Tails to Wag Read online

  “Very well,” he said, his face brightening, and together they went off to the house.

  IV

  The Morris Boys Add to My Name

  The boys watched them out of sight, then one of them, whose name I afterward learned was Jack, and who came next to Miss Laura in age, gave a low whistle and said, “Doesn’t the old lady come out strong when any one or anything gets abused? I’ll never forget the day she found me setting Jim on that black cat of the Wilsons. She scolded me, and then she cried, till I didn’t know where to look. Plague on it, how was I going to know he’d kill the old cat? I only wanted to drive it out of the yard. Come on, let’s look at the dog.”

  They all came and bent over me, as I lay on the floor in my corner. I wasn’t much used to boys, and I didn’t know how they would treat me. But I soon found by the way they handled me and talked to me, that they knew a good deal about dogs, and were accustomed to treat them kindly. It seemed very strange to have them pat me, and call me “good dog.” No one had ever said that to me before today.

  “He’s not much of a beauty, is he?” said one of the boys, whom they called Tom.

  “Not by a long shot,” said Jack Morris, with a laugh. “Not any nearer the beauty mark than yourself, Tom.”

  Tom flew at him, and they had a scuffle. The other boys paid no attention to them, but went on looking at me. One of them, a little boy with eyes like Miss Laura’s, said, “What did Cousin Harry say the dog’s name was?”

  “Joe,” answered another boy. “The little chap that carried him home told him.”

  “We might call him ‘Ugly Joe’ then,” said a lad with a round, fat face, and laughing eyes. I wondered very much who this boy was, and, later on, I found out that he was another of Miss Laura’s brothers, and his name was Ned. There seemed to be no end to the Morris boys.

  “I don’t think Laura would like that,” said Jack Morris, suddenly coming up behind him. He was very hot, and was breathing fast, but his manner was as cool as if he had never left the group about me. He had beaten Tom, who was sitting on a box, ruefully surveying a hole in his jacket. “You see,” he went on, gaspingly, “if you call him ‘Ugly Joe,’ her ladyship will say that you are wounding the dear dog’s feelings. ‘Beautiful Joe,’ would be more to her liking.”

  A shout went up from the boys. I didn’t wonder that they laughed. Plain-looking I naturally was; but I must have been hideous in those bandages.

  “‘Beautiful Joe,’ then let it be!” they cried. “Let us go and tell mother, and ask her to give us something for our beauty to eat.”

  They all trooped out of the stable, and I was very sorry, for when they were with me, I did not mind so much the tingling in my ears, and the terrible pain in my back. They soon brought me some nice food, but I could not touch it; so they went away to their play, and I lay in the box they put me in, trembling with pain, and wishing that the pretty young lady was there, to stroke me with her gentle fingers.

  By-and-by it got dark. The boys finished their play, and went into the house, and I saw lights twinkling in the windows. I felt lonely and miserable in this strange place. I would not have gone back to Jenkins’ for the world, still it was the only home I had known, and though I felt that I should be happy here, I had not yet gotten used to the change. Then the pain all through my body was dreadful. My head seemed to be on fire, and there were sharp, darting pains up and down my backbone. I did not dare to howl, lest I should make the big dog, Jim, angry. He was sleeping in a kennel, out in the yard.

  The stable was very quiet. Up in the loft above, some rabbits that I had heard running about had now gone to sleep. The guinea pig was nestling in the corner of his box, and the cat and the tame rat had scampered into the house long ago.

  At last I could bear the pain no longer, I sat up in my box and looked about me. I felt as if I was going to die, and, though I was very weak, there was something inside me that made me feel as if I wanted to crawl away somewhere out of sight. I slunk out into the yard, and along the stable wall, where there was a thick clump of raspberry bushes. I crept in among them and lay down in the damp earth. I tried to scratch off my bandages, but they were fastened on too firmly, and I could not do it. I thought about my poor mother, and wished she was here to lick my sore ears. Though she was so unhappy herself, she never wanted to see me suffer. If I had not disobeyed her, I would not now be suffering so much pain. She had told me again and again not to snap at Jenkins, for it made him worse.

