TIGE RHINES.
There was another member of the family whose qualities deserve especial
mention--the great Newfoundland dog.
We have already alluded to the captain’s fondness for the race: there
was always a dog in his father’s family. Often had old Lion furnished
them with a meal, or detected the ambush of the lurking Indian. As
though to round and complete the sum of kindly associations clustering
around this pleasant household, even Tiger partook of the good
qualities of the family. Captain Rhines said that he wouldn’t have a
dog that would make the neighbors dislike to come to the house; but as
for Tiger, he was both a gentleman and a Christian.
The breed of dogs to which he belonged are both by nature and
inclination fitted for the water, and as insensible to the cold as a
white bear. Their skin is greasy; there is a fine wool under their long
hair which turns water; when they come ashore they give themselves a
shake or two and are nearly dry. They are also partially web-footed;
they do not swim like common dogs, thrusting their paws out before them
like a hog, but spread out their great feet and strike out sidewise
like a boy.
The way in which the captain made the acquaintance of Tige was on this
wise: One of his last voyages was to Trieste; he met in the street a
fine-looking dog carrying a basket full of eggs; greatly pleased with
the appearance of the animal, he turned to look after him, when, as he
passed a stable door, a dog as large as himself attacked him in the
rear. He bore it patiently till he came to a house, when, putting down
his eggs, he turned upon his persecutor, and gave him such a mauling
that he was glad to escape on three legs, and covered with blood. The
captain followed the dog to a menagerie, where he ascertained that it
was the dog’s daily duty to bring eggs to feed the monkeys; that he had
flogged the other a day or two before, who thought to avenge himself by
attacking him at a disadvantage.
The captain succeeded in buying the animal, though he never dared to
tell what he gave for him.
“Were I not pushed for money,” said the showman, after the bargain was
concluded, “I never would have parted with him; he will protect your
person and your property; you never will be sorry that you bought him,
though I shall often regret that I was obliged to sell him.”
Captain Rhines soon found that the showman had spoken the truth. He
could leave the most valuable articles on the wharf, and trust them to
his keeping.
So well was his disposition known, that not a child in the neighborhood
feared to come to the house by night or day. He would permit any person
to inspect the premises, but not to touch the least thing.
They might, in the night time, knock at the door as long as they
pleased; but if they put their hand on the latch, he would knock it
off with his paw, and show his teeth in a way that discouraged further
attempts. When the little children came who could not knock loud enough
to be heard, he would bark for them till he brought somebody to the
door.
There was nothing so attractive to Tige as a baby on the floor, nor
anything in which he so much delighted as to follow them around, and
with his great tongue lick meat and gingerbread out of their fists. No
wonder his master said he was a gentleman and a Christian; for though
he would tear a thief in a moment, these little tots would get on him
as he lay in the grass, stuff his mouth and nose full of clover heads
to hear him sneeze, and, when tired of that, lie down on him and go to
sleep.
Next to playing with babies, his favorite employment was fishing. In a
calm day, when the water was clear, he would swim off to a dry ledge,
called Seal Rock, in the cove before the house, dive down, and bring up
a fish every time.
The fish always worked off on the ebb tide, and came up on the flood.
Tige knew as well when it was flood tide, and time to go floundering,
as did John Rhines, his bosom friend and constant companion. Tige
always went to meeting, and slept _on_ the horse-block in fair weather,
and _under_ it in foul.
The good women said, they did wish Tige Rhines would stay at home, for
when they had fixed the children all up nice to go to meeting, they
were sure to be hugging him, and he would slobber them all over, lick
their hair down about their eyes, and chew their bonnet “ribbins” into
strings.
Captain Rhines hired Sam Hadlock to help him hoe. When he went home
Saturday night, he hung up his hoe in the shed, as he expected to work
there the next week, but, finding his mother’s corn was suffering to
be hoed, went back to get it. The family had gone to bed, and Tige
wouldn’t let him touch it, though they were great friends, and he was
the next neighbor. He was going into the house without knocking, for
they didn’t fasten doors in those days; but the instant he put his hand
on the latch, the dog knocked it off with his paw, and he was obliged
to knock till Ben came and got the hoe for him.
A more singular proof of his sagacity occurred soon after. They had a
fuss in the district with the schoolmaster, and a lawsuit grew out of
it. Captain Rhines’s daughter was summoned as a witness by the master.
He came one evening to see her about it, when the rest of the family
were from home. Tiger thought, as she was alone, all was not right; so
he waits upon the master to the door, and when she opened it, stood
up on his hind legs, and put his fore paws on the master’s shoulders,
and without offering to harm him, kept him there. They had to do their
talking over Tiger’s shoulder; but when it was finished, he made no
objection to his departure.
In the cove before the house was a beach of fine white sand, without
a stone in it, which when wet was as hard as a floor. The children
were never tired of playing on this spot. The upper portion, which was
only occasionally wet by the tide, was dry and the sand loose, while
the lower part, which the water had recently left, was hard and smooth
to run on, thus affording them a variety of amusements. Some would run
races on the beach, chase the retreating waves, and then scamper back,
screaming with delight, as the wave broke around their heels.
Others sailed boats, waded in the water after shells, and if they
could get Tige, they would spit on a stick and fling it as far as they
could into the water, and send him in to fetch it out, while those
who were learning to swim would catch hold of his tail and be towed
ashore. While all this was going on at the water’s edge, another party
on the upper portion would be rolling over on the hot, clean sand, and
building forts, and digging wells with clam shells; others still, under
the clay bank, were making mud puddings and pies, and roasting clams at
a great fire made of drift-wood.
