The Dogs of Boytown

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER II

  SAM'S SHACK

  The next Saturday was gray and chilly, but the weather did not deterErnest and Jack Whipple from starting off early for the woods. Theycarried their chestnut bags as a matter of course, but this time thechestnut trees offered them very little enticement. The ones they knewbest had already been robbed of their nuts, and they soon wearied of asomewhat profitless search. It was Jack who voiced what was in theminds of both boys.

  "I wish we could run across Sam Bumpus again," he said.

  Sam had said they could find him in the woods, but the woods had neverseemed so extensive and it was like hunting for a needle in ahaystack. They arrived at Beaver Pond and the Trapper's Cave withoutencountering any sign of the man and his dog.

  Chiefly as a matter of habit they built a small fire in front of theCave and sat down beside it on their log seat to consider the problemof finding an elusive hunter in the wide woods. They did not even openthe treasure chest.

  "He said anybody could tell us where to find him," said Jack, "butthere's no one to ask. People don't live in the woods, do they?"

  Ernest sat pondering. "Well," said he at length, "there's that oldwoman that gave us the doughnuts one day. Do you remember? She had alot of white hens that went right into her house, and a little dognamed Snider that was so old he could hardly breathe."

  "Oh, yes," responded Jack, brightening up. "Where does she live?"

  "I don't know exactly," said Ernest, mournfully, "but I think it wasover that way. We might find her if we hunted."

  The boys arose, put out their fire carefully, as all good woodsmenshould, and started off through the woods again. They must havetramped for nearly an hour, but the very uncertainty of the outcome oftheir quest gave it a touch of adventure and kept them going. At last,after following various false clues, they came out unexpectedly andabruptly into the clearing behind the old woman's house. The cacklingof fowls and the wheezy barking of little old Snider greeted them. Asthey approached, the old lady herself appeared in the doorway of herkitchen, clad in a faded blue dress and leaning on her stick. As soonas she saw that it was boys her face broke into a smile.

  "Come right in," she said, "and I'll get you some cookies."

  The boys entered and sat in the kitchen chairs to eat their cookies.They were anxious to be on their way in search of Sam Bumpus, butpoliteness demanded that they linger a few minutes. Ernest inquiredafter the health of old Snider. The widow shook her head sadly.

  "He's failin'," she replied. "I can see he's failin'. His teeth is allgone so he can't eat much and he has the azmy pretty bad. It's what usold folks has to expect, I s'pose, but I don't know what I'll do whenSnider goes. He's all I've got now."

  She wiped away a tear with the corner of her apron while the boysfidgeted in their chairs. They felt sorry for her, but they didn'tknow what to say on an occasion like this. Ernest reached down andpatted the little dog's head.

  "Poor old Snider," he murmured. Somehow that seemed to comfort the oldlady.

  At last Ernest found it possible to ask her if she knew Sam Bumpus.

  "Lor', yes," she responded. "Queer old codger, Sam is, but thebest-hearted man in the world. Many a good turn he's done me. He washere only this mornin' with some bones to make into soup for Snider."

  "Where did he go?" inquired Ernest.

  "He didn't say where he was goin', but I reckon if you was to go overto the Poor Farm you could find out. He was headed that way."

  The boys had ridden by the Poor Farm on several occasions but hadnever visited it, and they felt a slight hesitation about doing sonow, but the woman assured them that the inmates were all quiteharmless and gave them directions for a short cut. Thanking her forher kindness, and patting Snider good-by, they set off along a ruttywoods road and in a little while came to the Poor Farm. They crossedan inclosed field where a small drove of hogs were feeding, and wentaround to the front of the big white house.

  They did not have to inquire for Sam Bumpus, for there he was, asnatural as life, sitting on the steps of the veranda with Nanstretched out beside him. As the boys turned the corner of the househe arose with alacrity and held out his hand to them.

  "Well, well," he cried in his gruff voice, his face wreathed withsmiles, "this is a sight for sore eyes. Come right up and set downhere. I can't invite you in because this ain't my house. I'm just avisitor here myself. I have a lot of old cronies here, and besides, Iwant to get familiar with the place because I may have to come here tolive myself sometime."

  He rattled on so that the boys didn't have a chance to answer. Heled them up on the veranda to an old man who sat in a rocking chair,bundled up in a blanket, smoking a pipe carved wonderfully in the formof a stag's head.

