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Title: Don, a Runaway Dog
His Many Adventures
Author: Richard Barnum
Illustrator: Harriet H. Tooker
Release Date: February 14, 2020 [EBook #61401]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON, A RUNAWAY DOG ***
Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Kneetime Animal Stories
HIS MANY ADVENTURES
BY
Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Slicko, the
Jumping Squirrel,” “Mappo, the Merry Monkey,”
“Tum Tum, the Jolly Elephant,” etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
HARRIET H. TOOKER
NEW YORK
PUBLISHERS
By Richard Barnum
Illustrated.
(Other volumes in preparation)
BARSE & HOPKINS
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1915
by
Barse & Hopkins
Don, A Runaway Dog
MADE IN U.S.A.
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I | Don Falls In | 7 |
| II | Don’s New Home | 17 |
| III | Don and Squinty | 26 |
| IV | Don Sees Tum Tum | 36 |
| V | Don Runs Away | 47 |
| VI | Don Is Locked In | 56 |
| VII | Don In the City | 68 |
| VIII | Don and the Can | 75 |
| IX | Don and the Dog Catcher | 87 |
| X | Don’s New Friend | 96 |
| XI | Don at a Party | 104 |
| XII | Don and the Bear | 115 |
DON,
A RUNAWAY DOG
Don was one of five little puppies. With his brothers and sisters he cuddled up close to Mrs. Gurr, the mother dog, to keep warm, for it was rather cool for little dogs, even though there was plenty of straw in the kennel, or house, where they lived. Don shivered and trembled, but when his mother put her soft, warm paw over him and the other little dogs, Don felt better.
Don was such a little puppy that, as yet, his eyes were not open. I suppose they were made to stay closed until he grew to be a little stronger, for the sunlight was very bright outside of the kennel, and Don might have squinted, had his eyes been open.
But then Don and his brothers and sisters did not need to see much when they were so little.
“I can tell you everything that happens,” said Mrs. Gurr, the mamma dog. “You little puppies just stay close together when I go out to get a bone, or something else to eat, and you will keep warm, and nothing will happen to you.
“Humm! Humm! Humm!” whined Don. He really was the largest and strongest of the litter of puppies, and perhaps that is why he seemed to come first.
“What’s that you’re saying?” asked his mother. For you know, doggies have a language of their own. They cannot speak as we do, but they can understand when we speak to them. Dogs are smarter in some ways than we are. They can understand, and know, what we say to them, but we can only guess at what they say, when they bark, growl or whine.
“What’s that you say?” asked Mrs. Gurr, of Don.
“Humm! Umph! Wee-wee!” went Don.
“Oh, you’re cold, are you?” asked Mrs. Gurr, who had this name because she sometimes made a noise that sounded that way—“gurr”—away down in her throat.
“Yes, I’m cold,” said Don, shivering.
“Well, cuddle up close to me, and you’ll soon be warm,” said the mamma dog. So Don, and his brothers Spot and Prince, and his sisters Violet and Ruby, crept still closer to their[9] mother, for she was a big dog, and her hair was very warm.
For over a week Don and the other little dogs could see nothing, because their eyes were not open. They could hear strange noises going on outside their kennel, but they did not know what they meant.
Don especially, had many adventures, and a great many strange things happened to him. In this book I am going to tell you all about them, how he ran away, and was locked in a freight car, and how a bad boy tied a tin can to his tail—but there—I am getting ahead of my story. Those things did not happen until Don grew to be big. So I shall have to start at the beginning.
And the beginning was when Don still did not have his eyes open.
Whining, barking just a little, and tumbling about like little balls of cotton yarn, Don and the other puppies stayed in the straw in the kennel with their mother. Sometimes she went out to get something to eat, and then the little dogs crept closer to each other to keep warm. They slept a great deal of the time, for dogs, like babies, grow when they sleep.
Once, just before Don had his eyes open, he heard strange noises outside of the kennel house where he lived. Don did not know what the[10] noises meant, but I shall tell you what they were. They were the voices of some boys talking.
“Oh, look at the puppies!” exclaimed one boy.
“What a lot of them,” said another.
“Yes, and they’re all mine,” spoke a third boy.
“Oh, Willie! Can’t I have one?” asked the first boy, and he reached down in the straw, and picked up Don. Mrs. Gurr, the mamma dog, growled a little and whined, for she did not like strange boys to handle her little puppies.
“You can’t have that one, Charlie,” answered the boy who had been called Willie.
“Why not?” asked Charlie.
“Because I promised him to Bobbie Black,” said Willie. “Bobbie came one day, and picked that puppy out for his. He’s going to call him Don, Bob is.”
“That’s a fine dog,” said Charlie, as he gently put the puppy Don back in the straw again. “I wish I had one.”
“You can have that one,” said Willie, and he pointed to Prince.
Of course Don did not understand all this talk, but his mamma understood. She whined when she heard Willie talking about giving her puppies away. Willie was the boy at the house where the man lived who owned Mrs. Gurr and the puppies.
“When is Bob coming for his dog?” asked Charlie.
“Oh, as soon as they get their eyes open,” answered Willie. “That will be in a few days, now.”
The boys stayed a little longer, and then they went off to play ball—I mean the boys went off to play ball for, though puppy dogs can do many queer things, I never saw any of them play ball—did you?
Wait, though, if you please. Once, in a circus, I did see a dog bounce a big, red, rubber ball about with his nose, but that was not exactly playing as the boys do, so I suppose it did not count.
All at once, one day, a very strange thing happened to Don and the other puppies. Their eyes were suddenly opened, and the darkness they had been in so long gave place to light.
Out in front of the kennel was a broad patch of sunlight, and the straw in the kennel itself looked like streaks of gold. Up over head was blue sky, and the green trees waved their branches.
“Oh, what is it all?” asked Don, as he stood up with his little legs far apart. He had to stand that way, for he was not very strong as yet, and, though he tried to stand steadily, he[12] swayed to and fro as the elephants do in the circus when they are eating peanuts. “What is all that which I see?” asked Don, speaking in dog language, which he understood without being taught.
“That is part of the world you live in,” said Mrs. Gurr. “You see the sunshine, the shadows and the trees.”
“What makes the trees wiggle so?” asked Prince, who was one of Don’s brothers.
“The wind blows them,” said the mother dog. “And when you go outside the kennel, and the wind blows, you must be careful not to get dust in your eyes. For your eyes are open now, you know, and if you don’t take care you’ll get things in them. So watch out when you leave the kennel.”
“Why!” exclaimed Don. “Is there anything outside of our kennel? I thought this was the only place there was.”
“Oh, indeed there are many more places than this,” said Mrs. Gurr, with sort of a barking laugh. “This is only a very small part of the world. You will find it very large when you start out. I hope you do not get lost.”
“What do you mean—lost?” asked Don.
“Going so far away you cannot find your way back to the kennel,” said the mother dog. “When you children are a little older, I shall[13] give you some lessons in how to find your way home when you go away from it.”
So the days went on, the sun shone warmer and warmer, and the leaves grew larger on the trees, for summer was coming. And as the tree leaves grew, so the little puppy dogs grew, until they were large enough to run outside the kennel, and play about on the ground.
They were not very strong on their legs as yet, and often Don and his brothers and sisters would tumble and fall, as they raced about, playing a game something like your game of tag.
“Come on, let’s have a race, Prince,” said Don one day.
“All right, I will,” answered the other little puppy dog, and off they started down the gravel path that led from their kennel.
On they went, faster and faster, turning around the corner by the house, until, all of a sudden, they saw a queer little animal in front of them.
“What’s that?” asked Don, stopping short.
“I don’t know,” answered Prince, speaking in dog language.
“It looks like a puppy,” went on Don, “but it doesn’t belong to our family. See how big its tail is, and its back is all humped up. And listen to what a funny noise it’s making.”
The other animal, on the gravel path, was[14] hissing like a steam radiator on a cold and frosty morning.
“Let’s go closer and see what it is,” suggested Don.
Together he and Prince went up, walking sort of sideways on their funny, wobbling legs. Then the queer animal suddenly jumped up in the air, and Don and Prince felt something sharp scratch their little black noses.
“Ouch!” whined Prince.
“Wow!” howled Don. “I’m scratched.”
“Let’s go home and tell mamma!” cried Prince.
Tucking their little tails, like lead pencils, between their legs, home they wobbled to the kennel.
“Oh mamma!” barked Don as he saw the mother dog. “You can’t guess what happened to us.”
“No!” cried Prince. “We saw another puppy dog, and his tail was so big! And his back was all humped up, and he made a funny noise and stuck something sharp in our noses, and it hurt.”
“That’s what it did!” cried Don, and he rubbed his nose with his paw.
“Oh, you funny puppy dogs!” exclaimed Mrs. Gurr. “What you saw was not a little dog.”
“What was it then?” asked Don. “It had four legs and a tail.”
“Well, everything that has four legs and a tail isn’t a puppy,” said the mother dog. “That was a cat, and cats almost always scratch dogs, just as we dogs almost always chase cats.”
“Oh! then if that was a cat we forgot to chase it!” cried Don. “We didn’t know we had to. Come on back, Prince, and we’ll chase it.”
“No, you don’t need to,” said Mrs. Gurr, the dog lady. “All dogs don’t chase cats, for some cats are nice. Besides, you wouldn’t find that cat now. After this, be more careful, and let cats alone.”
But Don and Prince thought they knew more than their mother did, and that afternoon they started out to find the cat who had made such a big tail at them, and had scratched them.
They searched all over the garden, Don and Prince did, for the cat, but they could not find her. But they had a good time, the two little puppy dogs did, rolling over in the soft dirt, pretending to bite each other’s ears, and playing racing games and tag.
Pretty soon Don said:
“I’m hungry. Let’s go home.”
“All right,” answered Prince. “We will.”
But when those two little puppy dogs started off, they could not find their kennel. They did not know which way to go. First they went one way, and then another, but the harder they tried[16] the worse it seemed. Though they did not know it, Don and Prince were lost.
“Oh, what shall we do?” whined Don.
“I don’t know,” answered his brother. “Let’s go this way.”
Well, they started off a new way, but, all of a sudden, Don slipped down a bank, and right into a puddle of muddy water he fell!
“Ouch! Oh! Wow!” howled the little puppy dog, as he found himself all wet. “Oh, what is going to happen to us?”
But Don, like nearly all animals, knew what to do when he fell into the water. He began to paddle with his little paws, and to swim, for he did not want to be drowned.
“Oh, can you get out? Can you get out?” howled Prince, standing on the bank of the puddle and looking at his brother. It was not a very large puddle, but it was pretty big for a little puppy dog.
“Can you get out?” asked Prince.
“I—I guess so! I’m trying hard!” whined Don, paddling with his paws faster than ever.
Prince, sitting on the bank of the puddle of water, was howling as loudly as he could.
“Are you getting out, Don? Are you getting out?” asked Prince.
“Well, I—I’m trying hard!” answered Don. “I guess—glub—blulp—gurg!” and then he could not say anything more, even in dog language, for his mouth was full of water.
“Oh, what shall I do?” cried Prince.
Don did not have any time to answer him. He was too busy swimming.
Nearer and nearer to the bank of the puddle, off which he had slipped into the water, swam Don. He was soon so close that he could put his paws on the firm earth, and then he knew he was safe, and could crawl out.
But oh! What a sorrowful looking sight poor Don was. His nice, clean coat was covered with muddy water, which dripped down and ran from him in little puddles.
“Oh, how are you ever going to get dry?” asked Prince.
Then Don happened to remember how once he had seen his mother out in a rain storm. She came to the kennel quite wet, but before she went in she shook herself very hard, and the water drops flew off her in a shower.
“That’s what I’ll do,” thought Don. So he gave himself as big and as hard a shake as he could, and the water flew about in a shower.
“Hi! Stop! You’re getting me wet!” howled Prince.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to,” answered Don. “But that’s the way I get dry. You asked me that, you know.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know you were going to put the water on me,” Prince replied. “I don’t care, though, as long as you’re safe,” and he went up to his brother, and kissed him on his nose with his little red tongue, Prince did, in a way dogs have.
So Don got safely out of the puddle into which he had fallen, but his adventures for that day were not yet at an end.
“Let’s go home,” said Prince. “I’m hungry.”
“So am I,” spoke Don. “But which way is home?”
“Don’t you know?” asked Prince.
“No. Don’t you?”
The two little puppy dogs looked one at the other.
“Oh, I forgot!” cried Don. “Don’t you remember, we were lost just before I fell in the puddle, and we’re lost yet. Oh dear!”
Then the two little puppies felt so badly that they just sat there, on the bank of the mud puddle, and howled as loudly as they could.
