Latest / Classic Dog Stories / Chums, by Edwin L. Sabin

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Chums, by Edwin L. Sabin · Classic Dog Stories

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Speaker 1: Section fifteen of Best Dog Stories. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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Speaker 1: by A. M. B. Sweet thirteen, Section fifteen. Chums by
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Speaker 1: Edwin L. Sabin. Don't you remember when your mother, laughingly
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Speaker 1: dissenting your father, said that you might have him, And
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Speaker 1: with rapture in your heart and a broad smile on
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Speaker 1: your face, you went dancing through the town to get him.
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Speaker 1: There was quite a family of them, the old mother
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Speaker 1: dog and her four children. Of the puppies, it was
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Speaker 1: hard to tell which was the best. That is hard
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Speaker 1: for the disinterested observer. As for yourself, in the very
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Speaker 1: incipiency of your hesitation, something about one of the dogs
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Speaker 1: appealed to you. Your eyes and hands wandered to the others,
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Speaker 1: but invariably came back to him. With the mother anxiously
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Speaker 1: yet proudly looking on. You picked him up in your
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Speaker 1: glad young arms, and he cuddled and squirmed and licked
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Speaker 1: your face, and in an instant the subtle bonds of
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Speaker 1: chumship were sealed forever you had chosen. I guess I'll
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Speaker 1: take this one, he said to the owner, And without
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Speaker 1: again putting him down, you carried him off and home.
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Speaker 1: How unhappy he appeared to be during his first day
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Speaker 1: in his new place. He whined and whimpered in his
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Speaker 1: plaintive little tremolo. And although you thrust the pinnikin of
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Speaker 1: milk under his ridiculous nose, and playmates from far and
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Speaker 1: near hastened over to inspect him and pay him tribute,
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Speaker 1: he refused to be appeased. He simply squatted on his
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Speaker 1: uncertain haunches and cried for mamma. You fixed him in
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Speaker 1: an ideal nest in the barn, but it rather made
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Speaker 1: your heart ache, with that vague ache of boyhood, to
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Speaker 1: leave him there alone for the night, and you went
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Speaker 1: back many times to induce him to feel better. Finally
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Speaker 1: you were withheld by your father's Oh, I wouldn't keep
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Speaker 1: running out there so much? Why were you? Let him be?
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Speaker 1: And pretty soon he'll curl up and go to sleep.
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Speaker 1: Sure enough, his high utterances ceased, and nothing more ermanated
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Speaker 1: from him, whereupon your respect for your father's buried store
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Speaker 1: of knowledge greatly increased. In the morning, you hastened out
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Speaker 1: before breakfast to assure yourself that your church had survived
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Speaker 1: the night, and you found that he had. He was
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Speaker 1: all there, every ounce of him. What a wriggly, roly,
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Speaker 1: awkward lump of a puppy was anyway, How enormous were
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Speaker 1: his feet, how flapping his ears, how whip like his tail,
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Speaker 1: How unreliable his body, how erratic his legs. Yet he
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Speaker 1: was pretty. He was positively beautiful. Your mother could not
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Speaker 1: resist him. Can a woman resist anything that is young
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Speaker 1: and helpless and soft and warm? With pictures in her
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Speaker 1: mind of ruined flowers and chewed up household furnishings, she
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Speaker 1: gingerly stooped down to petum, and at the touch of
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Speaker 1: his silky coat, she was captive. Nice doggie she could,
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Speaker 1: upon which he astatically endeavored to swallow her finger and
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Speaker 1: smeared her slippers with his dripping mouth, and peace was
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Speaker 1: established thereafter. Mother was a stoutish champion. The christening proved
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Speaker 1: a matter requiring considerable discussion. When it comes right down
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Speaker 1: to it, a name for a dog is a difficult proposition.
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Speaker 1: It may be easy to name other persons dogs, but
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Speaker 1: your own dog is different. Your father and mother and
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Speaker 1: even the hired girl proposed names. All of which you
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Speaker 1: rejected with scorn, until suddenly into existence popped a name
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Speaker 1: which came like an old friend. You seized it, attached
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Speaker 1: it to the pup, and it just fitted. No longer
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Speaker 1: was he to be referred to as it, or he
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Speaker 1: or the puppy. He possessed the personality the hired girl,
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Speaker 1: and in those days there were more hired girls than domestics.
