XII.
PETS.
AS there are no longer any Whig boys in the world, the coon can nolonger be kept anywhere as a political emblem, I dare say. Even in myboy's time the boys kept coons just for the pleasure of it, and withoutmeaning to elect Whig governors and presidents with them. I do not knowhow they got them--they traded for them, perhaps, with fellows in thecountry that had caught them, or perhaps their fathers bought them inmarket; some people thought they were very good to eat, and, likepoultry and other things for the table, they may have been brought aliveto market. But, anyhow, when a boy had a coon, he had to have astore-box turned open side down to keep it in, behind the house; and hehad to have a little door in the box to pull the coon out through whenhe wanted to show it to other boys, or to look at it himself, which hedid forty or fifty times a day, when he first got it. He had to have asmall collar for the coon, and a little chain, because the coon wouldgnaw through a string in a minute. The coon himself never seemed to takemuch interest in keeping a coon, or to see much fun or sense in it. Heliked to stay inside his box, where he had a bed of hay, and wheneverthe boy pulled him out, he did his best to bite the boy. He had notricks; his temper was bad; and there was nothing about him except therings round his tail and his political principles that anybody couldcare for. He never did anything but bite, and try to get away, or elserun back into his box, which smelt, pretty soon, like an animal-show; hewould not even let a fellow see him eat.
My boy's brother had a coon, which he kept a good while, at a time whenthere was no election, for the mere satisfaction of keeping a coon.During his captivity the coon bit his keeper repeatedly through thethumb, and upon the whole seemed to prefer him to any other food; I donot really know what coons eat in a wild state, but this captive coontasted the blood of nearly that whole family of children. Besides bitingand getting away, he never did the slightest thing worth remembering; asthere was no election, he did not even take part in a Whig procession.He got away two or three times. The first thing his owner would knowwhen he pulled the chain out was that there was no coon at the end ofit, and then he would have to poke round the inside of the box prettycarefully with a stick, so as not to get bitten; after that he wouldhave to see which tree the coon had gone up. It was usually the talllocust-tree in front of the house, and in about half a second all theboys in town would be there, telling the owner of the coon how to gethim. Of course the only way was to climb for the coon, which would beout at the point of a high and slender limb, and would bite you awfully,even if the limb did not break under you, while the boys kept whoopingand yelling and holloing out what to do, and Tip the dog just howledwith excitement. I do not know how that coon was ever caught, but I knowthat the last time he got away he was not found during the day, butafter nightfall he was discovered by moonlight in the locust-tree. Hisowner climbed for him, but the coon kept shifting about, and gettinghigher and higher, and at last he had to be left till morning. In themorning he was not there, nor anywhere.
It had been expected, perhaps, that Tip would watch him, and grab him ifhe came down, and Tip would have done it probably if he had kept awake.He was a dog of the greatest courage, and he was especially fond ofhunting. He had been bitten oftener by that coon than anybody but thecoon's owner, but he did not care for biting. He was always gettingbitten by rats, but he was the greatest dog for rats that there almostever was. The boys hunted rats with him at night, when they came out ofthe stables that backed down to the Hydraulic, for water; and a dog wholiked above all things to lie asleep on the back-step, by day, and wouldno more think of chasing a pig out of the garden than he would think ofsitting up all night with a coon, would get frantic about rats, andwould perfectly wear himself out hunting them on land and in the water,and keep on after the boys themselves were tired. He was so fond ofhunting, anyway, that the sight of a gun would drive him about crazy; hewould lick the barrel all over, and wag his tail so hard that it wouldlift his hind-legs off the ground.