I suppose you wonder what good their howling did, but I shall tell you.
Back in the kennel Mrs. Gurr, the mother dog, was waiting and wondering why Don and Prince did not come home.
“I saw them go over that way,” spoke Violet, who was nibbling at a bit of puppy cake.
“They were having a race,” said Ruby, who was practicing at trying to catch her tail.
“Oh, such boys!” cried Mrs. Gurr. “I suppose they’ve gone so far away they can’t find their way back. Come, Spot, we’ll go look for them.”
“All right,” said the other brother of Don and Prince. He was called Spot because he had a white spot on him. Otherwise he was all black.
Mrs. Gurr and Spot hurried out of the kennel, and they had not gone very far before they heard a noise.
“What’s that?” asked Spot, standing still and wagging his tail.
“Listen,” said his mother.
“Howl! Wow! Bur-r-r-r-r!” was the noise they heard.
“There they are!” said the dog lady. “Those are your lost brothers calling. Come on, Spot. I know where they are now.”
Mrs. Gurr was very good at finding lost dogs, and this time she knew just which way to go to find Don and Prince.
Soon the mother dog saw them sitting on the edge of the mud puddle, their heads held up in the air, howling as loudly as they could howl.
“Oh my! What a noise!” cried Mrs. Gurr, with a dog laugh. “What is the matter with you puppies, anyhow?”
“Oh, mamma! Is that you?” cried Don. “Oh, we got lost, and—”
“And Don fell in and swam out!” added Prince.
“Well, that was very smart of him, I’m sure,” said the mamma dog. “But it was silly of you to get lost. See, the kennel is only a little way off, just around that clump of bushes.”
Surely enough, they had been only a little way off from their home all the while, only they did not know it.
“But we—we couldn’t find our way home,” said Don.
“No, and that shows you ought not to go too far off until you know how to get back,” said[21] Mrs. Gurr. “Now as soon as you get dry, Don, I’ll give you all some lessons in how to find your way back home again, when you get so far off you can’t see it.”
It did not take Don long to get dry in the warm sun, and then the lessons began. For dogs, even puppy dogs, have to learn their lessons, you know, just as you children do.
They have to learn to eat only the things that are good for them. Sometimes a puppy will gnaw on a cake of soap, but he does not do it more than once, for he finds out it makes him ill. And dogs have to learn to come when their master calls them, and to lie down when they are told, and to shake “hands,” and do other tricks—especially in a circus.
So Mrs. Gurr showed Don, and his brothers and sisters, how to sniff and smell along the ground, so they would know their way back again when they had gone away from home. Dogs, you know, have very good noses for smell. Even on a dark night, when a dog cannot see, he can tell, just by sniffing the air, whether his master is coming along, or whether it is some one else.
So, when a dog takes a new road his paws leave sort of a smell in the dust. This smell stays there for some time, and when the dog wants to get back, he just sniffs and smells along[22] the road until he finds where he has made his tracks before, and in that way he gets home again. He can do that even in the dark.
It was this lesson that Don’s mother taught him, until he and the other puppies could run a long way off from their kennel, even in the woods, and could find their way back again.
“Now you will not get lost again, Don,” said his mother to him.
“And I don’t want to,” Don said. “Being lost is no fun.”
The puppy dog family lived in the kennel for some time longer. The little doggies were all growing larger and stronger, and could run about now without falling down so often. Don grew faster and larger than any of the others.
One day two boys came walking out to the kennel where the puppies lived. One boy was Willie, whose father owned Mrs. Gurr.
“Well, Willie, may I take my puppy now?” asked the other boy.
“Yes, Bob, I guess he’s big enough now to leave home,” said Willie. “Are you sure you want the one you first picked out?”
“Oh, yes, sure. I’ll take him,” said Bob. “Don is the best puppy in the lot.”
“Well, I’m glad he thinks I’m so nice,” said Don to himself. He had begun to understand boy and man talk, you see, though he could not speak it himself.
“Yes, I’ll take Don,” went on Bob.
“I wonder where he’s going to take me?” thought Don. “This is a funny world.”
Bob stooped over and picked Don up from the pile of straw.
“He’s a fine dog!” cried Bob, as he patted and rubbed Don. Don liked that. He was not afraid of the boy, for the boy was kind.
Then, without giving Don a chance to say good-by to his brothers and sisters, and without even letting him kiss the mamma dog, Bob, the boy, took Don away with him to a new home.
Don did not mind going away, for the boy was so kind and good to him, and petted him so nicely, that Don liked him at once. And Don was not lonesome or homesick, for he saw many new and strange things.
At last the boy went up the walk toward a big white house, and he said to Don:
“Don, this is your new home.”
Though Don could not speak boy language, I think he understood what the boy meant.
“Mother, I have my dog!” cried Bob, as he went into the big white house with Don.
“Have you? That’s nice. I hope he’ll be a good dog, and not come in on my clean carpets with muddy feet,” said Bob’s mother. Don heard her say this, and right away he made up his little doggy mind that he would be as good as a puppy dog can be. But he had many things yet to learn.
“Oh, I’m going to train him to be very good,” said Bob to his mother. “He won’t give you a bit of trouble, will you, Don?” and Bob held Don high up in the air in his hands.
“Wow! Wow!” yelped Don.
“Oh, he’s afraid! Put him down!” cried a girl, with curly hair, who was playing with a doll. She was Bob’s sister.
“Oh, I’m going to teach him not to be afraid,” said the boy, as he still held Don high in the air. “You’re not afraid, are you, Don?”
“Wow!” said the puppy again, but this time[27] he was not so frightened. He knew Bob would be kind to him, and not let him fall. And Bob was very careful.
“Where are you going to keep your dog?” asked Bob’s mother. “I can’t have him in the house all the while.”
“Oh, I’m going to build a little kennel for him, just like he had over at Willie’s house, where he used to live,” said Bob. “I’m going to make a hunting dog of him. Where’s my cap, mother?”
“Oh, Bob! You never can remember where you leave your cap when you come in!” exclaimed his mother. “Now that you have a dog I think you had better train him to hunt your cap, and other things for you. That would be a good kind of hunting dog.”
“I guess it would,” laughed Bob. “Well, come on, Don.”
Bob put Don down on the floor, but the puppy dog, instead of running to his little master, when he was called, ran over toward the girl who was playing with a doll. I guess Don had never seen a doll before.
“Here, sir! Come here when I call you!” cried Bob, snapping his fingers.
But Don paid no attention.
“He likes me best!” said the girl, with a laugh. “Come to me, Don.”
“No, Sallie, you mustn’t do that, dear,” said her mother. “If Bob is to have a dog it must learn to mind him, and come when he calls. A dog is not of much use unless it minds. First let the dog learn to go to Bob, and then he will teach it to come to you when you call.”
“That’s what I will,” promised Bob. “Now, Don, you come to me!”
Don had not yet learned to mind. He still wanted to go to the little girl named Sallie. But Bob was not going to have that. So he stooped over and picked up Don, giving him a little shake, but, of course, not hurting him in the least. For Bob would not do that.
“You must come to me when I call you, old fellow!” said Bob. “I want my dog to be a good dog, and mind me.”
So that was another lesson Don had to learn, you see.
“Now we’ll try it again,” said the boy, after he had patted Don, and stroked his silky ears. “Now come when I call, Don. And, Sallie, please don’t try to make him come to you.”
“I won’t, this time,” promised the little girl with the doll.
Bob carried Don to one end of the room, and put him down on the floor. Then Bob went over and stood by the door.
“Come on, Don!” he called. “Come to me,[29] sir!” Bob snapped his fingers. Don looked up, lifted his ears so he might hear better, and looked at Sallie.
“No, I didn’t call you,” said the little girl.
“Here! Come to me!” cried Bob.
This time the puppy understood, and knew what was wanted of him. With a little yelp he ran toward his new master.
“That’s right! That’s the way to do!” cried Bob. “Now he is learning to mind. He’ll be a fine dog!”
Don was glad when he heard this, and he made up his mind to be as good a dog as he could, even if he was little.
Don was taken out and put in a box. Instead of straw he had a piece of old carpet to lie on.
“That will do until I can get your regular kennel made,” said Bob. “Then I’ll put some straw in it for you to sleep on. But I guess you must be thirsty. I’ll get you some milk.”
Don was very glad to get the nice saucer of milk which the boy soon brought to him. He licked it all up with his red tongue—I mean Don, the puppy, licked up the milk, not Bob the boy.
In a few days Bob had finished the kennel for his new little pet, and Don had just as nice a home as he had at first. Only it was quite different. He had no brothers and sisters to[30] play with, and at first he was a little lonesome. He also missed the mamma dog, but so many things happened to Don, and he saw so many new and strange sights that, after a little while, he forgot all about his first home.
Every day, and sometimes two and three times a day, Bob would come out to see Don, and would bring his pet some nice things to eat. Then Bob would take him for a little walk.
Don’s new home was on a farm, and there were many new animals for him to watch. Some of them he did not know the names of, but he soon got so he could tell a cow from a horse, even though each of them had four legs and a tail. But a cow had horns, and a horse did not.
Every day Don was learning something new. He was growing to be a large puppy now, and he could run fast, and not tumble down as he had done at first. He had strong, sharp teeth, too, though he did not want to bite any one. He kept his teeth for gnawing on bones, and chewing puppy cakes, which were hard—almost as hard to eat as ginger snaps are for you.
Bob took Don with him to many places on the farm, and also out into the woods. But Don kept close to his new master, so as not to get lost.
“Though if I did get lost I think I could find my way home again,” thought Don. “I could easily sniff and smell my way back, I am sure.”
One day when Don was asleep in the nice, soft straw of his new kennel which Bob had made for him, the little puppy dog was suddenly awakened by hearing a loud noise. It sounded like:
“What are you going to do?”
Don jumped up and opened his eyes.
“What am I going to do?” he asked. “Who is it wants to know? Who are you? What’s the matter?”
Then he heard the voice again, only, this time, it seemed to say:
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
With that, a long neck, covered with feathers, was thrust inside the kennel, and something sharp pricked Don on his little black nose.
“Hi there!” he barked. “Please stop that. You’re not a kitten or a cat, and you shouldn’t scratch me that way!”
“Cock-a-doodle-do!” went the funny animal again. “Of course I’m not a kitten or a cat. I’m a rooster—the biggest rooster on the farm, and I’m bigger even than you, no matter if you are a puppy. You are so nice and soft that I like to put my bill in your ribs!”
“Oh, but I don’t like it!” barked Don, and he tried to get out of the way, but the rooster kept sticking his long neck inside the kennel, and pecking at Don.
The little puppy dog hardly knew what to do. If he ran out he was sure the rooster would run after him. He had never seen a rooster before, for all the chickens on the farm were kept in their own yard, far away from the kennel.
Poor Don was not having a very good time. He howled and barked, and tried to scare the rooster, but the big fowl only kept on crowing, and saying:
“Cock-a-doodle-do!”
It sounded just as if he said:
“What you going to do?”
Poor Don could not do anything.
But Sallie, Bob’s sister, saw what was going on.
“Oh,” cried the little girl. “The big rooster has gotten out of his coop, and he’s pecking Don. Bob won’t like that. I must drive that rooster away.”
So the little girl ran up to the kennel, crying:
“Shoo! Shoo! Go away you bad rooster!”
Then the rooster was frightened. He flapped his wings, crowed again, and away he flew, off to his coop behind the wire fence, where he belonged.
“You poor little puppy you!” cried Sallie, as she tenderly picked Don up in her arms. “Did the bad rooster bite you?”
“Wow! Eow! Yip! Yow!” said Don, softly. But he was all right, now that the rooster had been driven away.
Don was not much hurt, for a puppy dog is so soft that a rooster’s bill does not do much harm.
“But it was almost as bad as the time the cat scratched me,” thought Don. “That’s two things I’ve got to be afraid of—cats and roosters. But when I get to be a big dog I won’t be afraid of either one.”
When Bob came home from school his sister told him about the rooster pecking the puppy dog.
“There must be a hole in the fence, where the rooster got out,” said Bob. “I’ll mend it. Come on, Don, we’ll go fix the fence. Then the rooster can’t get out again to bother you.”
“Bow-wow!” barked Don, for he was getting old enough now to bark almost like a big dog. I guess he meant to say that he was not afraid of a rooster, though, to tell the truth, I think he was, just a little bit.
“Come on, Don!” called Bob, and the dog followed his master.
On the way to the chicken coop they passed the pen where the pigs were kept.
“I guess I’ll show you the pigs, Don,” said[34] Bob. “You must get to know them, so if any of them get out, any time, you can chase them, and make them go back into their pen.”
