THE SPOTTED DOG AGAIN
The Judge and the boy were just arriving gayly home from a most
enjoyable drive. They had been driving, not in the direction of
Cloverdale, but away down the frozen river as it silently wound toward
the sea.
Dallas had sprung out of the sleigh, and was standing respectfully aside
waiting for the Judge to alight, when the big hall door flew open and
little Bethany appeared, being held back, however, by the protesting
Jennie.
Her face was absolutely beatific, and she called out clearly, “O, Daddy
Grandpa, I’ve got the joyfullest surprise for you!”
The Judge, with an affectionate glance at her, began to ascend the steps
in his usual dignified way.
“Now I have something to thank Satan for,” continued Bethany, dancing in
Jennie’s resolute grasp. “Now I could almost love the naughty creature.”
The Judge had reached her now, and she broke away from Jennie and clung
to him. “I missed my drives most dreadfully. Jennie took me for a walk
the day before yesterday, Jennie took me for a walk yesterday, Jennie
took me for a walk to-day, and what do you think I found?”
“Come inside, child, come inside; you will take cold,” said the Judge,
and he motioned to Jennie to close the big front door.
“There they are—what I found,” screamed Bethany. “O, I am a thankful
little girl to Satan for tempting me that day, ’cause if he hadn’t
tempted me I’d not have walked with Jennie, and if I hadn’t walked with
Jennie I’d never have found my sweet colored boy and my precious,
precious Bylow.”
The Judge groaned inwardly. Sure enough, in the middle of the hall stood
the grinning colored boy and the ugly yellow spotted dog.
The Judge preserved a calm exterior, though the colored boy called
warningly, “Keep back, sah—you’s got on a good coat, and he do hate fine
cloes. I’ll hang on to him,” and with might and main he pulled back on
the dirty brown strap about the dog’s neck.
Dallas, not as wary as the Judge, went nearer, and was saluted by a snap
from the dog’s powerful jaws that made him jump in the air.
“O, Bylow, Bylow!” cried Bethany, in dismay, and to the Judge’s great
disapprobation she threw her arms round the snapping dog. “My precious
dog, you must not be so bad.”
The dog put out a long red tongue and lapped her forehead.
“Bethany,” said the Judge, “come here.”
“O, Daddy Grandpa!” she exclaimed, fairly throwing herself at him.
“Bethany is ’most dead with joy, and I knew you’d be dead, too.”
In face of so much enthusiasm and such perfect trust in his hearty
coöperation, the Judge felt that it would be very hard to disappoint the
child, but he was firm on the subject of vicious animals.
[Illustration: “In the middle of the hall stood the grinning colored boy
and the ugly yellow spotted dog.”]
“Boy,” he said to the grinning Brick, “what is the matter with that
dog?”
“Your cloes, sah—turn your coat, sah, jes’ for fun—you’ll not see no
teeth, sah. He’ll jus’ love you. Look-y-here—” and he pointed to a most
disreputable-looking figure descending the staircase from the floor
above.
The Judge somewhat helplessly took off his heavy coat and threw it over
a chair. These children were turning his house upside down. That was a
tramp coming downstairs—a tramp, pure and simple. But what was it—a
snicker from young Jennie notified him that there was mystery afoot.
The supposed tramp was apparently youthful, but his rags were so clean
and evidently so freshly made that the Judge became suspicious, and then
that smooth, dark young chin and the red lips under the battered
hat—surely they belonged to his grandson Titus. The old bathrobe, too,
he thought he recognized as one of his own. What nonsense was this?
Bethany was laughing and clapping her hands, Dallas was giggling, and
Brick was grinning more alarmingly than ever. “Come on, young sah—he’ll
jus’ eat you up wid kindness—no feah in dat dress. Come on, come on—I’se
loosin’ him,” and he let the dog go.
The creature with the hideous yellow spots actually ran toward Titus
with his mouth open, but instead of devouring him he fawned on him,
licked him, and soon was romping all over the hall with him.
“Titus,” said his grandfather, “stop this noise and explain your actions
to me.”
Titus drew up in front of him, and, still holding the dog, who was
playfully biting at his fingers, gave his old hat a blow that sent it
spinning into a corner of the hall. Then he said breathlessly, “This is
the queerest dog you ever saw, grandfather. He hates well dressed
people. When he came he ripped down the seam of my trousers. Brick told
me to go and dress up like a tramp, and see the difference. You know
Brick has been a tramp’s boy.”
“A what?” inquired the Judge.
“A boy that goes about with a tramp—you’ve heard of them, grandfather.
He waits on the tramp. Bylow went with him, and he hates well dressed
people and nice houses.”
“Then his place is plainly not here,” observed the Judge, but under his
breath, for fear of Bethany, who was now ecstatically smoothing the
colored boy’s coat and sleeve.
