Modern Essays Part 19

Harry Esty Dounce was born in Syracuse in 1889 and graduated from Hamilton College in 1910. His first job was as a cub reporter on the journal that newspapermen affectionately call "the old _Sun_"; the adjective is p.r.o.nounced as though it were in italics. He was on the staff of the Syracuse _Herald_, 1912-14; spent a year in New Orleans writing short stories, and returned in 1916 to the magazine staff of the Sun. He was editor of the Sun's book review section, 1919-20; in 1920 he joined the staff of the New York _Evening Post_.

"My hand will miss the insinuated nose--"

_Sir William Watson_.

But the dog that was written of must have been a big dog. Nibbie was just a comfortable lapful, once he had duly turned around and curled up with his nose in his tail.

This is for people who know about dogs, in particular little mongrels without pedigree or market value. Other people, no doubt, will find it disgustingly maudlin. I would have found it so before Nibbie came.

The day he came was a beautiful bright, cool one in an August. A touring car brought him. They put him down on our corner, meaning to lose him, but he crawled under the car, and they had to prod him out and throw stones before they could drive on. So that when I came home I found, with his mistress-elect, a sort of potbellied bundle of tarry oak.u.m, caked with mud, panting convulsively still from fright, and showing the whites of uncommonly liquid brown eyes and a pink tongue. There was tennis that evening and he went along--I carried him over the railroad tracks; he gave us no trouble about the b.a.l.l.s, but lay huddled under the bench where she sat, and s.h.i.+vered if a man came near him.

That night he got chop bones and she got a sensible homily on the unwisdom of feeding strays, and he was left outdoors. He slept on the mat. The second morning we thought he had gone. The third, he was back, wagging approval of us and intent to stay, which seemed to leave no choice but to take him in. We had fun over names. "Jellywaggles,"

suggested from next door, was undeniably descriptive. "Rags" fitted, or "Toby" or "Nig"--but they had a colored maid next door; finally we called him "Nibs," and soon his tail would answer to it.

Cleaned up--scrubbed, the insoluble matted locks clipped from his coat, his trampish collar replaced with a new one bearing a license tag--he was far from being unpresentable. A vet. once opined that for a mongrel he was a good dog, that a black c.o.c.ker mother had thrown her cap over Scottish mills, so to speak. This a.n.a.lysis accounted for him perfectly.

Always, depending on the moment's mood, he was either terrier or spaniel, the snap and sc.r.a.p and perk of the one alternating with the gentle snuggling indolence of the other.

As terrier he would dig furiously by the hour after a field mouse; as spaniel he would "read" the breeze with the best nose among the dog folk of our neighborhood, or follow a trail quite well. I know there was retrieving blood. A year ago May he caught and brought me, not doing the least injury, an oriole that probably had flown against a wire and was struggling disabled in the gra.s.s.

Nibbie was shabby-genteel black, sunburnt as to the mustache, grizzled as to the raggy fringe on his haunches. He had a white stock and s.h.i.+rt-frill and a white fore paw. The brown eyes full of heart were the best point. His body coat was rough Scottish worsted, the little black pate was cotton-soft like shoddy, and the big black ears were genuine spaniel silk. As a terrier he held them up smartly and carried a plumy fishhook of a tail; as a spaniel the ears drooped and the tail swung meekly as if in apology for never having been clipped. The other day when we had to say good-by to him each of us cut one silky tuft from an ear, very much as we had so often when he'd been among the burdocks in the field where the garden is.

Burrs were by no means Nibbie's only failing. In flea time it seemed hardly possible that a dog of his size could sustain his population. We finally found a true flea bane, but, deserted one day, he was populous again the next. They don't relish every human; me they did; I used to storm at him for it, and he used, between spasms of scratching, to listen admiringly and wag. We think he supposed his tormentors were winged insects, for he sought refuge in dark clothes-closets where a flying imp wouldn't logically come.

He was wilful, insisted on landing in laps when their makers wanted to read. He _would_ make advances to visitors who were polite about him. He _would_ get up on the living-room table, why and how, heaven knows, finding his opportunity when we were out of the house, and taking care to be upstairs on a bed--white, grimeable coverlets preferred--by the time we had the front door open; I used to slip up to the porch and catch through a window the diving flourish of his sinful tail.