Parents did not like very well to have the children, especially the
little ones, play there so much, for fear of their getting drowned; and
the larger ones could not well be spared from work to go with them;
but they could not find it in their hearts to forbid them, they had
such a good time of it. So, once or twice every week during the summer,
a group of little folks would come to the captain’s, and one of them,
making her best “courtesy,” would say,--
“Captain Rhines, me, and Eliza Ann Hadlock, and Caroline Griffin, and
the Warren girls, are going down to the cove to play, and my marm wants
to know if Tige can go and take care of us.”
Tige, who knew what the children wanted as well as they did themselves,
would stand looking his master in the face, wagging his tail, and
saying, as plain as a dog could say, “Do let me go, sir.”
Captain Rhines, one afternoon, set a herring net in the mouth of the
cove. These nets are very long, and are set by fastening the upper
edge to a rope, called the _cork-rope_. On this rope are strung corks,
or wooden buoys made of cedar, which keep it on top of the water. It
is then stretched out, and the two ends fastened to the bottom by
“grapplings.” To each end larger buoys are fastened; weights are then
attached to the lower edge, so that it hangs perpendicular in the
water. The fish run against it in the dark, and are caught by their
gills.
It is the nature of Newfoundland dogs to bring ashore whatever they
see floating. Tige went down to the Seal Rock floundering, and saw the
buoys bobbing up and down in the water; away he swims to bring them
ashore. Finding them fast to the bottom, what does he do, but with his
sharp teeth gnaws off the cork-rope and set them adrift? till there
were not enough left to float the net, and it sank to the bottom. He
then carried all the floats to the Seal Rock and piled them up, and
thinking he had done a meritorious act, lay down to rest himself after
his labors.
The next morning Captain Rhines and Ben went to take up their net. They
thought some vessel must either have run over it and carried it off on
her keel or rudder, or else that so many fish were meshed as to sink
it. They grappled and brought it up, when, to their astonishment, there
was not a fish in it, the cork-rope cut to pieces, the two large buoys
and about two thirds of the net-buoys gone.
But as they pulled home by the Seal Rock there was every one of the
missing floats, with the marks of Tiger’s teeth in the soft wood.
Captain Rhines was in a towering passion, because it was not only a
great deal of work to grapple for the net, but the cork-rope, which
was valuable in those days, was all cut to pieces.
He sent John up to the house after Tige, and got a big stick to beat
him. The beach was covered with children of all ages. They left their
sports and ran to the spot. John Rhines begged his father not to
lick the dog, while the children began to cry; but the captain was
determined. “Father,” said Ben, “I wouldn’t beat him; if you beat him
for bringing these floats ashore, he won’t go after birds when you
shoot them.” Upon this, the captain, who was an inveterate gunner,
flung away the stick; and the children, drying up their tears, took
Tige off to frolic with them.
The miller’s daughter, three years and a half old, had a speckled
kitten; a brutal boy drowned it in the mill-pond. The little creature
went down to look for her kitten, and fell in. Just then Captain Rhines
and Tige came to the mill with a grist. The child had gone down for the
third time. He jumped from the horse, and threw in a stone where he saw
the bubbles come up. Tige instantly followed the stone, and brought up
the child with just the breath of life in it.
The overjoyed mother hugged the child, and then hugged Tige. The miller
gave him a brass collar, with an account of this brave act engraved
upon it.
Ever after this he had a warm place in the affections of the whole
community, and was almost as much beloved and respected as his master.
The sentiments of the young folks, in respect to Tige, were put to
the test the next summer. A boy came there in a fishing vessel, who
was full of pranks, had never received any culture, knew nothing of
the history of Tige, and perhaps, if he had, would not have cared; to
gratify a malicious disposition, he put some spirits of turpentine on
him, causing him great agony. The enraged children enticed the boy to
the beach, and while he was in swimming, carried off his clothes, and,
having prepared themselves with sticks, fell upon him as he came out of
the water, and beat him to a jelly.
A few days after the event just narrated, Captain Rhines was sitting in
the door after dinner, when he saw little Fannie Williams, the miller’s
daughter, coming into the yard. She was evidently bent on business of
importance, for, though passionately fond of flowers, she never looked
at the lilies, hollyhocks, and morning glories, on each side of her,
but walking directly up to him, and putting both hands on his knees,
said, with the tears glistening in her little eyes, “You won’t whip
Tige, will you, if he does do naughty things?”
“God bless the child!” said the captain, taking her in his lap and
kissing her, “have you come way down here to ask me that?”
“Nobody knowed it, and nobody telled me to come; I comed my own self,
’cause he shan’t be whipped. Fannie loves Tige.”
“You’ve good reason to love him, for if it had not been for him you’d
been a dead baby now. I never will whip him, nor let anybody else.”
The captain then took her by the hand, and led her into the orchard,
where he picked up some pears, and put in a basket; he then culled a
bunch of flowers as large as she could carry, and putting the handle of
the basket in Tige’s mouth, sent him home with her. The little girl,
with her fears quieted, trudged along, putting her flowers to Tige’s
nose for him to smell of, telling him he shouldn’t be licked, ’cause
Captain Rhines said so.