Bob lifted Don up in his arms, and held him over the edge of the pig pen. There was one big, mother pig, and seven little ones. One of the little pigs had a funny, squinting eye. It was partly closed, and the other eye was wide open, and when this little pig looked up at you, with one ear lifted up, and the other drooping down, you felt as though you wanted to laugh, he was so comical.
As Bob lifted his dog Don up to see the pigs, this one I have told you about raised up on his hind legs and squealed.
“Hello, Squinty!” called the boy, for the pig was named Squinty, on account of his squinting eye. “Hello, Squinty!” cried Bob. “I guess you’d like to get out and dig in the garden, eh? Well, you can’t, so you must stay in the pen.”
“Squee! Squee!” cried Squinty, the comical pig, about whom I have told you in the book named after him. He had many adventures, did Squinty—adventures with Slicko, the squirrel; with Mappo, the merry monkey; and with Tum Tum, the jolly elephant.
“Squee! Squee!” grunted Squinty, looking at Don in that funny way.
“No, you can’t get out,” said Bob, laughing.
Then Squinty looked at Don.
“You look like a nice dog,” said the little pig. “Can’t you come and let me out of the pen, some day when no one is looking? Do come! I’m tired of staying in here. Wuff! Wuff!”
“Bow-wow!” barked Don, and that was how he got to know Squinty, the comical pig.
“Will you come and bite a hole in the pen so I can get out?” asked Squinty of Don.
“Bow wow! No, that would not be right,” Don said, for he and the little pig could talk together in animal talk, which Bob, the boy, could not understand. Bob thought his dog and the pig were just grunting and squealing, and barking and whining. That goes to show you animals can do things we cannot do.
“No, I can’t let you out,” said Don, as his master set him down, and walked over toward the chicken coop, where the boy was going to fix the fence so the big rooster could not get out again.
But, just before they got there, something happened. There was a loud noise, and Bob’s sister Sallie screamed:
“Oh, Bob! The big black bull is loose! The big black bull has jumped over the pasture fence! Oh, Bob!”
“Come on, Don!” cried Bob. “There’s some work for us!”
Don hardly knew what to think when Bob, his boyish master, called to him that way. The little dog had not lived long enough in the world to know much about bulls jumping fences. But he could easily tell that Bob’s sister, Sallie, was very much frightened. A dog can tell very quickly when a person is frightened, or glad, or cross.
“Come on, Don!” cried Bob, as he ran as fast as he could.
“Where are you going?” asked Sallie. “Oh, Bob! Don’t you know the bad black bull is loose?”
“Yes, of course I know it,” answered Bob. “And that’s where I’m going.”
“What! Not to the bull, are you?” asked Sallie.
“That’s just where I’m going,” said Bob.
“But he’ll hook you with his horns, and maybe—maybe he’ll step on you!” exclaimed Sallie. “Listen to him call!”
From a field, not far away, came a noise that sounded like:
“Boo! Boo! Boo!”
“Bow wow!” barked Don.
“Yes, that’s the bull all right,” said Bob. “But we’ll drive him back in the lot where he belongs, won’t we, Don, old fellow?”
“Bow wow!” barked Don again. I suppose he was saying: “Yes, yes! Of course we will!”
Don knew nothing about bad black bulls, and Bob was not a very big boy. Still he was brave, and so was Don.
“Come on, old fellow!” called Bob to the dog.
“Bow wow!” barked Don. “I’m coming!”
“Oh dear!” cried Sallie. She couldn’t help being just a little bit afraid. Girls are made that way on purpose, so boys and dogs can protect them.
“Boo! Boo!” bellowed the bull again, and Bob, running on ahead, with Don coming after him, soon came to the field where the big animal, with his sharp horns, was pawing up the dirt.
“Get back where you belong!” called Bob to the bull. “Get back, I say!”
“Bow wow!” barked Don, the brave dog. At first Don felt a little afraid when he saw the big black animal.
But when Don saw how close his brave master Bob went to the bull, and shook a stick at him, Don said to himself:
“Well, if Bob is brave, I must be brave too.[38] It would never do to run away and leave him to drive the bull all by himself. I must stay with him.”
That is the way dogs nearly always do. They are very brave, and faithful to their masters, staying by them when they are in danger or when they are hurt. So Don did not run away.
Instead he ran close to the heels of the bull, and barked as loudly as he could. It is a good thing Don did that, for the bull, with a shake of his head, had just made up his mind to run at Bob and maybe stick the boy with the sharp horns, for all I know. Mind, I am not saying for sure, but maybe.
When Don barked so close to the bull’s legs, the big black animal thought he was going to be bitten. So he turned quickly, to shake his head and horns at Don, and in that way Bob was not hurt.
Bob was not the least bit afraid. He kept on shaking his stick at the bull, and throwing stones and pieces of dirt at him, sometimes hitting him on the nose. The bull did not like this.
And the big animal did not like Don barking at his heels, either. It made the big, black animal think he was going to be bitten.
“Keep at it, Don!” cried Bob. “We’ll soon have this bull back where he belongs! Drive him out of this field!”
“Bow wow!” barked Don, which meant, in dog language: “Of course we’ll drive him back. I’m not afraid.”
So, with the barking of the dog, and the way Bob shook his stick and threw stones, the bull began to feel that perhaps he had better be good, and go back where he belonged.
The bull was still rather angry, and he kept shaking his head and his horns, and pawing up the ground with his front feet. Still he backed slowly out of the lot where he did not belong, and pretty soon along came Bob’s father, with a big stick. Sallie, Bob’s sister, had gone to call her father when she saw Bob and Don trying to keep the bull from getting into the road.
“Get back there!” cried Bob’s father, and slowly the bull went back, until he was safely locked in the pasture from which he had gotten out by jumping the fence.
“Well, Bob,” said his father, “you are a brave little chap. Did you drive back the black bull all alone?”
“Oh, no,” answered Bob. “Don helped me, didn’t you, Don?”
“Bow wow!” barked Don, as Bob put his arms around the shaggy neck of his pet.
“Well, he certainly is a fine dog!” said the man, as he patted Don on the head. And you can just imagine how proud Don was. For he[42] was only a puppy yet, and I think even a larger dog might have been a little afraid to bark at the big, black bull. But Don started in by being brave, and that is a good way to begin life.
“Yes, my dog is a good one,” said Bob. “We’re not afraid of bulls, are we, Don?”
“Bow wow!” barked Don. “No indeed!”
“Well, I must make the fence higher so the bull can’t get out again,” said the farmer.
Then he and Bob and Don went up to the farmhouse, Don wagging his tail on the way, for that is what dogs do when they are pleased and happy.
Don was growing every day. He had good things to eat, he could run about and play as he pleased, and he had a nice warm place to sleep. All those things make puppies grow into big dogs. Of course some dogs are little, and always stay that way, but Don was one of the kind that grows to be large.
Bob, his master, was very fond of Don, and took him with him everywhere he went—except to school, of course. A dog could not go to school any more than could Mary’s little lamb. But often, when it was nearly time for school to be out, Don would slip off down the road, toward the little red schoolhouse.
Not far from it he would lie down in the shade of a tree to wait until the boys and girls[43] came out. Then Don would rush up, barking as loudly as he could, and wagging his tail, for he wanted to see Bob. Don was lonesome without him.
And what fun Bob and his boy chums had with Don on the way home from school! Don would carry Bob’s books, and if any other boy, even in fun, tried to take the books away from Don, the dog would growl and bark a little, as though saying:
“Now that’s all very well, in fun. But you must not take these books. If you do, I might have to bite you, just a least little bit, and I wouldn’t like to do that. So please don’t touch Bob’s books.”
And none of the boys dared.
Bob taught Don how to lie down and roll over when he was told, and how to sit up on his hind legs and not move even when a sweet cracker, or something else good to eat, was put on the dog’s nose. Don would sit there, just as steady as a clock, until Bob called out:
“Now you may eat it, Don!”
Then Don would flip his nose, toss the cracker up into the air, and as it came down he would grab it in his white teeth and chew it up. Oh, how good it tasted!
Bob also taught Don how to play soldier, and march around with a paper cap on his head, and[44] a broom for a gun. And Don could jump over chairs, and do many other things, that only circus dogs are supposed to do. Bob was very fond of his pet Don.
Sometimes, when Bob was off to school, Don would walk around the farm, looking at the cows, horses and chickens. He was not afraid of the big red rooster now, though once he had been, when he was a little puppy. Instead the rooster was afraid of Don, though the dog would not harm even a baby chicken. All Don did was to drive the chickens out of the garden when he was told.
“How de doo—de doo!” the rooster would crow, when he saw Don outside the chicken yard. “How de doo—de doo?”
“Oh, I’m pretty well, thank you,” Don would answer. “How are you? Bow wow!”
Then they would talk together in rooster and dog language—that is, after the rooster got over being afraid of Don.
Sometimes Don would go to see if the big, black bull was safely shut up in his pasture lot. Don and the bull never got to be good friends. I guess the bull was rather angry at Don for having driven him back that time he got loose. On some days Don would go to the pen where Squinty, the comical pig, lived with his mother and brothers and sisters. Don could look[45] through a crack in the boards and see the pigs.
“Oh, come now, I say, help me get a board off the pen and run out,” Squinty would beg of Don.
“No indeed! I’m not going to let you out,” Don would answer.
“Then I’ll get out all by myself,” Squinty would say.
And one day he did. With his strong, rubbery nose Squinty pushed and pushed on a loose board of his pen, until the board came off, and Squinty was out in the garden. He had a good time, as I have told you in the book about the comical little pig, so I will not put his adventures in here. For this book is to be about Don, or, at least, mostly about him.
Then the farmer found out that Squinty was loose.
“Here Don! Don!” called Bob’s father, for Bob was off to school. “There’s a pig loose, Don! Drive him back to his pen!”
“Bow wow! I will!” cried Don, and he ran up to take Squinty by the ear and lead him back. Don did not bite Squinty, though the comical little pig squealed as though he were badly hurt. But Don took him safely back to the pen.
Then, one day, Squinty got out again, and this time he wandered off a long distance before Don was sent after him. When the dog did find the little pig, Don saw a strange sight. Along the[46] country road were rumbling big red, green and golden colored wagons, drawn by many horses.
But, strangest of all, Don saw in the woods a little hairy animal, with a long tail, and four hands—or so it seemed to Don. And then there was another queer animal, with two tails, one in front, and one behind.
“Bow wow!” barked Don when he saw this animal. “I had better run away from here. I don’t like this! Two tails! Oh my!”
“Oh, don’t be afraid,” said Squinty. “That’s only Tum Tum.”
Don, who had been barking and growling to make Squinty, the comical pig, go back to his pen, stopped suddenly, and grew very quiet when he saw the funny, hairy, four-handed animal, and also the one that seemed to have two tails. Don crouched down in the bushes to hide away, for, though he had not been afraid of the big, black bull, this queer beast was much larger, and so different.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Squinty, again. “That is only Tum Tum.”
“What do you mean—Tum Tum?” asked Don. “That sounds like the name of a drum. And why shouldn’t I be afraid of an animal with two tails? especially when he is so big,” asked Don.
“He hasn’t two tails,” grunted Squinty, the comical pig. “I thought the same thing at first, until Mappo told me different.”
“Who is Mappo?” asked Don.
“Mappo is this chap—a merry monkey,” answered the little pig, as he pointed with one paw[48] toward the queer, furry, four-handed and long-tailed animal.
“Oh, so your name is Mappo, is it?” asked Don, for he found that he could talk to the other animals, as well as understand them.
“Yes, I am Mappo,” the monkey said. “But please don’t speak my name so loudly.”
“Why not?” Don wanted to know.
“Because I have run away from a circus,” answered Mappo. And then Don saw that what he had thought were hands were only paws, but they were almost like hands, and the monkey’s tail was almost like a fifth hand to him.
“Run away from a circus?” barked Don. “What’s a circus?”
“That’s it, out there,” Squinty said, as he nodded his head toward the big red, green and golden wagons that were rumbling along the country road. “Mappo and Tum Tum belong to the circus, but Mappo has run away, just as I ran from the pen. Tum Tum is after him.”
“Who is Tum Tum?” asked Don again.
“He’s that big elephant,” answered Mappo, as he pointed toward the creature.
“Oh ho!” barked Don, and he was not so frightened now. “So that is what you call an animal with two tails; an elephant?”
“He hasn’t two tails, I tell you,” answered[49] Squinty, with a pig-laugh. “One is his tail—that’s the short one, and the other is his trunk.”
“It doesn’t look like a trunk,” said Don. “I know what a trunk is. There are some in the attic of the house where I live, and Bob’s mother keeps her clothes in them. I don’t see how Tum Tum could keep any clothes in that trunk that hangs down from his mouth.”
