Cobwebs from an Empty Skull

by Ambrose Bierce

  It was beautiful to see Jerusalem rounding the angle of a wall, and turning his head about to observe how the remainder of the procession was coming on. He was once circumnavigating a small out-house, when, catching sight of his own hinder-quarters, he flew into a terrible rage. The sight of another dog always had this effect upon Jerusalem, and more especially when, as in this case, he thought he could grasp an unfair advantage. So Jerusalem took after that retreating foe as hard as ever he could hook it. Round and round he flew, but the faster he went, the more his centrifugal force widened his circle, until he presently lost sight of his enemy altogether. Then he slowed down, determined to accomplish his end by strategy. Sneaking closely up to the wall, he moved cautiously forward, and when he had made the full circuit, he came smack up against his own tail. Making a sudden spring, which must have stretched him like a bit of India-rubber, he fastened his teeth into his ham, hanging on like a country visitor. He felt sure he had nailed the other dog, but he was equally confident the other dog had nailed him; so the problem was simplified to a mere question of endurance-and Jerusalem was an animal of pluck. The grim conflict was maintained all one day-maintained with deathless perseverance, until Dad Petto discovered the belligerent and uncoupled him. Then Jerusalem looked up at his master with a shake of the head, as much as to say: "It's a precious opportune arrival for the other pup; but who took him off me?"

  I don't think I can better illustrate the preposterous longitude of this pet, than by relating an incident that fell under my own observation. I was one day walking along the highway with a friend who was a stranger in the neighbourhood, when a rabbit flashed past us, going our way, but evidently upon urgent business. Immediately upon his heels followed the first instalment of Dad Petto's mongrel, enveloped in dust, his jaws distended, the lower one shaving the ground to scoop up the rabbit. He was going at a rather lively gait, but was some time in passing. My friend stood a few moments looking on; then rubbed his eyes, looked again, and finally turned to me, just as the brute's tail flitted by, saying, with a broad stare of astonishment:

  "Did you ever see a pack of hounds run so perfectly in line? It beats anything! And the speed, too-they seem fairly blended! If a fellow didn't know better, he would swear there was but a single dog!"

  I suppose it was this peculiarity of Jerusalem that had won old Petto's regard. He liked as much of anything as he could have for his money; and the expense of this creature, generally speaking, was no greater than that of a brief succinct bull pup. But there were times when he was costly. All dogs are sometimes "off their feed"-will eat nothing for a whole day but a few ox-tails, a pudding or two, and such towelling as they can pick up in the scullery. When Jerusalem got that way, which, to do him justice, was singularly seldom, it made things awkward in the near future. For in a few days after recovering his passion for food, the effect of his former abstemiousness would begin to reach his stomach; but of course all he could then devour would work no immediate relief. This he would naturally attribute to the quality of his fare, and would change his diet a dozen times a day, his menu in the twelve working hours comprising an astonishing range of articles, from a wood-saw to a kettle of soft soap-edibles as widely dissimilar as the zenith and the nadir, which, also, he would eat. So catholic an appetite was, of course, exceptional: ordinarily Jerusalem was as narrow and illiberal as the best of us. Give him plenty of raw beef, and he would not unsettle his gastric faith by outside speculation or tentative systems.

  I could relate things of this dog by the hour. Such, for example, as his clever device for crossing a railway. He never attempted to do this endwise, like other animals, for the obvious reason that, like every one else, he was unable to make any sense of the time-tables; and unless he should by good luck begin the manoeuvre when a train was said to be due, it was likely he would be abbreviated; for of course no one is idiot enough to cross a railway track when the time-table says it is all clear-at least no one as long as Jerusalem. So he would advance his head to the rails, calling in his outlying convolutions, and straightening them alongside the track, parallel with it; and then at a signal previously agreed upon-a short wild bark-this sagacious dog would make the transit unanimously, as it were. By this method he commonly avoided a quarrel with the engine.