  "These are my friends Ernest and Jack Whipple," he said to the oldman, "and they like dogs."

  At this the old man took his pipe from his mouth with a thin,trembling hand, looked at them out of pink, watery eyes, smiled, andnodded his white head.

  "This is Captain Tasker," Sam told the boys. "He don't talk much, buthe's forgotten more than you or I ever knew. Some day I'll tell youabout his dog that followed him to war. He's a Civil War veteran, andhe got wounded at Antietam. Show 'em your Grand Army badge, Captain.See?" he added to the boys. "I told you I was partic'lar who I knew."

  Nan got up and stretched herself and looked up at her masterinquiringly.

  "Yes, old girl," said Sam, "it's time we was gettin' along." Then,noticing that the boys looked disappointed, he added, "Come walk apiece with us, won't you? I'd like to talk with you."

  The boys readily acquiesced, and bidding good-by to Captain Tasker,they set out with Sam along a leafy woods road, with Nan rangingahead. All about them the forest beckoned alluringly, and Sam toldthem of spots where grouse and quail abounded, or where one mightreasonably expect to "jump" a rabbit.

  Arriving at length at the Oakdale Road, Sam and the boys seatedthemselves for a little while on a fallen log, while the formerconcluded a discourse on bird dogs and hunting.

  "Setters," he was saying, "are usually supposed to be the keenest andpointers the strongest, but in my opinion it all depends on thepartic'lar dog. Nowadays I hear a good deal about the pointer bein'the best dog, and I've owned some good ones myself. There's nothingprettier than a strong, wiry pointer doublin' and turnin' in the brushand freezin' to a steady point. But for my own part, give me awell-bred Llewellyn setter; they're the humanest dog they is. They'vegot the bird sense, too. Oh, you can't beat 'em."

  "Is it hard to train them?" asked Ernest, who was of a practical turnof mind.

  "Not so hard, if you know how," said Sam. "They have so much brainsthat they learn about as fast as you teach 'em. But you've got to knowhow to go at it. I've seen good sportsmen make a mess of it. Firstoff, you've got to find out if they've got a nose. That's easy enoughif you live with 'em and watch 'em. Hide something they want and seehow quick they find it. You've got to take 'em when they're young,of course. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, you know. But a goodbird dog has got it bred in him, and he picks it up quick enough ifyou can only be patient and if you show half as much sense as the dogdoes."

  Then he told, in his own peculiar fashion, how he started with thepuppies, teaching them to retrieve objects such as sticks and balls,and later dead birds that they must learn to carry gently withoutusing their teeth.

  "Never let 'em think it's just a romp they're havin'," he continued."I like to play with puppies as well as anyone, but when I'm breakin''em I let 'em understand that it's business. Never let 'em have theirown way if they want to do the wrong thing, and never give 'em anorder without seein' that it's carried out if it takes all day. That'swhere the patience comes in. Teach 'em to obey, and you can do mostanything with 'em."

  "Do you whip them if they don't obey?" asked Ernest.

  "Never whipped a dog in my life," said Sam, decidedly, "except a foxterrier I had once. They're different. A whipped setter is a spoiledsetter, and if you can't make 'em do what you
want 'em to withoutwhippin' 'em or bribin' 'em, you'd better get out of the business. Ofcourse, I sometimes give a puppy a piece of cookie or something toshow him he's done what he ought to, but I never use the whip. There'sother kinds of punishment that work better and don't break theirspirits. Just keep 'em from havin' what they want, and tease 'em intowantin' it awful bad, and you can make 'em do most anything."

  He then went on to explain his method of teaching a young dog to holdhis point in the field. He used a long rope tied to a stout collar,and led the dog to a thicket where a dead bird lay. When the dog gotthe scent and started to dash in, a sharp jerk on the rope restrainedhim, and in time he was thus taught to stand rigid when the scent camestrong to his nostrils.

  "That's one way to teach a dog not to chase chickens, too," he added."But a puppy born of trained parents gets the pointin' habit almost byinstinct, and retrievin', too. The main thing is to make himunderstand that he's got to do the trick and not something else thathappens to pop into his head. After that, you can teach 'em to answeryour whistle or a wave of your hand and hunt just where you want 'emto."

