“We’ve been together for fifteen years. He’s getting old now,” said Uncle Dick.
Ulysses and the Dogman
O. Henry
Do you know the time of the dogmen? When the forefinger of twilight begins to smudge the clear-drawn lines of the Big City, there is inaugurated an hour devoted to one of the most melancholy sights of urban life.
Out from the towering flat crags and apartment peaks of the cliff-dwellers of New York steals an army of beings that were once men. Even yet they go upright upon two limbs and retain human form and speech; but you will observe that they are behind animals in progress. Each of these beings follows a dog, to which he is fastened by an artificial ligament.
These men are all victims to Circe. Not willingly do they become flunkeys to Fido, bell-boys to bull terriers, and toddlers after Towzer. Modern Circe, instead of turning them into animals, has kindly left the difference of a six-foot leash between them. Every one of these dogmen has been either cajoled, bribed, or commanded by his own particular Circe to take the dear household pet out for an airing.
By their faces and manner you can tell that the dogmen are bound in a hopeless enchantment. Never will there come even a dog-catcher Ulysses to remove the spell.
The faces of some are stonily set. They are past the commiseration, the curiosity, or the jeers of their fellow-beings. Years of matrimony, of continuous compulsory canine constitutionals, have made them callous. They unwind their beasts from lamp-posts, or the ensnared legs of profane pedestrians, with the stolidity of mandarins manipulating the strings of their kites.
Others, more recently reduced to the ranks of Rover’s retinue, take their medicine sulkily and fiercely. They play the dog on the end of their line with the pleasure felt by the girl out fishing when she catches a sea-robin on her hook. They glare at you threateningly if you look at them, as if it would be their delight to let slip the dogs of war. These are half-mutinous dogmen, not quite Circe-ized, and you will do well not to kick their charges, should they sniff around your ankles.
Others of the tribe do not seem to feel so keenly. They are mostly unfresh youths, with gold caps and drooping cigarettes, who do not harmonize with their dogs. The animals they attend wear satin bows in their collars; and the young men steer them so assiduously that you are tempted to the theory that some personal advantage, contingent upon satisfactory service, waits upon the execution of their duties.
The dogs thus personally conducted are of many varieties: but they are one in fatness, in pampered, diseased vileness of temper, in insolent, snarling capriciousness of behavior. They tug at the leash fractiously, they make leisurely nasal inventory of every doorstep, railing, and post. They sit down to rest when they choose; they wheeze like the winner of a Third Avenue beefsteak-eating contest; they blunder clumsily into open cellars and coal holes; they lead the dogmen a merry dance.
These unfortunate dry nurses of dogdom, the cur cuddlers, mongrel managers, Spitz stalkers, poodle pullers, Skye scrapers, dachshund dandlers, terrier trailers and Pomeranian pushers of the cliff-dwelling Circes follow their charges meekly. The doggies neither fear nor respect them. Masters of the house these men whom they hold in leash may be, but they are not masters of them. From cozy corner to fire-escape, from divan to dumb-waiter, doggy’s snarl easily drives this two-legged being who is commissioned to walk at the other end of his string during his outing.
One twilight the dogmen came forth as usual at their Circes’ pleading, guerdon, or crack of the whip. One among them was a strong man, apparently of too solid virtues for this airy vocation. His expression was melancholic, his manner depressed. He was leashed to a vile, white dog, loathsomely fat, fiendishly ill-natured, gloatingly intractable toward his despised conductor.
At a corner nearest to his apartment-house the dogman turned down a side-street, hoping for fewer witnesses to his ignominy. The surfeited beast waddled before him, panting with spleen and the labor of motion.
Suddenly the dog stopped. A tall, brown, long-coated, wide-brimmed man stood like a Colossus blocking the sidewalk and declaring:
“Well, I’m a son of a gun!”
“Jim Berry!” breathed the dogman, with exclamation points in his voice.
“Sam Telfair,” cried Wide-Brim again, “you ding-basted old willywalloo, give us your hoof!”
Their hands clasped in the brief, tight greeting of the West that is death to the handshake microbe.