I do not know how he came into that family, but I believe he was givento it full grown by somebody. It was some time after my boy failed tobuy what he called a Confoundland dog, from a colored boy who had it forsale, a pretty puppy with white and black spots which he had quite sethis heart on; but Tip more than consoled him. Tip was of no particularbreed, and he had no personal beauty; he was of the color of a mouse ofan elephant, and his tail was without the smallest grace; it was smoothand round, but it was so strong that he could pull a boy all over thetown by it, and usually did; and he had the best, and kindest, andtruest ugly old face in the world. He loved the whole human race, and asa watch-dog he was a failure through his trustful nature; he would nomore have bitten a person than he would have bitten a pig; but whereother dogs were concerned, he was a lion. He might be lying fast asleepin the back-yard, and he usually was, but if a dog passed the front ofthe house under a wagon, he would be up and after that dog before youknew what you were about. He seemed to want to fight country dogs theworst, but any strange dog would do. A good half the time he would comeoff best; but, however he came off, he returned to the back-yard withhis tongue hanging out, and wagging his tail in good-humor with all theworld. Nothing could stop him, however, where strange dogs wereconcerned. He was a Whig dog, of course, as any one could tell by hisname, which was Tippecanoe in full, and was given him because it was thenickname of General Harrison, the great Whig who won the battle ofTippecanoe. The boys' Henry Clay Club used him to pull the little wagonthat they went about in singing Whig songs, and he would pull five orsix boys, guided simply by a stick which he held in his mouth, and whicha boy held on either side of him. But if he caught sight of a dog thathe did not know, he would drop that stick and start for that dog as faroff as he could see him, spilling the Henry Clay Club out of the wagonpiecemeal as he went, and never stopping till he mixed up the strangedog in a fight where it would have been hard to tell which was eitherchampion and which was the club wagon. When the fight was over Tip wouldcome smilingly back to the fragments of the Henry Clay Club, with piecesof the vehicle sticking about him, and profess himself, in a dog's way,ready to go on with the concert.
Any crowd of boys could get Tip to go off with them, in swimming, orhunting, or simply running races. He was known through the whole town,and beloved for his many endearing qualities of heart. As to his mind,it was perhaps not much to brag of, and he certainly had some defects ofcharacter. He was incurably lazy, and his laziness grew upon him as hegrew older, till hardly anything but the sight of a gun or a bone wouldmove him. He lost his interest in politics, and, though there is noreason to suppose that he ever became indifferent to his principles, itis certain that he no longer showed his early ardor. He joined theFree-Soil movement in 1848, and supported Van Buren and Adams, butwithout the zeal he had shown for Henry Clay. Once a year as long as thefamily lived in the Boy's Town, the children were anxious about Tip whenthe dog-law was put in force, and the constables went round shooting allthe dogs that were found running at large without muzzles. At this time,when Tip was in danger of going mad and biting people, he showed a mostunseasonable activity, and could hardly be kept in bounds. A dog whosesole delight at other moments was to bask in the summer sun, or dream bythe winter fire, would now rouse himself to an interest in everythingthat was going on in the dangerous world, and make forays into it at allunguarded points. The only thing to do was to muzzle him, and this wasdone by my boy's brother with a piece of heavy twine, in such a manneras to interfere with Tip's happiness as little as possible. It was amuzzle that need not be removed for either eating, drinking, orfighting; but it satisfied the law, and Tip always came safely throughthe dog-days, perhaps by favor or affection with the officers who wereso inexorable with some dogs.
My boy long remembered with horror and remorse his part in giving up tojustice an unconscious offender, and seeing him pay for histransgression with his life. The boy was playing before his door, when aconstable came by with his rifle on his shoulder, and asked him if hehad seen any unmuzzled dogs about; a
nd partly from pride at beingaddressed by a constable, partly from a nervous fear of refusing toanswer, and partly from a childish curiosity to see what would happen,he said, "Yes; one over there by the pork-house." The constablewhistled, and the poor little animal, which had got lost from the farmerit had followed to town, came running into sight round the corner of thepork-house, and sat up on its haunches to look about. It was a small reddog, the size of a fox, and the boy always saw it afterwards as it satthere in the gray afternoon, and fascinated him with its deadly peril.The constable swung his rifle quickly to his shoulder; the sharp,whiplike report came, and the dog dropped over, and its heart's bloodflowed upon the ground and lay there in a pool. The boy ran into thehouse, with that picture forever printed in his memory. For him it wasas if he had seen a fellow-being slain, and had helped to bring him tohis death.