  In the midst of my trouble I heard a soft voice calling, “Joe! Joe!” It was Miss Laura’s voice, but I felt as if there were weights on my paws, and I could not go to her.

  “Joe! Joe!” she said, again. She was going up the walk to the stable, holding up a lighted lamp in her hand. She had on a white dress, and I watched her till she disappeared in the stable. She did not stay long in there. She came out and stood on the gravel. “Joe, Joe, Beautiful Joe, where are you? You are hiding somewhere, but I shall find you.” Then she came right to the spot where I was. “Poor doggie,” she said, stooping down and patting me. “Are you very miserable, and did you crawl away to die? I have had dogs do that before, but I am not going to let you die, Joe.” And she set her lamp on the ground, and took me in her arms.

  I was very thin then, not nearly so fat as I am now, still I was quite an armful for her. But she did not seem to find me heavy. She took me right into the house, through the back door, and down a long flight of steps, across a hall, and into a snug kitchen.

  “For the land sakes, Miss Laura,” said a woman who was bending over a stove, “what have you got there?”

  “A poor sick dog, Mary,” said Miss Laura, seating herself on a chair. “Will you please warm a little milk for him? And have you a box or a basket down here that he can lie in?”

  “I guess so,” said the woman; “but he’s awful dirty; you’re not going to let him sleep in the house, are you?”

  “Only for to-night. He is very ill. A dreadful thing happened to him, Mary.” And Miss Laura went on to tell her how my ears had been cut off.

  “Oh, that’s the dog the boys were talking about,” said the woman. “Poor creature, he’s welcome to all I can do for him.” She opened a closet door, and brought out a box, and folded a piece of blanket for me to lie on. Then she heated some milk in a saucepan, and poured it in a saucer, and watched me while Miss Laura went upstairs to get a little bottle of something that would make me sleep. They poured a few drops of this medicine into the milk and offered it to me.

  I lapped a little, but I could not finish it, even though Miss Laura coaxed me very gently to do so. She dipped her finger in the milk and held it out to me, and though I did not want it, I could not be ungrateful enough to refuse to lick her finger as often as she offered it to me. After the milk was gone, Mary lifted up my box, and carried me into the washroom that was off the kitchen.

  I soon fell sound asleep, and could not rouse myself through the night, even though I both smelled and heard some one coming near me several times. The next morning I found out that it was Miss Laura. Whenever there was a sick animal in the house, no matter if it was only the tame rat, she would get up two or three times in the night, to see if there was anything she could do to make it more comfortable.

  Uncle Dick’s Rolf

  Georgiana M. Craik

  I had been riding for five or six miles one pleasant afternoon. It was a delicious afternoon, like the afternoon of an English summer day. You always imagine it hotter out in Africa by a good deal than it is in England, don’t you? Well, so it is, in a general way, a vast deal hotter; but every now and then, after the rains have fallen and the wind comes blowing from the sea, we get a day as much like one of our own best summer days as you ever felt anywhere. This afternoon was just like an English summer afternoon, with the fresh sweet breeze rustling amongst the green leaves, and the great bright sea stretching out all blue and golden, and meetin
g the blue sky miles and miles away.

  “It wasn’t very hot, but it was just hot enough to make the thought of a swim delicious; so after I had been riding leisurely along for some little time, shooting a bird or two as I went,—for I wanted some bright feathers to send home to a little cousin that I had in England,—I alighted from my horse, and, letting him loose to graze, lay down for a quarter of an hour to cool myself, and then began to make ready for my plunge.