  Altogether he was a very interesting beast, and his master was fond of him no end. And with the exception of compelling Mr. Petto to remove to the centre of the State to avoid double taxation upon him, he was not wholly unprofitable; for he was the best sheep-dog in the country: he always kept the flock well together by the simple device of surrounding them. Having done so, he would lie down, and eat, and eat, and eat, till there wasn't a sheep left, except a few old rancid ones; and even those he would tear into small spring lambs.

  Dad Petto never went anywhere without the superior portion of Jerusalem at his side; and he always alluded to him as "the following dorg." But the beast finally became a great nuisance in Illinois. His body obstructed the roads in all directions; and the Representative of that district in the National Congress was instructed by his constituents to bring in a bill taxing dogs by the linear yard, instead of by the head, as the law then stood. Dad Petto proceeded at once to Washington to "lobby" against the measure. He knew the wife of a clerk in the Bureau of Statistics; armed with this influence he felt confident of success. I was myself in Washington, at the time, trying to secure the removal of a postmaster who was personally obnoxious to me, inasmuch as I had been strongly recommended for the position by some leading citizens, who to their high political characters superadded the more substantial merit of being my relations.

  Dad and I were standing, one morning, in front of Willard's Hotel, when he stooped over and began patting Jerusalem on the head. All of a sudden the smiling brute sprang open his mouth and bade farewell to a succession of yells which speedily collected ten thousand miserable office-seekers, and an equal quantity of brigadier-generals, who, all in a breath, inquired who had been stabbed, and what was the name of the lady.

  Meantime nothing would pacify the pup; he howled most dismally, punctuating his wails with quick sharp shrieks of mortal agony. More than an hour-more than two hours-we strove to discover and allay the canine grievance, but to no purpose.

  Presently one of the hotel pages stepped up to Mr. Petto, handing him a telegraphic dispatch just received. It was dated at his home in Cowville, Illinois, and making allowance for the difference in time, something more than two hours previously. It read as follows:

  "A pot of boiling glue has just been upset upon Jerusalem 's hind-quarters. Shall I try rhubarb, or let it get cold and chisel it off?

  "P.S. He did it himself, wagging his tail in the kitchen. Some Democrat has been bribing that dog with cold victuals.-PENELOPE PETTO."

  Then we knew what ailed "the following dorg."

  I should like to go on giving the reader a short account of this animal's more striking personal peculiarities, but the subject seems to grow under my hand. The longer I write, the longer he becomes, and the more there is to tell; and after all, I shall not get a copper more for pourtraying all this length of dog than I would for depicting an orbicular pig.

  SNAKING.

  Very talkative people always seemed to me to be divided into two classes-those who lie for a purpose and those who lie for the love of lying; and Sam Baxter belonged, with broad impartiality, to both. With him falsehood was not more frequently a means than an end; for he would not only lie without a purpose but at a sacrifice. I heard him once reading a newspaper to a blind aunt, and deliberately falsifying the market reports. The good old lady took it all in with a trustful faith, until he quoted dried apples at fifty cents a yard for unbolted sides; then she arose and disinherited him. Sam seemed to regard the fountain of truth as a stagnant pool, and himself an angel whose business it was to stand by and trouble the waters.

  "You know Ben Dean," said Sam to me one day; "I'm down on that fellow, and I'll tell you why. In the winter of '68 he and I were snaking togeth
er in the mountains north of the Big Sandy."

  "What do you mean by snaking, Sam?"

  "Well, I like that! Why, gathering snakes, to be sure-rattlesnakes for zoological gardens, museums, and side-shows to circuses. This is how it is done: a party of snakers go up to the mountains in the early autumn, with provisions for all winter, and putting up a snakery at some central point, get to work as soon as the torpid season sets in, and before there is much snow. I presume you know that when the nights begin to get cold, the snakes go in under big flat stones, snuggle together, and lie there frozen stiff until the warm days of spring limber them up for business.

  "We go about, raise up the rocks, tie the worms into convenient bundles and carry them to the snakery, where, during the snow season, they are assorted, labelled according to quality, and packed away for transportation. Sometimes a single showman will have as many as a dozen snakers in the mountains all winter.