“You old fat rascal!” continued Wide-Brim, with a wrinkled, brown smile; “it’s been five years since I seen you. I been in this town a week, but you can’t find nobody in such a place. Well, you dinged old married man, how are they coming?”
Something mushy and heavily soft like raised dough leaned against Jim’s leg and chewed his trousers with a yeasty growl.
“Get to work,” said Jim, “and explain this yard-wide hydrophobia yearling you’ve throwed your lasso over. Are you the pound-master of this burg? Do you call that a dog or what?”
“I need a drink,” said the dogman, dejected at the reminder of his old dog of the sea. “Come on.”
Hard by was a café. ’Tis ever so in the big city.
They sat at a table, and the bloated monster yelped and scrambled at the end of his leash to get at the café cat.
“Whisky,” said Jim to the waiter.
“Make it two,” said the dogman.
“You’re fatter,” said Jim, “and you look subjugated. I don’t know about the East agreeing with you. All the boys asked me to hunt you up when I started. Sandy King, he went to the Klondike. Watson Burrel, he married the oldest Peters girl. I made some money buying beeves, and I bought a lot of wild land up on the Little Powder. Going to fence next fall. Bill Rawlins, he’s gone to farming. You remember Bill, of course—he was courting Marcella—excuse me, Sam—I mean the lady you married, while she was teaching school at Prairie View. But you was the lucky man. How is Missis Telfair?”
“S-h-h-h!” said the dogman, signaling the waiter; “give it a name.”
“Whisky,” said Jim.
“Make it two,” said the dogman.
“She’s well,” he continued, after his chaser. “She refused to live anywhere but in New York, where she came from. We live in a flat. Every evening at six I take that dog out for a walk. It’s Marcella’s pet. There never were two animals on earth, Jim, that hated one another like me and that dog does. His name’s Lovekins. Marcella dresses for dinner while we’re out. We eat tabble dote. Ever tried one of them, Jim?”
“No, I never,” said Jim. “I seen the signs, but I thought they said ‘table de hole.’ I thought it was French for pool tables. How does it taste?”
“If you’re going to be in the city for awhile we will—”
“No, sir-ee. I’m starting for home this evening on the 7:25. Like to stay longer, but I can’t.”
“I’ll walk down to the ferry with you,” said the dogman.
The dog had bound a leg each of Jim and the chair together, and had sunk into a comatose slumber. Jim stumbled and the leash was slightly wrenched. The shrieks of the awakened beast rang for a block around.
“If that’s your dog,” said Jim, when they were on the street again, “what’s to hinder you from running that habeas corpus you’ve got around his neck over a limb and walking off and forgetting him?”
“I’d never dare to,” said the dogman, awed at the bold proposition. “He sleeps in the bed. I sleep on a lounge. He runs howling to Marcella if I look at him. Some night, Jim, I’m going to get even with that dog. I’ve made up my mind to do it. I’m going to creep over with a knife and cut a hole in his mosquito bar so they can get in to him. See if I don’t do it!”
“You ain’t yourself, Sam Telfair. You ain’t what you was once. I don’t know about these cities and flats over here. With my own eyes I seen you stand off both the Tillotson boys in Prairie View with the bras
s faucet out of a molasses barrel. And I seen you rope and tie the wildest steer on little Powder in 391⁄2.”
“I did, didn’t I?” said the other, with a temporary gleam in his eye. “But that was before I was dogmatized.”
“Does Missis Telfair—” began Jim.
“Hush!” said the dogman. “Here’s another café.”
They lined up at the bar. The dog fell asleep at their feet.
“Whisky,” said Jim.
“Make it two,” said the dogman.
“I thought about you,” said Jim, “when I bought that wild land. I wished you was out there to help me with the stock.”
“Last Tuesday,” said the dogman, “he bit me on the ankle because I asked for cream in my coffee. He always gets the cream.”
“You’d like Prairie View now,” said Jim. “The boys from the round-ups for fifty miles around ride in there. One corner of my pasture is in sixteen miles of the town. There’s a straight forty miles of wire on one side of it.”