  “I was standing on a little ledge of cliff, some six or seven feet above the sea. It was high tide, and the water at my feet was about a fathom deep. ‘I shall have a delightful swim,’ I thought to myself, as I threw off my coat; and as just at that moment Rolf in a very excited way flung himself upon me, evidently understanding the meaning of the proceeding, and, as I thought, anxious to show his sympathy with it, I repeated the remark aloud. ‘Yes, we’ll have a delightful swim, you and I together,’ I said. ‘A grand swim, my old lad’; and I clapped his back as I spoke, and encouraged him, as I was in the habit of doing, to express his feelings without reserve. But, rather to my surprise, instead of wagging his tail, and wrinkling his nose, and performing any of his usual antics, the creature only lifted up his face and began to whine. He had lain, for the quarter of an hour while I had been resting, at the edge of the little cliff, with his head dropped over it; but whether he had been taking a sleep in that position, or had been amusing himself by watching the waves, was more than I knew. He was a capital one for sleeping even then, and generally made a point of snatching a doze at every convenient opportunity; so I had naturally troubled my head very little about him, taking it for granted that he was at his usual occupation. But, whether he had been asleep before or not, at any rate he was wide awake now, and, as it seemed to me, in a very odd humor indeed.

  “‘What’s the matter, old fellow?’ I said to him, when he set up this dismal howl. ‘Don’t you want to have a swim? Well, you needn’t unless you like, only I mean to have one; so down with you, and let me get my clothes off.’ But, instead of getting down, the creature began to conduct himself in the most incomprehensible way, first seizing me by the trousers with his teeth and pulling me to the edge of the rock, as if he wanted me to plunge in dressed as I was; then catching me again and dragging me back, much as though I was a big rat that he was trying to worry; and this pantomime, I declare, he went through three separate times, barking and whining all the while, till I began to think he was going out of his mind.

  “Well, God forgive me! but at last I got into a passion with the beast. I couldn’t conceive what he meant. For two or three minutes I tried to pacify him, and as long as I took no more steps to get my clothes off he was willing to be pacified; but the instant I fell to undressing myself again he was on me once more, pulling me this way and that, hanging on my arms, slobbering over me, howling with his mouth up in the air. And so at last I lost my temper, and I snatched up my gun and struck him with the butt-end of it. My poor Rolf!” said Uncle Dick, all at once, with a falter in his voice; and he stopped abruptly, and stooped down and laid his hand on the great black head.

  “He was quieter after I had struck him,” said Uncle Dick, after a little pause. “For a few moments he lay quite still at my feet, and I had begun to think that his crazy fit was over, and that he was going to give me no more trouble, when all at once, just as I had got ready to jump into the water, the creature sprang to his feet and flung himself upon me again. He threw himself with all his might upon my breast and drove me backwards, howling so wildly that many a time since, boys, I have thought I must have been no better than a blind, perverse fool, not to have guessed what the trouble was; but the fact is, I was a conceited young fellow (as most young fellows are), and because I imagined the poor beast was trying for some reason of his own to get his own way, I thought it was my business to teach him that he was not to get his own way, but that I was to get mine; and so I beat him down somehow,—I don’t like to think of it now; I struck him again three or four times with the end of my gun, till at last I got myself freed from him.

  “He gave a cry when he fell back. I call it a cry, for it was more like something human than a dog’s howl,—something so wild and pathetic that, angry as I was, it startled me, and I almost think, if time enough had been given me, I would have made some last attempt then to understand what the creature meant; but I had no time after that. I was standing a few feet in from the water, and as soon as I had shaken him off he went to the edge of the bit of cliff, and stood there for a moment till I came up to him, and then—just as in another second I should have jumped into the sea—my brave dog, my noble dog, gave one last whine and one look into my face, and took the leap before me. And then, boys, in another instant I saw what he had meant. He had scarcely touched the water when I saw a crocodile slip like lightning from a sunny ledge of the cliff, and grip him by the hinder legs.