“So your name is Brick,” he said, addressing the stranger.
“Yes, sah,” and Brick showed every tooth in his head.
His color was indeed somewhat brickish. The Judge had never seen a
colored boy of just this shade before, and he suspected keenly that he
had not been washed for some time.
“You like this little girl?” he said, indicating Bethany.
“She nice little girl, sah,” responded the boy, opening his mouth so
alarmingly wide that the Judge saw not only his whole stock of teeth,
but such an expanse of pink gums, tongue, and throat that he gazed at
them in mild fascination. His words were fairly swallowed up in this
pink gulf.
“She nice little girl,” Brick continued. “She good to dogs an’ cats. I
like dogs meself. Me an’ Bylow’s great friends,” and he nodded toward
the dog, which had calmed down and was lying at his feet panting and
with half-shut eyes.
“Daddy Grandpa,” said Bethany, in sudden anxiety, “where are they going
to sleep? O, where are they going to sleep?”
The Judge put up a hand and vigorously stroked his mustache. He knew
Bethany’s generous heart prompted her to wish for them the best in the
house.
“Well,” he replied, kindly, “we’re pretty well filled up inside, but
there’s a good room out in the stable opposite Roblee’s.”
“Daddy Grandpa,” she said, timidly, “there’s the big spare room—the blue
velvet room with the gilt furniture.”
“My friend Colonel Hansom is to occupy that next week,” said the Judge.
“It would be awkward to turn out the boy for him.”
Brick was exploding with laughter. He was a good deal older than Bethany
and appreciated the situation perfectly.
“I guess we’s all right in the stable, missie,” he said, with a snicker.
“Bylow an’ me’s used to sleepin’ with hosses. Then we can guard you when
the bogies come about. There’s lots of bogies these days,” and his eyes
grew round, and he rolled them wildly to and fro.
“Did you see many out West?” asked the little girl, in an awestruck
voice.
“The air was thick with ’em, missie. They jus’ called me an’ Bylow till
we didn’t know which way fer to go.”
“Help! Help! Mum-mum-murder!” yelled a sudden voice.
“Blow that ’ere, Bylow!” muttered Brick, and he made a dart for the back
stairway. “If he aint sneaked away!”
Titus and Dallas dashed after him, while little Bethany, twisting her
tiny hands in dismay, brought up the rear with the Judge.
“It’s Higby,” she said, tearfully. “I told Titus to tell him to put on
old clothes. I suppose Titus forgot. O, dear, dear!”
“Mum-mum-murder,” went on the voice, “help; there’s something caught
m-m-me behind. M-m-missis Blodgett! Girls!”
“We’re coming,” called Titus, at the top of the stairway; “hold on.”
“Ca-ca-catch the dishes, some one,” wailed Higby. “O! law-law-law me!
There they go!”
There was a terrible clatter of falling china, and then Higby’s voice
rose higher and shriller than ever.
“H-h-he’s got m-m-me by the leg. O! O! O! he’s a-rippin’ me! Help, I
say, help!”
The boys dashed valiantly down the stairway. Brick caught the dog by the
neck. Higby, true to his habit of backing when agonizing for words,
promptly stepped out behind, and fell in a heap on Brick, Bylow, and the
broken china. Titus and Dallas, nearly choking with laughter, wrestled
with the man, dog, and colored boy to get them on their feet, while Mrs.
Blodgett and the maids rushed from the kitchen and stood with
horror-stricken faces.
“Boys,” said the Judge’s voice from the top of the stairway, “boys!” and
his voice brought calm to the situation.
“Yes, sir,” gasped Titus, who was manfully placing Higby against the
wall and holding him there.
“Take the colored boy to the stable,” pursued the Judge, “and get him to
lock up that dog.”
“Yes, sir—yes, sir,” replied Titus; then he added, in an undertone,
“Hush up, Higby.”
“I ca-ca-can’t hush up,” whined Higby. “Look at my pa-pa-pants. Torn an’
hang-hang-hangin’ like a woman’s skirt. An’ them gir-gir-girls
a-laughin’!”
It was, alas! too true! Finding that Higby was not hurt, and that his
assailant was only a mischievous, medium-sized dog with his tongue
lolling good-naturedly from his mouth, and that the china broken was not
the best in the house, the maids were laughing heartily.
“Get up to your room, then, and change your clothes,” said Titus, giving
Higby a friendly push, “and you, boy,” and he beckoned to Brick, “come
on out to the stable with me.”
Bethany seized upon Higby as he came toward her and the Judge, and so
bewailed his misfortune, and so sweetly comforted him, that the old man
went on his way upstairs with a calmer face.
“Hurry up,” said Titus to Brick. “I want to get you in your den before
Roblee comes. He’s something of a prig. Dallas, come on, too.”