Chapter III: Part 3

Roy is quite as much of a fighter as was any one of the other dogs; but he is a little more discriminating in his likes and his dislikes. He fights all the dogs in Tannersville; he fights the Drislers' Gyp almost every time he meets him; he fights the Beckwiths' Blennie only when either one of them trespasses on the domestic porch of the other (Blennie, who is very pretty, looks like old portraits of Mrs. Browning, with the curls hanging on each side of the face); and Roy never fights Laddie Pruyn nor Jack Ropes at all. Jack Ropes is the hero whom he worships, the beau ideal to him of everything a dog should be. He follows Jack in all respects; and he pays Jack the sincere flattery of imitation. Jack, an Irish setter, is a thorough gentleman in form, in action, and in thought. Some years Roy's senior, he submits patiently to the playful capers of the younger dog; and he even accepts little nips at his legs or his ears. It is pleasant to watch the two friends during an afternoon walk. Whatever Jack does, that does Roy; and Jack knows it, and he gives Roy hard things to do. He leads Roy to the summit of high rocks, and then he jumps down, realizing that Roy is too small to take the leap. But he always waits until Roy, yelping with mortification, comes back by the way they both went. He wades through puddles up to his own knees, but over Roy's head; and then he trots cheerfully away, far in advance, while Roy has to stop long enough to shake himself dry. But it was Roy's turn once! He traversed a long and not very clean drain, which was just large enough to give free passage to his own small body; and Jack went rushing after. Jack got through; but he was a spectacle to behold. And there are creditable eye-witnesses who are ready to testify that Roy took Jack home, and sat on the steps, and laughed, while Jack was being washed.

Each laughed on the wrong side of his mouth, however--Jack from agony, and Roy from sympathy--when Jack, a little later, had his unfortunate adventure with the loose-quilled, fretful, Onteora porcupine. It nearly cost Jack his life and his reason; and for some time he was a helpless, suffering invalid. Doctors were called in, chloroform was administered, and many delicate surgical operations were performed before Jack was on his feet again; and for the while each tail drooped. Happily for Roy, he did not go to the top of the Hill-of-the-Sky that unlucky day, and so he escaped the porcupine. But Roy does not care much for porcupines, anyway, and he never did. Other dogs are porcupiney enough for him!

Roy's association with Jack Ropes is a liberal education to him in more ways than one. Jack is so big and so strong and so brave, and so gentle withal, and so refined in manners and intellectual in mind, that Roy, even if he would, could not resist the healthful influence. Jack never quarrels except when Roy quarrels; and whether Roy is in the right or in the wrong, the aggressor or the attacked (and generally he begins it), Jack invariably interferes on Roy's behalf, in a good-natured, big-brother, what-a-bother sort of way that will not permit Roy to be the under dog in any fight. Part of Roy's dislike of Blennie--Blennie is short for Blenheim--consists in the fact that while Blennie is nice enough in his way, it is not Roy's way. Blennie likes to sit on laps, to bark out of windows--at a safe distance. He wears a little sleigh-bell on his collar. Under no circumstances does he play follow-my-leader, as Jack does. He does not try to do stunts; and, above all, he does not care to go in swimming.

The greatest event, perhaps, in Roy's young life was his first swim. He did not know he could swim. He did not know what it was to swim. He had never seen a sheet of water larger than a road-side puddle or than the stationary wash-tubs of his own laundry at home. He would have nothing to do with the Pond, at first, except for drinking purposes; and he would not enter the water until Jack went in, and then nothing would induce him to come out of the water--until Jack was tired. His surprise and his pride at being able to take care of himself in an entirely unknown and unexplored element were very great. But--there is always a _But_ in Roy's case--but when he swam ashore the trouble began. Jack, in a truly Chesterfieldian manner, dried himself in the long grass on the banks. Roy dried _him_self in the deep yellow dust of the road--a medium which was quicker and more effective, no doubt, but not so pleasant for those about him; for he was so enthusiastic over his performance that he jumped upon everybody's knickerbockers, or upon the skirts of everybody's gown, for the sake of a lick at somebody's hand and a pat of appreciation and applause.

Another startling and never-to-be-forgotten experience of Roy's was his introduction to the partridge. He met the partridge casually one afternoon in the woods, and he paid no particular attention to it. He looked upon it as a plain barn-yard chicken a little out of place; but when the partridge whirled and whizzed and boomed itself into the air, Roy put all his feet together, and jumped, like a bucking horse, at the lowest estimate four times as high as his own head. He thought it was a porcupine! He had heard a great deal about porcupines, although he had never seen one; and he fancied that that was the way porcupines always went off!

