Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “Well, now you’re satisfied, I guess!” said Sam Williams, when Penrod had dragged Duke to a spot about five feet from the pup. “I expeck you can tell which is the full-bloodedest now, can’t you?”

  “Yes; I guess I can!” Penrod retorted. “Look at that ole cur beside good ole Dukie, and anybody can see he isn’t full-blooded a-tall!”

  “He isn’t?” Sam cried indignantly, and, as a conclusive test, he gathered in both hands a large, apparently unoccupied area of the pup’s back, lifting it and displaying it proudly, much as a clerk shows goods upon a counter. “Look at that!” he shouted. “Look how loose his hide is! You never saw a looser-hided dog in your life, and you can’t any more do that with Duke’n you could with a potato-bug! Just try it once; that’s all I ast.”

  “That’s nothing. Any pup can do that. When Duke was a pup—”

  “Just try it once, I said. That’s all I ast.”

  “I got a right to talk, haven’t I?” Penrod demanded bitterly. “I guess this is my own father’s yard, and I got a “Just try it, once,” Sam repeated, perhaps a little irritatingly. “That’s all I ast.”

  “My goodness HEAVENS!” Penrod bellowed. “I never heard such a crazy racket as you’re makin’! Haven’t you got enough sense to—”

  “Just try it once. That’s all!”

  “Dry UP!” Penrod was furious.

  Sam relapsed into indignant silence. Penrod similarly relapsed. Each felt that the other knew nothing whatever about full-blooded dogs.

  “Well,” Sam said finally, “what you want to keep aholt o’ Duke for? My dog ain’t goin’ to hurt him.”

  “I guess not! You said yourself he couldn’t fight.”

  “I did not! I said no pup will—”

  “All right then,” said Penrod. “I was only holdin’ him to keep him from chewin’ up that poor cur. Better let him loose so’s he can get away if good ole Dukie takes after him.”

  “Let’s let ’em both loose,” Sam said, forgetting animosity. “Let’s see what they’ll do.”

  “All right,” Penrod, likewise suddenly amiable, agreed. “I expeck they kind of like each other, anyways.”

  Released, both animals shook themselves. Then Duke approached the pup and sniffed carelessly and without much interest at the back of his neck. Duke was so bored by the information thus obtained that he yawned and once more made evident his intention to retire to the backyard. The new pup, however, after having presented up to this moment an appearance uninterruptedly lethargic, suddenly took it into his head to play the jolly rogue. At a pup’s gallop, he proceeded to a point directly in Duke’s line of march, and halted. Then he placed his muzzle flat upon the ground between his wide-spread paws and showed the whites of his eyes in a waggish manner. Duke also halted, confronting the joker and emitting low sounds of warning and detestation.

  Then, for the sake of peace, he decided to go round the house the other way; in fact, he was in the act of turning to do so when the pup rushed upon him and frolicsomely upset him. Thereupon, Duke swore, cursing all the pups in the world and claiming blasphemously to be a dangerous person whom it were safer not again to jostle. For a moment, the pup was startled by the elderly dog’s intensive oratory; then he decided that Duke was joking, too, and returned to his clowning. Again and again he charged ponderously upon, into and over Duke, whose words and actions now grew wild indeed. But he was helpless. The pup’s humour expressed itself in a fever of physical badinage, and Duke no sooner rose than he was upset again. When he lay upon his back, raving and snapping, the-disregardful pup’s large feet would flop weightily upon the pit of his stomach or upon his very face with equal unconcern. Duke had about as much chance with him as an elderly gentleman would have with a jocular horse. Never before was a creature of settled life so badgered.

  Both boys were captivated by the pup’s display of gaiety, and Penrod, naturally prejudiced against the blithe animal, unwillingly felt his heart warming. It was impossible to preserve any coldness of feeling toward so engaging a creature, and, besides, no boy can long resist a pup. Penrod began to yearn toward this one. He wished that John Carmichael had worked on a farm belonging to his uncle.

  “That is a pretty good dog, Sam,” he said, his eyes following the pup’s merry violence. “I guess you’re right — he’s proba’ly part full-blooded, maybe not as much as Duke, but a good deal, anyhow. What you goin’ to name him?”

