Part 12

Then some of the other kids put chips on to their shoulders. And each dared the other to knock his chip off. And the other kids pushed and jostled them into each other till both chips fell off, and they went at it then. Once they got started they got really mad and each did all he knew how.

And right in the midst of it Mutt run in and bit Freckles on the calf of his leg. Any dog will fight for his boy when his boy is getting the worst of it. But when Mutt did that I give a bulge against the wooden slats on the cage and two of them came off, and I was on top of Mutt. The circus was in the barn, and the hens began to scream and the horses began to stomp, and all the boys yelled, “Sick 'im!” and “Go to it!” and danced around and hollered, and the little girls yelled, and all the other dogs began to bark, and it was a right lively and enjoyable time. But Mrs. Watson, Freckles's mother, and the hired girl ran out from the house and broke the fight up.

Grown women are like that. They don't want to fight themselves, and they don't seem to want any one else to have any fun. You gotto be a hypocrite around a grown woman to get along with her at all. And then she'll feed you and make a lot of fuss over you. But the minute you start anything with real enjoyment in it she's surprised to see you acting that way. Nobody was licked satisfactory in that fight, or licked any one else satisfactory.

Well, that night after supper, along comes that Blind Man's Dog. Never did I see a Blind Man's Dog that was as tight-skinned. I ain't a dog that brags, myself, and I don't say I would have licked that heavy a dog right easy, even if he had been a loose-skinned dog. What I do say is that I had been used to fighting looseskinned dogs that you can get some sort of a reasonable hold on to while you are working around for position. And running into a tight-skinned dog that way, all of a sudden and all unprepared for it, would make anybody nervous. How are you going to get a purchase on a tight-skinned dog when you've been fighting looseskinned dogs for so long that your teeth and jaws just naturally set themselves for a loose-skinned dog without thinking of it?

Lots of dogs wouldn't have fought him at all when they realized how they had been fooled about him, and how tight-skinned he was. But I was a Public Character now, and I had to fight him. More than that, I ain't ready to say yet that that dog actually licked me. Freckles he hit him in the ribs with a lump of soft coal, and he got off of me and run away before I got my second wind. There's no telling what I would have done to that Blind Man's Dog, tight-skinned as he was, if he hadn't run away before I got my second wind.

Well, there's some mighty peculiar dogs in this world, let alone boys and humans. The word got around town, in spite of his running away like that before I got my second wind, that that Blind Man's Dog, so called, had actually licked me! Many pretended to believe it. Every time Freckles and me went down the street someone would say:

“Well, the dog that licked the lion got licked himself, did he?”

And if it was a lady said it, Freckles would spit on the sidewalk through the place where his front teeth are out and pass on politely as if he hadn't heard, and say nothing. And if it was a man that said it Freckles would thumb his nose at him. And if it was a girl that said it he would rub a handful of sand into her hair. And if it was a boy anywhere near his size, there would be a fight. If it was too big a boy, Freckles would sling railroad iron at him.

For a week or so it looked like Freckles and I were fighting all the time. Three or four times a day, and every day. Oft the way to school, and all through recess-times, and after school, and every time we went on to the street. I got so chewed and he got so busted up that we didn't hardly enjoy life.

No matter how much you may like to fight, some of the time you would like to pick the fights yourself and not have other people picking them off of you. Kids begun to fight Freckles that wouldn't have dast to stand up to him a month before. I was still a Public Character, but I was getting to be the kind you josh about instead of the kind you are proud to feed. I didn't care so awful much for myself, but I hated it for Freckles. For when they got us pretty well hacked, all the boys began to call him Harold again.

And after they had called him Harold for a week he must have begun to think of himself as Harold. For one Saturday afternoon when there wasn't any school, instead of going swimming with the other kids or playing baseball, or anything, he went and played with girls.