  "Aren't they afraid of a gun at first?" asked Jack, who had neverlearned not to jump when a gun went off.

  "Some of 'em are," said Sam. "If a dog is gun-shy he's got to bebroken of that before he's any good in the field. Some folks say youcan never break a dog that's really gun-shy, but I never seen one yetthat I couldn't cure."

  "How do you do it?" asked Ernest.

  "Well, one way is to give the dog something he wants every time youshoot off a gun. You can shoot over his dinner, and not let him haveany till he comes up to where you and the gun are. Keep at it, andafter awhile he begins to connect the sound of the gun with thingsthat he likes. Always take a gun when you go out for a walk with him,and after awhile he will bark and act happy every time you take itfrom the rack. The whole idea of breakin' a bird dog is to make himthink that the thing you want him to do is the thing he wants to do,and never let that idea get away from him."

  The boys continued to ply him with questions, for this was a subjectthat they had never heard about before, and Sam willingly added moredetails of the process of training. At length he took a big dollarwatch from his pocket and consulted it.

  "Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know it was gettin' solate. I'll have to be hurryin' along. Say," he added, a littlewistfully, "come up to my house and see me sometime, won't you? Iain't got anything very elegant up there, but I could show yousomething in the line o' dogs and guns that might interest you."

  "Oh, we'd love to, if our folks'll let us," said Ernest. "Where do youlive?"

  Sam gave them careful directions.

  "First and third Tuesdays used to be my days for callers, but nobodycame," said he, as he started up the road with Nan. "So now any oldday will do--if I'm home."

  "How about next Saturday?" asked Ernest.

  "Saturday it is," said Sam Bumpus, and with a wave of his hand hevanished around a bend in the road.

  Clothes do not make the man, and boys are apt to overlook certainsuperficial peculiarities and defects which seem more significant totheir elders. In Sam Bumpus they saw only a man of good humor andwonderful wisdom, a man whose manner of life was vastly moreinteresting than that of the common run of people, whose knowledge ofthe lore of woods and fields, of dogs and hunting, entitled him to ahigh place in their estimation. They overlooked the externals, theevidences of poverty and shiftlessness, his lack of education, and sawonly his native wit and shrewdness, his kinship with the world ofnature, and his goodness of heart. They considered it a piece of rare good fortune to have made the acquaintance of so wise andsympathetic a person and they felt indebted to him for permission tovisit him, to hear him talk, and to glean from him something of theknowledge that had come to him through experience.

  To Sam Bumpus, however, the obligation seemed to be on the other side.The boys did not know it, but Sam Bumpus was a lonely man and cravedhuman companionship. He lived like a hermit in his little shack in thewoods and his peculiarities had set him somewhat apart from the worldof men. He had no living relatives, and apart from the old lady in thewoods road, the inmates of the Poor Farm, and a few otherout-of-the-way people with whom he had been able to win his waythrough his natural generosity and kindness, he had practically nofriends but his dogs. He understood dogs better than he understoodmen, and, to tell the truth, he esteemed them more highly; yet hesometimes hungered for human comradeship. That two frank-hearted,unspoiled boys should seek him out and seem to desire his company gavehim a feeling of unaccustomed satisfaction, and he looked forward totheir promised visit fully as eagerly as did the boys themselves.

  This proposed visit was such an unusual affair that Ernest Whippleconsidered it advisable to speak to his father about it. Mr. Whipplewas reading his paper and made but little comment, but Mrs. Whipple,who was in the room at the time, raised objections.

  "Don't you think it might be unsafe for the boys to go away off therealone?" she asked anxiously. "We don't know anything about this man.He may have a bad influence on them, even if nothing more serioushappens to them. He's a very uncouth person, I should say, and hardlya fit companion for little boys."

  "Oh, I don't think he'll hurt them," said Mr. Whipple from behind hispaper.

  But the mother wasn't satisfied, and after the boys had gone to bedshe again brought the matter up.

  "Well, mother," said Mr. Whipple, "he probably isn't the sort ofguide, philosopher, and friend that we would have picked out for theboys, but parents can't always do the picking. They are getting olderall the time, and sooner or later they must be thrown on their ownresources. Self-reliance doesn't come from constant protection andhemming in. We can't keep them from striking up acquaintances, andbefore we raise objections we should be sure that they're wellgrounded; then we shall be able to make our objections count formore."

