by: Mark Twain
(1835-1910)
The following story is reprinted from The $30,000
Bequest and Other Stories. Mark Twain. New York: Harper,
1906.
CHAPTER I
My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie,
but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother
told me, I do not know these nice distinctions
myself. To me they are only fine large words
meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious,
as wondering how she got so much education. But,
indeed, it was not real education; it was only
show: she got the words by listening in the
dining-room and drawing-room when there was company, and by going with the children to Sunday-school and listening there;
and whenever she heard a large word she said it
over to herself many times, and so was able to
keep it until there was a dogmatic gathering in
the neighborhood, then she would get it off, and
surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger
he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and when he
got his breath again he would ask her what it
meant. And she always told him. He was never
expecting this but thought he would catch her; so when she told him, he was the one that looked ashamed,
whereas he had thought it was going to be she.
The others were always waiting for this, and
glad of it and proud of her, for they knew what
was going to happen, because they had had experience. When she told the meaning of a big word they were all so taken up
with admiration that it never occurred to any
dog to doubt if it was the right one; and that
was natural, because, for one thing, she
answered up so promptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking, and for another thing, where could they find out whether it
was right or not? for she was the only
cultivated dog there was. By and by, when I was
older, she brought home the word Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty hard all the week at different gatherings,
making much unhappiness and despondency; and it
was at this time that I noticed that during that
week she was asked for the meaning at eight
different assemblages, and flashed out a fresh definition every time, which showed me that she had more presence of mind
than culture, though I said nothing, of course.
She had one word which she always kept on hand,
and ready, like a life-preserver, a kind of
emergency word to strap on when she was likely to get washed overboard in a sudden way--that was the word Synonymous.
When she happened to fetch out a long word which
had had its day weeks before and its prepared
meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a
stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time she
would be away down wind on another tack, and not
expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask
her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of
her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment --but only just a moment--then it would belly out taut and full,
and she would say, as calm as a summer's day,
"It's synonymous with supererogation," or some
godless long reptile of a word like that, and go
placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking
profane and embarrassed, and the initiated
slatting the floor with their tails in unison
and their faces transfigured with a holy
joy.
And it was the same with phrases. She would drag
home a whole phrase, if it had a grand sound,
and play it six nights and two matinees, and
explain it a new way every time--which she had to, for all she cared for was the phrase; she wasn't interested in what it
meant, and knew those dogs hadn't wit enough to
catch her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She got
so she wasn't afraid of anything, she had such
confidence in the ignorance of those creatures. She even brought anecdotes that she had heard the family and the
dinner-guests laugh and shout over; and as a
rule she got the nub of one chestnut hitched
onto another chestnut, where, of course, it
didn't fit and hadn't any point; and when she delivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed and barked
in the most insane way, while I could see that
she was wondering to herself why it didn't seem
as funny as it did when she first heard it. But
no harm was done; the others rolled and barked too, privately ashamed of themselves for not seeing the point, and never
suspecting that the fault was not with them and
there wasn't any to see.
You can see by these things that she was of a rather
vain and frivolous character; still, she had
virtues, and enough to make up, I think. She had
a kind heart and gentle ways, and never harbored resentments for injuries done her, but put them easily out of her
mind and forgot them; and she taught her
children her kindly way, and from her we learned
also to be brave and prompt in time of danger, and not to run away, but face the peril that threatened friend
or stranger, and help him the best we could
without stopping to think what the cost might be
to us. And she taught us not by words only, but
by example, and that is the best way and the surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, the splendid things! she
was just a soldier; and so modest about
it--well, you couldn't help admiring her, and
you couldn't help imitating her; not even a King Charles spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her society.
So, as you see, there was more to her than her
education.
CHAPTER II
When I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken
away, and I never saw her again. She was
broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but
she comforted me as well as she could, and said we were sent into this world for a wise and good purpose, and must
do our duties without repining, take our life as
we might find it, live it for the best good of
others, and never mind about the results; they
were not our affair. She said men who did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward by and by in another world, and
although we animals would not go there, to do
well and right without reward would give to our
brief lives a worthiness and dignity which in itself would be a reward. She had gathered these things from time
to time when she had gone to the Sunday-school
with the children, and had laid them up in her
memory more carefully than she had done with
those other words and phrases; and she had studied them deeply, for her good and ours. One may see by this that she had a
wise and thoughtful head, for all there was so
much lightness and vanity in it.
So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon
each other through our tears; and the last thing
she said--keeping it for the last to make me
remember it the better, I think--was, "In memory of me, when there is a time of danger to another do not think of yourself,
think of your mother, and do as she would
do."
Do you think I could forget that?
No.