Whilst Tip was still in his prime the family of children was furtherenriched by the possession of a goat; but this did not belong to thewhole family, or it was, at least nominally, the property of that eldestbrother they all looked up to. I do not know how they came by the goat,any more than I know how they came by Tip; I only know that there came atime when it was already in the family, and that before it was got ridof it was a presence there was no mistaking. Nobody who has not kept agoat can have any notion of how many different kinds of mischief a goatcan get into, without seeming to try, either, but merely by followingthe impulses of its own goatishness. This one was a nanny-goat, and itanswered to the name of Nanny with an intelligence that was otherwisewholly employed in making trouble. It went up and down stairs, fromcellar to garret, and in and out of all the rooms, like anybody, with afaint, cynical indifference in the glance of its cold gray eyes thatgave no hint of its purposes or performances. In the chambers it chewedthe sheets and pillow-cases on the beds, and in the dining-room, if itfound nothing else, it would do its best to eat the table-cloth.Washing-day was a perfect feast for it, for then it would banquet on theshirt-sleeves and stockings that dangled from the clothes-line, andsimply glut itself with the family linen and cotton. In default of thesedainties, Nanny would gladly eat a chip-hat; she was not proud; shewould eat a split-basket, if there was nothing else at hand. Once shegot up on the kitchen-table, and had a perfect orgy with a lot offresh-baked pumpkin-pies she found there; she cleaned all the pumpkin soneatly out of the pastry shells that, if there had been any more pumpkinleft, they could have been filled up again, and nobody could have toldthe difference. The grandmother, who was visiting in the house at thetime, declared to the mother that it would serve the father and the boysjust right if she did fill these very shells up and give them to thefather and the boys to eat. But I believe this was not done, and it wasonly suggested in a moment of awful exasperation, and because it was thefather who was to blame for letting the boys keep the goat. The motherwas always saying that the goat should not stay in the house anotherday, but she had not the heart to insist on its banishment, the childrenwere so fond of it. I do not know why they were fond of it, for it nevershowed them the least affection, but was always taking the most unfairadvantages of them, and it would butt them over whenever it got thechance. It would try to butt them into the well when they leaned down topull up the bucket from the curb; and if it came out of the house, andsaw a boy cracking nuts at the low flat stone the children had in theback-yard to crack nuts on, it would pretend that the boy was makingmotions to insult it, and before he knew what he was about it would flyat him and send him spinning head over heels. It was not of the leastuse in the world, and could not be, but the children were allowed tokeep it till, one fatal day, when the mother had a number of otherladies to tea, as the fashion used to be in small towns, when they satdown to a comfortable gossip over dainty dishes of stewed chicken, hotbiscuit, peach-preserves, sweet tomato-pickles, and pound-cake. That daythey all laid off their bonnets on the hall-table, and the goat, afterdemurely waiting and watching with its faded eyes, which saw everythingand seemed to see nothing, discerned a golden opportunity, and began tomake such a supper of bonnet-ribbons as perhaps never fell to a goat'slot in life before. It was detected in its stolen joys just as it hadchewed the ribbon of a best bonnet up to the bonnet, and was chased intothe back-yard; but, as it had swallowed the ribbon without being able toswallow the bonnet, it carried that with it. The boy who specially ownedthe goat ran it down in a frenzy of horror and apprehension, and managedto unravel the ribbon from its throat, and get back the bonnet. Then hetook the bonnet in and laid it carefully down on the table again, anddecided that it would be best not to say anything about the affair. Butsuch a thing as that could not be kept. The goat was known at once tohave done the mischief; and this time it was really sent away. All thechildren mourned it, and the boy who owned it the most used to go to thehouse of the people who took it, and who had a high board fence roundtheir yard, and try to catch sight of it through the cracks. When hecalled "Nanny" it answered him instantly with a plaintive "Baa!" andthen, after a vain interchange of lamentations, he had to come away, andconsole himself as he could with the pets that were left him.