Roy likes and picks blackberries--the green as well as the ripe; and he does not mind having his portrait painted. Mr. Beckwith considers Roy one of the best models he ever had. Roy does not have to be posed; he poses himself, willingly and patiently, so long as he can pose himself very close to his master; and he always places his front legs, which he knows to be his strong point, in the immediate foreground. He tries very hard to look pleasant, as if he saw a chipmunk at the foot of a tree, or as if he thought Mr. Beckwith was squeezing little worms of white paint out of little tubes just for his amusement. And if he really does see a chipmunk on a stump, he rushes off to bark at the chipmunk; and then he comes back and resumes his original position, and waits for Mr. Beckwith to go on painting again. Once in awhile, when he feels that Mr. Beckwith has made a peculiarly happy remark, or an unusually happy stroke of the brush, Roy applauds tumultuously and loudly with his tail, against the seat of the bench or the side of the house. Roy has two distinct wags--the perpendicular and the horizontal; and in his many moments of enthusiasm he never neglects to use that particular wag which is likely to make the most noise.

Roy has many tastes and feelings which are in entire sympathy with those of his master. He cannot get out of a hammock unless he falls out; and he is never so miserable as when Mrs. Butts comes over from the Eastkill Valley to clean house. Mrs. Butts piles all the sitting-room furniture on the front piazza, and then she scrubs the sitting-room floor, and neither Roy nor his master, so long as Mrs. Butts has control, can enter the sitting-room for a bone or a book. And they do not like it, although they like Mrs. Butts.

Roy has his faults; but his evil, as a rule, is wrought by want of thought rather than by want of heart. He shows his affection for his friends by walking under their feet and getting his own feet stepped on, or by sitting so close to their chairs that they rock on his tail. He has been known to hold two persons literally spellbound for minutes, with his tail under the rocker of one chair and both ears under the rocker of another one. Roy's greatest faults are barking at horses' heels and running away. This last is very serious, and often it is annoying; but there is always some excuse for it. He generally runs away to the Williamsons', which is the summer home of his John and his Sarah; and where lodges Miss Flossie Burns, of Tannersville, his summer-girl. He knows that the Williamsons themselves do not want too much of him, no matter how John and Sarah and Miss Burns may feel on the subject; and he knows, too, that his own family wishes him to stay more at home; but, for all that, he runs away. He slips off at every opportunity. He pretends that he is only going down to the road to see what time it is, or that he is simply setting out for a blackberry or the afternoon's mail; and when he is brought reluctantly home, he makes believe that he has forgotten all about it; and he naps on the top step, or in the door-way, in the most guileless and natural manner; and then, when nobody is looking, he dashes off, barking at any imaginary ox-cart, in wild, unrestrainable impetuosity, generally in the direction of the Williamsons' cottage, and bringing up, almost invariably, under the Williamsons' kitchen stove.

He would rather be shut up, in the Williamsons' kitchen, with John and Sarah, and with a chance of seeing Flossie through the wire-screened door, than roam in perfect freedom over all his own domain.

He will bark at horses' heels until he is brought home, some day, with broken ribs. Nothing but hard experience teaches Roy. There is no use of boxing his ears. That only hurts his feelings, and gives him an extra craving for sympathy. He licks the hand that licks him, until everyone of the five fingers is heartily ashamed of itself.

Several autograph letters of Roy's, in verse, in blank-verse, and in plain, hard prose, signed by his own mark--a fore paw dipped in an ink-bottle and stamped upon the paper--were sold by Mrs. Custer at varying prices during a fair for the benefit of the Onteora Chapel Fund, in 1896.

To one friend he wrote:

"My dear Blennie Beckwith,--You are a sneak; and a snip; and a
snide; and a snob; and a snoozer; and a snarler; and a snapper; and
a skunk. And I hate you; and I loathe you; and I despise you; and
I abominate you; and I scorn you; and I repudiate you; and I abhor
you; and I dislike you; and I eschew you; and I dash you; and I dare
you.

"Your affectionate friend,

"P. S.--I've licked this spot.
"R. H.

His
Roy [paw print] Hutton.
mark.

"Witness: Kate Lynch."