“It isn’t that kind of a trunk,” said the big elephant with a deep, jolly laugh. “My trunk is just a long nose, to breathe through, and squirt water through, and I can curl it around and pick up things with it.”
And to prove how easy it was he just picked up Mappo, the merry monkey, in his trunk, Tum Tum did, and set him on his back.
“Oh ho! So that’s what a trunk is for!” exclaimed Don. “Well, I am glad to know, and I am glad I met you, Mappo and Tum Tum. But now, Squinty, you must come back to your pen with me.”
“I don’t want to go!” squealed the little pig.
“But you must come!” Don said. “I was sent after you and I am going to take you home, even if I have to lead you all the way by the ear.”
“Yes, you had better go,” said Tum Tum. “I have been sent from the circus to bring back Mappo, the merry monkey.”
“But I am not coming,” Mappo said. “I have run away, and I am not going to run back again until after I have some fun.”
And if you want to read all the things the monkey and the elephant did, you may do so in the special books about them, just as you may read about Squinty, the comical pig.
One book is called, “Mappo, the Merry Monkey,” and the other “Tum Tum, the Jolly Elephant.” I have not room in this book to set down all their wonderful adventures.
“Aren’t you coming back with me?” asked Tum Tum of Mappo.
“No, I am going to run away some more,” Mappo chattered, in monkey fashion, and off through the bushes he slipped, to have some fun.
“I am sorry about that,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, as he crashed through the underbrush. “I shall have to go back to the circus without Mappo.”
“But I am not going back to the farm without you, Squinty,” said Don, the dog, and with that he took hold of the comical little pig, and led him through the woods to his pen.
“The monkey and the elephant can do as they like,” said Don, “but my master told me to fetch back any runaway pigs I saw, and I am going to do it.”
“I don’t like you,” said Squinty, rather crossly to Don, as they went along through the woods.
“Well, I am sorry about that,” barked Don, “for I do not mean to be unkind to you. Still I must take you back where you belong.”
“And just when I was having such fun, running away!” went on Squinty, disappointed.
“It isn’t any fun to run away,” spoke Don, as he took hold of Squinty’s ear in a new place, so as not to hurt the comical little pig with the queer, squinty eye.
“Oh, isn’t it?” squealed Squinty. “That’s because you never tried it—you don’t know. Now if you were to run away once, you’d have so much fun you’d like it, I’m sure.”
“Did you have any fun when you ran away?” asked Don.
“Lots of fun,” answered Squinty. “That is, I did have until you came along and spoiled it all.”
“Well, I’m sorry I spoiled it, but I had to bring you home,” spoke Don. “You belong at the farm you know—not in a circus with monkeys and elephants.”
“But it’s lots of fun in a circus,” went on Squinty. “I say, Don,” he went on eagerly, “let’s run away together and join the circus. We could learn to do tricks, and have lots of fun. Come on!”
“No indeed!” growled Don. “I’m not going to run away.”
“But think of the fun you’d have,” Squinty went on. “At the farm nothing ever happens.”
“There doesn’t, eh?” asked Don. “I suppose you call the bad, black bull breaking out of his pasture, and Bob and me driving him back—I suppose you call that nothing!”
“Oh, well, that, of course,” admitted Squinty.
“And then running after you—is that nothing?” Don wanted to know.
“Well, I wish that hadn’t happened,” Squinty said. “But I mean lots more happens if you run away than if you stay at home. Just think! Everything is the same every day when you’re on the farm. You get your meals just so often, and you always have to come when Bob calls you.”
“Yes, but I like that, for I love my little master Bob,” said Don. “And I like my three meals a day.”
“But if you ran away you could eat as often as you pleased,” said Squinty.
“Do you really think so?” asked Don, doubtfully.
“I’m sure of it,” Squinty said.
“Well,” spoke Don, “I never thought of that. Maybe there is something in this running away after all.”
And, for the first time since he had come to live with Bob on the farm, Don began to think of running away. He had never thought of such a thing before, and he wouldn’t have done so then, only Squinty put it into his head, you see.
Don kept hold of Squinty’s ear all the way back to the farm and led the comical little pig right up to the pen from which he had broken out.
“There you are!” growled Don, but his voice was quite friendly.
“Yes, here I am, back again,” sighed Squinty, sorrowfully. “I wish you had let me run farther away.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t think of it,” barked Don.
“Never mind. Maybe some day you’ll run away yourself,” went on Squinty, “and then you’ll be sorry if some one makes you come back home.”
“No, I never will,” Don said.
The farmer, who owned the pigs, came running out of the barn.
“Well, I declare!” he cried. “If Don hasn’t brought back that rascal Squinty, who ran away! Good dog, Don!”
Then Don felt very proud and happy, and wagged his tail so hard that it is a wonder it did not fall off. But then a dog’s tail is made quite[54] tightly fast to him, you see, so it cannot wag off.
“No,” said Don, as he went to his kennel to dig up a nice, juicy bone he had buried near it, “no, I’ll never run away—never!”
But you just wait and see what Don did.
For several days after he had brought back Squinty, the comical pig, nothing much happened to Don. He played about with Bob, his little master, chased the chickens out of the garden, and did some of his tricks. One day Tabby, the cat, came out to talk to him.
Don and Tabby were good friends. The dog had always been kind to cats, since his mother had told him to be, and Tabby was not afraid of Don, though she would fluff up her tail, and round up her back, when she saw some dogs that were not friends of hers.
“Don’t you ever get tired of staying here all the while, Don?” asked Tabby, as she sat in the sunshine, washing her face with her velvety paw. Dogs and cats can talk to each other you know, though we cannot understand them.
“Why, no, I don’t know as I get tired,” Don answered. “What makes you ask that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” meowed Tabby. “Sometimes I feel as if I should like to run away, and see how the world looks away from this farm. I have been here all my life.”
“So have I—nearly,” Don went on. “But I like it here.”
Still, what Tabby had said to him, and what Squinty, the comical pig, had said to him, stayed in Don’s mind. As the days passed, and the warm, beautiful summer weather came, Don said:
“I wonder how it would seem to run away? I’ve a good notion to try it, just once. Then I could come back, and tell Tabby and Squinty and the other farm animals that there is really no fun in running away. That would make them contented, and they would be glad to stay here.
“Yes, I think I’ll run away, but only just to tell the others how it seems, so they won’t want to do it. In that way I would be doing Bob and his father a favor. Yes, I shall run away.”
So Don ran away, and then began some wonderful adventures for him.
When Don made up his mind to run away from the farm, he chose a time to do it when Bob would be away at school. For the dog well knew that if Bob were at home there would be little chance of getting away without being seen.
Bob always wanted Don with him, and, as soon as the boy came home from his lessons, the first thing he would do would be to run out to the kennel to see how Don was.
“Yes,” thought Don to himself, in a way dogs have of thinking, that we know nothing about, “yes, if I am to run away I must go when Bob is not at home. Otherwise he might stop me.
“But I won’t run away very far,” thought Don, “and I’ll soon run back again, to tell these silly farm animals that they are much better off stopping safely at home.”
That is what Don thought, but things do not always happen the way we think, or even the way dogs think.
Don walked out of his kennel, after he had[57] had a good dinner, looked carefully about to see that no one saw him, and off down the road he trotted.
“I suppose I ought to say good-by to Bob,” thought Don, “but then he doesn’t always understand my way of talking. Besides, if I said good-by to him he’d know I was going away, and he’d stop me. So I guess I won’t wait.”
Don trotted off, past the farmhouse, down the country road. Tabby, the big yellow cat, was sunning herself on the porch as Don went past.
“Where are you going?” asked Tabby, stretching out her paws.
“Oh, just to take a walk,” answered Don. For he did not want Tabby to follow him, and, after all, he was walking away, rather than running away—at least, at first.
“I don’t want any cats chasing after me,” thought Don. “No one takes any one with him when he runs away—at least Squinty didn’t, and he ought to know all about running away, for he’s done it twice. No, I’ll go alone.”
Off Don went.
At first it was very pleasant, trotting along the road, in the shade. Now and then Don would stop to get a drink at a wayside spring. Or he might see a flock of birds, and he would chase after them, with his red tongue hanging out of his mouth. Don did not want to catch the birds,[58] but he just wanted something to run after, and birds were as good as anything else.
After a while Don met another dog, named Rover, who lived on the next farm.
“Hello!” exclaimed Rover, speaking in dog language of course, and wagging his tail. “Glad to see you, Don. Where you going?”
“Oh, no place, special,” answered Don. He was wondering whether he might not tell Rover about running away, and ask the other dog to come with him.
“A dog to run away with would be all right,” thought Don, “but not a cat. I guess I’ll ask Rover.”
So Don said:
“To tell you the truth, Rover, I don’t know just where I am going. I am running away, to see the world, and have some adventures, and perhaps you’d like to come with me.”
“What! Running away?” cried Rover. “Not for me! I’m going to stay home!”
“But think of the adventures we’ll have,” said Don. “Come on!”
“No, thank you,” answered Rover. “Once I ran away, and I was glad enough to run back again. You will be, too.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Don. “Besides, so many of the animals on our farm are talking of running away, that I thought if I went, and[59] came back to tell them all about it, they wouldn’t want to run any more.”
“Well, perhaps they won’t,” said Rover. “But I’m sure you’ll be glad to get back.”
“No, I will not!” cried Don, and then he ran quickly and hid behind a lilac bush.
“What’s the matter?” asked Rover, in a barking whisper.
“Hush!” growled Don. “It’s your master. I don’t want him to see me here, for when Bob finds I am gone he will hunt for me, and your master may tell him I was here.”
“All right. Hide,” said Rover. “I won’t tell where you are. But, mind what I’m telling you. Very glad indeed you’ll be to get back home again!”
Don did not think so, and, after Rover’s master had passed on, the runaway dog came out of his hiding place in the bushes, and, saying good-by to the other dog, off Don went again, down the road.
“Well, I am certainly having a good time,” thought Don. “Squinty was right about it; there’s lots of fun in running away. No wonder he didn’t want to run back again.”
On and on trotted Don, stopping now and then to speak to other dogs he knew, and sometimes resting in the shade near a spring of water. Then off he would go again.
“Well,” thought Don, after a bit, “I am beginning to feel hungry. Let me see. What do you do when you get hungry if you are running away? I meant to ask Squinty about that, but I forgot it. I guess I can find something to eat.”
This was not as easy as Don had thought it would be. It was quite different from having Bob, or Bob’s mother or sister, bring out a nice plate of table scraps or a juicy bone. No one brought Don anything now, for he was a runaway dog.
“Never mind,” said Don to himself, in a way dogs have, “I guess I can go up to the back door of one of these houses, and pick up a bone or two. I’ll try it.”
Just then he was passing a large white house, that looked something like the one where his kennel was.
“There’s sure to be plenty to eat in a place like that,” thought Don.
Around to the back door he trotted, and, surely enough, he saw on the ground some bones with bits of meat on them. Don felt more hungry than ever when he saw them.
“Ah ha!” he whispered to himself, as he licked his teeth with his red tongue, “now for a fine dinner! Why this is as good as I would get at home. Who says running away isn’t jolly?”
But, just as Don was going to pick up the nicest bone, a harsh voice called to him:
“Here! Get out of there! Be off!” and a stone was thrown at Don, hitting him on the leg.
“Ouch!” he yelped. “Ouch! Bow wow!”
“Get away from there! Get out of this yard!” the harsh voice went on, and when a window was raised, Don saw a big, fat cook-woman, with a pan of water in her hand. She was just going to throw it on Don, but he ran out of the way in time.
“My! How impolite!” thought Don. “I never heard of such treatment! Just as if it would hurt anything if I took those bones nobody wants! The idea!”
Don felt quite badly as he ran away. No one had ever treated him that way before—not even when he was a little puppy, and he was now a big dog.
“Well, I’ll try another house,” thought Don, as he trotted on. “Maybe they will be kinder there. Anyhow I’m glad I ran before that fat woman had time to throw water on me. I wonder if it was hot water?”
Don trotted along, getting hungrier and hungrier every minute, until he saw another house. This one was painted red, but it was quite as large as the white one.
“Now to see if I can find a bone in this back[62] yard,” Don thought, as he ran in. He saw a tin can in one corner of the yard, and from the can came a nice smell of bones.
“Ah ha!” thought Don. “Something to eat there, I’m sure.”
He went up to the can, and was just lifting the cover off with his paw, to get at the bone inside, when another harsh voice called to him:
“Be off out of there! I believe you’re the dog who rolled in my pansy-flower bed the other day. Get away from here! I don’t like dogs!”
Don looked up in time to see the gardener flinging a stone at him, and Don dodged out of the way, so as not to be hit.