  "But I should think there was good ground for objection in this case,"she persisted. "This man seems to be so crude and rough, if nothingworse."

  "Oh, he's all right," responded the father. "Don't think I'm carelessabout these things. I've made some inquiries, and though I find thatBumpus is unconventional and queer, as they say, and improvident anduneducated, he's honest and law-abiding. So far as I can find out, theworst thing he ever does is to give tobacco to the inmates of the PoorFarm. I know people right here on Washburn Street that would do theboys more harm. Just because he doesn't live like folks on WashburnStreet doesn't make him bad."

  "Well," said Mrs. Whipple, doubtfully, "I suppose you know best, butfor my part I would much prefer to keep them safe home with me, forsome years to come."

  "That's because you've never been a boy," said Mr. Whipple, with asmile in his eyes. "I have, and it doesn't seem so very long ago,either."

  Mrs. Whipple was not satisfied, but she did not forbid the proposedvisit. The next Saturday, therefore, found them early on their way,filled with joyful anticipations.

  Sam's shack, when at last they arrived, proved to be a forlorn affair,built of boards of different widths, some red, some white, and someunpainted. The sagging roof was of corrugated iron and the onlychimney was built of cement pipe guyed up with wires. But to the eyesof the boys it was a most attractive abode. Never before had theyseen such an interesting house. There must be an element of sport inliving in a cabin like this, they thought.

  Sam heard their footsteps and met them smilingly at the door. Heushered them at once inside, where he had a wood fire roaring in hisstove, for the day was chilly, and he promptly set before them glassesof milk and hot corn bread. Though they had breakfasted only two hoursbefore, they fell to with gusto, for that is the way of boys.

  "How do you like my corn bread?" asked Sam.

  "M-m!" murmured Jack, taking a fresh bite.

  "Do you bake it yourself?" inquired Ernest.

  "Sure," said Sam.

  "Gee!" exclaimed Ernest, looking up at him with admiration.

  After they had fully refreshed themse
lves, Sam took them out through aback door, from which they could see a number of small structures thatlooked as though they had been made out of dry-goods boxes. The soundof excited barking smote their ears, a chorus of canine cries andyelps. Old Nan came bounding forward to greet the boys, for she knewthem now, and behind her loped a big pointer.

  "This is Hillcroft Dick," said Sam, by way of introduction. "He's afamous dog, a champion on the bench and at the trials. He ain't mydog, though. I'm just boardin' him for a man that's gone toCalifornia. I wish I owned him, though. He's a great dog."

  Chow Chow]

  The boys didn't understand the reference to bench shows and fieldtrials, but they gathered that Dick was some sort of nobleman amongdogs and they were visibly impressed.

  "Now we'll go out to the kennels," said Sam.

  There were seven dogs, all told, besides Nan and Dick. There weretwo cocker spaniels, in the first place, that Sam said he was trainingfor a man in Oakdale.

  "I like a bigger dog, myself," said he, "but there's a lot of good dogwrapped up in these small bundles. They're smart as whips, and thoughI've got to make 'em forget their foolin' and parlor tricks, I'll soonhave 'em able to find and retrieve. Sometimes you can even teach aspaniel to point."

  The other five were all Sam's dogs, another pointer, a little smallerthan Dick, and four beautiful English setters.

  "They've got the best blood in the land," said Sam, proudly, "andevery one of 'em is letter perfect on his job. This is Rex and this isRobbin and this is Rockaway."

  The boys patted and spoke to each in turn, hugely enjoying thisintroduction to Sam's family.

  "And this one over here is the best of all," he continued. "That'sNellie, own sister to Nan, and what she don't know wouldn't hurt aflea. But I guess I'd better keep you away from her to-day. She ain'tfeelin' very well."

  After they had fondled and played with the dogs to their hearts'content, the boys followed Sam again into the house, where they spentthe rest of the morning smoothing Nan's silky hair and listening towonderful stories about the sagacity of Nellie and the other dogs.

  So pleasantly was the time employed that it was eleven o'clock bySam's big watch before they thought it possible, and as they hadpromised to be home in time for dinner, they were obliged,reluctantly, to take their departure.

  As they turned the bend in the road they looked back and saw Samstanding in his low doorway with Nan sitting picturesquely beside him.

  "Come again soon," called Sam.

  "We will," the boys shouted in reply.