DOGS COMING TO THEIR SENSES.—A VERY SLOW
PROCESS.—MARVELLOUSLY LEATHER-HEADED ECONOMIC REASONING,
WHICH SHOWS THAT WORKING DOGS ARE ALMOST AS PIG-HEADED AS
LABORING HUMANS, IN DISCERNING SELF-EVIDENT FACTS.
[Illustration]
NOW it was at this evil time, when the meagre, weak and bloodless misery
of the dogs had reached its depth, and the burden upon them of the
unasked-for means for their salvation was heaviest; and the fleas had
reached the limit of their biggest and tightest expansibility, that a
vague terror took possession of the fleas. This was occasioned by the
strange behavior of the dogs at various times.
Sometimes a dog, right in the midst of his very insanest scratching for
food, would flop suddenly down in the gutter and look up to heaven, and
sigh and scratch his head as though he had a dark problem on his mind,
the solution of which might be found up there. After a spell of this
sort of contemplation the dog would as suddenly resume his insanity,
apparently having concluded that his looking up there was in vain.
Then it was noticed that several insane dogs, when they met, would
stop and all together look up to heaven, and sigh and then look into
each other’s eyes, as though seeking therein for light on some dark
conundrum; when, after a few moments of such contemplation, they would
all simultaneously let off a bark of disappointment, resume their
insanity and scatter.
On brilliant moonlight nights, some of the dogs that had looked up to
heaven in the daytime and seen nothing, would stare up at the moon for a
long time and wag their tails and heads with apparent satisfaction, and
bark vociferously; but no one gave heed to them, as they were said to be
lunatics.
Others meandered down to the edge of the pond, and after gazing in a
distraught and far-away manner for a time, would shake their heads, and,
suddenly turning tail, would scamper off and fall to their scratching
more madly than ever.
Sometimes hundreds of them would gather in the open places and look,
some towards the East, some towards the West, some towards the North,
and some towards the South, and some towards the zenith, and each set
would bark.
And it was told the eminent fleas, and the large fleas, and the
Monstrous Fleas, how many of the dogs were behaving. And the fleas were
much concerned, and called all the wise fleas that could be found, and
diligently inquired of them what time this erratic behavior had broken
out, and what it might mean?
And the wise fleas answered they didn’t know unless it was that some
queer and unusual disease had broken out amongst them, and they were
having spells of sanity, and might during those spells, be thinking and
pondering and meditating, in which case it behooved the fleas to watch
them closely and take steps to apply some remedy.
Some of the fleas said that was sound advice and ought to be taken
at once, as thinking was the very worst disease a dog could have.
Experience had shown that this disease was a most insidious one, whose
first symptoms were very insignificant and unimportant, but in time
developed into a most contagious, infectious and deadly plague, and
they would advise that a Board of Health be organized at once, and a
number of inspectors be appointed to make domiciliary visits amongst the
dogs to ascertain and report on their mental condition. Thus, a possible
epidemic of thinking might be checked in its incipiency, and a possibly
great calamity avoided.
But most of the fleas said they didn’t think there was any cause for
alarm—at least just now; for if the dogs had really caught the thinking
infection, it was so slightly that it would amount to nothing; but if
the case should really grow serious, they had great confidence that the
police dogs were so good and faithful (being well fed), that any very
serious case would be promptly quarantined; and if extreme measures
should be called for, the dog so afflicted could be killed; which was,
in the opinion of all eminent fleas, an infallible cure in the case of
_that_ dog, and an infallible preventive of the disease in any other.
So the fleas went on making themselves comfortable and did not form any
Board of Health.
The dogs, however, got no better, and still went about staring at
vacancy.
One day a dog that had flopped down in the gutter to sigh and scratch
his head, and look up to heaven, seeing another dog looking up into
heaven said unto him: “Why gazest thou so earnestly up into heaven?”
And the other dog said: “And why gazest _thou_ so earnestly up into
heaven?”
And the first dog replied: “Because I am convinced that it comes from
above.”
And the second dog, encouraged, said: “That also is my conviction. I am
sure we work hard enough to make a living, yet the harder we work the
harder it is to make a living.”
“It is a mystery,” said the first dog.
“It is, indeed,” replied the second dog, “a great and deep mystery.
It must be that Heaven is angry with us for our sins, and that this
our everlasting hunger and defeat of the object of all our life-long
scratching for food is Heaven’s chastisement, which, as the good
missionaries and Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite have so often told us,
though for the present it seemeth grievous, will at last work out for us
a far more exceeding plenty in the grubful Canaan up there.”
Which far-away heavenly prospect made them both sigh tremendously, and
bring their gaze back again to earth, where they saw, not many yards
away, another dog looking up into heaven. He gazed thitherward for a
long time, and sadly sighing, was about to resume his normal insanity
and rush off, when he gave a terrible yelp, which was caused by an
unusually venomous nip, by an unusually large and powerful flea, right
in the region of the root of his tail. Turning to pay attention to the
trouble there, he saw a lot of fleas skipping and scampering about, and
having a most hilarious time, and some, he imagined, were laughing at
him.