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Speaker 1: Was the last to yield to his way. She did
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Speaker 1: not like dogs or cats about the house. Dogs caused
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Speaker 1: extra work, and cats got under foot. But upon the
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Speaker 1: third morning after his arrival, you caught her surreptitiously throwing
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Speaker 1: him acrust from among the table leafings that she was
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Speaker 1: bearing to the alley, and you knew that he had
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Speaker 1: won her aye hetty wonner. You also found out that
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Speaker 1: he much preferred a crust thus flung to him from
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Speaker 1: the garbage to any carefully prepared mess of more wholesome food.
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Speaker 1: Probably this subtle flattery pleased the girl, for although her
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Speaker 1: grimness never vanished, once in a while you descrised her
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Speaker 1: smiling through it in the course of a trip to
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Speaker 1: the back fence, while the puppy faithfully gamboled at her
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Speaker 1: skirts in Tumultu's expectation of another fall of manna. He
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Speaker 1: grew visibly, like the seed planted by the Indian fakir,
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Speaker 1: enormous quantities of bread and milk he gobbled, always appearing
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Speaker 1: in fear lest the supply should sink through the floor
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Speaker 1: before he had eaten his fill. Between meals, his body
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Speaker 1: weighed in too ordinary size. But mercy, what a transformation.
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Speaker 1: As he ate at these times, it swelled and swelled
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Speaker 1: until the pan empty, the stomach fall. Its diameter far
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Speaker 1: exceeded its length. However, there was a more permanent growth
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Speaker 1: than this, as you discovered when you awoke to the
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Speaker 1: fact that his collar was too tight form, so you
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Speaker 1: removed it, and in the interval between removing the old
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Speaker 1: and getting the new properly engraved, his neck expanded fully
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Speaker 1: an inch. The old collar would not meet around it
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Speaker 1: when as a test you experimented, so goodbye to the
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Speaker 1: collar of puppy hood, and let a real dog's collar
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Speaker 1: dangle about his neck. The step marked the change from
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Speaker 1: dresses to trousers. Not only bread and milk and other mushy,
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Speaker 1: non stimulating stuff did he eat, but he ate or
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Speaker 1: tried to eat everything else within his reach piecemeal. He
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Speaker 1: ate most of the doormat. He ate sticks of wood,
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Speaker 1: both hard and soft, seemingly preferring a barrel stave. He
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Speaker 1: ate leaves and stones, and lumps of dirt, and the
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Speaker 1: heads off the double petunias and the geraniums. He ate
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Speaker 1: a straw hat and a slipper. He attempted the broom
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Speaker 1: and the clothes line, the latter having upon it the
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Speaker 1: week's wash, thus adding to the completeness of the menu.
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Speaker 1: In his fondness for using his uneasy teeth new and sharp,
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Speaker 1: he would have eaten you, did you not repeatedly rest
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Speaker 1: your anatomy from his tireless jaws, as it was you
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Speaker 1: bore over all your person, and particularly upon your hands
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Speaker 1: and calves, the prints of his ravaging, omnivorous mouth. Your
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Speaker 1: mother patiently darned your torn clothing and submitted to having
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Speaker 1: her own imperiled and her ankles nipped, while your father
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Speaker 1: time and again gathered the scattered fras of his evening
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Speaker 1: paper and from a patchwork strove to decipher the day's news.
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Speaker 1: And look at him, will you, cried the hired girl, delighted,
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Speaker 1: indicating him, as he was industriously dragging her mop to
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Speaker 1: cover well. Like the storied peach. He grew, and he
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Speaker 1: grew speedily. He was too large for you to hold
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Speaker 1: in your arms, And although he insisted upon climbing into
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Speaker 1: your lap, you could no more accommodate him there than
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Speaker 1: you put a huge jellyfish. He kept slipping off, and
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Speaker 1: was all legs. He fell ill. Ah, Those days of
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Speaker 1: his distemper were anxious days. He wouldn't eat, and he
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Speaker 1: wouldn't play, and he wouldn't do anything except lying and
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Speaker 1: feebly wag his tail, And by his dumbness placed upon
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Speaker 1: you the terrible burden of imagining his condition inside. Here
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Speaker 1: came to the rescue the old gardener, Uncle Pete Black
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Speaker 1: as the ace of Spades, who gave you the prescription
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Speaker 1: of a nauseus yet simple remedy which you were compelled
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Speaker 1: lovingly and apologetically to administer three times a day. And behold,
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Speaker 1: the patient was cured. He didn't blame him any for
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Speaker 1: rising from his bed, and you wouldn't have blamed him
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Speaker 1: any for cherishing against you a strong antipathy in memory
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Speaker 1: of what you forced on his throat. But he loved
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Speaker 1: you just as much as ever. Now he developed roaming propensities,
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Speaker 1: which took the form of forging expositions. Once he brought
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Speaker 1: back a five pound roast of beef, his head high
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Speaker 1: in the air, and buried it in the garden. Diligent
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Speaker 1: inquiry exposed the fact that the beef had been intended
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Speaker 1: by a neighbor for a dinner for a family of six,
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Speaker 1: and for subsequent relays of hash et cetera. Your mother,
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Speaker 1: with profuse apologies, promptly dispatched substitute roast, the original being
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Speaker 1: badly disfigured. Upon another occasion, he conveyed into the midst
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Speaker 1: of a group consisting of your mother and father and
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Speaker 1: the Minister guests of honor, sitting on the front porch,
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Speaker 1: a headless chicken, still quivering. You were commanded to return
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Speaker 1: the fowl if you could, And after making a canvas
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Speaker 1: of the neighborhood, you found a man who, having decapitated
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Speaker 1: a choice pullet, and having turned for an instant to
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Speaker 1: secure a pan of hot water, was mystified upon again
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Speaker 1: approaching the block to see in all his level backyard
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Speaker 1: not a vestage saved the head of the feathered victim.