Inspired by Miss Flossie Williamson Burns's bright eyes, he dropped into poetry in addressing her:

"Say I'm barkey; say I'm bad;
Say the Thurber pony kicked me;
Say I run away--but add--
'Flossie licked me.'

his
"Roy × Hutton.
mark.
"Witness: Sarah Johnson."

In honor of "John Ropes, Esquire," he went to Shakspere:

"But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of thy mountain climb,
I could a tail unfold, whose lightest wag
Would harrow up the roof of thy mouth, draw thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like a couple of safety-matches, start from their
spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part right straight down the middle
of thy back,
And each particular brick-red hair to stand on end
Full of quills, shot out by a fretful Onteora porcupine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears that are quite as handsome as is the rest of thy beautiful body.

("'Hamlet,' altered to suit, by)

his
"Roy × Hutton.
mark.
"Witness: John Johnson."

His latest poetical effort was the result of his affection for a Scottish collie, in his neighborhood, and was indited

TO LADDIE PRUYN, ESQ.

Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot,
And the Dogs of Auld Lang Syne?
I'll wag a tail o' kindness yet,
For the sake of Auld Ladd Pruyn.

Witnesses:
Marion Lyman,
Effie Waddington,
Katherine Lyman.

While Roy was visiting the Fitches and the Telford children, and little Agnes Ogden, at Wilton, Conn., some time afterwards, he dictated a long letter to his master, some portions of which, perhaps, are worth preserving. After the usual remarks upon the weather and the general health of the family, he touched upon serious, personal matters which had evidently caused him some mental and physical uneasiness. And he explained that while he was willing to confess that he _did_ chase the white cat into a tree, and keep her away from her kittens for a couple of hours, he _did not_ kill the little chicken. The little chicken, stepped upon by its own mother, was dead, quite dead, when he picked it up, and brought it to the house. And he made Dick Fitch, who was an eye-witness to the whole transaction, add a post-script testifying that the statement was true.

John says the letter sounds exactly like Roy!

Roy's is a complex character. There is little medium about Roy. He is very good when he is good, and he is very horrid indeed when he is bad. He is a strange admixture of absolute devotion and of utter inconstancy. Nothing will entice him away from John on one day, neither threats nor persuasion. The next day he will cut John dead in the road, with no sign of recognition. He sees John, and he goes slowly and deliberately out of his way to pass John by, without a look or a sniff. He comes up-stairs every morning when his master's shaving-water is produced. He watches intently the entire course of his master's toilet; he follows his master, step by step, from bed to bureau, from closet to chair; he lies across his master's feet; he minds no sprinkling from his master's sponge, so anxious is he that his master shall not slip away, and go to his breakfast without him. And then, before his master is ready to start, Roy goes off to breakfast, alone--at the Williamsons'! He will torment his master sometimes for hours to be taken out to walk; he will interrupt his master's work, disturb his master's afternoon nap, and refuse all invitations to run away for a walk on his own account. And the moment he and his master have started, he will join the first absolute stranger he meets, and walk off with that stranger in the opposite direction, and in the most confidential manner possible!

There are days when he will do everything he should do, everything he is told to do, everything he is wanted to do. There are days and days together when he does nothing that is right, when he is disobedient, disrespectful, disobliging, disagreeable, even disreputable. And all this on purpose!

It is hard to know what to do with Roy: how to treat him; how to bring him up. He may improve as he grows older. Perhaps to his unfortunate infirmity may be ascribed his uncertainty and his variability of temper and disposition. It is possible that he cannot hear even when he wants to hear. It is not impossible that he is making-believe all the time. One great, good thing can be said for Roy: he is never really cross; he never snaps; he never snarls; he never bites his human friends, no matter how great the provocation may be. Roy is a canine enigma, the most eccentric of characters. His family cannot determine whether he is a gump or a genius. But they know he is nice; and they like him!

Long may Roy be spared to wag his earthly tail, and to bay deep-mouthed welcome to his own particular people as they draw near home. How the three dogs who have gone on ahead agree now with each other, and how they will agree with Roy, no man can say. They did not agree with very many dogs in this world. But that they are waiting together, all three of them, for Roy and for The Boy, and in perfect harmony, The Boy is absolutely sure.

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| Transcriber's Note |
| |
| Inconsistent hyphenation (cobblestones/cobble-stones, |
| dogless/dog-less) has been retained, along with the author's |
| deliberate mis-spellings. |
| |
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End of Project Gutenberg's A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs, by Laurence Hutton