  “John Carmichael.”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Penrod. “I’d name him sumpthing nice. I’d name him Frank, or Walter or sumpthing.”

  “No, sir,” Sam said firmly. “I’m goin’ to name him John Carmichael. I told John Carmichael I would.”

  “Well, all right,” Penrod returned, a little peevishly. “Always got to have your own way!”

  “Well, haven’t I got a right to?” Sam inquired, with justifiable heat. “I’d like to know why I oughtn’t to have my own way about my own dog!”

  “I don’t care,” said Penrod. “You can call him John Carmichael when you speak to him; but, when I speak to him, I’m goin’ to call him Walter.”

  “You can if you want to,” Sam returned. “It won’t be his name.”

  “Well, Waiter’ll be his name long as I’m talkin’ to him.”

  “It won’t, either!”

  “Why won’t it? Just answer me, why.”

  “Because,” said Sam, “his name’ll be John Carmichael all the time, no matter who’s talkin’ to him.”

  “That’s what you think,” said Penrod, and he added, in a tone of determination, “His name’ll be Walter whenever I say a word to him.”

  Sam began to wear a baffled expression, for the controversy was unusual and confusing. “It won’t,” he said. “Do you s’pose Duke’s name’d be Walter, if you called him Walter while you were talkin’ to him, and then change back to Duke the rest o’ the time when you aren’t talkin’ to him?”

  “What?”

  “I said — well, suppose Duke’s name was Walter” — Sam paused, finding himself unable to recall the details of the argumentative illustration he had offered.

  “What’s all that stuff you were talkin’ about?” Penrod insisted.

  “His name’s John Carmichael,” Sam said curtly. “Hyuh, John!”

  “Hyuh, Walter!” cried Penrod.

  “Hyuh, John! Hyuh, John Carmichael!”

  “Hyuh, Walter, Walter! Come here, good ole Walter, Walter, Walter!”

  “Hyuh, John! Good ole Johnny!”

  The pup paid no attention to either of the rival godfathers, but continued to clown it over Duke, whose mood was beginning to change. His bad temper had exhausted itself, and, little by little, the pup’s antics began to stir the elderly dog’s memory of his own puphood. He remembered the glad unconventionality, the long days of irresponsible romping, and he wished that he might live those days again. By imperceptible degrees, his indignation diminished; he grew milder and milder until, finally, he found himself actually collaborating in the pup’s hoydenish assaults. Duke’s tone of voice became whimsical; he lay upon his back and pretended to swear and snap; but the swearing and snapping were now burlesque and meant to be understood as such. Duke ended by taking a decided fancy to Walter-John Carmichael.

  The moral influence of dogs upon one another is profound a matter seldom estimated at its value. People are often mystified by a change of character in a known and tried dog; they should seek to discover with whom he has been associating himself. Sometimes the change in a dog’s character is permanent; sometimes it is merely temporary. In the latter case, when the animal returns to his former habit of mind, it is usually a sign that the source of influence has vanished — the other dog has moved away. Or it may be merely that the influenced dog has concluded that his new manner does not pay. One thing, however, is certain: when a dog goes wrong late in life, it is almost invariably due to the influence and example of some other dog — usually a younger one, odd as that may seem.

  Walter-John C
armichael proved his light-headedness by forgetting Duke abruptly and galloping off after a sparrow that had flown near the ground. The sparrow betook himself to the limb of a tree, while the pup continued to careen and zigzag over the grass in the lunatic belief that he was still chasing the sparrow. Duke thereupon scampered upon an imaginary track, shaped like a large figure eight, and then made a jovial rush at Walter-John, bowling him over and over. Finding that the thing could be done, Duke knocked Walter-John over as often as the latter rose to his feet. Duke had caught the infection of youth; he had been lifted out of himself by Walter-John’s simple happiness, and the little old dog was in great spirits. Of course, he did not weigh the question of his conduct carefully; later events proved that he acted on the spur of emotion and paused neither to reason nor to estimate consequences. His promptings were, indeed, physical rather than mental — simply, he felt like a pup once more and in all things behaved like one.

  Meanwhile, the two boys sat upon the grass and watched the friendly battle. “I’m goin’ to train John to be a trick dog,” Sam said.