“Be off!” cried the man.
Poor Don tucked his tail between his legs and ran out of the yard. A stone once more came bounding after him, and almost hit him.
“Well, well!” thought the runaway dog. “This is certainly a hard life! I’ve been cheated out of my dinner twice. And no one wanted those bones, either. I don’t see why I couldn’t have had them!”
Don was beginning to find out that it was not so much fun running away as he had thought it would be. And he was getting so hungry!
On and on he ran, for some distance. Pretty soon he saw another large, fine house.
“Rich people must live in there,” he thought,[63] “but twice, now, I have been driven away from big houses. I think I’ll try a smaller one.”
So he went on and on until he came to a little house, where a poor old lady lived.
Don sniffed and smelled about, looking for a bone. But he could find none in this yard. However, the lady, looking out of her kitchen window, saw the dog, and she knew he must be hungry. Then Don saw a bit of bread lying on the ground. The lady had fed the birds that morning, and part of the bread was left.
“I’ll get that, anyhow!” thought Don, and he swallowed it very quickly.
“Poor dog! I believe you’re hungry!” said the lady, kindly.
“Ha! I know I’m hungry,” said Don to himself, for of course he could not speak to the lady in her language.
“I’ll give you a bone,” she said, and she threw something out of the window at Don. At first the runaway dog thought it was another stone, but as soon as he smelled the bone he knew better.
“But I’m not going to run any chances,” Don thought. So, with a bark of thanks to the kind lady, Don caught the bone in his teeth, and out he ran with it into the street. And no sooner had he gotten there, than another dog, bigger than Don, saw him.
“Hold on!” cried the other dog. “Give me that bone! It’s mine!”
“I beg your pardon,” spoke Don, politely, for he had been brought up that way, “but this is my bone—a lady gave it to me.”
“No it isn’t! It’s mine!” growled the other dog, and he began to run after Don. But Don was not going to lose the bone the kind lady had given him, so away he ran as fast as he could go, with the other dog following after, like Jack and Jill falling down hill, you know.
“Stop! Stop! Give me that bone!” cried the bad dog.
“No! No!” answered Don.
Though the other dog was larger and stronger than Don, he could not run as fast, and Don was soon out of sight around the corner, trotting as fast as he could go, with the bone in his mouth.
“Well, so far so good,” thought Don. “I never imagined before that it was so hard and dangerous to get anything to eat. It isn’t this way on the farm. Still I am running away—that is something, and I suppose these are only adventures.”
Soon Don came to a quiet, shady place, near where a street-fountain of water bubbled up.
“I’ll lie down here and eat my bone,” thought Don. But it was not as easy to do as he thought. As soon as he began to gnaw the meat off the bone, other dogs, coming to the fountain to get a drink, wanted to take Don’s bone away from him. At last Don said:
“Well, I’ll have no peace or quietness here. I’ll find another place.” Picking up his bone, he ran on until he came to a railroad station. Don knew what this was, for the railroad ran not far from the farm, and Don had often gone to the depot with Bob to see the trains go by.
Don saw a big brown freight car, with the door open, standing on the track.
“I’ll get in there and eat my bone,” thought Don, and with one jump, up into the car he leaped. There no other dogs bothered him as he gnawed the juicy bone, and then, after this little lunch, Don fell asleep.
How long he slept he did not know, but when he awoke he found himself in the dark, and the car was rumbling along over the track.
“Oh, the train must have started!” thought Don. “I must get out.” But, when he tried, he found the door of the freight car was tightly shut. Poor Don was locked in.
Poor Don did not know what to do. There he was, shut tightly up in a dark freight car, that was rumbling over the rails as fast as it could go.
“Well,” thought Don, in a way dogs have of thinking, “I am in a fix now. I had much better have stopped at home. Running away isn’t as much fun as I thought it was.”
He looked about the car, but he could see no way to get out. There were some boxes and barrels in one corner, but as Don went up to sniff and smell of them he could tell they had in them nothing good to eat.
My! What a rumbling the train made as it puffed along.
“I wonder where I am being taken to?” thought Don. “I guess I am in for an adventure. Well, I’ll make the best of it.”
Once more Don went over to the door, and tried to push it open with his nose. But it was not a swinging door like the one in the house at home. Instead, it slid back and forth. What had happened was this:
When Don was asleep, after having eaten the bone the good lady gave him, a train-man had come along, and closed the door of the freight car. He did not see Don sleeping inside there to keep out of the way of other dogs, or, if he had, the brakeman might have called to Don to get out, before the door was locked. But, as it was, Don was locked in. And now he was being taken away—where, he could not tell.
Don was beginning to feel hungry again, and, worse than this, he was thirsty. He could stand being hungry, for he had had a bone, only a little while before. But oh! how thirsty he was. And there was not a drop of water in the car.
Poor Don put out his tongue, and licked his dry lips. There is not anything quite so bad for an animal as to be thirsty, and if ever you have a dog or cat, I hope you will see to it that they can always get clean, fresh water to drink, especially in hot weather.
Poor Don’s tongue hung out of his mouth, and his breath came fast.
Up and down the freight car ran Don, looking for water in every corner, but there was none. Then he thought to himself:
“I’ll bark and howl. That will let the men know I want a drink, and they’ll bring me some water. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll bark and howl. I ought to have thought of that before.”
So Don sat down in the middle of the car, on his hind legs, and, lifting up his head, he howled. Then he barked, doing both as loudly as he could.
But the train made such a rumbling noise, and the engine whistled so loudly, that Don’s howls and barks could not be heard.
But he kept on howling and barking, until his poor throat and tongue were tired, and he was thirstier than ever.
“I guess I’ll have to stop,” thought Don. “This isn’t doing any good, and it only makes me feel worse than ever. Oh, if I could only get out!”
Then poor Don, tired out and weary, lay down and tried to sleep.
But it was hard work even to sleep in the rumbling car, though at last Don dozed off for a little while. Then he suddenly awakened, and as he sat up he knew what had made him stop sleeping. It was the sudden quiet that had come after all the noise.
The train had come to a stop. It no longer rumbled over the rails, and the car did not sway from side to side.
“Oh, maybe I can get out now!” thought Don, jumping up. Once more he barked and howled, but he could not do it so loudly now, or he was so thirsty his throat seemed all swelled shut.
Finally, after giving a pitiful howl, Don heard the voices of men outside the freight car. And Don knew enough of men’s talk to hear one of them ask:
“Don’t you hear a dog somewhere?”
“Seems to me I do,” answered another voice. “I wonder where it can be?”
“I’ll soon show them where it is,” thought Don. “I’ll howl again for them.”
Once more he howled and barked.
“Why the dog is in this freight car!” exclaimed the first man.
“So he is!” cried the second. “We’ll let him out. We don’t want to be carrying a dog with us.”
In a little while the door of the freight car slid open, and as soon as Don saw the first streak of daylight come in, he gave a yelp of delight.
“Now I can get out and get a drink!” he thought.
So, without stopping to say anything to the men for letting him out, except to give a short bark, which meant “Thank you!” Don jumped to the ground and ran as fast as he could. He did not care which way he went, as long as he could find some water.
“Look at that dog run!” cried one of the men.
“Yes, I guess he is badly scared,” said the other.
Don was not so much frightened as he was thirsty; he was a brave dog. As he ran along, trying to smell his way to the nearest water, he thought:
“Oh, if ever I get safely back to my kennel once more, I’ll never run away again. That other dog, Rover, was right—it’s no fun to run away.”
Then, all of a sudden, Don smelled water. He looked in the direction from which the smell came, and he saw a big stream of water splashing down into the engine that had drawn the train of freight cars. For the engine has to have water, just as a dog does, only the engine makes steam of it. And it was the engine taking water at a big tank that Don saw.
Some of the water splashed down from the engine tank and made a little puddle beside the track. Don trotted up to this puddle and took a long drink. And oh! how good it tasted.
“Humph! That dog was thirsty all right,” said the engineer as he leaned out of his cab window and watched his engine getting a drink too. “I wonder where that dog came from?”
“I came from a freight car—that’s where I came from,” said Don, but of course he spoke only to himself, sort of thinking like, and the engineer did not hear anything.
Don took another drink of the cool water, and[73] he did not mind if it was a bit muddy. At home, in his kennel, Bob the boy, would never think of giving his pet dog anything but clean water to drink.
“But it’s different, when you run away,” thought Don. “Then you have to take what you can get.”
He felt much better, now that he had quenched his thirst. But he was beginning to feel hungry.
“The bone I left in the car is no good, for there is no more meat on it,” thought Don. “I shall have to look for a new one.”
Then, for the first time since he had come out of the freight car, Don looked about him, to see where he was. He saw many trains, and railroad tracks, and, off in the distance a number of houses and church spires as well as factory chimneys.
“I must be in some city,” thought Don. And he was right. The freight train had stopped outside a large city, where Don was going to have many adventures. Only, of course, he did not know that just now.
Poor Don was very tired, quite hungry and very dirty, for the floor of the freight car had no clean straw on it as had the dog kennel at the farm. In fact Don did not look like a nice dog at all. But he did not know this, for he had no[74] looking glass to tell him. I very much doubt if dogs use mirrors,—don’t you? Anyhow, Don did not feel like himself. He was beginning to be more and more sorry every minute that he had run away.
“But, as long as I have, I must make the best of it,” thought Don. “And the first thing to do is to get something to eat.”
He trotted over the railroad tracks, and soon found himself running along the streets of a big city. He had never been in such a large one before, though once he had gone to a small one, not far from the farm, with Bob and the farmer. But this was a very big city, and Don had not a friend in it. He sniffed and smelled, as he ran along, trying to find something to eat. At last he smelled meat, and oh! how hungry it made him. He ran toward the smell, but, just as he turned the corner near it, he heard a voice cry:
“Oh, look at that dog! Let’s throw a stone at him!”
Don looked around quickly to see who had spoken. He saw two boys standing at the corner, near where that good smell of meat came from, for which Don was so hungry. One of the boys had stooped to pick up a stone.
“Come on, Bill,” said this boy. “Get yourself a stone and we’ll see who of us can hit that dog first.”
“Oh, I don’t want to,” answered the other boy. “What’s the good of hitting him?”
“To make him run. Come on.”
“No, I don’t want to. What’s the use of hurting a dog? I like dogs. I wonder if I could take that one home with me?”
Don had two kinds of feelings just then. One was sort of an angry feeling at the boy who wanted to throw a stone at him, and the other feeling was a kind, glad one, toward the other boy.
“That boy looks something like my little master, Bob,” thought Don. “I’d like to go to him,[76] for I think he would give me something to eat. And oh! how hungry I am.”
Don wagged his tail. This was for the good boy. Then Don growled, the least little bit. That was for the bad boy. It was as if Don had said to the good boy:
“I like you. I want to be friends with you. You and I can have good times together.”
And when Don growled, it was as though he had said to the bad boy:
“Come now! None of that—no throwing of stones. That isn’t nice. I can’t be friends with you if you throw stones at me.”
Of course neither of the boys understood Don’s kind of talk. The dog was just going to go closer to the boy who did not want to throw a stone at him, when, all of a sudden the “bad” boy, as I call him, threw the piece of rock, and it hit Don on the leg.
“Wow! Ouch! Yelp!” cried poor Don, as he limped away.
“Ha! Ha!” laughed the boy who had thrown the stone. “Look at him go! I knew I could make him run!”
“Aw, what’d you want to go and do that for?” asked the other boy, quickly. “Now I can’t get him.”
“Well, he wasn’t much good,” spoke the boy who had thrown the stone. “Let him go.”
“Guess I’ll have to,” said the good boy. “But I wish you hadn’t hit him.”
“So do I,” thought Don, who heard this talk as he limped away. “I don’t see why he wanted to throw a stone at me.”
And I do not see why myself, except that some boys do things without thinking. I do not believe boys ever want really to be cruel and mean, as they are when they stone dogs and cats. It is just that they do not think.
Don ran on, and, after a while, his leg, that had been hit by the stone, did not hurt him so much. His feeling of hunger, which had gone away for a little while, after he was hit, came back again worse than before.
“I must find something to eat,” thought Don. “I’ll get so weak that I’ll fall down in the street, if I don’t eat.”
So, with his nose, he sniffed and snuffed until, once more, he caught the smell of meat. Of course dogs can look for food, but their noses are sharper than their eyes, and they can smell something good to eat long before they can see it.
Other animals do, too. You just watch your cat some time. She may see a wagon coming down the street, but she does not pay any attention to it because it is only a wagon from the drygoods store.
Then another wagon comes down the street. It looks almost like the one from the drygoods store, but as soon as pussy sees that, she meows, and runs to meet it. For this is the fish wagon, and she can smell the fish in it before you can. Cats like fish.
