WHY DOGS LOVE BABIES
“You know how the wolves ate the cows in the First-Off Beginning,”
said Watch, after he had taken a sniff to make sure Ouphe was still in
the haystack. “It was because the Plants just wouldn’t be eaten. And
they were too clever to starve.” He settled himself down by Nibble’s
cage.
“Yes,” answered Nibble, “and how the good stupid Cows did starve, so
Mother Nature had to give them horns because they’d worn all their
teeth off.” “Much good did that do them,” sniffed Watch. “Horns or no
horns, you just ought to see me handle them.” He was very proud of his
work, that nice dog.
“Well,” he went on, “some of us were terribly ashamed over the way
we’d acted. But Mother Nature wouldn’t forgive us. She said if we ever
were trusted we’d have to earn it ourselves. She’d never trust us. Her
good Beasts wouldn’t have anything to do with us, and we wouldn’t have
anything to do with the bad ones because we knew we weren’t as bad as
they were. And we got lonely and unhappy—so, of course, we got sulky
and snappy, too.
“Then the bad Beasts took to calling us ‘Dogs’—and that was a terrible
insult in those days. And deep down inside we were very, very
sorry—because we did so want to be trusted.
“One day a dog was walking all alone in the Forest and he saw the
funniest little Creature playing there. It was so funny he sat down on
his tail to watch it play. It hadn’t any teeth to speak of, and it
hadn’t any hair, but it walked like a little cub bear. Just like one.
It would stagger along a little ways and then it would sit down—plump!
And then it would laugh. So that made the dog prick up his ears.
“He liked the sound it made when it laughed so much that he stayed
there to listen to it. And pretty soon it saw him. But it didn’t run
away. It just walked right up to him. And the queerest feeling came
over that dog. He was happy, deep down inside him. Because it was
trusting him.
“So he sat very still. And the little thing walked right up and felt
of his teeth, and tried to find out how he winked his eyes. And the
more it hurt him the better he loved it because then he was sure it
was trusting him. And it had the sweetest smell. He put out his tongue
and tickled it; and, of course, it laughed again. So he found out how
to make it laugh whenever he wanted to. And they played out there in
the sun and were very happy.
“By and by a Man came running up and behind him was a woman. So, of
course, that dog knew that he had been playing with their Baby. And he
got up and crept away because he knew that least of all they would
have trusted him. But the Baby cried and held out its hands for him.
“All that night the dog was lonely because he’d lost the little soft
thing that laughed and trusted him. And he told the Moon about it.
Dogs always tell things to the Moon. And he was the most unhappy dog
in the Forest because he’d only learned half of the secret about being
trusted.”
Here Watch paused to rush at the haystack with a terrible bark because
he thought Ouphe was sticking his nose out again. “Wurff!” he cleared
his throat. “I’ll catch that fellow some day,” he remarked as he came
back to Nibble Rabbit’s cage and sat down again.
Nibble was waiting for him with his little feet pressed close to the
wires. He wasn’t afraid of any one while that dog was there to talk to
him. “Go on, please,” he demanded. “You said its Father and Mother
took away the little soft cub who had trusted him. And the poor dog
felt lonely.”
“Cub? I didn’t say ‘cub,’ Bunny. It was a Baby. My, but you are a
green little wild thing.” He smiled again, but this time Nibble wasn’t
afraid of the long teeth he showed.
“You said it was like a little bear,” Nibble insisted, and he wrinkled
up his own nose.
“Well, Cub or Puppy or Baby,” the dog went on. “That first dog wanted
it the worst way. So he just trailed its people back to where they
lived in a cave, and he hid up on top of the cave, where the gray
smoke came creeping up through a crack. And sometimes he’d hear it
laugh. And nobody thought of looking there for him.
“The dog would see the Man go out to hunt, and the Woman go down for
water, and he could hear the Baby pattering around inside the cave.
And then it would sit down, ‘plump!’ the way it did in the Forest. And
then it would laugh again. And the dog’s tongue would just itch to
tickle the Baby.
“So on the third day, when the Man went out to hunt and the Woman went
down for water, he sneaked around to the cave door and first thing he
knew he had his tickly tongue on the little soft thing. And his ears
were so full of the noises it made that he didn’t hear its mother’s
bare feet when she came back. And she threw the first thing that she
had in her hand—which was the water—all over him.
“Of course that didn’t hurt him. He didn’t exactly like it any more
than he liked the Baby’s fingers when they pulled his whiskers, but he
never imagined she was fighting. He thought she was playing with him.
So he trusted her—which is the whole secret about being trusted.
“And then wasn’t he glad. He just rolled around on the cave floor to
dry himself—though the cave floor was never very clean. And he
wriggled and giggled over it all. And he gave the Baby a lick with his
tickly tongue so it laughed with him. But the Woman just stood there
looking at him.
“Now, it’s a queer thing, Bunny, but Humans can’t stay angry if they
laugh. There was the dog, all sprawly legs and waggly tail, not
looking like a wolf at all, and the Baby laughing at him. And the
Woman began to laugh, too. ‘You look so funny,’ she said, ‘you’ve got
leaves in your whiskers.’ And so they were friends.”