He must have been pretty well down-hearted and felt himself pretty much of an outcast, or he wouldn't have done that. I am an honest dog, and the truth must be told, the disgrace along with everything else, and the truth is that he played with girls of his own accord that day--not because he was sent to their house on an errand, not because it was a game got up with boys and girls together, not because it was cousins and he couldn't dodgje them, but because he was an outcast. Any boy will play with girls when all the boys and girls are playing together, and some girls are nearly as good as boys; but no boy is going off alone to look up a bunch of girls and play with them without being coaxed unless he has had considerable of a down-fall.

Right next to the side of our yard was the Wilkinses. They had a bigger house and a bigger yard than ours. Freckles was sitting on the top of the fence looking into their orchard when the three Wilkins girls came out to play. There was only two boys in the Wilkins family, and they was twins; but they were only year-old babies and didn't amount to anything. The two oldest Wilkins girls, the taffy-coloured-haired one and the squint-eyed one, each had one of the twins, taking care of it. And the other Wilkins girl, the pretty one, she had one of those big dolls made as big as a baby.

They were rolling those babies and the doll around the grass in a wheelbarrow, and the wheel came off, and that's how Freckles happened to go over.

“Up in the attic,” says the taffy-coloured-haired one, when he had fixed up the wheelbarrow, “there's a little old express wagon with one wheel off that would be better'n this wheelbarrow. Maybe you could fix that wheel on, too, Harold.”

Freckles, he fell for it. After he got the wagon fixed, they got to playing charades and fool girl games like that. The hired girl was off for the afternoon, and pretty soon Mrs. Wilkins hollered up the stairs that she was going to be gone for an hour, and to take good care of the twins, and then we were alone in the place.

Well, it wasn't much fun for me. They played and they played, and I stuck to Freckles--which his name was called nothing but Harold all that afternoon, and for the first time I said to myself “Harold” seemed to fit. I stuck to him because a dog should stick to his boy, and a boy should stick to his dog, no matter what the disgrace. But after while I got pretty tired and lay down on a rug, and a new kind of flea struck me. After I had chased him down and cracked him with my teeth I went to sleep.

I must have slept pretty sound and pretty long. All of a sudden I waked up with a start, and almost choking, for the place was smoky. I barked and no one answered.

I ran out on to the landing, and the whole house was full of smoke. The house was on fire, and it looked like I was alone in it. I went down the back stairway, which didn't seem so full of smoke, but the door that let out on to the first-floor landing was locked, and I had to go back up again.

By the time I got back up, the front stairway was a great deal fuller of smoke, and I could see glints of flame winking through it way down below. But it was my only way out of that place. On the top step I stumbled over a gray wool bunch of something or other, and I picked it up in my mouth. Thinks I, “That is Freckles's gray sweater, that he is so stuck on. I might as well take it down to him.”

It wasn't so hard for a lively dog to get out of a place like that, I thought. But I got kind of confused and excited, too. And it struck me all of a sudden, by the time I was down to the second floor, that that sweater weighed an awful lot.

1 dropped it on the second floor, and ran into one of the front bedrooms and looked out.

By jings! the whole town was in the front yard and in the street.

And in the midst of the crowd was Mrs. Wilkins, carrying on like mad.

“My baby!” she yelled. “Save my baby. Let me loose! I'm going after my baby!”

I stood up on my hind legs, with my head just out of that bedroom window, and the flame and smoke licking up all around me, and barked.

“My doggie! My doggie!” yells Freckles, who was in the crowd, “I must save my doggie!” And he made a run for the house, but someone grabbed him and slung him back.

And Mrs. Wilkins made a run, but they held her, too. The front of the house was one sheet of flame. Old Pop Wilkins, Mrs. Wilkins's husband, was jumping up and down in front of Mrs. Wilkins yelling, here was her baby. He had a real baby in one arm and that big doll in the other, and was so excited he thought he had both babies. Later I heard what had happened. The kids had thought they were getting out with both twins but one of them had saved the doll and left a twin behind. The squint-eyed girl and the taffy-coloured-haired girl and the pretty girl was howling as loud as their mother. And every now and then some man would make a rush for the front door, but the fire would drive him back. And everyone was yelling advice to everyone else, except one man who was calling on the whole town to get him an axe. The volunteer fire engine was there, but there wasn't any water to squirt through it, and it had been backed up too near the house and had caught fire and was burning up.