It was that way with Don. And once more he smelled meat. This time he followed the smell to a can that stood on the edge of the gutter. It was an ash can, but in it was a piece of meat.
Don reached in, and grabbed it out as quickly as he could, running around the corner, for he had not forgotten the time a stone was thrown at him when he took a bone from a yard.
The meat was not as clean and as nice as Don would have gotten at his kennel at the farm, but he was so hungry that he did not stop to think of that. He ate the meat up at once.
“My, that tasted good!” said Don to himself. “I wish I could find another piece like that. And to think I wouldn’t look twice at such a piece of meat at home. Well, running away is certainly a strange life! I’ll never do it again, and I’m going to run home as soon as I can.”
It was easier to say this than to do it. Don was far, far from the nice farm, and he did not even know which way to start to get back there.
My! what a noisy place the city was. Trolley cars and automobiles raced through the streets,[79] and there were many horses and wagons. And so many persons were hurrying here, there and everywhere.
Poor Don was very lonesome. He finished the last scrap of meat he had pulled out of the ash can, and walked on. He did not know where he was going, or what to do, but every one in the city seemed to keep moving, so Don did the same.
Don came to a street where there were many wagons, cars and automobiles. On the other side of the street he saw a butcher shop, with nice meat hanging in the window.
“Now,” thought Don, “if I could only get over there I might get a nice bone, or a scrap of clean meat. Guess I’ll try it.”
He watched his chance, for he was afraid of being run over, there were so many wagons and autos in the street. At last Don thought he saw an opening, and he darted forward.
But Don was not used to city ways. No sooner was he half way across the street than it seemed as if a dozen cars were rushing down on him. A policeman shouted at him, and blew a whistle.
“Get out of there, dog!” cried the policeman.
Don started to run back, but, as he did so two automobiles came past, with tooting horns, and he was afraid of them.
“Go on! Go on!” cried the policeman. So Don kept on across the street. He was almost at the other curb, when another auto came along so swiftly that one of the wheels hit Don, and knocked him down. But the man steering the automobile turned it out of the way just in time, and Don was saved. He scrambled to the sidewalk, his heart beating very fast.
“Well, well! That was a narrow escape you had!” said a voice in his ear, and, looking up, Don saw another dog. This dog was what we should call a “tramp” dog. But he spoke kindly to Don.
“You came near being run over,” said this dog, wagging his tail.
“Yes, I guess I did,” agreed Don.
“What’s your name, and where do you live?” asked the tramp dog, wagging his tail some more, to show that he was friendly.
“My name is Don,” said Bob’s pet, “and I did live on a farm. But I ran away, to have some adventures, and—”
“Well, if you’ll take my advice you’ll run back to that farm as fast as you can,” said the tramp dog. “I lived on one once, and it is much nicer, for dogs, than the city. You’d better go back.”
“I would, if I could, but I can’t find my way,” sorrowfully said Don, and he told of having been locked in a freight car.
“My! You certainly have had some adventures,” said the city dog, who had mentioned that his name was Jack. “Have you had anything to eat?”
“Yes, I found a piece of meat in a can,” answered Don. “But it was not very good. It was covered with ashes, and—”
“Well, you were lucky to get that,” said Jack. “I haven’t had a thing to-day, and I’m almost starved. You’ll be very glad to get even scraps from ash cans if you stay in the city long, let me tell you—very lucky indeed. I wish I could find some now.”
“I’ll show you where the can is,” offered Don, kindly. “But I don’t think there is any more meat in it.”
“Hardly,” agreed Jack. “There are too many dogs about to eat it.”
“There’s lots of meat in there,” said Don, looking at the butcher shop. “Maybe they’ll give us some.”
“Not much they won’t!” cried Jack. “All the meat we’ll get there wouldn’t keep a kitten from starving. We’ll have to hunt our own. But come along. Maybe I’ll have some luck, now I’ve met you. Have you any place to sleep to-night?”
“No. But at home, on the farm, I had a nice kennel, filled with soft straw,” said Don.
“You’ll find nothing like that here,” said Jack. “Such things are only for rich dogs, with homes. But never mind. I have a good sleeping place under some boards in a lumber yard. I’ll take you there to-night, and we’ll sleep together.”
“That is very good of you,” said Don. “And if I find anything to eat, I’ll give you half.”
The two dogs looked longingly at the meat in the butcher shop. In the window sat a fat cat, and it seemed as though she blinked her eyes at the dogs. She was not afraid of them.
“Just think of it!” cried Jack. “That cat has all the meat she wants, and we have to be glad of even scraps from an ash can.”
“Well, it serves me right for running away,” thought Don to himself.
He and Jack managed to find a little meat that day, but it was not much. They drank from a mud puddle, and were glad enough to do so. Then, worn out, tired and dusty, that night Jack and Don went to the lumber yard to sleep.
“Haven’t you any cushions, or anything like that?” asked Don, as he saw a space under some bare boards, which Jack said was the bed.
“Nothing like that,” said Jack, with a bark. “I’m glad enough to have a sheltered place, without cushions.”
Poor Don was so tired that he fell asleep almost[85] at once. And he dreamed that he was back in his kennel at the farm, lying in the warm straw, and that in front of him was a big bowl of milk and a plate of juicy bones.
Dogs and cats, as well as other animals, do dream, I believe. If you ever watch sleeping cats or dogs, you will often see them jump or twitch, when their eyes are closed. And sometimes they will whine or howl, just as children talk in their sleep. Of course no one knows what dogs and cats dream about, but I imagine it must often be of good things to eat, don’t you?
At any rate Don dreamed of being back home, but when he suddenly awakened he remembered where he was.
“Oh, I’m under the lumber pile,” Don thought to himself. “And I’ll have to go hunting in ash cans for something to eat. Oh, I wish I were back home again! No more running away for me!”
Then Don began to feel something queer on his tail. It was as though it were being pinched. He looked up, thinking perhaps Jack was doing this to awaken him. But Jack was not to be seen. And then Don saw something else.
Tied around his tail was a piece of rope that had not been there when he went to sleep the night before.
Don jumped up quickly, and, as he did so, he heard a rattling sound. At the same time a boy’s voice cried:
“Hey, Jimmie! The dog’s woke up! Now we’ll see some fun!”
Don sprang out from under the pile of boards. As he did so, the rattlety-bang sound followed him. It went wherever he went and, as he looked around, he saw that a big tin can was tied to his tail. Don did not know what to make of it. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. He gave a jump, and ran around the lumber yard. At every step the can followed, with a rattle and bang.
“Oh, this is terrible!” yelped poor Don, as he ran faster and faster. But, no matter how fast he ran, the can on his tail followed.
“Look at him run!” cried one of the boys who had tied the tin can on Don’s tail, when the dog was asleep. “Look!”
“He certainly can go!” shouted the other boy. “Let’s see if we can’t catch him!”
But Don was running too fast for any small boy to get hold of him, and those boys were not very large. Don was running as he had never run before, because he was so frightened. Never before had he had a can tied to his tail, and it bumped along after him, making such a noise, and the rope pinched him so that, altogether, Don was very much frightened.
But it was only “fun” for the boys. They laughed and shouted to see Don try to get rid of the tin can.
For, after the first few minutes, Don did try to get rid of that bouncing, rattlety-bang thing that seemed to follow him so closely. The dog sat down, and, turning around, tried to pull the rope off his tail by his teeth. But the boys had tied it on too tightly to allow Don to get rid of it easily.
“Come on! Now we can catch him!” cried one of the boys, as he saw Don sitting down near a pile of shingles.
The two boys went softly up toward the dog. I do not know what they would have done with him if they had caught him, but they did not get their hands on Don.
He stopped gnawing at the rope long enough to look up, and he saw the boys. With a yelp, a growl and whine, all together, Don sprang up and ran on again.
“There he goes!” cried one of the boys.
“Yes. Head him off! You go one way, and I’ll go the other,” shouted the second boy. “Then we’ll get him, sure.”
“Oh, what a lot of trouble I’m having!” thought poor Don. “How I wish I were back on the farm! And I wish Jack, that shaggy dog, was here to help me. I wonder where he went to?”
But Jack was far away, and Don had to fight his battle alone. Finally, as he was running around with the can on his tail, Don saw a little hole in the pile of lumber.
“If I can only crawl in there,” he said, “I’ll hide from those boys. They can’t get at me in there.”
Don made a dive for the hole. It was just large enough to let him crawl in. He hoped the[89] tin can might catch on something and be pulled off his tail. But it did not. Inside his hiding place the can followed poor Don.
“Never mind,” thought the tired and panting dog, “if the can had caught on something, and if I pulled too hard, I might pull my tail off also, and that would be too bad.” And of course it would. You know that, as well as I do, without me telling you.
“But maybe when Jack comes back, and these boys go away, I’ll be able to get rid of this old tin can,” thought Don. “Maybe Jack can help me gnaw it off.”
So Don crept farther back into the hole, under the lumber and the boys could not get at him. They tried to, but they could not. They even poked sticks in the hole, and threw stones in, but none of them hit Don.
Finally, one of the men who owned the lumber yard came out of his office, and saw the boys bothering Don. The man called to them:
“Hi there, you little fellows! Run away, and play somewhere else.”
Then the boys ran away, and left Don alone. The man did not know there was a dog hiding under his lumber pile. But Don felt very kindly toward the man who had driven away the boys.
“Now if he would only help me get rid of this[90] can on my tail I’d be all right,” thought Don. “I wonder where Jack is?”
For some time Don stayed hiding under the lumber pile. His heart was not beating so fast now, though his tail still hurt him, where the can was tied on. And he was hungry and thirsty, for he had eaten nothing since the night before. Don was just thinking it would be safe to come out of his hiding place, when he heard a dog barking. And he knew, at once, that it was his shaggy friend Jack.
Though Jack’s voice would have sounded to you and me only like: “Bow wow wow!” to Don it said:
“Where are you? What has happened? Where are you hiding?”
“Bow wow!” answered Don. “Here I am. Oh, where have you been? Such a lot has happened since you went away, and left me sleeping. There is a can tied to my tail.”
“Poor fellow!” said Jack to Don, as the latter crawled out. “You have had a lot of trouble, haven’t you? Never mind, I’ll soon have that off your tail.” And he did, gnawing the rope with his sharp teeth.
“Now I have a bone for you,” went on Jack. “I left it in the place where we slept. It isn’t a very good one, but it’s the best one I could find this morning.”
“Oh, that’s a fine bone,” said Don, when he was hungrily gnawing it. At home he would hardly have looked twice at such a bone, for it had very little meat on it. But since he had run away he was glad enough to get almost anything.
“Where did you go?” asked Don of Jack, as the bone was finished, and Don began to feel thirsty.
“Oh, seeing that you were soundly asleep, I went out to look for breakfast,” answered Jack. “I did not think the boys would find you asleep. We must look for a new hiding place, since they know where this one is. Now we’ll see if it’s all right to go get a drink, down at the river. It isn’t far.”
Jack looked out, but, almost at once, he drew in his head again.
“What’s the matter?” asked Don.
“There’s a man out there,” explained Jack. “I don’t want him to see us, or he might chase us.”
Don looked, and when he saw the man he exclaimed:
“Why, he’s a good man. He drove away the boys who were throwing stones at me.”
“Then he didn’t know you were there,” said Jack, “for he doesn’t like dogs, and he won’t have them in this lumber yard. We must wait until he goes away.”
So, though Don would have liked to go up to the man, and be patted on the head, he thought perhaps Jack knew best.
“Things are so different in the city from the country,” said Don, with a dog-sigh.
“Indeed they are,” barked Jack.
Pretty soon the man went out of the lumber yard, and then Jack and Don could go down to the edge of the river, near the piles of boards, and get a drink of cool water.
“Oh, that’s fine!” cried Don. “That’s the best water I’ve had since I ran away.”
“Yes, it is good,” agreed Jack. “That’s why I have a place near it. We can’t always get all we want to eat in the city, but water is not so hard to find. Now let’s go and hunt up our dinner.”
“But we just had breakfast,” said Don.
“I know we did,” spoke Jack, as he washed his face with his paw, “but we may have to hunt a long time for something more to eat, and then it will be dinner time.”
Once more Don thought how very different this was from his farm kennel.
There, after he had had his breakfast, he could play around, or perhaps drive in a runaway pig, or go after the sheep or cows. He did not have to worry about his dinner, for he knew Bob, or[93] some one, would bring it to him. But now Don had to go out and look for a bone in an ash can. Oh, it was very different!
This day Don and Jack were lucky. Together, as they ran about the city streets, they found a large piece of meat, which some cook had thrown out at the back door of a house.