Among these were a family of white rabbits, which the boys kept in alittle hutch at the bottom of the yard. They were of no more use thanthe goat was, but they were at least not mischievous, and there was onlyone of them that would bite, and he would not bite if you would take himup close behind the ears, so that he could not get at you. The rest werevery good-natured, and would let you smooth them, or put them inside ofyour shirt-bosom, or anything. They would eat cabbage or bread or applesout of your hand; and it was fun to see their noses twitch. Otherwisethey had no accomplishments. All you could do with them was to tradewith other boys, or else keep the dogs from them; it was pretty excitingto keep the dogs from them. Tip was such a good dog that he neverdreamed of touching the rabbits.
Of course these boys kept chickens. The favorite chicken in those dayswas a small white bantam, and the more feathers it had down its legs thebetter. My boy had a bantam hen that was perfectly white, and so tamethat she would run up to him whenever he came into the yard, and followhim round like a dog. When she had chickens she taught them to be justas fond of him, and the tiny little balls of yellow down tumbledfearlessly about in his hands, and pecked the crumbs of bread betweenhis fingers. As they got older they ran with their mother to meet him,and when he sat down on the grass they clambered over him and crept intohis shirt-bosom, and crooned softly, as they did when their motherhovered them. The boy loved them better than anything he ever had; healways saw them safe in the coop at night, and he ran out early in themorning to see how they had got through the night, and to feed them. Onefatal morning he found them all scattered dead upon the grass, themother and every one of her pretty chicks, with no sign upon them of howthey had been killed. He could only guess that they had fallen a prey torats, or to some owl that had got into their coop; but, as they had notbeen torn or carried away, he guessed in vain. He buried them with thesympathy of all the children and all the fellows at school who heardabout the affair. It was a real grief; it was long before he could thinkof his loss without tears; and I am not sure there is so much differenceof quality in our bereavements; the loss can hurt more or it can hurtless, but the pang must be always the same in kind.
Besides his goat, my boy's brother kept pigeons, which, again, were likethe goat and the rabbits in not being of very much use. They had to bemuch more carefully looked after than chickens when they were young,they were so helpless in their nests, such mere weak wads of featherlessflesh. At first you had to open their bills and poke the food in; andyou had to look out how you gave them water for fear you would drownthem; but when they got a little larger they would drink and eat fromyour mouth; and that was some pleasure, for they did not seem to knowyou from an old pigeon when you took your mouth full of corn or waterand fed them. Afterwards, when they began to fly, it was a good deal offun to keep them, and make more cots for them, and build them nests inthe cots.
But they were not very intelligent pets; hardly more int
elligent thanthe fish that the boys kept in the large wooden hogshead of rain-waterat the corner of the house. They had caught some of these fish when theywere quite small, and the fish grew very fast, for there was plenty offood for them in the mosquito-tadpoles that abounded in the hogshead.Then, the boys fed them every day with bread-crumbs and worms. There wasone big sunfish that was not afraid of anything; if you held a worm justover him he would jump out of the water and snatch it. Besides the fish,there was a turtle in the hogshead, and he had a broad chip that heliked to sun himself on. It was fun to watch him resting on this chip,with his nose barely poked out of his shell, and his eyes, with the skindropped over them, just showing. He had some tricks: he would snap at astick if you teased him with it, and would let you lift him up by it.That was a good deal of pleasure.