  “What you goin’ to train him?”

  “Oh, like dogs in the dog show,” Sam replied, with careless ease. “I’m goin’ to make him do all those tricks.”

  “Yes, you are!” —

  “I am, too!”

  “Well, how are you?” asked the skeptical Penrod. “How you goin’ to train him?”

  “Lots o’ ways.”

  “Well, what are they?”

  “Why, it’s the easiest thing in the world to train a pup,” said Sam. “Take an ole dog like Duke, and ‘course you can’t train him. First thing I’m goin’ to train John is to catch a ball when I throw it to him.”

  “You mean catch it in his mouth the same as a baseball player does with his hands?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Penrod laughed scornfully.

  “You wait and see!” Sam cried.

  “Well, how are you goin’ to? Just answer me that!”

  “You’ll see how.”

  “Well, why can’t you answer how you’re goin’ to do so much? Just answer me that; that’s all!”

  “Well, I’ll tell you how,” Sam began, speaking thoughtfully.

  “Well, why’n’t you tell me, then, instead o’ talkin’ so mu—”

  “How can I, when you won’t let me? You talk yourself all the ti — .”

  “You don’t know how! That’s the reason you talk so much,” Penrod asserted. “You couldn’t any more teach a dog to catch a ball than—”

  “I could, too! I’d put sumpthing on it.”

  Penrod’s loud laugh was again scornful. “‘Put sumpthing on it!’” he mocked. “That’d teach a dog to catch a ball, wouldn’t it? What you goin’ to put on it? Tar? So it’d stick in his mouth?” And overcome by the humour of this satire, Penrod rolled in the grass, shouting derisively.

  Not at all disconcerted, his friend explained: “No; I wouldn’t put any ole tar on it. I’d take a ball and rub sumpthing that tastes good to him on the ball.”

  “What for?”

  “Then I’d throw it to him, and he’d catch it just like he would a piece o’ beefsteak. Haven’t you ever seen a dog catch meat?”

  Penrod’s laughter ceased; the idea fascinated him at once. “Look here, Sam,” he said. “Let’s teach both our dogs to do that. Let’s go round to the barn and start getting’ ’em all trained up so’s we can have a dog show.”

  “That’s the ticket!” cried Sam.

  Within five minutes, the unfortunate Duke and Walter-John, interrupted in their gambols, were beginning to undergo a course of instruction. The two trainers agreed to avoid all harshness; the new method of teaching by attractive deceptions was to be followed throughout the course, and, for a while, they were consistently persuasive and diplomatic. Penrod brought a bit of raw meat and a solid-rubber ball from the house. The meat was rubbed on the ball, which was then presented to the two dogs for inspection and sniffing. Both took some interest in it, and Duke licked it casually.

  The ball was tossed first to Duke, who moved aside and would have taken his unobtrusive departure had he not been detained. Next, Sam tossed the ball to Walter-John, who, without budging, placidly watched its approach through the air, and yet seemed surprised and troubled when it concluded its flight upon his right eye. Meat was freshly rubbed upon the ball and the experiment repeated again and again, so that after a little experience Walter-John learned to watch the ball and to move as soon as he saw it coming toward him. After half an hour, he was almost as able a dodger as Duke.

  It may not be denied that by this time the trainers were irritated. Their theory was so plausible — it had sounded so simple, so inevitable — that the illogical conduct of the two dogs could not fail to get more and more upon the theorists’ nerves. Naturally, then, in spite of all agreements never to resort to harshness, there were times when, instead of tossing, Penrod threw the ball to Duke, and Sam to Walter-John. In fact, to an observer who had no knowledge of dogtraining, the instruction finally might have seemed to be a contest in accuracy between the two trainers, especially as they had found it necessary to tie both Walter-John and Duke rather closely to the stable wall. Indeed, that was the view of the matter ignorantly taken by Della.

  “I niver see th’ beat!” she exclaimed, coming out upon the back porch from the kitchen. “Chainin’ thim two poor dogs ag’inst the wall and throwin’ big rocks at ’em to see which can hit ’em the most times and—”

  “Rocks!” Penrod interrupted angrily. “Who’s throwin’ rocks? You tell me who’s throwin’ any rocks!”

