TOMMY TOMPKINS' YELLOW DOG.
"I have a letter to read to you this afternoon, girls," said Miss Ruth;
"also the story of a yellow dog. The letter is from a friend of mine who
spends her summers in a quiet village in Maine, in a fine old mansion
overlooking green fields and a beautiful lake with hills sloping down to
it on every side. Here is the letter she wrote me last June:--
"'We have come back again to our summer home--to the old house, the
broad piazza, the high-backed chairs, and the blue china. The clump of
cinnamon roses across the way is one mass of spicy bloom, and soon its
fragrance will be mingled with that of new-mown hay. There is nothing
new about the place but Don Quixote, the great handsome English mastiff.
Do you know the mastiff--his lion-like shape, his smooth, fawn-colored
coat, his black nose, and kind, intelligent eyes, their light-hazel
contrasting with the black markings around them? If you do, you must
pardon this description.
"'I am very fond of Don, and he of me. He belongs to our cousin, whose
house is but one field removed from ours; but he is here much of the
time. He evidently feels that both houses are under his protection, and
passes his nights between the two. Often we hear his slow step as he
paces the piazza round and round like a sentinel. He is only fifteen
months old, and of course feels no older than a little dog, though he
weighs one hundred and thirty pounds, and measures six feet from nose to
tail.
"'He can't understand why he isn't a lap-dog, and does climb our laps
after his fashion, putting up one hind leg and resting his weight upon
it with great satisfaction. We have good fun with him out of doors,
where his puppyhood quite gets the better of his dignity, and he runs in
circles and fetches mad bounds of pure glee.
"'One day, lying in my hammock, with Don on the piazza at my feet, I put
his charms and virtues together in verses, and I send them to you as the
most succinct account I can give of my new pet. As I conned them over,
repeating them half-aloud, at the frequent mention of his name Don
raised his head with an intelligent and appreciative look. Here are the
verses. I call them
DOG-GEREL.
'Don! Don! beautiful Don!
Graceful and tall, with majestic mien,
Fawn-colored coat of the softest sheen,
The stateliest dog that the sun shines on,
Beautiful Don!
Don! Don! frolicsome Don!
Chasing your tail at a game of tag,
Dancing a jig with a kitchen rag,
Rearing and tearing, and all for fun,
Frolicsome Don!
Don! Don! affectionate Don!
Looking your love with soft kind eyes,
Climbing our laps, quite forgetting your size;
With kissing and coaxing you never are done,
Affectionate Don!
Don! Don! chivalrous Don!
Stalking all night piazza and yard,
Sleepless and watchful, our sentinel guard,
Squire of dames is the name you have won,
Chivalrous Don!
Don! Don! devotional Don!
When the Bible is opened you climb to your place,
And listen with solemn, immovable face,
Nor frolic nor coax till the chapter is done,
Devotional Don!
Don! Don! wonderful Don!
Devotional, faithful, affectionate one,
If owning these virtues when only a pup,
What will you be when you are grown up?
Wonderful Don!'
"And now by way of contrast," said Miss Ruth as she folded the letter,
"I have a story to tell you of a poor little forlorn, homely,
insignificant dog, of low birth and no breeding, which was picked up on
the street by a boy I know, and which made for himself friends and a
good home by seizing the first opportunity that offered to do his duty
and protect the property of those who had taken him in. I have no doubt
that Don Quixote, intelligent, faithful, kind, with not a drop of
plebeian blood in his noble body, will fulfill all the expectations of
his friends, and we shall hear of many a brave and gallant deed of his
performing; but when you have heard what Tommy Tompkins has to tell, I
think you will say that not even Don Quixote could have done himself
more credit under the circumstances than
TOMMY TOMPKINS' YELLOW DOG.
"Tommy shall tell the story as he told it to me:--
"'Yes, marm, he's my dog. His name's Grip. My father paid five dollars
for that dog. You look as if you thought he wasn't worth it; but I
wouldn't take twice the money for him, not if you was to pay it over
this minute. I know he ain't a handsome dog. I don't think yellow is a
pretty color for a dog, do you? and I wish he had a little more of a
tail. Liz says he's cur-tailed (Liz thinks it's smart to make puns), but
he'll look a great deal better when his ear gets well and his hair grows
out and covers the bare spots--don't you think so? But father says,
"Handsome is that handsome does," and nobody can say but that our dog
did the handsome thing when he saved over two hundred dollars in money
and all mother's silver spoons and lots of other things from being
stolen--hey, Grip? We call him Grip 'cause he hung on to that fellow so
till the policeman got in to take him.