CHAPTER III
It was such a charming home!--my new one; a fine
great house, with pictures, and delicate
decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom
anywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the
great garden--oh, greensward, and noble trees,
and flowers, no end! And I was the same as a
member of the family; and they loved me, and
petted me, and did not give me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to me because my mother had given it
me--Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a song;
and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a
beautiful name.
Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely,
you cannot imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and
just like her mother, just a darling slender
little copy of her, with auburn tails down her back, and short frocks; and the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled,
and fond of me, and never could get enough of
hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laughing
out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was
thirty-eight, and tall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in his movements, business-like,
prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with that
kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to
glint and sparkle with frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know what the word means,
but my mother would know how to use it and get
effects. She would know how to depress a
rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog look
sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one was Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that
would skin the tax-collars off the whole herd.
The laboratory was not a book, or a picture, or
a place to wash your hands in, as the college
president's dog said--no, that is the lavatory; the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with jars,
and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and
strange machines; and every week other
scientists came there and sat in the place, and
used the machines, and discussed, and made what they called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood
around and listened, and tried to learn, for the
sake of my mother, and in loving memory of her,
although it was a pain to me, as realizing what
she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all; for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of
it at all.
Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's
work-room and slept, she gently using me for a
foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it was a
caress; other times I spent an hour in the nursery, and got well tousled and made happy; other times I watched by the
crib there, when the baby was asleep and the
nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's
affairs; other times I romped and raced through
the grounds and the garden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on the grass in the shade of a tree while she
read her book; other times I went visiting among
the neighbor dogs--for there were some most
pleasant ones not far away, and one very handsome and courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish
setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a
Presbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch
minister.
The servants in our house were all kind to me and
were fond of me, and so, as you see, mine was a
pleasant life. There could not be a happier dog
that I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will say this for myself, for it is only the truth: I tried in all ways to do
well and right, and honor my mother's memory and
her teachings, and earn the happiness that had
come to me, as best I could.
By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was
full, my happiness was perfect. It was the
dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth and
soft and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws, and such affectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face;
and it made me so proud to see how the children
and their mother adored it, and fondled it, and
exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it
did. It did seem to me that life was just too lovely to--
Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch
in the nursery. That is to say, I was asleep on
the bed. The baby was asleep in the crib, which
was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace. It was the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it made of gauzy
stuff that you can see through. The nurse was
out, and we two sleepers were alone. A spark
from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on
the slope of the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream from the baby awoke me, and there was that tent
flaming up toward the ceiling! Before I could
think, I sprang to the floor in my fright, and
in a second was half-way to the door; but in the
next half-second my mother's farewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed again., I reached my head
through the flames and dragged the baby out by
the waist-band, and tugged it along, and we fell
to the floor together in a cloud of smoke; I
snatched a new hold, and dragged the screaming little creature along and out at the door and around the bend of the hall,
and was still tugging away, all excited and
happy and proud, when the master's voice
shouted:
"Begone you cursed beast!" and I jumped to save
myself; but he was furiously quick, and chased
me up, striking furiously at me with his cane, I
dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a strong blow fell upon my left foreleg, which made me shriek and fall,
for the moment, helpless; the cane went up for
another blow, but never descended, for the
nurse's voice rang wildly out, "The nursery's on
fire!" and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other bones were saved.
The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose
any time; he might come back at any moment; so I
limped on three legs to the other end of the
hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a garret where old boxes and such things were kept, as I had
heard say, and where people seldom went. I
managed to climb up there, then I searched my
way through the dark among the piles of things, and hid in the secretest place I could find. It was foolish to be
afraid there, yet still I was; so afraid that I
held in and hardly even whimpered, though it
would have been such a comfort to whimper, because that eases the pain, you know. But I could lick my leg,
and that did some good.
For half an hour there was a commotion downstairs,
and shoutings, and rushing footsteps, and then
there was quiet again. Quiet for some minutes,
and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began to go down; and fears are worse than pains--oh, much worse.
Then came a sound that froze me. They were
calling me--calling me by name--hunting for
me!
It was muffled by distance, but that could not take
the terror out of it, and it was the most
dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It
went all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all
the rooms, in both stories, and in the basement
and the cellar; then outside, and farther and
farther away--then back, and all about the house
again, and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it did, hours and hours after the vague twilight of
the garret had long ago been blotted out by
black darkness.
Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell
little by little away, and I was at peace and
slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke before the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable,
and I could think out a plan now. I made a very
good one; which was, to creep down, all the way
down the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar
door, and slip out and escape when the iceman
came at dawn, while he was inside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start on my journey when night came;
my journey to--well, anywhere where they would
not know me and betray me to the master. I was
feeling almost cheerful now; then suddenly I
thought: Why, what would life be without my puppy!
