CHAPTER XVIII

THE SHOWMAN’S DOGS

It was six months ago that the twins came, and now they are fine healthy young babies, being pushed round in their perambulator all over the place by their nurse, who is so well-trained and so up-to-date that she is over-trained or “fine” as Gringo says.

Gringo and I were watching them one day a few weeks ago, as we sat side by side up in the orchard at the Bonstones’. This orchard is a little one containing very old trees, and is never ploughed. It is a lovely shady place to rest, for the grass is kept short and is soft as a carpet. It has become quite a social meeting-place for the dogs of the neighbourhood, and we often discuss things there.

“Fine babies, those,” I remarked.

“Yes,” assented Gringo, “I suppose you wouldn’t find a finer pair in the whole state of New York.”

“Do you like them better than the little girl, Cyria?” I asked.

Old Gringo wrinkled his forehead. “I never think about that,” he said. “They’re all ours, and I guess the mister and missis don’t think of it either.”

“That’s good,” I replied. “I’d hate to see the little brown baby made uncomfortable.”

Gringo chuckled. “Those were great times back in New York, but I’m glad I’m in this army.”

“There’s no doubt about it, you are firmly wedded to country life now,” I said.

“Wedded, I guess so, and I often snicker to think how I’d have fought to a finish any dog in the Bowery that told me I’d get to praise the country and run down the city.”

“And you thought you’d get bored here,” I said with a sly laugh.

“Bored,” and he grunted happily, “what chance have I? It’s up at daylight with mister, and out to the stables and barn, laying out the day’s work for the men, examining the stock to see they’re all first class--by the way, mister’s going to make a fortune raising colts, ’cause the war cleaned out all the horses--then in the house for breakfast--I say, Boy, things do taste good out here in this clear air--then in town in the car, out again, and pottering around after missis and little Cyria, out in the gardens and after the hens till lunch time, then a drive in for mister, and a stop in the village with him.”

“I say, Gringo,” I interrupted, “I believe of all the things your master and mine have done out here, that automobile school is the best.”

“Right you are,” said the old dog. “These lads that my boss picks up out of prisons, and in the streets, won’t settle down to anything that isn’t pretty lively. They’ll break colts or hustle round a machine shop, but they’ll not stick to indoor work.”

“That breaking colts is new business to me,” I said. “How can you take a pale, weak, city lad and make him successful? I thought you had to have strong men.”

“Oh, that’s the old brute way,” said Gringo. “You begin now when coltie is young and tender. Hitch him up with a little bit of something dangling after him. Break him in gradually to something bigger. Lots of these city yaps haven’t ever had anything to like--anything decent, you know.”

“I understand,” I replied. “They’ve had nothing to love.”

“There’s one rogue,” said Gringo, “who sleeps in the boxstall with his pet colt, and ’pon my word, I’ve seen him with his arm round its neck. He’s a guttersnipe, and my boss will soon rout him out and make him sleep in a bed, but he ain’t too hasty with these low-life chaps.”

“What’s this new talk about jitney cars?” I asked.

“Our bosses have got a lot of second-hand cars, and are doctoring them for some of our lads who can run them about New York like a taxi-man does.”

“But a jitney is a five-cent fare thing, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it pays. Catch my boss in anything that doesn’t speak up when it’s spoken to.”

“That will be fine,” I said, “for then the boys will be self-supporting.”

“I didn’t finish my day, Boy,” said the old dog, “after we tot up things down at the village, we have our supper, and don’t the food taste first-class, then a short evening on the veranda, and then bed. I tell you it’s a full day, as full as a Bowery day.”

I laughed, and he laughed too; then I said, “I’m mighty glad, old man, that the intimacy between our two families has kept up.”

“So am I,” said he, “but do you know what I overheard when we first came out? Says my missie to your missie, ‘Claudia, we are only a mile apart. If we see too much of each other, we shall fight. We ’most did the other day--and our husbands shouldn’t be too much together. They’ll fall out, sure as rats.’”

“Did she says ‘rats’?” I asked.

“Oh! that, or something like it,” said the old dog so impatiently that I resolved not to interrupt him again.

“Well,” he went on, “says she, says my missie to yours, ‘I’d hate to have a break,’ and your missie said so would she, then they said they wouldn’t call for a week, and next morning your missie was over to borrow a pattern for a pair of knitted reins for Georgie to play horsie, and my missie was back in the afternoon to take her some sweet pickles she had been making. So there you are--and I must not forget to say that the two families were all over on your veranda in the evening.”

“Good joke,” I said laughing heartily, “and we dogs are just as friendly as the human beings.”

