My father
was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is
what my mother told me, I do not know these nice distinctions myself. To me
they are only fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness for
such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious, as
wondering how she got so much education. But, indeed, it was not real
education; it was only show: she got the words by listening in the dining-room
and drawing-room when there was company, and by going with the children to
Sunday-school and listening there; and whenever she heard a large word she said
it over to herself many times, and so was able to keep it until there was a
dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off, and surprise
and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded her for all
her trouble. If there was a stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and
when he got his breath again he would ask her what it meant. And she always
told him. He was never expecting this but thought he would catch her; so when
she told him, he was the one that looked ashamed, whereas he had thought it was
going to be she. The others were always waiting for this, and glad of it and
proud of her, for they knew what was going to happen, because they had had
experience. When she told the meaning of a big word they were all so taken up
with admiration that it never occurred to any dog to doubt if it was the right
one; and that was natural, because, for one thing, she answered up so promptly
that it seemed like a dictionary speaking, and for another thing, where could
they find out whether it was right or not? for she was the only cultivated dog
there was. By and by, when I was older, she brought home the word
Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty hard all the week at different
gatherings, making much unhappiness and despondency; and it was at this time
that I noticed that during that week she was asked for the meaning at eight
different assemblages, and flashed out a fresh definition every time, which
showed me that she had more presence of mind than culture, though I said
nothing, of course. She had one word which she always kept on hand, and ready,
like a life-preserver, a kind of emergency word to strap on when she was likely
to get washed overboard in a sudden way - that was the word Synonymous. When
she happened to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks before and
its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a stranger there of
course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes, then he would come to,
and by that time she would be away down wind on another tack, and not expecting
anything; so when he’d hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the
inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment - but only just a moment - then it would belly
out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer’s day, “It’s
synonymous with supererogation,” or some godless long reptile of a word like
that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectly
comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane and embarrassed,
and the initiated slatting the floor with their tails in unison and their faces
transfigured with a holy joy.
And it was
the same with phrases. She would drag home a whole phrase, if it had a grand
sound, and play it six nights and two matinees, and explain it a new way every
time - which she had to, for all she cared for was the phrase; she wasn’t
interested in what it meant, and knew those dogs hadn’t wit enough to catch
her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She got so she wasn’t afraid of anything,
she had such confidence in the ignorance of those creatures. She even brought
anecdotes that she had heard the family and the dinner-guests laugh and shout
over; and as a rule she got the nub of one chestnut hitched onto another
chestnut, where, of course, it didn’t fit and hadn’t any point; and when she
delivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed and barked
in the most insane way, while I could see that she was wondering to herself why
it didn’t seem as funny as it did when she first heard it. But no harm was
done; the others rolled and barked too, privately ashamed of themselves for not
seeing the point, and never suspecting that the fault was not with them and
there wasn’t any to see.
You can see
by these things that she was of a rather vain and frivolous character; still,
she had virtues, and enough to make up, I think. She had a kind heart and
gentle ways, and never harbored resentments for injuries done her, but put them
easily out of her mind and forgot them; and she taught her children her kindly
way, and from her we learned also to be brave and prompt in time of danger, and
not to run away, but face the peril that threatened friend or stranger, and
help him the best we could without stopping to think what the cost might be to
us. And she taught us not by words only, but by example, and that is the best
way and the surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, the
splendid things! she was just a soldier; and so modest about it - well, you
couldn’t help admiring her, and you couldn’t help imitating her; not even a
King Charles spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her society. So, as
you see, there was more to her than her education.
Chapter II
When I was
well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away, and I never saw her again. She
was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but she comforted me as well as
she could, and said we were sent into this world for a wise and good purpose,
and must do our duties without repining, take our life as we might find it,
live it for the best good of others, and never mind about the results; they
were not our affair. She said men who did like this would have a noble and
beautiful reward by and by in another world, and although we animals would not
go there, to do well and right without reward would give to our brief lives a
worthiness and dignity which in itself would be a reward. She had gathered
these things from time to time when she had gone to the Sunday-school with the
children, and had laid them up in her memory more carefully than she had done
with those other words and phrases; and she had studied them deeply, for her good
and ours. One may see by this that she had a wise and thoughtful head, for all
there was so much lightness and vanity in it.
So we said
our farewells, and looked our last upon each other through our tears; and the
last thing she said - keeping it for the last to make me remember it the
better, I think - was, “In memory of me, when there is a time of danger to
another do not think of yourself, think of your mother, and do as she would
do.”
Do you
think I could forget that? No.
Chapter III
It was such
a charming home! - my new one; a fine great house, with pictures, and delicate
decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom anywhere, but all the wilderness
of dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine; and the spacious grounds around
it, and the great garden - oh, greensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no
end! And I was the same as a member of the family; and they loved me, and
petted me, and did not give me a new name, but called me by my old one that was
dear to me because my mother had given it me - Aileen Mavourneen. She got it out of a song;
and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.