One of his faults must have been a neurosis really. He led a hard life before we took him in, as witnessed the game hind leg that made him sit up side-saddle fas.h.i.+on, and two such scars on his back as boiling hot grease might have made. And something especially cruel had been done to him when asleep, for if you bent over him napping or in his bed he would half rouse and growl, and sometimes snap blindly. (We dreaded exuberant visiting children.) Two or three experiments I hate to remember now convinced me that it couldn't be whipped out of him, and once wide awake he was sure to be perplexedly apologetic.

He was spoiled. That was our doing. We babied him abominably--he was, for two years, the only subject we had for such malpractice. He had more foolish names than Wogg, that dog of Mrs. Stevenson's, and heard more Little Language than Stella ever did, reciprocating by kissing proffered ears in his doggy way. Once he had brightened up after his arrival, he showed himself ready to take an ell whenever we gave an inch, and he was always taking them, and never paying penalties. He had conscience enough to be sly. I remember the summer evening we stepped outside for just an instant, and came back to find a curious groove across the b.u.t.ter, on the dining table, and an ever-so-innocent Nibbie in a chair in the next room.

While we were at the table he was generally around it, bulldozing for tid-bits--I fear he had reason to know that this would work. One fortnight when his Missie was away he slept on his Old Man's bed (we had dropped t.i.tles of dignity with him by then) and he rang the welkin hourly, answering far-away dog friends, and occasionally came north to lollop my face with tender solicitude, just like the fool nurse in the story, waking the patient up to ask if he was sleeping well.

More recently, when a beruffled basket was waiting, he developed an alarming trick of stealing in there to try it, so I fitted that door with a hook, insuring a crack impervious to dogs. And the other night I had to take the hook, now useless, off; we couldn't stand hearing it jingle. He adopted the junior member on first sight and sniff of him, by the way; would look on beaming as proudly as if he'd hatched him.

The last of his iniquities arose from a valor that lacked its better part, an absurd mixture of Falstaff and bantam rooster. At the critical point he'd back out of a fuss with a dog of his own size. But let a police dog, an Airedale, a St. Bernard, or a big ugly cur appear and Nibbie was all around him, blackguarding him unendurably. It was lucky that the big dogs in our neighborhood were patient. And he never would learn about automobiles. Usually tried to tackle them head on, often stopped cars with merciful drivers. When the car wouldn't stop, luck would save him by a fraction of an inch. I couldn't spank that out of him either. We had really been expecting what finally happened for two years.

That's about all. Too much, I am afraid. A decent fate made it quick the other night, and clean and close at hand, in fact, on the same street corner where once a car had left the small scapegrace for us. We tell ourselves how glad we are it happened as it did, instead of an agonal ending such as many of his people come to. We tell ourselves we couldn't have had him for ever in any event; that some day, for the junior member's sake, we shall get another dog. We keep telling ourselves these things, and talking with animation on other topics. The muzzle, the leash, the drinking dish are hidden, the last muddy paw track swept up, the nose smudges washed off the favorite front window pane.

But the house is full of a little snoofing, wagging, loving ghost. I know how the boy Th.o.r.eau felt about a hereafter with dogs barred. I want to think that somewhere, some time, I will be coming home again, and that when the door opens Nibbie will be on hand to caper welcome.

THE FIFTY-FIRST DRAGON

_By_ HEYWOOD BROUN

Heywood Broun, who has risen rapidly through the ranks of newspaper honor from sporting reporter and war correspondent to one of the most highly regarded dramatic and literary critics in the country, is another of these Harvard men, but, as far as this book is concerned, the last of them. Broun graduated from Harvard in 1910; was several years on the New York _Tribune_, and is now on the _World_.

There is no more substantially gifted newspaper man in his field; his beautifully spontaneous humor and drollery are counterbalanced by a fine imaginative sensitiveness and a remarkable power in the fable or allegorical essay, such as the one here reprinted. His book, _Seeing Things at Night_, is only the first-fruit of truly splendid possibilities. If I may be allowed to prophesy, thus hazarding all, I will say that Heywood Broun is likely, in the next ten or fifteen years, to do as fine work, both imaginative and critical, as any living American of his era.