Why he paid especial regard to such a common phenomenon, he did not know
and could not have told. Probably it was because he was afflicted with a
more than usually bad spell of sanity and mental lucidity, and had what
the other dogs called a “Jag” on, during the continuance of which he had
visions of things as they really were. Whatever the reason, he stared
at them even more fixedly and concentratedly than ever he had gazed up
into heaven. His eyes grew big and bulged, and the longer he stared the
bigger they grew and the more they bulged. Then slowly there came into
them a strange and unaccustomed light, as of a consciousness that was
returning after a prolonged absence from home. After a time he winked
an eye and then rubbed both very hard with his paws, and ejaculated:
“Blamed if I don’t think I have been looking in the wrong direction. I
don’t think it comes from above, after all. I do believe it’s fleas.”
And he wagged his head sapiently and looked at the fleas again, and
wagged his head once more, which having done several times, as though
to confirm himself in the surety that he had really made a great
discovery, he trotted away; and the other two observing dogs followed
him.
He trotted away to where some of the other dogs were gazing steadfastly
up into heaven, and poking some of them in the ribs he cried, “Fleas,
fleas;” then leaving them to growl and curse his disturbance of their
meditations, he trotted down to a group that were gazing far away over
the pond, and poking some of their ribs, he cried, “Fleas, ye blind!
Fleas;” and leaving them to snarl and curse, he betook himself to the
public places where sundry groups were gazing and barking towards the
East and towards the West, and towards the North and towards the South,
and cried aloud, “Fleas, ye fools! Fleas.” But most of the dogs, whose
gazing was thus rudely disturbed, took umbrage thereat, and chased him,
and demanded to know why he had thus violently and ill-behavedly broken
in upon their meditations?
“Because,” said he, “I want you to look in the right direction; I have
just found out what is amiss with us all—it is _fleas_; FLEAS, and
_nothing but fleas_.”
But the heavenward gazers said: “Not so; our troubles come from above;
it is Heaven that hath mysteriously, but, no doubt, in infinite wisdom,
afflicted us, as say the salaried barkers.”
“Heaven!” cried another crowd, “Nonsense; they do not; any fool can see
they come from the East.”
“Yes, and none _but_ fools can see they come from the East or from
Heaven; all wise dogs know they come from the West, from the land of the
almond-eyed, long-tailed Yellow Dog,” cried the Westward gazers, who
themselves had come from the East.
“A fine lot of wise dogs ye are!” cried the Southward gazers, “since
it’s as plain as daylight that our hunger and poverty are entirely from
the South, in the shape of those inferior kinky-haired Black Dogs that
are used to hunger and can bear it better than we.”
“Ha! Ha! Ha! He! He! He!” laughed the Northward gazers. “Come off, do.
That is the silliest explanation yet. Anyone with the smallest and
feeblest faculty of observation can see that the North is the only and
all sufficient source of all our afflictions.”
“Bah! Fools and idiots that ye are!” yelled the pondward gazers. “Ye are
all wrong; any one can see that our troubles are all due to the coming
of those dirty dogs from over the pond, from Hungryland, Dirtland and
Choleraland.”
“Yes,” cried a little crowd that had arrived but a short time from
thence, “It’s a shame to allow so many in, filling up the country and
snatching our bones. There ought to be a law passed.”
[Illustration]
“And if it had not been for your coming,” screamingly replied a crowd
that had arrived a long time before, “we would not be starving now. The
gates ought to have been shut long ago.”
“Aye, Aye,” sneered a lot of the native born dogs, “the day after _you_
got safe in, of course. For our part, we think it a wicked outrage on us
that foreigners were allowed here at all, taking the bread out of the
mouths of the rightful owners of the country. There ought to have been a
law passed at first to keep out foreigners.”
“And where would your fathers have been then?” sneered back the
foreigners.
And the contention waxed hot; each angrily vociferating that all the
others were fools, idiots and liars, and they put out their tongues at
one another, and snarled and growled; and at last they got into an awful
fight; from which many of them emerged with torn ears and noses, broken
legs, loosened teeth and amputated tails.
But as for the unfortunate dog that said “Fleas,” he was badly battered,
for in the general fight every one of the combatants struck at _him_.
But he got away at last and hid himself.
Nevertheless there were some of the far-away gazers that after the fight
could not help thinking over the suggestive words he had let fall; and
they thought that _possibly_ their afflictions did come wholly and
solely from their fleas.
The consequence was that these dogs took to regarding the fleas
continually and very intently; and other dogs, wondering what they were
looking at so much, began also to look at the fleas.