Mrs. Gray
was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine it; and Sadie was
ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender little copy of her, with
auburn tails down her back, and short frocks; and the baby was a year old, and
plump and dimpled, and fond of me, and never could get enough of hauling on my
tail, and hugging me, and laughing out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was
thirty-eight, and tall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert,
quick in his movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with
that kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle with
frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know what the
word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get effects. She would
know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog look sorry he
came. But that is not the best one; the best one was Laboratory. My mother
could organize a Trust on that one that would skin the tax-collars off the
whole herd. The laboratory was not a book, or a picture, or a place to wash
your hands in, as the college president’s dog said - no, that is the lavatory;
the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and
electrics, and wires, and strange machines; and every week other scientists
came there and sat in the place, and used the machines, and discussed, and made
what they called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood
around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in
loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realizing what she was
losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all; for try as I might, I was
never able to make anything out of it at all.
Other times
I lay on the floor in the mistress’s work-room and slept, she gently using me
for a foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it was a caress; other times I
spent an hour in the nursery, and got well tousled and made happy; other times
I watched by the crib there, when the baby was asleep and the nurse out for a
few minutes on the baby’s affairs; other times I romped and raced through the
grounds and the garden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on the
grass in the shade of a tree while she read her book; other times I went
visiting among the neighbor dogs - for
there were some most pleasant ones not far away, and one very handsome and
courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish setter by the name of Robin
Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister.
The
servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me, and so, as you
see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be a happier dog that I was, nor
a gratefuller one. I will say this for myself, for it is only the truth: I
tried in all ways to do well and right, and honor my mother’s memory and her
teachings, and earn the happiness that had come to me, as best I could.
By and by
came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness was perfect. It
was the dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth and soft and velvety, and
had such cunning little awkward paws, and such affectionate eyes, and such a
sweet and innocent face; and it made me so proud to see how the children and
their mother adored it, and fondled it, and exclaimed over every little
wonderful thing it did. It did seem to me that life was just too lovely to -
Then came
the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the nursery. That is to say, I
was asleep on the bed. The baby was asleep in the crib, which was alongside the
bed, on the side next the fireplace. It was the kind of crib that has a lofty
tent over it made of gauzy stuff that you can see through. The nurse was out,
and we two sleepers were alone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it
lit on the slope of the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a
scream from the baby awoke me, and there was that tent flaming up toward the
ceiling! Before I could think, I sprang to the floor in my fright, and in a
second was half-way to the door; but in the next half-second my mother’s
farewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed again. I reached my
head through the flames and dragged the baby out by the waist-band, and tugged
it along, and we fell to the floor together in a cloud of smoke; I snatched a
new hold, and dragged the screaming little creature along and out at the door
and around the bend of the hall, and was still tugging away, all excited and
happy and proud, when the master’s voice shouted:
“Begone you
cursed beast!” and I jumped to save myself; but he was furiously quick, and
chased me up, striking furiously at me with his cane, I dodging this way and
that, in terror, and at last a strong blow fell upon my left foreleg, which
made me shriek and fall, for the moment, helpless; the came went up for another
blow, but never descended, for the nurse’s voice rang wildly out, “The
nursery’s on fire!” and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other
bones were saved.
The pain
was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time; he might come back at any
moment; so I limped on three legs to the other end of the hall, where there was
a dark little stairway leading up into a garret where old boxes and such things
were kept, as I had heard say, and where people seldom went. I managed to climb
up there, then I searched my way through the dark among the piles of things,
and hid in the secretest place I could find. It was foolish to be afraid there,
yet still I was; so afraid that I held in and hardly even whimpered, though it
would have been such a comfort to whimper, because that eases the pain, you
know. But I could lick my leg, and that did some good.
For half an
hour there was a commotion downstairs, and shoutings, and rushing footsteps,
and then there was quiet again. Quiet for some minutes, and that was grateful
to my spirit, for then my fears began to go down; and fears are worse than
pains - oh, much worse. Then came a sound that froze me. They were calling me -
calling me by name - hunting for me!
It was
muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of it, and it was
the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It went all about, everywhere,
down there: along the halls, through all the rooms, in both stories, and in the
basement and the cellar; then outside, and farther and farther away - then
back, and all about the house again, and I thought it would never, never stop.
But at last it did, hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had
long ago been blotted out by black darkness.
Then in
that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away, and I was at
peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke before the twilight had
come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable, and I could think out a plan now.
I made a very good one; which was, to creep down, all the way down the back
stairs, and hide behind the cellar door, and slip out and escape when the
iceman came at dawn, while he was inside filling the refrigerator; then I would
hide all day, and start on my journey when night came; my journey to - well,
anywhere where they would not know me and betray me to the master. I was
feeling almost cheerful now; then suddenly I thought: Why, what would life be
without my puppy!