Well, I thinks that baby will likely turn up in the crowd somewhere, after all, and I'd better get out of there myself while the getting was good. I ran out of the bedroom, and run into that bunched-up gray bundle again.

I ain't saying that I knew it was the missing twin in a gray shawl when I picked it up the second time. And I ain't saying that I didn't know it. But the fact is that I did pick it up. I don't make any brag that I would have risked my life to save Freckles's sweater. It may be I was so rattled I just picked it up because I had had it in my mouth before and didn't quite know what I was doing.

But the _record_ is something you can't go behind, and the record is that I got out the back way and into the back yard with that bundle swinging from my mouth, and walked round into the front yard and laid that bundle down--_and it was the twin!_

1 don't make any claim that I _knew_ it was the twin till I got into the front yard, mind you. But you can't prove I _didn't_ know it was.

And nobody tried to prove it. The gray bundle let out a squall.

“My baby!” yells Mrs. Wilkins. And she kissed me! I rubbed it off with my paw. And then the taffy-coloured-haired one kissed me. And the first thing I knew the pretty one kissed me. But when I saw the squint-eyed one coming I got behind Freckles and barked.

“Three cheers for Spot!” yelled the whole town. And they give them.

And then I saw what the lay of the land was, so 1 wagged my tail and barked.

It called for that hero stuff, and I throwed my head up and looked noble--and pulled it.

An hour before Freckles and me had been outcasts. And now we was Public Characters again. We walked down Main Street, and we owned it. And we hadn't any more than got to Doc Watson's drug store than in rushed Heinie Hassenyager with a lump of Hamburg steak, and with tears in his eyes.

“It's got chicken livers mixed in it, too!” says Heinie. I ate it. But while I ate it, I growled at him.

WRITTEN IN BLOOD (As told by the dogs)

Never did I suppose that I would be a bloodhound in an “Uncle Tom's Cabin” show. But I have been one, and my constant wish is that it has not made me too proud and haughty. For proud and haughty dogs, sooner or later, all have their downfalls. The dog that was the rightful bloodhound in that show was the proudest and haughtiest dog I ever met, and he had his downfall.

Other proud and haughty dogs I have seen, in my time; and some of them I have licked, and some of them have licked me. For instance, there was the one that used to be a blind man's dog on a street corner in Chicago. He was a tough, loud-barking, red-eyed dog, full of suspiciousness and fleas; and his disposition was so bad that it was even said that if one of his fleas bit an ordinary dog, that ordinary dog would swell up where he was bit as if a hornet had stung him. He was proud of those fleas and proud of being that ornery; but he had his downfall.

Another proud and haughty dog I knew belonged to the dog and pony part of a circus that came to our town once. He sat in a little cart in the street parade, with a clown's hat and jacket on, and drove a Shetland pony. You couldn't get him into a fight; he would just grin and say he was worth too much money to risk himself in a fight, especially as the money he was worth did not belong to him anyhow, but to the circus that owned him. He said it wouldn't be honest to risk other people's money just because he wanted to fight; but I have never believed that he really wanted to fight. He grinned mostly all the time, a conceited kind of grin, and he would up-end himself and stand on his head for you to admire him, and then flop over and bark and look proud of his own tricks and proud of the money he was worth. But he had his downfall right in the midst of his greatest pride, for a brindle Tom-cat with one eye went after him right in the middle of that street parade, and he left that cart very quickly, and it nearly broke up the parade.