“Oh, this will be fine!” cried Jack. “We’ll take this to the lumber yard, and put it in a new hiding place. There will be enough for dinner and supper too.”
It was not a very good piece of meat, being old and tough, but it was just as good to those dogs as roast turkey would be to you.
Jack took the meat in his mouth, and started off with it.
“Keep a watch out for other dogs,” he said to Don. “They may try to take it away from us. And, if they do, drive them off.”
“I will,” said Don. And he had to, several times. But Don was now a big dog, and he was braver and bolder than ever before. So, when two or three dogs ran up, Don growled and showed his sharp teeth, so that the other dogs were glad enough to run away.
Jack picked out a new place under a pile of lumber, and there he and Don ate their dinner. They were feeling much better now, for there[94] was enough meat left for their supper. And they could always get plenty of clean drinking water in the river.
“Oh, running away isn’t so bad, after all,” said Don that night, after the last of the meat had been eaten. “I am beginning to like it, now.”
“Wait,” advised Jack. “This is only the beginning. Not always will we have such good luck as we had to-day.”
Jack was right. The next day they could find nothing to eat until late in the afternoon. Then it was only a small bone which they divided between them.
It rained, too, and the water ran down through the lumber pile and got the dogs wet.
But Don could not find his way home, having traveled so far in the freight car. He tried to get back to Bob, but he could not, and Jack could not help him.
For several weeks Jack and Don lived together in the lumber pile, eating what and when they could. Sometimes other dogs would fight them, and try to take away their bones, but Jack and Don were both strong, and usually they kept what they found.
Don could go off by himself now, to find food, and one day, as he was off thus, searching in different ash cans, he had a sad adventure.
He had just found a nice bone, in some clean[95] ashes, and was wiping it off on the grass, when he saw two men running toward him. One of them had a long net, on a pole, like the net Bob used for catching fish, and Don wondered what this was for. He soon found out.
“There’s a stray dog!” cried one of the men. “Get him, and we’ll take him away!” And the dog-catcher ran straight for Don.
Poor Don did not know what to make of all this. But, somehow, he felt that he was in danger, and, with one more glance back over his shoulder, seeing the man with the net on the long pole still running after him, Don ran also—and faster than ever.
“This is queer,” thought Don. “I wonder what makes that man chase me? And does he think I am a fish, that he tries to catch me in a net?”
But these men were not fishing for fish—they were fishing for dogs, and Don did not know what would happen if they caught him, so he ran faster and faster.
Those men, you see, were hired to catch stray dogs that were not allowed to run loose about the streets in summer. The people feared the stray dogs would go mad and bite them, so they hired men, with wagons and nets, to catch them.
Once the dogs were caught they would be put in a pen, called a “pound,” and if, after a certain time, the dog’s master did not come and take him away, the poor dog would be killed. That is what they do to stray dogs in the city.
Of course Don did not know all this, though[97] his friend Jack had told him to be careful as he went about the streets. So now Don felt there was some danger, and on and on he ran, as fast as he could run.
Somehow, Don could not run as fast and as far as he used to. On the farm, when he raced with Bob, Don always beat. But since he had run away, Don had not had as good things to eat as he had had on the farm. And he had not had as good a place to sleep in. So Don was not as strong and healthful as he had been.
“Why, I’m getting tired!” panted poor Don, as he raced on. He looked back over his shoulder. The man with the net was coming closer. There was another man following, with a big, black wagon.
“Can you get him?” asked the man, driving the black wagon.
“Yes, I’ll have him in a minute!” cried the man with the net. “That will make the wagon full, and we’ll take ’em all to the pound.”
“You’ll never take me there—not if I can help it!” thought Don.
He ran on, his red tongue hanging out of his mouth, and his breath coming in gasps. He was thirsty, too, but he saw no place to get a drink. Even if there had been a puddle of water, Don would not have dared stop to lap up any, for the dog catcher was close to him, coming on and on.
“Oh dear!” thought Don. “This is terrible! How much better I would have been had I stayed on the farm. No more running away for me.”
But Don was not at the end of his adventures, even yet.
He gave one more glance backward, to see how close the man with the net was to him, and then something happened. Don stepped on a sharp piece of glass in the street, and cut his foot, not badly, but enough to make him limp. And then he could not run so fast. The piece of glass must have stuck in his foot, for Don could not step on it without its hurting him very much. He had to run on three legs.
Now a dog cannot run as fast on three legs as he can on four, and Don had to go slower and slower.
“Now you can get him!” cried the man on the wagon.
“Yes, I’ll have him now,” shouted the man with the net.
Don tried to run on faster, but it was of no use. In a few minutes more he felt something hit him on the head. Then he was all tangled up in the meshes of the net, and he fell down, hurting his cut foot more than ever.
“Now I have you!” cried the man with the net. He picked up Don, and, as the wagon came up, tossed him into it. Instantly there was a chorus of barks and growls, for there were many other dogs in the wagon, and they did not seem to like Don.
“Who’s coming in here now?” growled one of the dogs in the catcher’s wagon.
“Yes; weren’t we crowded enough already?” asked another.
“Oh, well, it doesn’t make much difference,” snarled a third dog. “We’ll soon have room enough in the pound.”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” said Don, thinking it best to make friends with the stray dogs, “but I did not come in here of my own accord. I was—”
“Thrown in!” interrupted a little, white poodle dog in one corner of the wagon. “That’s it—you were thrown in—I saw you!”
“That is right, I was thrown in,” said Don. “I’d gladly go out, if I could, and make more room for you, but I can’t,” and he looked at the dogs and the tightly closed door.
“No, you can’t get out,” growled the yellow dog who had said there would be more room soon. “We’ll just have to crowd up a little closer, that’s all. But we’ll soon have plenty of room to move about.”
“You said that before,” spoke the little poodle dog. “How do you know?”
“Because I have been there,” was the answer. “I was caught once before, just as I was this time, and taken to the pound. But a boy came and bought me, so I was allowed to go.”
I forgot to tell you that sometimes people who want a dog go to the pound, pick one out of those that have been caught, and buy it, taking it away to give it a good home.
“I hope some one buys me,” thought Don. “I don’t like this life, living like a tramp, with no good place to sleep, and no nice things to eat.”
The wagon rumbled on to the city pound, and there the dogs were allowed to go out, and run about in a yard, all fenced in with wire. There were many other dogs there, little ones and big ones, nice ones, and some that were not so nice. Some of them snarled and barked, and some tried to get out, but could not.
“Oh dear!” cried one little poodle dog, whose silken hair showed that he was used to a good home. “Oh dear! I don’t like it here. Oh, stop!” he cried, as a bigger dog tried to bite him.
“Here, you let him alone!” growled Don to the big dog.
“Why should I let him alone?” asked the big dog, growling and showing his teeth.
“Because he’s a friend of mine,” said Don.
“Oh, well,” answered the bad dog, “in that[103] case it’s different. I didn’t know he was a friend of yours. Of course I’ll let him alone.”
“You’d better,” growled Don. Of course the little dog was not really a friend of Don’s, for he had never seen him before, but Don thought it best to speak that way, for he did not want to see the little dog hurt.
And when the bad dog had gone off in a corner of the pound, the little silky poodle, who had been in the same wagon with Don, came up to him, and said:
“It was very kind of you to take my part that way. I am very much obliged to you. It was nice to tell him I was your friend,” and he wagged his tail in a friendly fashion.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Don, as he limped to a shady place to lie down.
The little silky poodle dog followed Don, for the dogs in the pound were not very friendly toward one another—at least most of them were not. You would have thought, being all in trouble together, that they would be friendly and kind, but the big dogs picked on the little ones, and the little ones snarled at the big ones, until there was so much noise that it sounded like a dozen dog fights going on at once.
But Don and the little poodle dog did not quarrel. They seemed to be good friends from the start.
“Oh, have you hurt your foot?” asked the poodle of Don.
“Yes, I stepped on some glass when the man with the net was chasing me,” said Don.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” the other dog said. “I’m so sorry. If you were at my house, now, my little mistress would put some salve and a rag on your foot, and it would soon be well. Oh dear! I wonder if ever I’ll see her again?” he sighed.
“See whom?” asked Don.
“My little mistress. I belong to a little girl,” the poodle explained.
“Why did you run away from her?” asked Don.
“Run away? I didn’t!” cried the silky poodle. “I went out on the front steps to get a breath of fresh air this morning, and when I stood there a bad boy came along, picked me up, and ran off with me. He wanted to take me away, and sell me. I’ve often been stolen that way,” said the poodle. “I’m a very valuable dog, you know.”
“You really have been stolen, and carried away?” asked Don, in surprise.
“Oh, yes,” answered the poodle. “Then my little mistress, or her father, would put an advertisement in the paper, saying that whoever had taken me away could have some money if I were brought back, and I would then be taken home.
“So when this boy grabbed me up off the stoop I thought I was stolen again. But a policeman saw the boy take me, and the policeman ran after him. So the boy dropped me and ran, and I got lost, trying to find my way home again. Then the dog-catcher came and took me in his wagon. Oh dear! It’s too bad. Were you ever taken away like that?” he asked Don.
“No,” answered Don. “I ran away.”
“Ran away!” exclaimed the poodle. “Why did you do that? Didn’t they treat you kindly? Did they whip you?”
“Oh, no,” said Don. “My master, Bob, was very kind to me. I was never whipped. But I wanted to have some adventures, so I ran away.”
“Did you have any adventures?” asked the poodle, whose name was Rex.
“Many of them,” replied Don. “This is one. I wonder if we shall ever get out of here?”
“Oh, I think so,” answered the poodle. “My little mistress, or her father, is sure to come looking for me.”
“Well, I wish some one would come for me, or that I could find my way back to the farm,” said Don, sadly enough. “I’d never run away again—never!”
It was not at all nice in the dog pound. There was water to drink, but it was not clean, and it was very warm, for the sun shone on it all day long. And there was hardly anything to eat.
Once in a while some scraps of food were thrown in to the dogs, but there were so many of them, and they were so fierce and strong, the most of them, that little dogs, like Rex, and lame dogs, like Don, got nothing at all.
“And I am so hungry!” whined Rex. “I[107] would just like to have some nice chicken bones now, wouldn’t you, Don?”
“I’d be glad to have even a dry crust of bread,” said Don, sadly.
His foot pained him more than ever now, and he could walk about only a little, and very slowly.
“I am so sorry for you,” said Rex. “When my little mistress comes for me I know she’ll help you. Maybe she’ll take you home when she takes me.”
“Oh, I couldn’t expect that,” said Don. “But I would be glad if I were back in the hole in the lumber pile, with my friend Jack. I thought that was bad enough, after my nice kennel, but I would be glad of it now.”
“I wouldn’t like to live that way,” said Rex. “Did you have a blue silk cushion to sleep on, when you were home?” he asked.
“No,” said Don, “but I had some nice, clean straw. I like that better than a cushion. But now I am going over and get some of that water. Even if it is warm and muddy, I must drink it.”
“And I’ll have to take some, too,” said Rex. “But I wish I had some nice, cool, clean water out of my little white dish at home.”
Even dogs cannot have what they want, especially if they run away, or get lost, so Don and Rex had to make the best of what they could get.
Don, and his new friend Rex, had to stay in the pound several days. Each day they liked it less and less, for they grew hungrier and hungrier. They saw several of the dogs taken away by those who owned them, but no one came for Rex, and of course no one came for Don. For Bob did not know where his pet was, and the little mistress of Rex did not seem to think of looking in the pound for him.
Many, many times, in those days spent in the pound, Don wished over and over again that he had never run away from Bob.
“Those were happy days!” sighed Don.
He even wished for the time he had spent with Jack, the stray dog. But Jack was more lucky than Don—he had not been caught and taken to the pound.
“I don’t see why some one doesn’t come for me,” said Rex one day, as he and Don were talking together in one corner of the pound. Don’s foot was growing better now.
“Perhaps they may come to-day,” said Don.
“I hope so,” spoke Rex. “I need a bath very much. I like to be clean. And I am so hungry for a good meal, and for some nice food to eat, and cold water to drink.”
“So am I,” Don said. “But I don’t believe we shall get either, very soon.”
However, good luck was coming to Don and[109] Rex. It was the very same afternoon that they saw the gate of the pound open, and the dog-catcher come in. With him was another man and a little girl.
“Here are some stray dogs,” said the pound-keeper. “Maybe your pet is in here, little girl.”
Rex gave one look at the visitors, and then he let out a joyful bark, and wagged his tail very hard.
“What’s the matter?” asked Don.
“There’s my little mistress come for me!” barked Rex. “Now I’ll be taken home and cared for.”
“I wish that was going to be my luck,” said Don, sadly.