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Speaker 1: When you restored to him his property, he laughed, but
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Speaker 1: not as if he enjoyed it. Along with his forging bend,
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Speaker 1: the dog acquired a passion for digging. One day, he
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Speaker 1: accidentally discovered that he could dike and forth. While he
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Speaker 1: reveled in his new power, huge holes marked where he
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Speaker 1: had investigated flower beds or had insanely tried to tunnel
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Speaker 1: under the house. He grew in spirit as well as
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Speaker 1: in stature. He had his first fight and was victorious,
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Speaker 1: and for days and days went around with a chip
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Speaker 1: on his shoulder, which several lickings by bigger dogs did
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Speaker 1: not entirely remove. Of that first fight, and the insuring
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Speaker 1: responsibility of testing the metal of every canine whom he encountered,
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Speaker 1: came dignity, poise, and courage. His puppy days were over.
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Speaker 1: He had arrived at doghood. What sweet years followed. It
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Speaker 1: was you and the dog, The dog and you, one
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Speaker 1: and inseparable. When you whistled, he came. All the blows
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Speaker 1: you gave him for his misdemeanors could not in iota
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Speaker 1: influence him against you. Other comrades might desert you for
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Speaker 1: rivals of the moment, but the dog never to him
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Speaker 1: you were supreme. You were at once his crony and
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Speaker 1: his god. When you went upon an errand the dog
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Speaker 1: was with you. When you had choice to do, the
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Speaker 1: dog was your comfort, and when you were alone after dark,
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Speaker 1: he was your protection. With him in the room or
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Speaker 1: by your side, you were not afraid when you had
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Speaker 1: been away for a short time. Who so rejoiced at
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Speaker 1: your return as the dog who so overwhelmed you with caress,
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Speaker 1: not even your mother, great as was her love for you.
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Speaker 1: Did you want a frolic? The dog was ready. Did
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Speaker 1: you want to mope? He would mope too. He was
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Speaker 1: your twin self and never failed the sun. And you
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Speaker 1: were up together on that summer morning, and the dog
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Speaker 1: joined you as soon as you threw open the barn door.
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Speaker 1: Almost you had caught him in bed, but not quite,
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Speaker 1: although he had not had time to shake himself and
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Speaker 1: thus make toilet. Intuition told him that such an early
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Speaker 1: awakening manned for him a day's outing, and he leaped
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Speaker 1: and barked and wagged his glee. You worked with a will,
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Speaker 1: and when the hired girls summoned you to breakfast, the
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Speaker 1: kitchen wood box had been filled, and all the other
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Speaker 1: jobs laid out for you had been performed, And you
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Speaker 1: were waiting, So was the dog, but not for breakfast.
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Speaker 1: He was waiting for you. How he gobbled down the
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Speaker 1: scraps constituting his meal, never pausing to chew, and frequently
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Speaker 1: desisting in operations in order to run around the house
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Speaker 1: and investigate lest by hook or crook you might be
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Speaker 1: slipping off without his knowledge. Now, your boy companion's whistle
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Speaker 1: sounded in front, and hastily swallowing your last mouthfuls, disregarding
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Speaker 1: your mother's implorations to eat a little more, with the
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Speaker 1: paper packages containing your lunch of bread and butter and
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Speaker 1: sugar and two hard boiled eggs stuffed into your pockets,
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Speaker 1: sling shot in hand, out you scampered, and the dog
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Speaker 1: was there before you. Along the street. You gaily hayed,
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Speaker 1: the three of you until the overarching dew drenched elms
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Speaker 1: and maples ended, and the boardwalk ended, and you were
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Speaker 1: in the country. Civilization was behind you, all the world
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Speaker 1: of field and wood was ahead. Don't you remember how
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Speaker 1: balmy was the air that wafted from the pastures where
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Speaker 1: the meadow larks piped and the bobolings fried it and gurgled.