"'What fellow? Why, the burglar, of course. Didn't you read about it in
the newspaper? There was a long piece published about it the day after
it happened, with headings in big letters: "The house No. 35 Wells
Avenue, residence of Thomas Tompkins, the well-known dealer in hardware,
cutlery, etc., was entered last night by burglars. Much valuable
property saved through the courage and pluck of a small dog belonging to
the family." They didn't get that part right, for he didn't belong to us
then. You just wait, and I'll read the whole piece to you. I've got it
somewhere in my pockets. You see, I cut it out of the paper to read to
the boys at school.
"'You'd rather I told you about it? Well. Lie down, Grip! Be quiet!
can't you? He don't mean any thing by sniffing round your ankles in that
way; anyhow, he won't catch hold unless I tell him to; but you see,
ever since that night he wants to go for every strange man or woman that
comes near the place. Liz says "he's got burglars on the brain."
"'I guess I'll begin at the beginning and tell you how I came by him.
One night after school I'd been down to the steamboat landing on an
errand for father, and along on River Street there was a crowd of
loafers round two dogs in a fight. This dog was one of 'em, and the
other was a bulldog twice his size. The bulldog's master was looking on,
without so much as trying to part 'em; but nobody was looking after the
yellow dog: he didn't seem to have any master. Well, I want to see fair
play in every thing. It makes me mad to see a fellow thrash a boy half
his size, or a big dog chew up a little one. So I steps up and says to
the bulldog's master, "Why don't you call off your dog?" but he only
swore at me and told me to mind my own business.
"'Well, I know a trick or two about dogs, and I ran into a grocer's shop
close by and got two cents' worth of snuff, and I let that bulldog have
it all right in his face and eyes. Of course he had to let go to sneeze;
and I grabbed the yellow dog and ran. It was great fun. I could hear
that dog sneezing and coughing, and his master yelling to me, but I
never once held up or looked behind me till I was half-way up Brooks
Street.
"'Then I set the yellow dog down on the sidewalk and looked him over.
My! he's a beauty now to what he was then, for he's clean and well-fed
and respectable looking; but then he was nothing but skin and bone, and
covered all over with mud and dirt, and one ear was torn and one eye
swelled shut, and he limped when he walked, and--well, never mind, old
Grip! you was all right inside, wasn't you?
"'Well, I never dreaded any thing more in all my life than taking that
dog home. Mother hates dogs. She never would have one in the house,
though I've always wanted a dog of my own. I knew Liz would call him a
horrid little monster, and Fred would poke fun at me--and, oh, dear! I'd
rather have gone to the dentist's or taken a Saturday-night scrub than
go into that dining-room with Grip at my heels.
"'But it had to be done. They were all at supper, and mother took it
just as I was afraid she would. If she only would have waited and let
me tell how I came by the dog, I thought maybe she would have felt sorry
for the poor thing; but she was in such a hurry to get his muddy feet
off the dining-room carpet that she wouldn't listen to a single word I
said, but kept saying, "Turn him out! turn him out!" till I found it was
no use, and I was just going to do as she said when father looked up
from his supper, and says he: "Let the boy tell his story, mother. Where
did you get the dog, Tommy?" "'We were all surprised, for father hardly
ever interfered with mother about us children--he's so taken up with
business, you know, he hasn't any time left for the family. But I was
glad enough to tell him how I came by the dog; and he laughed, and said
he didn't see any objection to my keeping him over night. I might give
him some supper and tie him up in the shed-chamber, and in the morning
he'd have him taken round to Police-station C, where, if he wasn't
claimed in four days, he'd be taken care of.
"'I knew well enough how they'd take care of him at Station C. They'd
shoot him--that's what they do to stray dogs without any friends. But
anyhow, I could keep him over night, for mother would think it was all
right, now father had said so. So I took him to the shed-chamber and
gave him a good supper,--how he did eat!--and I found an old mat for him
to lie on, and got a basin of warm water and some soap, and washed him
as clean as I could and rubbed him dry, and made him warm and
comfortable: and he licking my hands and face and wagging his stump of
a tail and thanking me for it as plain as though he could talk.
"'But oh, how he hated to be tied up! Fact is, he made such a fuss I
stayed out there with him till past my bed-time; and when at last I had
to go I left him howling and tugging at the string. Well, I went to
sleep, and, after a while, I woke up, and that dog was at it still. I
could hear him howl just as plain, though the shed-chamber was at the
back of the house, ever so far from my room. I knew mother hadn't come
upstairs, for the gas was burning in the halls, as she always turned it
off the last thing; and I thought to myself: "If she hears the dog when
she comes up, maybe she'll put him out, and I never shall see him
again." And before I knew what I was about I was running through the
hall and the trunk-room, and so out into the shed. It was pitch dark
out there, but I found my way to Grip easy enough by the noise he made
when he saw me; and it didn't take long to untie the string and catch
him up and run back with him to my room. I knew he would be as still as
a mouse in there with me. You were lonesome out there in the shed,
weren't you, Grip?