But the proudest and haughtiest of all was the bloodhound that owned that Uncle Tom show--leastways, he acted as if he owned it. It was a show that showed in a tent, like a regular circus, and it stayed in our town three days. It had a street parade, too; and this bloodhound was led along at the head of the street parade with a big heavy muzzle on, and he was loaded down with chains and shackles so he could hardly walk. Besides the fellow that led him, there were two more men that followed along behind him and held on to chains that were fastened to his collar. In front of him marched the Uncle Tom of that show; and every now and then the bloodhound would struggle to get at Uncle Tom and be pulled back. He was a very dangerous-looking dog, and you thought to yourself what a lot of damage he would probably do if he was ever to bite those chains to pieces and eat up those three men that held him and chew Uncle Tom and then run loose into the world. Every step he took he would toss his head and jangle those chains and growl.

After the parade was over, a lot of us dogs and boys went down to the lot where the show was to be held. We were hanging around the tent where the actors were eating, and that bloodhound dog was there without chains like any other dog, and us dogs got to talking with him.

“You country-town dogs,” he says to Mutt Mulligan, who is a friend of mine and some considerable dog himself, “don't want to come fussin' around too close to my cook tent or my show! Us troupers ain't got any too much use for you hick dogs, anyhow.”

“Oh, it's _your_ show, is it?” says Mutt.

“Whose show did you think it was?” says that bloodhound dog, very haughty.

“1 thought from all those chains and things, maybe the show owned you, instead of you owning the show,” says Mutt.

“You saw who led that street parade, didn't you?” says the bloodhound dog. “Well, that ought to tell you who the chief actor of this show is. This here show is built up around me. If anything was to happen to me, there couldn't be any show.”

Mutt, he gave me a signal with his tail to edge in a little closer, and I sidled up to where I could grab a front leg unexpected to him, if he made a pass at Mutt. And then Mutt says, sneering so his teeth stuck out and his nose wrinkled:

“Something's goin' to happen to you, if you ain't more polite and peaceable in your talk.”

“What's goin' to happen to me?” says that bloodhound dog.

“Don't you let them bristles rise around your neck,” says Mutt, “or you'll find out what's goin' to happen to you.”

“Whose bristles are they?” says that bloodhound dog.

“It don't make any difference whose bristles they are,” says Mutt. “No dog can stick his bristles up into my face like that and get away with it. When I see bristles stand up, I take it personal.”

But just then Old Uncle Zeb White, who is coloured, come amoseyin' along, and that Tom-show dog barked out:

“Somebody hold me! Quick! Somebody muzzle me! Somebody better put my chains on to me again! Somebody better tell that coloured man to clear out of here! I've been trained to chase coloured men! What do they mean by letting that coloured man get near my show tent?”

Old Uncle Zeb, he is the quietest and most peaceable person anywhere, amongst dogs, boys, or humans, and the janitor of the Baptist church. He is the only coloured man in our town, and is naturally looked up to and respected with a good deal of admiration and curiosity on that account, and also because he is two hundred years old. He used to be the bodyservant of General George Washington, he says, until General Washington set him free. And then along comes Abraham Lincoln after a while and sets him free again, he says. And being set free by two prominent men like that, Uncle Zeb figures he is freer than anybody else, and I have heard him tell, time and again, how he can't speak kindly enough of them two white gentlemen.

“Don't anybody sick me on to that coloured man,” says this bloodhound dog. “If I was to be sicked on to that coloured man, this whole town couldn't pull me off again! I been trained to it, I tell you!”

Which it was easy enough to see he really didn't want to start anything; it was just his pride and haughtiness working in him. Just then Freckles Watson, who is my boy that I own, and Tom Mulligan, who is Mutt Mulligan's boy, both says: “Sick 'im!” Not that they understood what us dogs was talking about, but they saw me and Mutt sidling around that Tom-show dog, and it looked to them like a fight could be commenced. But the Tom-show dog, when he heard that “Sick 'im!” jumped and caught Uncle Zeb by a leg of his trousers. Then Uncle Zeb's own dog, which his name is Burning Deck after a piece Uncle Zeb heard recited one time, comes a-bulging and a-bouncing through the crowd and grabs that Tom-show dog by the neck.