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Speaker 1: Don't you remember how the blackbirds trilled into the willows,
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Speaker 1: and the flicker screamed in the cottonwoods. Don't you remember
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Speaker 1: how you tried fruitize shots with your catapult, and how
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Speaker 1: the dog vainly raced for the gophers as you sped
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Speaker 1: like mad, far and wide. Of course you do the
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Speaker 1: morning through you trudge, buoyant and tireless and fancy, free,
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Speaker 1: fighting indians and bears and wild cats at will, yet
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Speaker 1: still unscathed, roving up hill and down again, scaling cliffs
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Speaker 1: and threading valleys, essaying perilous towards and bursting the jungles
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Speaker 1: of raspberry bushes. And you guess at noon, and sprawl
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Speaker 1: in the shade beside the creek to devour your provisions.
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Speaker 1: During the morning, some of the time you had seen
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Speaker 1: the dog, and some of the time you have not.
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Speaker 1: Where you have covered miles, he has covered leagues, and
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Speaker 1: more than leagues. For a half hour he will have
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Speaker 1: disappeared entirely. Then suddenly write a throat your path. He
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Speaker 1: hustles past in his orbit, as though to let you
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Speaker 1: know that he is hovering about while you are eating.
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Speaker 1: Here he comes. He seats himself expectantly before you, with
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Speaker 1: lolling tongue and gulps half a slice of bread and
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Speaker 1: looks for more. A dog's only selfishness is his appetite.
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Speaker 1: He will freeze for you, drowned for you, risk himself
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Speaker 1: in a hundred ways for you. But in the matter
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Speaker 1: of food he will seize what he can get and
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Speaker 1: all that he can get, and you must take care
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Speaker 1: of yourself. The lunch is finished, and the dog, after
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Speaker 1: sniffing for the crumbs, sings down with his nose between
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Speaker 1: his paws, to indulge in forty uneasy wings until you
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Speaker 1: indicate what is to be the next event upon your program. Presently, however,
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Speaker 1: with a little whine of restlessness, he is off. You
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Speaker 1: are off too. It is the noon siesta. The air
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Speaker 1: is sluggish, the birds and the squirrels have relaxed, and
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Speaker 1: the woods are subdued. The strident scrape of the locusts
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Speaker 1: rises and falls, and the distance shouts of men in
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Speaker 1: the harvest fields float in upon your ear. You are
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Speaker 1: burning hot, but the water of the creek is cool.
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Speaker 1: The only cool thing in your landscape a swim. A swim.
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Speaker 1: Your whole being demands that you go in swimming. The
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Speaker 1: dog already has been in a number of times as
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Speaker 1: his wet coat has evidenced feverishly falling the winding stream
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Speaker 1: and being the turtles as they plunge in upon your approach.
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Speaker 1: You arrive at a bend where the banks are high,
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Speaker 1: and the current swinging against them halts and forms an eddy.
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Speaker 1: Here the depths are still and dark, and beckoning to
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Speaker 1: strip those smothering garments from your sunburnt body. Is the
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Speaker 1: work of but an instant, and in your sous not
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Speaker 1: without some misgiving as to possible water snakes and snapping turtles,
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Speaker 1: but spurred by a keen rivalry as to which should
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Speaker 1: wed over the first. Oh, the glorious, vivifying thrill that
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Speaker 1: permades you as you part the waters. The dog again
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Speaker 1: from the bank. He surveys the proceedings with mingled curiosity
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Speaker 1: and apprehension, and finally, with a whine of excitement, dashes
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Speaker 1: into the shallows and makes for your side. You are
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Speaker 1: neck deep and he is swimming. His hair feels queer
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Speaker 1: and climmy against your skin, and his descended claws raise
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Speaker 1: a welt upon your bare shoulder. As he affectionately tries
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Speaker 1: to climb on top of you. You duck him and
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Speaker 1: grab at his tail and convinced that you are in
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Speaker 1: no immediate danger, he plows for the shore, where he
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Speaker 1: contents himself with barking at you. Despite the dog's remonstrances
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Speaker 1: and entreaties, you sported in that dead, flissful spot until
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Speaker 1: the sun was well down the west. Now you frolicked
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Speaker 1: in the cool eddy. Now you dabbed and made the
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Speaker 1: ripples of the shoals just below, And now you dwaddled
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Speaker 1: on the warm tufty banks. The dog stretched himself by
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Speaker 1: your clothing and went to sleep at length, with blue
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Speaker 1: lips and shattering teeth, and a ring of mud encircling
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Speaker 1: your mouth, marking where years later the badge of manhood
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Speaker 1: would appear. You donned your clothes, and, weak but peaceful
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Speaker 1: to the rapture of the dog, started homeward. He did
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Speaker 1: not know that you were going home when you had
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Speaker 1: left home in the morning. He did not know that
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Speaker 1: you were coming here. He did not care then, and
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Speaker 1: he does not care now. You are doing something, and
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Speaker 1: he is a partner in it, and that is sufficient.