"'What would mother say? Well, you see, I meant to keep awake till she
came upstairs and tell her all about it; but I was so tired I dropped
asleep in a minute, and the first thing I knew I was dreaming that I was
running up Brooks Street with Grip in my arms, and the bull-dog close
after us, and just as he was going to spring mother screamed, and
somebody kept saying, "'St, boy! 'st, boy! stick to him, good dog!
stick to him!" And then I woke up, and mother really was screaming, and
'twas Fred who was saying, "Stick to him! stick to him!" And the gas was
lit in the hall, and there was a great noise and hubbub out there, and I
rushed out, and there was a man on the floor and the yellow dog had him
by the throat. Father stood in the door-way with his pistol cocked, and
he said in a quiet kind of way (just as father always speaks when he
means business): "If you stir you are a dead man!" But I should like to
know how he could stir with that grip on his throat!
"'Then there came a banging and ringing at our front door, and Fred ran
to open it, and in rushed our policeman--I mean the one that takes our
street on his beat. He had heard the noise outside, you see, and, for a
wonder, was on hand when he was wanted; and he just went for that fellow
on the floor and clapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists as quick as
you could turn your hand over; and when he got a look at him he says:
"Oh, it's you, Bill Long, is it? We've been wanting you for some time at
the lodge (that was his name for the police-station). Well, get up and
come along!"
"'But I called the dog off.
"'We didn't one of us go to bed again that night. Father and Fred looked
through the house, and father said it was the neatest piece of work in
the burglary line he ever saw done--real professionals, they were. There
was two of 'em. They'd taken plenty of time. The forks and the spoons
and the two hundred dollars in money was all done up in neat packages,
and they'd been through father's desk and the secretary drawers; and
they'd had a lunch of cold chicken and mince-pie, and left the marks of
their greasy hands on the best damask napkins Bridget had ironed that
day and left to air by the kitchen range. And then, you see, while one
stayed below to keep watch, the other went up to finish the job; and he
would have finished it, too, and both would have got away with all the
things if it hadn't have been for that dog. Look at him! will you? I
believe he understands every word I say as well as you do.
"'Well, right at the door of father's room, Grip took him. How did he
lay the fellow on his back? We suppose he was creeping into the room on
his hands and knees,--they often do, father says,--and the dog made a
rush at him in front and gripped him in the throat, and the weight of
the dog threw him backward; and once down, Grip kept him there--see?
"'Next morning at breakfast father said: "Tommy, how came the dog in the
upper hall last night? I told you to tie him up in the shed-chamber."
Then I had to own up, and tell how I went late in the evening and
brought him to my room because he howled so. I said I was real sorry,
and father said he would try to forgive me, seeing it all turned out
well, and if Grip hadn't been there we should have lost so much money.
And says I: "Father, don't you mean to take him round to Station C this
morning?" "No, I don't," says father. Then mother said she didn't know
but she'd about as soon lose the silver as to keep such a dog as that
in the house, and Fred said if I must have a dog, why didn't father get
me a black-and-tan terrier--"or a lovely pug," says Liz; and between 'em
they got me so stirred up I didn't know what to do. I said I didn't want
a black-and-tan, and I'd throw a pug out of the window! And if nobody
wanted to keep Grip, we'd go off together somewhere and earn our living,
and I guessed the next time burglars got into the house and carried off
all the money and things because we weren't there to stop 'em, they'd be
sorry they 'd treated us so. Then I looked out of the window and winked
hard to keep from crying. Wasn't I a silly?
"'For they were only teasing me, and every one of them wanted to keep
Grip. Well, that's all. No, it isn't quite all either; for one morning
a man came to the house and wanted to see father--horrid man with a red
face and a squint in one eye. I remembered him right away. He was one of
the crowd looking on at the dog-fight down in River Street. He said he'd
lost a dog, a very valuable dog, and he'd heard we'd got him. Father
asked what kind of a dog, and he said yellow, and went on describing our
Grip exactly, till I couldn't hold in another minute for fear father
would let him have the dog. So I got round behind father's chair and
whispered: "Buy him, father! buy him!"
"'Fred called me a great goony, and said if I'd kept still father could
have got the dog for half what he paid for him. Just because Fred is
sixteen he thinks he knows every thing, and he's always lording it over
me. He says I'll never make a business man--I ain't sharp enough. But I
think five dollars is cheap enough for a dog that can tackle a burglar
and scare off tramps and pedlars--don't you?'"