But all these were trifling joys, except maybe Tip and Nanny, comparedwith the pony which the boys owned in common, and which was the greatestthing that ever came into their lives. I cannot tell just how theirfather came to buy it for them, or where he got it; but I dare say hethought they were about old enough for a pony, and might as well haveone. It was a Mexican pony, and as it appeared on the scene just afterthe Mexican war, some volunteer may have brought it home. One volunteerbrought home a Mexican dog, that was smooth and hairless, with a skinlike an elephant, and that was always shivering round with the cold; hewas not otherwise a remarkable dog, and I do not know that he ever felteven the warmth of friendship among the boys; his manners were reservedand his temper seemed doubtful. But the pony never had any trouble withthe climate of Southern Ohio (which is indeed hot enough to fry asalamander in summer); and though his temper was no better than otherponies', he was perfectly approachable. I mean that he was approachablefrom the side, for it was not well to get where he could bite you orkick you. He was of a bright sorrel color, and he had a brand on onehaunch. My boy had an ideal of a pony, conceived from pictures in hisreading-books at school, that held its head high and arched its neck,and he strove by means of checks and martingales to make this real ponyconform to the illustrations. But it was of no use; the real pony heldhis neck straight out like a ewe, or, if reined up, like a camel, and hehung his big head at the end of it with no regard whatever for theideal. His caparison was another mortification and failure. What theboy wanted was an English saddle, embroidered on the morocco seat incrimson silk, and furnished with shining steel stirrups. What he had wasthe framework of a Mexican saddle, covered with rawhide, and cushionedwith a blanket; the stirrups were Mexican too, and clumsily fashionedout of wood. The boys were always talking about getting their father toget them a pad, but they never did it, and they managed as they couldwith the saddle they had. For the most part they preferred to ride thepony barebacked, for then they could ride him double, and when theyfirst got him they all wanted to ride him so much that they had to ridehim double. They kept him going the whole day long; but after a whilethey calmed down enough to take him one at a time, and to let him have achance for his meals.
They had no regular stable, and the father left the boys to fit part ofthe cow-shed up for the pony, which they did by throwing part of thehen-coop open into it. The pigeon-cots were just over his head, and henever could have complained of being lonesome. At first everybody wantedto feed him as well as ride him, and if he had been allowed time for ithe might have eaten himself to death, or if he had not always tried tobite you or kick you when you came in with his corn. After a while theboys got so they forgot him, and nobody wanted to go out and feed thepony, especially after dark; but he knew how to take care of himself,and when he had eaten up everything there was in the cow-shed he wouldbreak out and eat up everything there was in the yard.
The boys got lots of good out of him. When you were once on his back youwere pretty safe, for he was so lazy that he would not think of runningaway, and there was no danger unless he bounced you off when he trotted;he had a hard trot. The boys wanted to ride him standing up, likecircus-actors, and the pony did not mind, but the boys could not stayon, though they practised a good deal, turn about, when the otherfellows were riding their horses, standing up, on the Commons. He wasnot of much more use in Indian fights, for he could seldom be lashedinto a gallop, and a pony that proposed to walk through an Indian fightwas ridiculous. Still, with the help of imagination, my boy employed himin some scenes of wild Arab life, and hurled the Moorish javelin fromhim in mid-career, when the pony was flying along at the mad pace of acanal-boat. The pony early gave the boys to understand that they couldget very little out of him in the way of herding the family cow. Hewould let them ride him to the pasture, and he would keep up with thecow on the way home, when she walked, but if they wanted anything morethan that they must get some other pony. They tried to use him incarrying papers, but the subscribers objected to having him ridden up totheir front doors over the sidewalk, and they had to give it up.
When he became an old story, and there was no competition for him amongthe brothers, my boy sometimes took him into the woods, and rode him inthe wandering bridle-paths, with a thrilling sense of adventure. He didnot like to be alone there, and he oftener had the company of a boy whowas learning the trade in his father's printing-office. This boy wasjust between him and his elder brother in age, and he was the goodcomrade of both; all the family loved him, and made him one of them,and my boy was fond of him because they had some tastes in common thatwere not very common among the other boys. They liked the same books,and they both began to write historical romances. My boy's romance wasfounded on facts of the Conquest of Granada, which he had read of againand again in Washington Irving, with a passionate pity for the Moors,and yet with pride in the grave and noble Spaniards. He would have givenalmost anything to be a Spaniard, and he lived in a dream of some daysallying out upon the Vega before Granada, in silk and steel, with anArabian charger under him that champed its bit. In the meantime he didwhat he could with the family pony, and he had long rides in the woodswith the other boy, who used to get his father's horse when he was notusing it on Sunday, and race with him through the dangling wildgrape-vines and pawpaw thickets, and over the reedy levels of the river,their hearts both bounding with the same high hopes of a world thatcould never come true.
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