Pow-wow.
Pow-wow had not barked within hearing of the fort since the evening he
had found his little master down there at the foot of the precipice. He
had gone and come, hastening back when he went, lingering when he
came--a silent, sad and thoughtful dog. By some inscrutable operation of
instinct he had soon discovered that the errands which led Ben and
Bertha daily abroad had a reference in some way to the wants of his
unfortunate little friend, and that, therefore, it was his bounden duty
to lend a helping hand. Accordingly he had divided his time about
equally between the two young people; helping the one about the wild
herds of the forest, the other about the tame herds of the field. In the
morning he would follow the young hunter to the distant lick, and,
having acquitted himself in the chase, with his wonted address, he would
hasten back to the fort, leaving his companion to follow at that
plodding pace peculiar to two-footed animals, and so irksome to dogs, to
accommodate themselves to which they must needs trot out, on a magnified
scale, the ground plan of a straggling worm fence, with wide digression
to right and left; now to sniff at a stump, then to bark down a
sinkhole. In the afternoon he would accompany Bertha to the bluegrass
glades, where he would take her charge so completely upon himself as to
leave her nothing to do but clamber up the hill for a fresh culling of
flowers, then follow him, as homeward he drove the cows.
When not occupied thus, he would station himself on the porch at the
door of the sick room, looking up wistfully into every face that passed
him, in the poor, dumb, asking way, which so endears a dog to us when
the shadow of death is on our home. He had never ventured to intrude
himself into the house, but now that he was called, the grateful look
and humble alertness with which he answered the summons testified how
earnestly he had wished to do all along. Setting his feet as carefully
on the floor as were he shod with heavy shoes, that, too, without a
warning whisper in the ear from Ben's mother, he slowly walked up to the
bedside and softly ran his huge head under the little hand, so white and
wan, extended to greet and caress him. Pow-wow licked the hand in the
dear old way, and the familiar sensation helped, not a little, to
reassure the boy of his own identity and make him more present to the
state of things around him. And it was strange how much more natural his
voice and manner became the moment he began speaking to his old
play-fellow; though what he spoke was hardly less fantastic or more
coherent than the greater part of what he had spoken already.
"Pow-wow, is it really you, old pard, and no mistake? And are we all
alive and here at grandpap's house, and no dreaming about it? (Pausing
to pat the old dog's head.) Pow-wow, did Nick of the Woods ever give you
a pair of red moccasins? No, he never did, because he knew you weren't a
fool. (Here closing his eyes and seeming for a moment to forget the
dog.) Pow-wow, were you ever chased by the Manitous? No, you never were,
for you never sneaked away from home with a lie in your mouth, like a
spit-thief dog. (Again closing his eyes for a few moments, to open them
again and add:) The Manitous chase nobody but bad people, and chase them
only to make them good. (Pausing to play with the old dog's ear.) And so
they have chased your old Sprigg, Pow-wow; chased him out of the world!
You shall never see your old friend Sprigg again! Never! Never! Never!"
(Now giving the old dog's ragged ear a certain pluck which had always
been well understood between them.)
At each repetition of his name the only part of his little master's
speech which had any sound of English to his ear, Pow-wow would fall to
wagging his tail in a hearty, emphatic manner, as were he,
Chinaman-like, shaking hands with himself over the glad event of the
day. But on receiving the pluck of the ear, in the dear old way, the
dear old fellow, quick to take the hint, gave vent to a sort of double
yelp, peculiar to him when in a waggish humor--a smothered nasal
"boo-woo," so irresistibly ludicrous that it had always made Sprigg
laugh, as now it did, right heartily. This is but the prelude to what
needs must follow. Up he rears himself on his hind legs, snaps at the
imaginary bone thrown up by an imaginary hand, catches it in his mouth,
drops with it to the floor, and, stretching himself out at full length,
pretends to gnaw what he pretends to hold between his paws. But this was
Pow-wow's only accomplishment--fancy accomplishment, I mean--for he was
a finished hunter and a finishing fighter, and we have seen for
ourselves that he knew exactly what to do with cows when he went with a
nice little girl to the pasture to help her drive them home. Therefore,
finding himself at the end of his programme sooner than the occasion
seemed to demand, he raised himself to his haunches and looked around
him with a deprecating air, as if he would fain apologize for his
deficiencies.
Hardly, however, could the apology have been expressed in words, when up
he bounces again to his hind feet and begins executing a series of
antics, so fantastic and undog-like that they who witnessed them were
quite as much astonished as amused. Jervis Whitney himself, than whom
there was not a man in the hunter's paradise more deeply versed in dogs
and their ways, and who thought he knew his own dog from head to tail
and back again, was even more astonished than the rest. Had old Mother
Hubbard and her far-famed dog risen from their honored graves and,
presenting themselves before our friends, repeated the dear old
programme, from the cupboard so bare, to the bier so sad, with the
fruits and the flue, the tripe and the pipe, the wig and the jig, and
all the other fondly remembered marvels between--scarcely could the
effect have been more startling.
Now, Pow-wow's antics on this occasion, unaccountable as they seemed to
those who witnessed them, and must seem to the more sober class of my
readers, admit of perfectly rational explanation, give them only Manitou
ground to rest on. Nick of the Woods and Meg of the Hills, who knew as
well as anybody--better, I fear, than many a human body--that there are
few things more wholesome for us poor mortals than hearty, unrestrained,
unrestrainable, innocent laughter, had decided between them that, in
order to put his case beyond all human or superhuman possibility of
relapse, Sprigg should have some hearty laughter. Accordingly, they had
sent one of their dog-robed, dog-natured elves to tinker and conjure
with Pow-wow's tail, and through that sensitive member, as a medium,
telegraph, as it were, such fancies to his sober old noddle as should,
for a brief space, set him quite beside himself. In other words, set him
to acting the human, according to the monkey conception of the
character. A conception so nearly suits an occasional specimen of the
model race as scarcely to be deemed caricature.
And Sprigg did laugh--laughed till his sore sides ached--laughed "fit
to die," as they say, when they mean the very opposite--"fit to live."
After such a laugh, Sprigg was in no more danger of dying than had all
the doctors, with their doses; all the preachers, with their prayers,
stood between him and the grave. Of course, everybody else was laughing;
not but that they felt still more inclined to cry, so touching was it to
witness the old dog's clumsy playfulness and the little sufferer's
spasmodic merriment--for spasmodic it needs must be, as yet, though so
hearty, heart-easing and wholesome. Indeed, there are few things more
pathetical than the innocent mirth of the young heart, over whose
dawning existence has already fallen, though but for a brief space, the
shadow of the inevitable hour. And I will venture to affirm, upon the
strength of my own experience and observation, that if you, my gentle
reader, had been present and witnessed, without both tears and laughter,
the scene I am describing, you would be as fit a subject for a "putting
through" as ever was poor Sprigg; and that, sooner or later for your
fuller humanizing, you must run the Manitou gauntlet. And whether you
run it in red moccasins or in split-leather Yankee shoes, all one will
it be to Nick of the Woods!