  "Ben and I were out, one day, and had gathered a few sheaves of prime ones, when we discovered a broad stone that showed good indications, but we couldn't raise it. The whole upper part of the mountain seemed to be built mostly upon this one stone. There was nothing to be done but mole it-dig under, you know; so taking the spade I soon widened the hole the creatures had got in at, until it would admit my body. Crawling in, I found a kind of cell in the solid rock, stowed nearly full of beautiful serpents, some of them as long as a man. You would have revelled in those worms! They were neatly disposed about the sides of the cave, an even dozen in each berth, and some odd ones swinging from the ceiling in hammocks, like sailors. By the time I had counted them roughly, as they lay, it was dark, and snowing like the mischief. There was no getting back to head-quarters that night, and there was room for but one of us inside."

  "Inside what, Sam?"

  "See here! have you been listening to what I'm telling you, or not? There is no use telling you anything. Perhaps you won't mind waiting till I get done, and then you can tell something of your own. We drew straws to decide who should sleep inside, and it fell to me. Such luck as that fellow Ben always had drawing straws when I held them! It was sinful! But even inside it was coldish, and I was more than an hour getting asleep. Toward morning, though, I woke, feeling very warm and peaceful. The moon was at full, just rising in the valley below, and, shining in at the hole I'd entered at, it made everything light as day."

  "But, Sam, according to my astronomy a full moon never rises towards morning."

  "Now, who said anything about your astronomy? I'd like to know who is telling this-you or I? Always think you know more than I do-and always swearing it isn't so-and always taking the words out of my mouth, and-but what's the use of arguing with you? As I was saying, the snakes began waking about the same time I did; I could hear them turn over on their other sides and sigh. Presently one raised himself up and yawned. He meant well, but it was not the regular thing for an ophidian to do at that season. By-and-by they began to poke their heads up all round, nodding good morning to one another across the room; and pretty soon one saw me lying there and called attention to the fact. Then they all began to crowd to the front and hang out over the sides of the beds in a fringe, to study my habits. I can't describe the strange spectacle: you would have supposed it was the middle of March and a forward season! There were more worms than I had counted, and they were larger ones than I had thought. And the more they got awake the wider they yawned, and the longer they stretched. The fat fellows in the hammocks above me were in danger of toppling out and breaking their necks every minute.

  "Then it went through my mind like a flash what was the matter. Finding it cold outside, Ben had made a roaring fire on the top of the rock, and the heat had deceived the worms into the belief that it was late spring. As I lay there and thought of a full-grown man who hadn't any better sense than to do such a thing as that, I was mad enough to kill him. I lost confidence in mankind. If I had not stopped up the entrance before lying down, with a big round stone which the heat had swollen so that a hydraulic ram couldn't have butted it loose, I should have put on my clothes and gone straight home."

  "But, Sam, you said the entrance was open, and the moon shining in."

  "There you go again! Always contradicting-and insinuating that the moon must remain for hours in one position-and saying you've heard it told better by some one else-and wanting to fight! I've told this story to your brother over at Milk River more than a hundred million times, and he never said a word against it."

  "I believe you, Samuel; for he is deaf as a tombstone."

  "Tell you what to do for him! I know a fellow in Smith's Valley will cure him in a minute. That fellow has cleaned the deafness all out of Washington County a dozen times. I never knew a case of it that could stand up against him ten seconds. Take three parts of snake-root to a gallon of waggon-grease, and-I'll go and see if I can find the prescription!"

  And Sam was off like a rocket.

  MAUD'S PAPA.

  That is she in the old black silk-the one with the gimlet curls and the accelerated lap-cat. Doesn't she average about as I set her forth?

  "Never told you anything about her?" Well, I will.

  Twenty years ago, many a young man, of otherwise good character, would have ameliorated his condition for that girl; and would have thought himself overpaid if she had restored a fosy on his sepulchre. Maud would have been of the same opinion-and wouldn't have construed the fosy. And she was the most sagacious girl I ever experienced! As you shall hear.