That was
despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I must say where I was; stay,
and wait, and take what might come - it was not my affair; that was what life
is - my mother had said it. Then - well, then the calling began again! All my
sorrows came back. I said to myself, the master will never forgive. I did not
know what I had done to make him so bitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it
was something a dog could not understand, but which was clear to a man and
dreadful.
They called
and called - days and nights, it seemed to me. So long that the hunger and
thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I was getting very weak. When
you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an awful
fright - it seemed to me that the calling was right there in the garret! And so
it was: it was Sadie’s voice, and she was crying; my name was falling from her
lips all broken, poor thing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it
when I heard her say:
“Come back
to us - oh, come back to us, and forgive - it is all so sad without our - ”
I broke in
with such a grateful little yelp, and the next moment Sadie was plunging and
stumbling through the darkness and the lumber and shouting for the family to
hear, “She’s found, she’s found!”
The days
that followed - well, they were wonderful. The mother and Sadie and the
servants - why, they just seemed to worship me. They couldn’t seem to make me a
bed that was fine enough; and as for food, they couldn’t be satisfied with
anything but game and delicacies that were out of season; and every day the
friends and neighbors flocked in to hear about my heroism - that was the name
they called it by, and it means agriculture. I remember my mother pulling it on
a kennel once, and explaining it in that way, but didn’t say what agriculture
was, except that it was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and a dozen
times a day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I
risked my life to say the baby’s, and both of us had burns to prove it, and
then the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about me, and you
could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and when the people
wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed and changed the subject,
and sometimes when people hunted them this way and that way with questions
about it, it looked to me as if they were going to cry.
And this
was not all the glory; no, the master’s friends came, a whole twenty of the most
distinguished people, and had me in the laboratory, and discussed me as if I
was a kind of discovery; and some of them said it was wonderful in a dumb
beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they could call to mind; but the
master said, with vehemence, “It’s far above instinct; it’s reason, and many a
man, privileged to be saved and go with you and me to a better world by right
of its possession, has less of it that this poor silly quadruped that’s
foreordained to perish"; and then he laughed, and said: “Why, look at me -
I’m a sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand intelligence, the only think I
inferred was that the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas
but for the beast’s intelligence - it’s reason, I tell you! - the child would
have perished!”
They
disputed and disputed, and I was the very center of subject of it all, and I
wished my mother could know that this grand honor had come to me; it would have
made her proud.
Then they
discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certain injury to the brain
would produce blindness or not, but they could not agree about it, and said
they must test it by experiment by and by; and next they discussed plants, and
that interested me, because in the summer Sadie and I had planted seeds - I
helped her dig the holes, you know - and after days and days a little shrub or
a flower came up there, and it was a wonder how that could happen; but it did,
and I wished I could talk - I would have told those people about it and shown
then how much I knew, and been all alive with the subject; but I didn’t care
for the optics; it was dull, and when the came back to it again it bored me,
and I went to sleep.
Pretty soon
it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely, and the sweet mother and the
children patted me and the puppy good-by, and went away on a journey and a
visit to their kin, and the master wasn’t any company for us, but we played
together and had good times, and the servants were kind and friendly, so we got
along quite happily and counted the days and waited for the family.
And one day
those men came again, and said, now for the test, and they took the puppy to
the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along, too, feeling proud, for any
attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course. They discussed
and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked, and they set him on the
floor, and he went staggering around, with his head all bloody, and the master
clapped his hands and shouted:
“There,
I’ve won - confess it! He’s a blind as a bat!”
And they
all said:
“It’s so - you’ve
proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you a great debt from
henceforth,” and they crowded around him, and wrung his hand cordially and
thankfully, and praised him.
But I
hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my little darling, and
snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood, and it put its head
against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in my heart it was a comfort to it
in its pain and trouble to feel its mother’s touch, though it could not see me.
Then it dropped down, presently, and its little velvet nose rested upon the
floor, and it was still, and did not move any more.
Soon the
master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman, and said, “Bury it
in the far corner of the garden,” and then went on with the discussion, and I
trotted after the footman, very happy and grateful, for I knew the puppy was
out of its pain now, because it was asleep. We went far down the garden to the
farthest end, where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play
in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole,
and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would
grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful
surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my
lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is
no use. When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my
head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: “Poor little doggie, you
saved his child!”
I have
watched two whole weeks, and he doesn’t come up! This last week a fright has
been stealing upon me. I think there is something terrible about this. I do not
know what it is, but the fear makes me sick, and I cannot eat, though the
servants bring me the best of food; and they pet me so, and even come in the
night, and cry, and say, “Poor doggie - do give it up and come home; don’t
break our hearts!” and all this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure
something has happened. And I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my
feet anymore. And within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where
it was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said things I could
not understand, but they carried something cold to my heart.
“Those poor
creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in the morning, and eagerly
ask for the little doggie that did the brave deed, and who of us will be strong
enough to say the truth to them: ’The humble little friend is gone where go the
beasts that perish.’”
(Mark Twain
(1835-1910))
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