"WHEN THE FUR BEGINS TO FLY."
Nobody had ever been heard to call Cracker a pretty dog or a bonnie dog.
He was sturdy and strong, and nearly, if not quite, as large as a
Collie. His legs were as straight as darts, and as strong as the
sapling pine tree. Then his coat--ah! well, there is no way of
describing that with pen and ink or in print either. It was rough
though not shaggy, and every hair was as hard apparently as pin-wire.
In the matter of coats, in fact, Nature had, while dressing Cracker,
adhered to the useful rather than the ornamental. He had apparently
come in the afternoon for his coat, and nearly all the other dogs had
been before him. Collie had been fitted with his flowing toga, the
Poodle with his cords and tassels, the Yorkshire terrier with his
doublet of silk, and many others with coats as soft and smooth as that
of a carriage horse, and poor Cracker, the Airedale terrier, had almost
been forgotten.
"Your coat, Cracker?" Nature had said. "Oh, certainly. I'm really
afraid, however, that you have come rather late in the day to be dressed
with anything like elegance."
"Oh!" Cracker had put in, "I ain't a bit particular. Anything'll do
for Cracker, so as it is thick enough to keep out a shower with a
shake."
So Nature had simply gathered up the sweepings of the shop, the cabbage
and clippings, so to speak, and mixed them all up into a kind of shoddy,
and dabbed Cracker all over with that, going in, however, for a few
finishing touches of gold about the muzzle, the chest, and legs.
And good honest Cracker had given himself a shake, and said, "This'll do
famous," then trotted off to do his duty and his work, which, to his
credit be it said, every dog of this breed knows well how to get
through.
Well, one sunshiny day, when the old friends, including even Chammy, who
was lying in the limb of a dwarf holly, were assembled on Uncle Ben's
lawn, Ben himself and the Colonel blowing clouds in their straw chairs,
and Lizzie lying with a book in Ben's hammock, who should come through
the gateway but towsy Cracker himself.
He was a brave dog this, and just as modest as brave, for the two good
qualities always go hand-in-hand. So he advanced in a bashful,
hesitating kind of way, as if he felt he ought to apologise for his
presence on the lawn at all, but didn't know exactly how to begin. He
was smiling too, a very broad smile that seemed to extend halfway down
both sides.
Vee-Vee and Warlock jumped up at once growling and barking, and ready to
defend the family circle with their lives if there was any occasion, but
seeing it was only Cracker, they ran to meet him, and give him a hearty
welcome.
Then Cracker advanced, shaking his droll old stump of a tail, and
Shireen herself arose and rubbed her back against his legs.
"No," she said, "you certainly don't intrude, Cracker, and we only wish
you would come oftener than you do."
"Well, seeing as that's the case," said Cracker, "I'll make one this
afternoon at your little garden party. But I'm not much used to refined
society, I bet you. More at home in a stable than in a drawing-room;
the riverside and moor or the forest is more in old Cracker's way than
fountain, lawn, and shrubbery. But, la! Shireen, whatever is that
lying along that branch? It isn't a big snail and it ain't a large
slug, sometimes grey and sometimes green. Well, of all the ugly--"
"It's a friend of ours," said Shireen, interrupting Cracker, "and, I
assure you, Chammy won't hurt anything or anybody except the flies and
mealworms."
"Well, well," said Cracker, "wonders 'll never cease, but if I had met a
beast like that in the woods, I'd have bolted quick, you bet, and never
turned tail till safe in my kennel again."
"And now, Mother Shireen, let us have some more of your story," said
Vee-Vee.
"Ah! yes," said Tabby; "but what a pity Cracker didn't hear the first
part."
Well, said Shireen, we arrived at Portsmouth, I and my master as safe as
anything, and after dinner proceeded on board.
The _Hydra_ was the name of the war ship on which we were to sail for
India's distant shore. She was a fine craft of the kind human beings
call a corvette. I was not long in perceiving that she carried many
long black guns, but was glad to learn soon after my arrival, that as we
were going to make a very quick passage out to Bombay, these awful guns
would hardly ever be fired.
The _Hydra_ was much larger than the old _Venom_, had fine open decks,
and tall, raking masts, with a low, wide funnel of jet, up which went
the crimson copper steampipe. Her decks were as white as ivory, and I
could see my face in the polished woodwork, to say nothing of the brass
that shone like gold.