  “I’ll tell you to come to lunch,” Della retorted. “And Mrs. Williams has been telephonin’ a quawter’v an hour. They’re waitin’ lunch at the Williamses; so you let thim two poor dogs go — if they still got the strenk to walk. Are you comin’ to yer lunch, Musther Penrod, or not? Come in and try to eat like a human person and not like a rhinoceros the way you did yesterday, and you know what you got fer it, too — I’m glad, praise hiven!” She returned into the house, slamming the door.

  “What’s she mean, Penrod?” Sam inquired, as he released Walter-John from the wall. “What did you get for what, that she says she was so glad about?”

  “Nothin’,” said Penrod, though his expression had become momentarily unpleasant. “Those Irish always got to be sayin’ sumpthing or other.”

  “Yep,” Sam agreed. “Let’s go ahead and train our dogs some more this afternoon. You bring Duke over to our yard, Penrod, and let’s get started early.”

  CHAPTER II

  BAD INFLUENCE OF WALTER-JOHN

  PENROD ASSENTED, AND, at a little after one o’clock, the training began again in the Williams’s yard. Duke and Walter-John passed two hours comparable to hours human beings pass at the dentist’s, and both the trainers gradually became hoarse, though they still maintained that their method continued to be humane and persuasive. Experiments with the ball were finally postponed to another day, as both dogs persisted in their dodging and each refused to grasp the idea of a ball’s purpose — even when it was forcibly placed in his mouth and held there for minutes at a time.

  Duke had long ago mastered the art of “sitting-up”, and to-day, upon command, he “sat up” till he was ready to drop, while Walter-John was held up in a similar position and bidden to learn from the example of Duke, but would not even look at him. No progress being perceptible in this, a barrel-hoop was procured, and one trainer held the hoop, while the other accustomed the dogs to passing through it. Patiently, until his back ached, Penrod again and again threw Duke and the cumbersome Walter-John in turn through the hoop; then held it while Sam manipulated the dogs.

  “Now I expeck they unnerstand what we want ’em to do,” said Sam, at last, straightening up with a gasp. “Anyways, they cert’nly ought to!”

  “Jump, Dukie!” Penrod urged. “Jump through the hoop just like you been doin’! Come on, old Dukie — jump!” Again the patience of the instructors was
strained. Both Duke and Walter-John could be coaxed to pass under the hoop or upon either side of it; but each refused to pass through it of his free will. Manifestly, they had, for inexplicable reasons, conceived a prejudice against hoop-jumping, and nothing served to remove their aversion.

  “I’ll tell you what we can train ’em,” Penrod suggested, after a long pause of discouragement. “We can train ’em to walk the tight-rope. We could do that, anyway!”

  After the setbacks received in processes apparently so much simpler (especially for dogs) than tight-rope walking, Penrod’s proposal naturally produced a feeling of surprise in Sam. “What on earth you talkin’ about now?”

  “Why, look!” said Penrod. “Listen, Sam — you listen here a minute! We can teach ’em to walk the tight-rope easy! It won’t be anything at all, the way I got fixed up to do it. Then just look where we’ll be, when our good ole dogs get so’s all we got to do’ll just be to say, ‘Hyuh, Dukie, jump up on that clo’es-line and walk it!’ And then you can say, Hyuh, Walter, jump up—’”

  “I wouldn’t, neither!” Sam interrupted. “His name’s John-’”

  “Well, anyway,” Penrod continued evasively, “you could tell him to jump up on a clo’es-line and walk it just like Duke, and he’d do it. Oh, oh!” Penrod’s eyes sparkled; he gesticulated joyously — to his mind, the gorgeous performance was already taking place. “Oh, oh! That wouldn’t be any good ole show — I guess not! Why, we could charge a dollar for anybody to come in! Oh, oh! Laydeez and gentlemun, the big show is about to commence! Get up on that tight-rope now, you good ole Duke! Laydeez and gentlemun, you now see before your very eyes the only two tightrope-walking dogs ever trained to—”

  “Well, can’t you wait a minute?” Sam cried. “I’d like to know how we’re goin’ to train ’em to walk any tight-rope when they don’t show any more sense’n they did about that hoop and catchin’ a ball and—”