the little folk at the corner, hurrying around to
Con Murphy's on the back street, where he lived. Ruth was away from home
and Agnes had not yet arrived at the Corner House.
The Willow Street block, however, seemed perfectly safe. Tess and Dot
strolled along the block, their feet rustling the carpet of leaves that
had now fallen from the trees. Sammy Pinkney was playing solitaire
leapfrog over all posts and hydrants.
Just as they reached the corner of the Corner House yard Tom Jonah heard
and saw them. He rose up, barking the glad tidings that his little
friends were returning from school, and as he felt pretty well this day,
he leaped the fence into the street and came cavorting toward them,
laughing just as broadly as a dog could laugh.
Even as Tess and Dot greeted him, Sammy Pinkney emitted a shriek of
dismay. A big auto-van had turned the corner and rolled smoothly along
the block. One man on the front seat who was driving the truck said to
his mate:
"There's another of 'em, Bill. Net him."
The fellow he spoke to leaped out as the green van came to a halt. He
carried a net like a fish seine over his arm. Before the little girls
who were fondling Tom Jonah realized that danger threatened--before the
frightened Sammy could do more than shout his useless warning--the man
threw the net, and old Tom Jonah was entangled in its meshes.
The little girls screamed. Sammy roared a protest. The men paid no
attention to the uproar.
"Got a big fish this time, Harry," said Bill, dragging the struggling,
growling Tom Jonah to the back of the van. "Give us a hand."
For the big dog, his temper roused, would have done his captor some
injury had he been able. The driver of the dog catchers' van drove the
other dogs back from the door with a long pole, and then between them he
and his mate heaved Tom Jonah into the vehicle.
Sammy Pinkney scurried around for some missile to throw at the dog
catchers. The little girls' shrieks brought neighboring children to
yards and doors and windows. But there chanced not to be an adult on the
block to whom the dog catchers might have listened.
"Oh, Mister! Don't! Don't!" begged Tess, sobbing, and trying to hold by
the coat the man who had netted Tom Jonah. "He's a good dog--a real good
dog. _Don't_ take him away."
"If you hurt Tom Jonah my sister Ruthie will do something _awful_ to
you!" declared Dot, too angry to cry.
"Wish my father was home," said Sammy, threateningly. "He'd fix you
dog-catchers!"
"Aw-gowan!" exclaimed the man, pushing Tess so hard that she almost
fell, and breaking her hold upon his coat.
But Tess forgot herself in her anxiety for Tom Jonah. She bravely
followed him to the very step of the van.
"Give him back! Give him back!" she cried. "You must not hurt Tom Jonah.
He never did you any harm. He never did _anybody_ any harm. Give him
back to us! Please!"
Her wail made no impression on the man.
"Drive on, Harry," he said. "These kids give me a pain."
The green van moved on. Tom Jonah's gray muzzle appeared at the screened
door at the back. He howled mournfully as the van headed toward Main
Street.
"Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?" cried Tess, wringing her
hands.
"Let's run tell Ruthie," gasped Dot.
"I wish Neale O'Neil was here," growled Sammy.
But Tess was the bravest of the three. She had no intention of losing
sight of poor Tom Jonah, whose mournful cries seemed to show that he
knew the fate in store for him.
"Where are you going, Tess?" shouted Sammy, as the Corner House girl
kept on past the gate of her own dooryard, after the green van.
"They sha'n't have Tom Jonah!" declared the sobbing Tess. "I--I won't
let them."
"And--and Iky Goronofsky says that they make frankfurters out of those
poor dogs," moaned Dot, repeating a legend prevalent among the rougher
school children at that time.
"Pshaw! he was stringin' you kids," said Sammy, with more wisdom,
falling in with Dot behind the determined Tess. "What'll we do? Tess is
going right after that old van."
"We mustn't leave her," Dot said. "Oh! I _wish_ Ruthie had seen those
horrid men take Tom Jonah."
As it was there seemed nothing to do but to follow the valiant Tess on
her quest toward the dog pound. As for Tess herself she had no intention
of losing sight of Tom Jonah. She made up her mind that no matter how
far the van went the poor old dog who had been their friend for so long
should not be deserted.
At the seashore, soon after Tom Jonah had first come to live with the
Corner House girls, the dog had been instrumental in saving the lives of
both Tess and Dot. He had often guarded them when they played and when
they worked. They depended upon him at night to keep away prowlers from
the Corner House henroost. No ill-disposed persons ever troubled the
premises at the Corner of Willow and Main Streets after one glimpse of
Tom Jonah.
"I don't care!" sobbed Tess, her plump cheeks streaked with tears, when
her little sister and Sammy caught up with her a block away from home.
"I don't care. They sha'n't put poor Tom Jonah in the gas chamber. _I_
know what they do to poor doggies. They sha'n't treat him so!"
"But what'll you do, Tess!" demanded Sammy, amazed by the determination
and courage of his little friend.
"I don't know just what I'll do when I get there but I'll do
something--you see if I don't, Sammy Pinkney!" threatened this usually
mild and retiring Tess Kenway.