“Bow wow!” barked Rex, running up to the little girl. She looked at him once, and then she cried:
“Oh, father! Here he is! Here’s my own Rex! I’ve found him again!” and, all dirty as Rex was, the little girl picked him up in her arms and hugged him tightly. Oh, how happy Rex was!
“So that’s your dog?” asked the pound-keeper.
“Yes, I’ve found him!” cried the little girl, happily.
“So it is Rex,” said her father. “I wonder how he got here?”
“We found him on the street,” said the pound-keeper,[110] “and we have to pick up all stray dogs, you know.”
“I know—yes,” said the little girl’s father. “But now we’ll take Rex home with us, Alice.”
“Oh, yes, father. And I must give him a good wash. I think he is hungry, too. Look how thin he is!”
“He must have had a hard time,” said the man, patting Rex on the head. “I wonder what has happened to him since he was taken away?”
“Oh, if I could only tell you!” thought Rex, but of course he could not speak man or girl talk. The little mistress of the silken poodle started out of the pound with him in her arms. But this did not suit Rex. He did not want to go away from Don that way. Poor Don felt very sad and alone, as he saw his little friend being taken away, while he had to stay in the pound.
Rex struggled so hard, that the little girl had to put him down.
“Why, Rex, what is it?” she asked. “Don’t you want me to take you home, and away from this place?”
“Bow wow!” barked Rex, which meant: “Yes, thank you, of course I do. But I have a friend here,” and he ran up to Don, and stood so close to him that, in a minute, the little girl’s father guessed what the little poodle dog meant.
“Your pet has made a friend while in the pound,” said the man. “See, Alice, he likes that big dog.”
Then Rex took hold of the shaggy hair of Don’s leg, for that was as far up as he could reach, and he tried to pull Don toward Alice.
“Look!” exclaimed the little girl. “Oh, father! I believe Rex wants us to take that other dog with us!”
“It does look so,” spoke the man. “I guess this big dog, whatever his name is, has been kind to Rex.”
“Bow wow! Indeed he has!” barked Rex, but of course Alice and her father could not understand his talk. They did understand his actions, however, for Rex did not seem to want to go away without Don.
“Oh, father! Could we take him with us?” asked Alice, as she patted Don on his big head. He looked up at her with his big, kind brown eyes.
“Well, yes, I suppose we could keep another dog,” said the man. “Only he is so big he’d have to stay out in the stable, with the horses. You couldn’t have him in the house, as you do Rex.”
“Oh, please let’s take him home!” begged Alice.
“All right,” answered her father with a laugh. “We’ll take the big dog home too,” he said to the pound-keeper.
“I am glad of it,” said the pound-keeper. “I was sorry I had to bring that dog in, for he looks as though he had been in a good home. I’m glad you’re taking him.”
So Don was led out of the pound, and he walked along beside the man, while Alice carried Rex in her arms.
Outside the dog pound was a big automobile. Alice and her father had come in that.
“See, James!” cried Alice to the chauffeur. “I have Rex back again.”
“So I see,” spoke the chauffeur. “Hello, Rex!” and he patted the poodle on the head, for he knew him well.
“Bow wow!” barked Rex. Then to Don he said: “Now we are all right. I’ll have my blue silk cushion to sleep on, and we’ll both have all we want to eat, and good water to drink. Aren’t you glad to come home with me?”
“Yes, indeed I am—and thank you very much,” said Don, in his dog talk, to Rex. “But are we to ride in that auto?” he asked. “I never have been in one, though once one almost ran over me.”
“Of course we are to ride in it,” said Rex. “I hardly ever walk. Jump in!”
“If Squinty, the pig, could only see me now!” thought Don, as he rode away with Rex.
The first thing that happened to Don and Rex, when they got to the place where the poodle dog lived, was that they each had a nice bath. Rex, being so little, had his in the house, but Don got his scrubbing out in the automobile garage, under a hose. And oh! how good it felt—the cool water splashing on him. Then he was dried in the warm sun, and given a good meal.
“Now I am happy again,” thought Don. “But still I would like to go back to the farm, and my little master Bob.”
For several weeks Don lived in the barn back of the house where Rex had his home. Sometimes Don was taken into the house, and allowed to play with Rex, for Rex was very fond of his big dog friend. And often Rex came out to the barn.
One day Alice came out to the barn with a red ribbon in her hand.
“James, where is Don?” she asked the chauffeur.
“What do you want with him, Miss Alice?” asked the man who steered the auto.
“I want to tie this red ribbon on his neck, to make him look pretty,” she answered. “I am having a party this afternoon, and I want Don to come to it a little while, and do some of his[114] tricks. He can do more tricks than can Rex. Oh, there you are, Don!” cried Alice, as she saw the big dog. “Come and have a nice ribbon tied on you, and then you may come to the party!” she said.
When the bow was fastened on his neck, Don was led into the house to the party. And a very wonderful thing happened there.
Don did not know very much about parties—especially girls’ parties. On the farm there had never been any parties, except for boys, and those were mostly fishing, or nutting parties. Don never wore any ribbons to those.
This party that Alice gave was quite different. Don was led into the parlor, and he saw many little girls sitting about, all wearing white dresses, with sashes of different colored ribbons.
Some of the sashes were almost as large as the little girls themselves.
On the other side of the room were the boys, and they wore black suits and large white collars.
“Ah ha!” thought Don. “It must be Sunday, the reason they are all dressed up so nicely. And that’s why I have to wear a red ribbon. Yes, it must be Sunday.”
On the farm, you see, Don had seen Bob, and the others, put on different clothes for Sunday, and he thought it was that way now. But it was only Alice’s party.
“Oh, what a lovely big dog!” cried the girls, as Alice led Don in. “Is he yours?”
“We found him in the pound,” answered Alice. “And he can do tricks, too.”
Alice had found this out soon after bringing Don to her home, and she and her father had put the dog through all the tricks that he could perform.
“Hello, Don!” cried Rex, who was lying on a blue silk cushion. “You want to behave your prettiest now, old chap! This is a party, you know.”
“Yes,” said Don, barking softly. He was afraid to bark too loudly, for fear of knocking down some of the vases from the mantel.
“Now, Don!” said Alice, “show the girls and boys how you stand up on your hind legs.”
Don kindly did this trick for Alice, as he had been used to doing it for Bob. Then he did others, and the boys and girls clapped their hands and laughed.
Then, when Don had finished his trick of marching around like a soldier dog, with the broom for a gun, a boy, larger than any of the others at the party, came into the parlor. As soon as Alice saw him she ran up to him, crying:
“Oh, Cousin Bob! I was afraid you couldn’t come, you live so far off in the country. But I’m awfully glad you came to my party.”
“So am I glad, Cousin Alice,” said the big boy. “I came on the train. I wouldn’t miss one of your parties for anything! Why you have a new dog!” he exclaimed, as he saw Don.
“Yes,” answered Alice, “I got him out of the pound, where they had taken Rex, and—”
Then Alice suddenly stopped talking, for her cousin Bob, who had come all the way from the country to her birthday party, stood looking at Don in a queer way. And Don was looking at Bob.
“Why—why—” began Bob. “That dog—he looks just like—why I believe it’s my dog, Don, that ran away from the farm a long while ago!” he cried. “It’s Don!”
Don was barking now. He did not care how many vases he jarred from the mantel.
“Bow wow!” he barked. “Of course I’m Don, and you’re my master Bob. I know you!”
He sprang toward the boy, and, rising up, put his paws on Bob’s shoulder, licking his master’s face and hands with his tongue.
“Oh, look!” cried the boys and girls. “It’s another trick!”
“No, this isn’t a trick,” said Bob. “It’s just that Don is glad to see me again, aren’t you, old fellow?”
Don barked, whined, wagged his tail and tried to do half a dozen things at once, he was so glad to see Bob again.
And Bob was so glad to get his pet dog back that he put his arms about his neck and hugged him tightly.
“Oh, Don!” cried Bob. “Where have you been all these weeks?”
Of course Don could not tell, and Bob could only guess.
“And is he really your lost dog?” asked Alice of Bob.
“He certainly is,” answered Bob, laughing. “But it is the strangest thing to find him at your party. Where did you get him?”
Then Alice told of how her pet Rex had been taken away, and how she had found him in the pound, and how Rex seemed to want Don to come home with him.
“And so we brought him, and have kept him ever since,” said Alice. “But of course you can have him now, Bob.”
“Thank you,” said Bob. So it turned out that Don found his master again, in a very strange way.
“And to think that I found Don this time!” cried Bob. “We missed him so at the farm. Squinty, the pig, runs out of his pen very often, and Don was the only one who could get him back. Yes, we need Don at the farm.”
“Will you be glad to go back there, Don?” asked Rex, for the two dogs understood something of what was going on.
“Yes, I think I shall be glad to get back,” answered Don. “It was very nice here, of course,” he said, “and I like you very much, but I need room to run about. Some day I hope you will come to the country and see me.”
“Perhaps I shall,” said Rex. “If I come I shall probably come in the automobile, though, and sleep on my blue silk cushion. I am so used to that.”
Then the party went on, Don doing more tricks for Bob. And how the other boys and girls laughed and clapped their hands!
“I wonder how I can get Don home?” said Bob, when the party was over, after the children had eaten ice cream and cake.
“You can ride to the farm in father’s automobile,” said his cousin Alice, “and Don can ride with you. That’s how we brought him from the pound.”
“That will be a good way,” said Bob.
The next day, after Don had said good-by to Rex, he was taken back to the farm in the automobile.
“Well, this is certainly better than running along on three legs,” thought Don, whose sore foot was all well now.
When they were half-way to the farm the automobile had to stop, because all the wind came out of one of the big tires, and James, the chauffeur man who steered the machine, had to get out to put on a new tire.
While Bob and Alice, who rode with Bob, carrying Rex in her arms, were waiting under the shade of a tree beside the road, they heard a bugle horn playing.
“What’s that?” cried Alice. “Soldiers?”
“It sounds more like the horn of a fishman,” said Bob.
But it was neither one. Don smelled a strange, wild-animal smell in the air, like the one coming from the circus passing along the road, the day Squinty, the comical pig, had run away. Then, around a bend in the road came two men, one of them leading a big bear by a chain, and the other carrying the horn.
“Oh, it’s a bear!” cried Alice. “I’m afraid!”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Bob. “It’s only a tame, trained bear.”
Don and Rex both barked at the bear, but, to their surprise, the bear spoke to them in animal language.
“Don’t be afraid,” the bear said, kindly. “I won’t hurt any one. I’m only going to do some tricks.” And when the men spoke to him, he[123] turned somersaults, marched around like a soldier, with a wooden gun, and climbed a telegraph pole.
“Isn’t that a pretty good trick?” asked the bear.
“It certainly is,” said Don. “I can do some tricks, but I can’t climb telegraph poles.”
“Oh, I can do other things, too,” said the bear. “I have lots of fun going about the country with my masters.”
And, in another book, to be called “Dido, the Dancing Bear,” I shall tell you what happened to the big, shaggy creature.
Soon the automobile tire was mended, and away went Bob and Alice again, with Don and Rex, leaving Dido, the bear, sitting on the grass with the two men, eating a bun.
A little later Don was back on the farm again, and every one was glad to see him after all his adventures. And, as soon as he could, Don ran out to see Squinty, the comical pig.
“Where in the world have you been, Don?” asked Squinty.
“Oh, pretty nearly all over,” answered Don. “Has anything happened here since I’ve been gone?”
“Oh, I was bought by a boy, and I ran away, and I went up in a balloon, and I had many adventures,”[124] said Squinty. “But I was glad to get back to the farm again.”
“So am I,” said Don. And then he went to look for a juicy bone. And so we will say good-by to Don, the runaway dog.
THE END
GOOD STORIES FOR CHILDREN
(From four to nine years old)
THE KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES
In all nursery literature animals have played a conspicuous part; and the reason is obvious, for nothing entertains a child more than the antics of an animal. These stories abound in amusing incidents such as children adore, and the characters are so full of life, so appealing to a child’s imagination, that none will be satisfied until they have met all of their favorites—Squinty, Slicko, Mappo, and the rest.
Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated.
BARSE & HOPKINS
Newark, N. J. New York, N. Y.
Stories of Adventure
(For children from 5 to 9 years old)
The Traveling Bears Series
Teddy B and Teddy G are as nearly human as it is possible for bears to be. They love children and make playmates of them wherever they go. They never have an idle moment, and their traveling adventures are amusing as well as instructive.
Snappy, exciting tales, with plenty of action in every chapter and a laugh on every page. Books which will be read as long as there are children to read them.
Boards, Quarto, Illustrated.
BARSE & HOPKINS
Newark, N. J. New York, N. Y.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
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