“Thick as thieves,” said Gringo, “and I must say we’re a pretty good gang.”

As Gringo was speaking, two of the dogs in the performing troupe that Amarilla belonged to, came round the corner of the house. They are two beautiful snow-white French poodles, and have exquisite manners. When they first came out, they were thin and frightened. That was before we arrived. By the time we came, they were fat and prosperous and happy looking dogs. On the stage, they had worn their hair clipped in the approved fashion for poodles, and their forelocks were tied up with ribbon.

Mrs. Bonstone took the ribbons off, for she wanted them to be real dogs, she said, and they are only clipped now when warm weather comes, and then all over.

It does Gringo and me all the good in the world to see the quiet delight these two handsome dogs take in their well-ordered life here. They are full of interest in American life. They were born in Paris, and at first they thought the whole world was bounded by the Seine where they used to be taken to be washed. Then they were sold to this dreadful man, Fifeson, who beat them sometimes, but not nearly as often as he beat Amarilla, for poodles are naturally splendid trick dogs, and learn things easily.

“Gringo,” I said, “do you think these dogs are any different from other dogs who have never been treated cruelly?”

“’Course I do,” he growled. “Don’t you see they ain’t like you and me?”

“Yes, I see it,” I replied, “but I wanted to know whether you did.”

“Their spirit’s broken,” he said. “The Frenchmen are happy, but there’s a look in their eye, as if they wouldn’t be surprised any minute, if some one up and struck them.”

“Weary Winnie doesn’t show it as much as they do,” I said.

Gringo grinned. Weary Winnie was his pet among the showman’s dogs. She was a fat, lazy, young miniature bull-dog with a wrinkled muzzle that looked as if she were always smelling something disagreeable and one white tooth that stuck out beyond the others. She came of grand stock, but was rather stupid, and had played an old woman on the stage, being dressed up in a shawl and bonnet. Amarilla says her beatings were awful, for she couldn’t seem to learn the simplest thing. The showman made her hold things in her mouth, and at last he had to give up the pipe, for she always let it fall out. Finally he tied a basket to her lips, and the string hurt her.

When we came out here, she was taken over to our house to be a playmate for me, but she used to run away and howl about this place till at last master asked Mr. Bonstone to keep her. When she isn’t sleeping, she is paddling about after Gringo, and looking just about as graceful as he does.

She sleeps in a box-stall in one of the stables, with the Frenchmen. Mr. Bonstone likes to have plenty of dogs about his horses, for they are such good guardians. No stranger can get near the horses when the dogs are at their post, and some of them are always in or near the stables.

Gringo, of course, always sleeps in his master’s dressing-room. He saved Mr. Bonstone’s life once, out west, when a bad man who was his enemy crawled in a window at night, and was just about to shoot at that head on the pillow so dear to Gringo.

“How did you stop him?” I often ask Gringo, for he loves to tell the story.

“Just took a playful leap at his throat,” the old dog always says.

“And what did your master do?”

“Heard the rumpus, got up, and took the man’s gun away.”

“And what did the man do?”

“Broke down, and wanted to shake hands with the boss.”

“And what did your master do?”

“Shook, and told him to go home, and get another gun.”

Gringo, of course, can leap like a cat, that being one of the characteristics of a thoroughbred bull-dog. He, however, can jump higher than most bull-dogs, for the man from whom Mr. Bonstone bought him had given him special training. He was a famous boxer, and Gringo says he used to put on gloves and have many a go with him. Gringo would spring at the boxer’s chest--he was a six-footer--and try to bite a button from his vest. The boxer would give him good blows with his gloves, and drive him away, but Gringo always came back. It was rough training, but it made the young dog hardy.

Besides the Frenchmen and Weary Winnie, the Bonstones have Yeggie, a mongrel, another one of the showman’s lot. Oh! what an eloquent looking little fellow he is. His eyes seem to be pleading with you to make up some message, that he is unable to deliver.

Amarilla says he is another one that got plenty of whacks from the showman. She says that look of tears in his eyes, means that he is trying to tell you of his troubles, so that you will sympathise with him.

All these show dogs have nightmare most horribly. That is one reason why Gringo won’t allow Weary Winnie to sleep in the house with him. He had her in one night, and he said that though he was fond of the creature, he couldn’t have her yelling blue murder every hour in his ear.

Yeggie is young and dashing, and hasn’t very good manners. He was a tramp dog when the showman got him, and sometimes he annoys me by saying that I, too, led a tramp’s life. I explain to him over and over again, that a wandering dog isn’t necessarily a tramp dog, but he can’t make the distinction. Poor fellow, he hadn’t early advantages, and is rather inelegant in his ways. We older dogs are always correcting him, but he forgets easily and is still very heedless. However, he has a very happy time, and that is the main thing. He loves the men and the horses, and always sleeps on the foot of Joe’s bed in his room over the larger of the two stables.

