Beautiful Joe - Marshall Saunders (the reading strategies book .TXT) 📗

days later, he told me the rest of his history. After a great

many wanderings, he happened home one day just as his master's yacht was

going to sail, and they chained him up till they went on board, so that

he could be an amusement on the passage to Fairport.

 

It was in November that Dandy came to us, and he stayed all winter. He

made fun of the Morrises all the time, and said they had a dull, poky,

old house, and he only stayed because Miss Laura was nursing him. He had

a little sore on his back that she soon found out was mange. Her father

said it was a bad disease for dogs to have, and Dandy had better be

shot; but she begged so hard for his life, and said she would cure him

in a few weeks, that she was allowed to keep him. Dandy wasn't capable

of getting really angry, but he was as disturbed about having this

disease as he could be about anything. He said that he had got it from a

little, mangy dog, that he had played with a few weeks before. He was

only with the dog a little while, and didn't think he would take it, but

it seemed he knew what an easy thing it was to get.

 

Until he got well he was separated from us. Miss Laura kept him up in

the loft with the rabbits, where we could not go; and the boys ran him

around the garden for exercise. She tried all kind of cures for him, and

I heard her say that though it was a skin disease, his blood must be

purified. She gave him some of the pills that she made out of sulphur

and butter for Jim, and Billy, and me, to keep our coats silky and

smooth. When they didn't cure him, she gave him a few drops of arsenic

every day, and washed the sore, and, indeed his whole body, with tobacco

water or carbolic soap. It was the tobacco water that cured him.

 

Miss Laura always put on gloves when she went near him, and used a brush

to wash him, for if a person takes mange from a dog, they may lose their

hair and their eyelashes. But if they are careful, no harm comes from

nursing a mangy dog, and I have never known of any one taking the

disease.

 

After a time, Dandy's sore healed, and he was set free. He was right

glad, he said, for he had got heartily sick of the rabbits. He used to

bark at them and make them angry, and they would run around the loft,

stamping their hind feet at him, in the funny way that rabbits do. I

think they disliked him as much as he disliked them. Jim and I did not

get the mange. Dandy was not a strong dog, and I think his irregular way

of living made him take diseases readily. He would stuff himself when he

was hungry, and he always wanted rich food. If he couldn't get what he

wanted at the Morrises', he went out and stole, or visited the dumps at

the back of the town.

 

When he did get ill, he was more stupid about doctoring himself than any

dog that I have ever seen. He never seemed to know when to eat grass or

herbs, or a little earth, that would have kept him in good condition. A

dog should never be without grass. When Dandy got ill he just suffered

till he got well again, and never tried to cure himself of his small

troubles. Some dogs even know enough to amputate their limbs. Jim told

me a very interesting story of a dog the Morrises once had, called Gyp,

whose leg became paralyzed by a kick from a horse. He knew the leg was

dead, and gnawed it off nearly to the shoulder, and though he was very

sick for a time, yet in the end he got well.

 

To return to Dandy. I knew he was only waiting for the spring to leave

us, and I was not sorry. The first fine day he was off, and during the

rest of the spring and summer we occasionally met him running about the

town with a set of fast dogs. One day I stopped and asked him how he

contented himself in such a quiet place as Fairport, and he said he was

dying to get back to New York, and was hoping that his master's yacht

would come and take him away.

 

Poor Dandy never left Fairport. After all, he was not such a bad dog.

There was nothing really vicious about him, and I hate to speak of his

end. His master's yacht did not come, and soon the summer was over, and

the winter was coming, and no one wanted Dandy, for he had such a bad

name. He got hungry and cold, and one day sprang upon a little girl, to

take away a piece of bread and butter that she was eating. He did not

see the large house-dog on the door sill, and before he could get away,

the dog had seized him, and bitten and shaken him till he was nearly

dead. When the dog threw him aside, he crawled to the Morrises, and Miss

Laura bandaged his wounds, and made him a bed in the stable.