“You pass through the kitchen to get to the bedroom,” said the dogman, “and you pass through the parlor to get to the bathroom, and you back out through the dining-room to get into the bedroom so you can turn around and leave by the kitchen. And he snores and barks in his sleep, and I have to smoke in the park on account of his asthma.”
“Don’t Missis Telfair—” began Jim.
“Oh, shut up!” said the dogman. “What is it this time?”
“Whisky,” said Jim.
“Make it two,” said the dogman.
“Well, I’ll be racking along down toward the ferry,” said the other.
“Come on, there, you mangy, turtle-backed, snake-headed, bench-legged ton-and-a-half of soap-grease!” shouted the dogman, with a new note in his voice and a new hand on the leash. The dog scrambled after them, with an angry whine at such unusual language from his guardian.
At the foot of Twenty-third Street the dogman led the way through swinging doors.
“Last chance,” said he. “Speak up.”
“Whisky,” said Jim.
“Make it two,” said the dogman.
“I don’t know,” said the ranchman, “where I’ll find the man I want to take charge of the Little Powder outfit. I want somebody I know something about. Finest stretch of prairie and timber you ever squinted your eye over, Sam. Now, if you was—”
“Speaking of hydrophobia,” said the dogman, “the other night he chewed a piece out of my leg because I knocked a fly off of Marcella’s arm. ‘It ought to be cauterized,’ says Marcella, and I was thinking so myself. I telephones for the doctor, and when he comes Marcella says to me: ‘Help me hold the poor dear while the doctor fixes his mouth. Oh, I hope he got no virus on any of his toofies when he bit you.’ Now what do you think of that?”
“Does Missis Telfair—” began Jim.
“Oh, drop it,” said the dogman. “Come again!”
“Whisky,” said Jim.
“Make it two,” said the dogman.
They walked on to the ferry. The ranchman stepped to the ticket-window.
Suddenly the swift landing of three or four heavy kicks was heard, the air was rent by piercing canine shrieks, and a pained, outraged, lubberly, bow-legged pudding of a dog ran frenziedly up the street alone.
“Ticket to Denver,” said Jim.
“Make it two,” shouted the ex-dogman, reaching for his inside pocket.
The Baron’s Wonderful Dog
R. E. Raspe
I had married a lady of great beauty, who, having heard of my sporting exploits, desired, a short time after our marriage, to go out with me on a shooting expedition. I went on in front to start something, and I soon saw my dog stop before several hundred coveys of partridges. I waited for my wife, who was following me with my lieutenant and a servant. I waited a long time; nobody came.
At length, very uneasy, I went back, and, when I was halfway to the place where I had left my wife, I heard lamentable groans. They seemed quite near, and yet I could see no trace of a human being. I jumped off my horse; I put my ear to the ground, and not only heard the groans distinctly rising from beneath, but my wife’s voice and those of my lieutenant and servant.
I remarked at the same time, not far from the spot, the shaft of a coal-pit, and I had no doubt that my wife and her unfortunate companions had been swallowed up in it. I rode full speed to the nearest village to fetch the miners, who after great efforts succeeded in drawing the unfortunate individuals buried in the pit—which measured ninety feet—to the surface.
They first drew up the manservant; then his horse; next the lieutenant; next his horse; and at length my wife on her little palfrey. The most curious part of this affair was that, in spite of the awful depth to which they had fallen, no one was hurt, not even the horses, if we except a few slight contusions. But they had had a terrible fright, and were quite unable to pursue our intended sport.
In all this confusion I quite forgot my setter, as no doubt you also have.
The next day I was obliged to go away on duty, and did not return home for a fortnight. On my return I asked for Diana, my setter. No one knew anything about her. My servants thought she had followed me. She was certainly lost, and I never hoped to see her again! At length a bright idea occurred to me:
“She is perhaps still watching the partridges.”
I hastened, full of hope and joy, to the spot, and actually there she was!—my noble Diana—on the very place where I had left her a fortnight before.