Thomas sleeps in the other stable, and Czarina is always his companion. She is a magnificent Russian wolfhound, and is Mrs. Bonstone’s special pet, next to Sir Walter, who is the favourite-in-chief, though he is not very much with his mistress now on account of his devotion to the hens.

I should have mentioned sooner this aristocratic dog. From the start, Sir Walter liked the idea of moving to the country, for it suggested his former life in Scotland.

Gringo and I imagined he would be the show-dog of the place--always in evidence on the avenue, in the drawing-room, on the verandas, or hanging about the automobiles.

To our amazement, that dog’s one idea when he got to the country was to have something to boss. He would have preferred sheep, but Mr. Bonstone could not keep any, as we are too near the city. Sir Walter could do nothing with the horses, for the men were with them all the time, and told them what to do.

“He wants to run a show of his own,” Gringo used to say, “and though I like the dog, he ain’t going to boss me!”

He couldn’t boss me, either, and not one of the showman’s dogs minded a word he said. He did fuss round the Jersey cows a bit, but the lad that drove them to and from the pasture wouldn’t have Sir Walter interfering, so he took to following Mrs. Bonstone about when she took care of her large flock of hens.

They were beautiful white Wyandottes, and were kind and sensible. It is wonderful what intelligence hens have when one treats them well. Sir Walter got interested in them, found he could order them about to his heart’s content, and when seeding-time came, he had made himself so useful that kind-hearted Mrs. Bonstone was delighted to be able to give them their liberty, under his superintendence.

Those hens knew just as well as Christians that it was naughty to scratch up the seeds in the vegetable and flower gardens, but they had a pleasant little way of yielding to temptation till Sir Walter took them in hand.

“Bow, wow! chickies,” he would say, running round and round them, and carefully steering them away from danger points to the orchard or the meadow, or the new land that was being broken up by a plough.

Those hens minded him beautifully, and he was as happy as the day was long.

At first, the other dogs would roar with laughter to see him rush out to the hen-houses in the morning, wait for his charges to be let out, and wander about with them all day.

One day he caught Yeggie making faces at him, and gave him a great walloping, and that taught all of us to be more respectful. If he liked hens, he had a right to associate with them.

“A gentleman can perform any kind of menial labour without degrading himself,” Sir Walter said to Yeggie, and emphasised it by a bite on the ear.

As time went on, the hens became more and more of a passion with Sir Walter, and by the time the twins came he was sleeping out in a kennel by the hen-houses, and had a pet white chicken roosting on his back. Its name is Betsy, and it is not to be killed, but kept for him, as he is so fond of it.

Many of the Bonstones’ neighbours have hens stolen, but no one now ever braves the army of dogs at Green Hill.

One man tried it--a stranger who did not know about the dogs. He had tramped out from New York, and seeing the flock of Wyandottes on the farm as he passed by on the road, he decided it would be a good place to steal a few chickens. He lay hidden in some bushes till night, then he crept cautiously to the barn. Sir Walter met him, and growlingly escorted him to his kennel. The other dogs scented a stranger, and the unhappy tramp found himself confronted by Weary Winnie, Yeggie, the Frenchmen and Czarina. They did not bite him. Mr. Bonstone’s dogs, and ours too, are trained never to put their teeth in a man unless he is trying to kill them, or some human being. We can nose, and push, and knock over, and grip, if necessary, but not bite.

The poor tramp was in a dilemma, and finally he crawled into Sir Walter’s kennel, and covered himself with straw.

Cook was the first one up at the hen-houses in the morning. She wanted fresh eggs for breakfast.

Seeing Sir Walter watching the kennel door with a peculiar air, she went up and looked in, and screamed when she saw a man’s head in the straw.

Thomas and Joe came running from the barn, and ordered the man to come out.

“Sure and I can’t,” he said, “those gentlemanly dogs have peeled every stitch of clothing off me.”

Sir Walter says his clothes were thin and old, and they literally dropped off him, when the dogs pushed him about.

Thomas howled with delight, and telling the man to shake off the straw in which he was buried, he sent Joe up to the house for a suit of old clothes of Mr. Bonstone’s. That tramp had the greatest admiration for the dogs, and sat about the place for days smoking and staring at them.

Mr. Bonstone at last ordered him to get out. He absolutely wouldn’t work, and busy Mr. Bonstone was not the kind of man to have an idle person about.