Of all the pupils at the knight school Gawaine le Cur-Hardy was among the least promising. He was tall and st.u.r.dy, but his instructors soon discovered that he lacked spirit. He would hide in the woods when the jousting cla.s.s was called, although his companions and members of the faculty sought to appeal to his better nature by shouting to him to come out and break his neck like a man. Even when they told him that the lances were padded, the horses no more than ponies and the field unusually soft for late autumn, Gawaine refused to grow enthusiastic.

The Headmaster and the a.s.sistant Professor of Pleasaunce were discussing the case one spring afternoon and the a.s.sistant Professor could see no remedy but expulsion.

"No," said the Headmaster, as he looked out at the purple hills which ringed the school, "I think I'll train him to slay dragons."

"He might be killed," objected the a.s.sistant Professor.

"So he might," replied the Headmaster brightly, but he added, more soberly, "we must consider the greater good. We are responsible for the formation of this lad's character."

"Are the dragons particularly bad this year?" interrupted the a.s.sistant Professor. This was characteristic. He always seemed restive when the head of the school began to talk ethics and the ideals of the inst.i.tution.

"I've never known them worse," replied the Headmaster. "Up in the hills to the south last week they killed a number of peasants, two cows and a prize pig. And if this dry spell holds there's no telling when they may start a forest fire simply by breathing around indiscriminately."

"Would any refund on the tuition fee be necessary in case of an accident to young Cur-Hardy?"

"No," the princ.i.p.al answered, judicially, "that's all covered in the contract. But as a matter of fact he won't be killed. Before I send him up in the hills I'm going to give him a magic word."

"That's a good idea," said the Professor. "Sometimes they work wonders."

From that day on Gawaine specialized in dragons. His course included both theory and practice. In the morning there were long lectures on the history, anatomy, manners and customs of dragons. Gawaine did not distinguish himself in these studies. He had a marvelously versatile gift for forgetting things. In the afternoon he showed to better advantage, for then he would go down to the South Meadow and practise with a battle-ax. In this exercise he was truly impressive, for he had enormous strength as well as speed and grace. He even developed a deceptive display of ferocity. Old alumni say that it was a thrilling sight to see Gawaine charging across the field toward the dummy paper dragon which had been set up for his practice. As he ran he would brandish his ax and shout "A murrain on thee!" or some other vivid bit of campus slang. It never took him more than one stroke to behead the dummy dragon.

Gradually his task was made more difficult. Paper gave way to papier-mache and finally to wood, but even the toughest of these dummy dragons had no terrors for Gawaine. One sweep of the ax always did the business. There were those who said that when the practice was protracted until dusk and the dragons threw long, fantastic shadows across the meadow Gawaine did not charge so impetuously nor shout so loudly. It is possible there was malice in this charge. At any rate, the Headmaster decided by the end of June that it was time for the test.

Only the night before a dragon had come close to the school grounds and had eaten some of the lettuce from the garden. The faculty decided that Gawaine was ready. They gave him a diploma and a new battle-ax and the Headmaster summoned him to a private conference.

"Sit down," said the Headmaster. "Have a cigarette."

Gawaine hesitated.

"Oh, I know it's against the rules," said the Headmaster. "But after all, you have received your preliminary degree. You are no longer a boy.

You are a man. To-morrow you will go out into the world, the great world of achievement."

Gawaine took a cigarette. The Headmaster offered him a match, but he produced one of his own and began to puff away with a dexterity which quite amazed the princ.i.p.al.

"Here you have learned the theories of life," continued the Headmaster, resuming the thread of his discourse, "but after all, life is not a matter of theories. Life is a matter of facts. It calls on the young and the old alike to face these facts, even though they are hard and sometimes unpleasant. Your problem, for example, is to slay dragons."

"They say that those dragons down in the south wood are five hundred feet long," ventured Gawaine, timorously.

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Headmaster. "The curate saw one last week from the top of Arthur's Hill. The dragon was sunning himself down in the valley. The curate didn't have an opportunity to look at him very long because he felt it was his duty to hurry back to make a report to me. He said the monster, or shall I say, the big lizard?--wasn't an inch over two hundred feet. But the size has nothing at all to do with it.

You'll find the big ones even easier than the little ones. They're far slower on their feet and less aggressive, I'm told. Besides, before you go I'm going to equip you in such fas.h.i.+on that you need have no fear of all the dragons in the world."

"I'd like an enchanted cap," said Gawaine.

"What's that?" answered the Headmaster, testily.

"A cap to make me disappear," explained Gawaine.