They rolled over and over, and into the eating tent, and under the table. The actors jumped up, and the table got tipped over, and the whole meal and the tin dishes they was eating off of and all the actors and the benches and the dogs was wallowing and banging and kicking and barking and shouting on the ground in a mess, and all of us other dogs run in to help Burning Deck lick that bloodhound, and all the boys followed their dogs in to see a square deal, and then that tent come down on top of everything, and believe me it was some enjoyable time. And I found quite a sizeable piece of meat under there in the mix-up, and I thinks to myself I better eat that while I can get it, so I crawled out with it. Outside is sitting Uncle Zeb, watching that fallen-down tent heaving and twisting and squirming, and I heard him say to himself:

“White folks is allers gittin' up some kin' of entuh-tainment fo' us cullud people to look at! Us cullud people suah does git treated fine in dese heah Nothe'n towns!”

Pretty soon everybody comes crawling out from under that tent, and they straightens her up, and the boss of the show begins to talk like Uncle Zeb has done the whole thing, and Uncle Zeb just sits on the grass and smiles and scratches his head. And finally the boss of the show says to Uncle Zeb could he hire Burning Deck for the bloodhound's part? Because Burning Deck has just about chewed that proud and haughty dog to pieces, and they've got to have a bloodhound!

“No, suh,” says Uncle Zeb. “No, suh! I thank yo' kindly fo' yo' offer, suh, but Burnin' Deck, he ain't gwine inter no show whah he likely ter be sicked on ter no cullud pusson. Burnin' Deck, he allers been a good Republican, bringed up that-a-way, des de same as me, an' we ain't gwine ter take no paht in any gwines-on agin' de cullud nation.”

“But see here,” says the boss. “In this show the coloured people get all the best of it. In this show the coloured people go to Heaven!”

Uncle Zeb says he had heard a good deal about that Uncle Tom show in his life, first and last, and because he had heard so much, he went to see it one time. And he says if getting chased by bloodhounds and whipped by whips is giving them the best of it, he hopes he never obtains admission to any show where they get the worst of it. The boss, he says that show is the show that helped make the coloured people free, and Uncle Zeb ought to be proud of Burning Deck acting in it. But Uncle Zeb says he ain't to be fooled; it was General Washington set 'em free first, and Abraham Lincoln set 'em free the second time, and now President Wilson is licking them Germans and setting them free again. And as for him, he says, he will stick to his own white folks that he knows and janitors for and whose clothes fit him, and Burning Deck will do the same. And as far as them Tom-show coloured folks' going to heaven is concerned, he reckons he don't want to be chased there by no bloodhounds; and it ain't likely that a man that has janitored for a Baptist church as faithful as he has would go anywhere else, anyhow. So he takes Burning Deck and goes along home.

“I've got to have a dog,” says the boss, watching them get the tent fixed up, and rubbing his head.

“Would Spot do?” says Freckles, which is my boy, Spot being me.

Well, I never expected to be an actor, as I said before. But they struck a bargain, which Freckles was to get free admission to that show, and I was to be painted and dyed up some and be a bloodhound. Which the boss said the regular bloodhound which Burning Deck had eat so much of wasn't really a bloodhound, anyhow, but only a big mongrel with bloodhound notions in his head.

Well, maybe you've seen that show. Which all the bloodhound has to do is to run across the stage chasing that Uncle Tom, and Freckles was to run across with me, so there wasn't much chance to go wrong.

And nothing would have gone wrong if it hadn't been for Burning Deck. Uncle Zeb White must have got over his grouch against that show, for there he was sitting in the front row with a new red handkerchief around his throat and his plug hat on his knees, and Burning Deck was there with him. I never had anything but liking for Uncle Zeb, for he knows where to scratch dogs. But Burning Deck and me have never been close friends, on account of him being jealous when Uncle Zeb scratches you too long. He even is jealous when Uncle Zeb scratches a pig, which all the pigs in town that can get loose have a habit of coming to Uncle Zeb's cottage to be scratched, and they say around town that some of those pigs never find their way home again. Squeals have been heard coming from Uncle Zeb's kitchen, but the rest of the pigs never seem to learn.