  “You know that I had my gun close at hand, and in the whole course of my life I never was so glad to have my gun beside me. It was loaded, too, and a revolver. I caught it up, and fired into the water. I fired three times, and two of the shots went into the brute’s head. One missed him, and the first seemed not to harm him much, but the third hit him in some vital place, I hope,—some sensitive place, at any rate, for the hideous jaws started wide. Then, with my gun in my hand still, I began with all my might to shout out, ‘Rolf!’ I couldn’t leave my post, for the brute, though he had let Rolf go, and had dived for a moment, might make another spring, and I didn’t dare to take my eyes off the spot where he had gone down; but I called to my wounded beast with all my might, and when he had struggled through the water and gained a moment’s hold of the rock, I jumped down and caught him, and somehow—I don’t know how—half carried and half dragged him up the little bit of steep ascent, till we were safe on the top,—on the dry land again. And then upon my word, I don’t know what I did next, only I think, as I looked at my darling’s poor crushed limbs, with the blood oozing from them, and heard his choking gasps for breath—I—I forgot for a moment or two that I was a man at all, and burst out crying like a child.

  “Boys, you don’t know what it is to feel that a living creature has tried to give up his life for you, even though the creature is only a soulless dog. Do you think I had another friend in the world who would have done what Rolf had done for me? If I had, I did not know it. And then when I thought that it was while he had been trying to save my life that I had taken up my gun and struck him! There are some things, my lads, that a man does without meaning any harm by them, which yet, when he sees them by the light of after events, he can never bear to look back upon without a sort of agony; and those blows I gave to Rolf are of that sort. He forgave them,—my noble dog; but I have never forgiven myself for them to this hour. When I saw him lying before me, with his blood trickling out upon the sand, I think I would have given my right hand to save his life. And well I might, too, for he had done ten times more than that to save mine.

  “He licked the tears off my cheeks, my poor old fellow; I remember that. We looked a strange pair, I dare say, as we lay on the ground together, with our heads side by side. It’s a noble old head still, isn’t it, boys? (I don’t mean mine, but this big one down here. All right, Rolf! We’re only talking of your beauty, my lad.) It’s as grand a head as ever a dog had. I had his picture taken after I came home. I’ve had him painted more than once, but somehow I don’t think the painters have ever seen quite into the bottom of his heart. At least, I fancy that if I were a painter I could make something better of him than any of them have done yet. Perhaps it’s only a notion of mine, but, to tell the truth, I’ve only a dozen times or so in my life seen a painting of a grand dog that looks quite right. But I’m wandering from my story, though, indeed, my story is almost at an end.

  “When I had come to my senses a little, I had to try to get my poor Rolf moved. We were a long way from any house, and the creature couldn’t walk a step. I tore up my shirt, and bound his wounds a
s well as I could, and then I got my clothes on, and called to my horse, and in some way, as gently as I could,—though it was no easy thing to do it,—I got him and myself together upon the horse’s back, and we began our ride. There was a village about four or five miles off, and I made for that. It was a long, hard jolt for a poor fellow with both his hind legs broken, but he bore it as patiently as if he had been a Christian. I never spoke to him but, panting as he was, he was ready to lick my hands and look lovingly up into my face. I’ve wondered since, many a time, what he could have thought about it all; and the only thing I am sure of is that he never thought much of the thing that he himself had done. That seemed, I know, all natural and simple to him; I don’t believe that he has ever understood to this day what anybody wondered at in it, or made a hero of him for. For the noblest people are the people who are noble without knowing it; and the same rule, I fancy, holds good, too, for dogs.

  “I got him to a resting-place at last, after a weary ride, and then I had his wounds dressed; but it was weeks before he could stand upon his feet again, and when at last he began to walk he limped, and he has gone on limping ever since. The bone of one leg was so crushed that it couldn’t be set properly, and so that limb is shorter than the other three. He doesn’t mind it much, I dare say,—I don’t think he ever did,—but it has been a pathetic lameness to me, boys. It’s all an old story now, you know,” said Uncle Dick, abruptly, “but it’s one of those things that a man doesn’t forget, and that it would be a shame to him if he ever could forget as long as his life lasts.”

  Uncle Dick stooped down again as he ceased to speak, and Rolf, disturbed by the silence, raised his head to look about him. As his master had said, it was a grand old head still, though the eyes were growing dim now with age. Uncle Dick laid his hand upon it, and the bushy tail began to wag. It had wagged at the touch of that hand for many a long day.