  I was her lover, and she was mine. We loved ourselves to detraction. Maud lived a mile from any other house-except one brick barn. Not even a watch-dog about the place-except her father. This pompous old weakling hated me boisterously; he said I was dedicated to hard drink, and when in that condition was perfectly incompatible. I did not like him, too.

  One evening I called on Maud, and was surprised to meet her at the gate, with a shawl drawn over her head, and apparently in great combustion. She told me, hastily, the old man was ill of a fever, and had nearly derided her by going crazy.

  This was all a lie; something had gone wrong with the old party's eyes-amanuensis of the equinox, or something; he couldn't see well, but he was no more crazy than I was sober.

  "I was sitting quietly by him," said Maud, "when he sat up in bed and be-gan! You never in all your born life! I'm so glad you've come; you can take care of him while I fetch the doctor. He's quiet enough now, but you just wait till he gets another paralogism. When they're on-oh my! You mustn't let him talk, nor get out of bed; doctor says it would prolong the diagnosis. Go right in, now. Oh dear! whatever shall I ought to do?"

  And, blowing her eyes on the corner of her shawl, Maud shot away like a comic.

  I walked hurriedly into the house, and entered the old man's dromedary, without knocking.

  The playful girl had left that room a moment before, with every appearance of being frightened. She had told the old one there was a robber in the house, and the venerable invalid was a howling coward-I tell you this because I scorn to deceive you.

  I found the old gentleman with his head under the blankets, very quiet and speaceful: but the moment he heard me he got up, and yelled like a heliotrope. Then he fixed on me a wild spiercing look from his bloodshot eyes, and for the first time in my life I believed Maud had told me the truth for the first time in hers. Then he reached out for a heavy cane. But I was too punctual for him, and, clapping my hand on his breast, I crowded him down, holding him tight. He curvetted some; then lay still, and swore weak oaths that wouldn't have hurt a sick chicken! All this time I was firm as a rock of amaranth. Presently, moreover, he spoke very low and resigned like-except his teeth chattered:

  "Desperate man, there is no need; you will find it to the north-west corner of my upper secretary drawer. I spromise not to appear."

  "All right, my lobster-snouted bulbul," said I, delighted with the importunity of abusing him; "that is the dryest place you could keep it in, old spoolcotton! Be sure you don't let the ligh
t get to it, angleworm! Meantime, therefore, you must take this draught."

  "Draught!" he shrieked, meandering from the subject. "O my poor child!"-and he sprang up again, screaming a multiple of things.

  I had him by the shoulders in a minute, and crushed him back-except his legs kept agitating.

  "Keep still, will you?" said I, "you sugarcoated old mandible, or I'll conciliate your exegesis with a proletarian!"

  I never had such a flow of language in my life; I could say anything I wanted to.

  He quailed at that threat, for, deleterious as I thought him, he saw I meant it; but he affected to prefer it that way to taking it out of the bottle.

  "Better," he moaned, "better even that than the poison. Spare me the poisoned chalice, and you may do it in the way you mention."

  The "draught," it may be sproper to explain, was comprised in a large bottle sitting on the table. I thought it was medicine-except it was black-and although Maud (sweet screature!) had not told me to give him anything, I felt sure this was nasty enough for him, or anybody. And it was; it was ink. So I treated his proposed compromise with silent contempt, merely remarking, as I uncorked the bottle: "Medicine's medicine, my fine friend; and it is for the sick." Then, spinioning his arms with one of mine, I concerted the neck of the bottle between his teeth.

  "Now, you lacustrine old cylinder-escapement," I exclaimed, with some warmth, "hand up your stomach for this healing precoction, or I'm blest if I won't controvert your raison d'être!"

  He struggled hard, but, owing to my habit of finishing what I undertake, without any success. In ten minutes it was all down-except that some of it was spouted about rather circumstantially over the bedding, and walls, and me. There was more of the draught than I had thought. As he had been two days ill, I had supposed the bottle must be nearly empty; but, of course, when you think of it, a man doesn't abrogate much ink in an ordinary attack-except editors.