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A Yellow Dog
by
Three deacons were instantly in the aisle, coming up before the eminent divine, who, we fancied, wore a restrained smile. We heard the hurried whispers: “Belongs to them.” “Quite a local institution here, you know.” “Don’t like to offend sensibilities;” and the minister’s prompt “By no means,” as he went on with his service.
A short month ago we would have repudiated Bones; today we sat there in slightly supercilious attitudes, as if to indicate that any affront offered to Bones would be an insult to ourselves, and followed by our instantaneous withdrawal in a body.
All went well, however, until the minister, lifting the large Bible from the communion table and holding it in both hands before him, walked toward a reading stand by the altar rails. Bones uttered a distinct growl. The minister stopped.
We, and we alone, comprehended in a flash the whole situation. The Bible was nearly the size and shape of one of those soft clods of sod which we were in the playful habit of launching at Bones when he lay half-asleep in the sun, in order to see him cleverly evade it.
We held our breath. What was to be done? But the opportunity belonged to our leader, Jeff Briggs–a confoundedly good-looking fellow, with the golden mustache of a northern viking and the curls of an Apollo. Secure in his beauty and bland in his self-conceit, he rose from the pew, and stepped before the chancel rails.
“I would wait a moment, if I were you, sir,” he said, respectfully, “and you will see that he will go out quietly.”
“What is wrong?” whispered the minister in some concern.
“He thinks you are going to heave that book at him, sir, without giving him a fair show, as we do.”
The minister looked perplexed, but remained motionless, with the book in his hands. Bones arose, walked halfway down the aisle, and vanished like a yellow flash!
With this justification of his reputation, Bones disappeared for a week. At the end of that time we received a polite note from Judge Preston, saying that the dog had become quite domiciled in their house, and begged that the camp, without yielding up their valuable PROPERTY in him, would allow him to remain at Spring Valley for an indefinite time; that both the judge and his daughter–with whom Bones was already an old friend–would be glad if the members of the camp would visit their old favorite whenever they desired, to assure themselves that he was well cared for.
I am afraid that the bait thus ingenuously thrown out had a good deal to do with our ultimate yielding. However, the reports of those who visited Bones were wonderful and marvelous. He was residing there in state, lying on rugs in the drawing-room, coiled up under the judicial desk in the judge’s study, sleeping regularly on the mat outside Miss Pinkey’s bedroom door, or lazily snapping at flies on the judge’s lawn.
“He’s as yaller as ever,” said one of our informants, “but it don’t somehow seem to be the same back that we used to break clods over in the old time, just to see him scoot out of the dust.”
And now I must record a fact which I am aware all lovers of dogs will indignantly deny, and which will be furiously bayed at by every faithful hound since the days of Ulysses. Bones not only FORGOT, but absolutely CUT US! Those who called upon the judge in “store clothes” he would perhaps casually notice, but he would sniff at them as if detecting and resenting them under their superficial exterior. The rest he simply paid no attention to. The more familiar term of “Bonesy”–formerly applied to him, as in our rare moments of endearment–produced no response. This pained, I think, some of the more youthful of us; but, through some strange human weakness, it also increased the camp’s respect for him. Nevertheless, we spoke of him familiarly to strangers at the very moment he ignored us. I am afraid that we also took some pains to point out that he was getting fat and unwieldy, and losing his elasticity, implying covertly that his choice was a mistake and his life a failure.