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Speaker 1: Homeward homeward through woods and across meadows, where the birds
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Speaker 1: were gathering their evening stone and voicing their praises and
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Speaker 1: thanks because the sun had been so good homeward homeward,
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Speaker 1: not talking so much as when your faces were turned
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Speaker 1: the other way, not frisking so much as formerly, and
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Speaker 1: with the dog trotting soberly near your heels, you were
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Speaker 1: dead tired, the three of you. When you were about
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Speaker 1: a block from the house, the dog pricked up his
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Speaker 1: ears and trotted ahead to wait for you at the gate.
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Speaker 1: While you ate your supper, he slept on the back porch,
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Speaker 1: and after his own supper, he slunk straight into the
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Speaker 1: barn to bed. And soon he and his nest upstairs
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Speaker 1: in the barn, you and your nest upstairs in the house,
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Speaker 1: alike you were slumbering, for neither possibly sleeps sounder than
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Speaker 1: the other. Years sped by, and the dog remained an
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Speaker 1: integral part of the household, such a quaint, quizzical knowing
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Speaker 1: old chap with an importance ridiculous yet not unwarranted, with
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Speaker 1: an individuality all his own, thoroughly doggish but well nigh human.
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Speaker 1: He was affectionate toward the rest of the family. By
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Speaker 1: you he adored. He might occasionally bluffly growl at others,
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Speaker 1: but never at you. You could make him do anything, anything,
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Speaker 1: to him, you were perfect omnipotent, and with you at hand,
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Speaker 1: he was happy you emerged from the grammar school into
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Speaker 1: the high school. Then you arrived that summer when you
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Speaker 1: went to visit your aunt and uncle and stayed three weeks.
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Speaker 1: You remember the visit, don't you. And when you disembarked
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Speaker 1: at the station on your return and your mother was
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Speaker 1: there to meet you. Even while kissing her, you looked
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Speaker 1: for the dog. Where's Dawn? You asked? Why? Ted, reproved
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Speaker 1: your mother, as so often she had jokingly done before.
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Speaker 1: Do you think more of seeing your dog than of
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Speaker 1: seeing me? This silence you. But when you had entered
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Speaker 1: the yard and next the house, ungreeted by the familiar
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Speaker 1: rush and volley of barks, you were impelled to inquire
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Speaker 1: again where is Dawn? Mother? Mother put her arm around
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Speaker 1: you and laid her lips to your forehead, And even
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Speaker 1: before she spoke, you felt what was coming. Ted, dear,
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Speaker 1: you never will see Dawn any more, she said, and
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Speaker 1: she held you close. Oh, you sobbed out your first
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Speaker 1: field grief upon her breast. When you could listen, she
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Speaker 1: told you all how they had found him lifeless, where
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Speaker 1: he had awed under the porch how they had buried
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Speaker 1: him decently and tenderly, where you might see his grave,
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Speaker 1: and put up a headboard, how they had kept the
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Speaker 1: news from you so that your visit should not be spoiled,
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Speaker 1: And how all the way from the depot her heart
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Speaker 1: had ached for you. Thus the dog vanished from your
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Speaker 1: daily life, and for weeks the house and yard seemed
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Speaker 1: very strange without him. Then gradually the feeling that you
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Speaker 1: were to come upon him unexpectedly around some corner wore off.
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Speaker 1: You grew reconciled, But to this day you were constantly
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Speaker 1: encountering him in dreamland. He hasn't changed, and in his sight,
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Speaker 1: apparently you haven't changed. You were once more boy and
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Speaker 1: dog together. This leads you to hope and to trust, indeed,
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Speaker 1: to believe that, notwithstanding your mother's gentle admonition, you will
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Speaker 1: see him again in fact as well as fancy. After all,
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Speaker 1: and of Section fifteen