 

One Sunday morning she washed and fed him very tenderly, for she knew he

could not live much longer. He was so weak that he could scarcely eat

the food that she put in his mouth, so she let him lick some milk from

her finger. As she was going to church, I could not go with her, but I

ran down the lane and watched her out of sight. When I came back, Dandy

was gone. I looked till I found him. He had crawled into the darkest

corner of the stable to die, and though he was suffering very much, he

never uttered a sound. I sat by him and thought of his master in New

York. If he had brought Dandy up properly he might not now be here in

his silent death agony. A young pup should be trained just as a child

is, and punished when he goes wrong. Dandy began badly, and not being

checked in his evil ways, had come to this. Poor Dandy! Poor, handsome

dog of a rich master! He opened his dull eyes, gave me one last glance,

then, with a convulsive shudder, his torn limbs were still. He would

never suffer any more.

 

When Miss Laura came home, she cried bitterly to know that he was dead.

The boys took him away from her, and made him a grave in the corner of

the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

       *       *       *       *      *

 

CHAPTER XXXVII (THE END OF MY STORY)

I have come now to the last chapter of my story. I thought when I began

to write, that I would put down the events of each year of my life, but

I fear that would make my story too long, and neither Miss Laura nor any

boys and girls would care to read it. So I will stop just here, though I

would gladly go on, for I have enjoyed so much talking over old times,

that I am very sorry to leave off.

 

Every year that I have been at the Morrises', something pleasant has

happened to me, but I cannot put all these things down, nor can I tell

how Miss Laura and the boys grew and changed, year by year, till now

they are quite grown up. I will just bring my tale down to the present

time, and then I will stop talking, and go lie down in my basket, for I

am an old dog now, and get tired very easily.

 

I was a year old when I went to the Morrises, and I have been with them

for twelve years. I am not living in the same house with Mr. and Mrs,

Morris now, but I am with my dear Miss Laura, who is Miss Laura no

longer, but Mrs. Gray. She married Mr. Harry four years ago, and lives

with him and Mr. and Mrs. Wood, on Dingley Farm. Mr. and Mrs. Morris

live in a cottage near by. Mr. Morris is not very strong, and can preach

no longer. The boys are all scattered. Jack married pretty Miss Bessie

Drury, and lives on a large farm near here. Miss Bessie says that she

hates to be a farmer's wife, but she always looks very happy and

contented, so I think that she must be mistaken. Carl is a merchant in

New York, Ned is a clerk in a bank, and Willie is studying at a place

called Harvard. He says that after he finishes his studies, he is going

to live with his father and mother.

 

The Morrises' old friends often come to see them. Mrs. Drury comes every

summer on her way to Newport, and Mr. Montague and Charlie come every

other summer. Charlie always brings with him his old dog Brisk, who is

getting feeble, like myself. We lie on the veranda in the sunshine, and

listen to the Morrises talking about old days, and sometimes it makes us

feel quite young again. In addition to Brisk we have a Scotch collie. He

is very handsome, and is a constant attendant of Miss Laura's. We are

great friends, he and I, but he can get about much better than I can.

One day a friend of Miss Laura's came with a little boy and girl, and

"Collie" sat between the two children, and their father took their

picture with a "kodak." I like him so much that I told him I would get

them to put his picture in my book.

 

When the Morris boys are all here in the summer we have gay times. All

through the winter we look forward to their coming, for they make the

old farmhouse so lively. Mr. Maxwell never misses a summer in coming to

Riverdale. He has such a following of dumb animals now, that he says he

can't move them any farther away from Boston than this, and he doesn't

know what he will do with them, unless he sets up a menagerie. He asked

Miss Laura the other day, if she thought that the old Italian would take

him into partnership. He did not know what had happened to poor Bellini,

so Miss Laura told him.

 

A few years ago the Italian came to Riverdale, to exhibit his new stock

of performing animals. They were almost as good as the old ones, but he

had not quite so many as he had before. The Morrises and a great many of

their friends went to his performance, and Miss Laura said afterward,

that when cunning little Billy came on the stage, and made his bow, and

went through his antics of jumping through hoops, and catching balls,

that she almost had hysterics. The Italian had made a special pet of him

for the Morrises' sake, and treated him more like a human being than a

dog. Billy rather put on airs when he came up to the farm to see us, but

he was such a dear, little dog, in spite of being almost spoiled by his

master, that Jim and I could not get angry with him. In a few days they

went away, and we heard nothing but good news from them, till last

winter. Then a letter came to Miss Laura from a nurse in a New York

hospital. She said that the Italian was very near his end, and he wanted

her to write to Mrs. Gray to tell her that he had sold all his animals

but the little dog that she had so kindly given him. He was sending him

back to her, and with his latest breath he would pray for heaven's

blessing on the kind