“Hi, Diana!” I cried. “Seize them!”
She instantly sprang the partridges; they rose, and I killed twenty-five at one shot. But the poor beast had scarcely strength enough to follow me, she was so thin and famished. I was obliged to carry her back to the house on my horse, where rest, feeding, and great care soon restored her to health.
I was thoroughly glad to get her back again.
Brown Wolf
Jack London
She had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass, in order to put on her overshoes, and when she emerged from the house found her waiting husband absorbed in the wonder of a bursting almond-bud. She sent a questing glance across the tall grass and in and out among the orchard trees.
“Where’s Wolf?” she asked.
“He was here a moment ago.” Walt Irvine drew himself away with a jerk from the metaphysics and poetry of the organic miracle of blossom, and surveyed the landscape. “He was running a rabbit the last I saw of him.”
“Wolf! Wolf! Here Wolf!” she called, as they left the clearing and took the trail that led down through the waxen-belled manzanita jungle to the county road.
Irvine thrust between his lips the little finger of each hand and lent to her efforts a shrill whistling.
She covered her ears hastily and made a wry
grimace.
“My! for a poet, delicately attuned and all the rest of it, you can make unlovely noises. My eardrums are pierced. You outwhistle—”
“Orpheus.”
“I was about to say a street-Arab,” she concluded severely.
“Poesy does not prevent one from being practical—at least it doesn’t prevent ME. Mine is no futility of genius that can’t sell gems to the magazines.”
He assumed a mock extravagance, and went on:
“I am no attic singer, no ballroom warbler. And why? Because I am practical. Mine is no squalor of song that cannot transmute itself, with proper exchange value, into a flower-crowned cottage, a sweet mountain-meadow, a grove of red-woods, an orchard of thirty-seven trees, one long row of blackberries and two short rows of strawberries, to say nothing of a quarter of a mile of gurgling brook. I am a beauty-merchant, a trader in song, and I pursue utility, dear Madge. I sing a song, and thanks to the magazine editors I transmute my song into a waft of the west wind sighing through our redwoods, into a mu
rmur of waters over mossy stones that sings back to me another song than the one I sang and yet the same song wonderfully—er—transmuted.”
“O that all your song-transmutations were as successful!” she laughed.
“Name one that wasn’t.”
“Those two beautiful sonnets that you transmuted into the cow that was accounted the worst milker in the township.”
“She was beautiful—” he began,
“But she didn’t give milk,” Madge interrupted.
“But she was beautiful, now, wasn’t she?” he insisted.
“And here’s where beauty and utility fall out,” was her reply. “And there’s the Wolf!”
From the thicket-covered hillside came a crashing of underbrush, and then, forty feet above them, on the edge of the sheer wall of rock, appeared a wolf’s head and shoulders. His braced fore paws dislodged a pebble, and with sharp-pricked ears and peering eyes he watched the fall of the pebble till it struck at their feet. Then he transferred his gaze and with open mouth laughed down at them.
“You Wolf, you!” and “You blessed Wolf!” the man and woman called out to him.
The ears flattened back and down at the sound, and the head seemed to snuggle under the caress of an invisible hand.
They watched him scramble backward into the thicket, then proceeded on their way. Several minutes later, rounding a turn in the trail where the descent was less precipitous, he joined them in the midst of a miniature avalanche of pebbles and loose soil. He was not demonstrative. A pat and a rub around the ears from the man, and a more prolonged caressing from the woman, and he was away down the trail in front of them, gliding effortlessly over the ground in true wolf fashion.
In build and coat and brush he was a huge timber-wolf; but the lie was given to his wolfhood by his color and marking. There the dog unmistakably advertised itself. No wolf was ever colored like him. He was brown, deep brown, red-brown, an orgy of browns. Back and shoulders were a warm brown that paled on the sides and underneath to a yellow that was dingy because of the brown that lingered in it. The white of the throat and paws and the spots over the eyes was dirty because of the persistent and ineradicable brown, while the eyes themselves were twin topazes, golden and brown.
Tails to Wag Page 4