That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw
that; I must say where I was; stay, and wait,
and take what might come--it was not my affair;
that was what life is--my mother had said it. Then--well, then the calling began again! All my sorrows came back.
I said to myself, the master will never forgive.
I did not know what I had done to make him so
bitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was
something a dog could not understand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful.
They called and called--days and nights, it seemed
to me. So long that the hunger and thirst near
drove me mad, and I recognized that I was
getting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an awful
fright--it seemed to me that the calling was
right there in the garret! And so it was: it was
Sadie's voice, and she was crying; my name was
falling from her lips all broken, poor thing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard her
say:
"Come back to us--oh, come back to us, and
forgive--it is all so sad without
our--"
I broke in with SUCH a grateful little yelp, and the
next moment Sadie was plunging and stumbling
through the darkness and the lumber and shouting
for the family to hear, "She's found, she's found!"
The days that followed--well, they were wonderful.
The mother and Sadie and the servants--why, they
just seemed to worship me. They couldn't seem to
make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for
food, they couldn't be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that were out of season; and every day the friends
and neighbors flocked in to hear about my
heroism--that was the name they called it by,
and it means agriculture. I remember my mother
pulling it on a kennel once, and explaining it in that way, but didn't say what agriculture was, except that it was synonymous
with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times
a day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to
new-comers, and say I risked my life to save the
baby's, and both of us had burns to prove it, and then the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about me,
and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie
and her mother; and when the people wanted to
know what made me limp, they looked ashamed and
changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted them this way and that way with questions about it, it looked to me
as if they were going to cry.
And this was not all the glory; no, the master's
friends came, a whole twenty of the most
distinguished people, and had me in the
laboratory, and discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery; and some of them said it was wonderful in a dumb beast, the
finest exhibition of instinct they could call to
mind; but the master said, with vehemence, "It's
far above instinct; it's REASON, and many a man, privileged to be saved and go with you and me to a better world
by right of its possession, has less of it that
this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to
perish"; and then he laughed, and said: "Why,
look at me--I'm a sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that the dog
had gone mad and was destroying the child,
whereas but for the beast's intelligence--it's
REASON, I tell you!--the child would have
perished!"
They disputed and disputed, and I was the
very center of subject of it all, and I wished
my mother could know that this grand honor had
come to me; it would have made her proud.
Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and
whether a certain injury to the brain would
produce blindness or not, but they could not
agree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by and by; and next they discussed plants, and that interested me,
because in the summer Sadie and I had planted
seeds--I helped her dig the holes, you know--and
after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there, and it was a wonder how that could happen; but it did,
and I wished I could talk--I would have told
those people about it and shown then how much I
knew, and been all alive with the subject; but I
didn't care for the optics; it was dull, and when they came back to it again it bored me, and I went to sleep.
Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant
and lovely, and the sweet mother and the
children patted me and the puppy good-by, and
went away on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master wasn't any company for us, but we played together
and had good times, and the servants were kind
and friendly, so we got along quite happily and
counted the days and waited for the
family.
And one day those men came again, and said, now for
the test, and they took the puppy to the
laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along,
too, feeling proud, for any attention shown to
the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering around,
with his head all bloody, and the master clapped
his hands and shouted:
"There, I've won--confess it! He's a blind as a
bat!"
And they all said:
"It's so--you've proved your theory, and suffering
humanity owes you a great debt from henceforth,"
and they crowded around him, and wrung his hand
cordially and thankfully, and praised him.
But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at
once to my little darling, and snuggled close to
it where it lay, and licked the blood, and it
put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in my heart it was a comfort to it in its pain and
trouble to feel its mother's touch, though it
could not see me. Then it dropped down,
presently, and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was still, and did not move any
more.
Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and
rang in the footman, and said, "Bury it in the
far corner of the garden," and then went on with
the discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very happy and grateful, for I knew the puppy was out of its pain now, because
it was asleep. We went far down the garden to
the farthest end, where the children and the
nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the
summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was
glad, because it would grow and come up a fine
handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a
beautiful surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff,
you know, and you have to have two, or it is no
use. When the footman had finished and covered
little Robin up, he patted my head, and there
were tears in his eyes, and he said: "Poor little doggie, you saved HIS child!"
I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come
up! This last week a fright has been stealing
upon me. I think there is something terrible about this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick,
and I cannot eat, though the servants bring me
the best of food; and they pet me so, and even
come in the night, and cry, and say, "Poor
doggie--do give it up and come home; DON'T break our hearts!" and all this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure
something has happened. And I am so weak; since
yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And
within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on,
said things I could not understand, but they
carried something cold to my heart.
"Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They
will come home in the morning, and eagerly ask
for the little doggie that did the brave deed,
and who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them: 'The humble little friend is gone where go the beasts
that perish.'"
Source: Internet
