A DOG'S TALE

by Mark Twain

CHAPTER I

My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am aPresbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nicedistinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaningnothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, andsee other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got somuch education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it was onlyshow: she got the words by listening in the dining-room and drawing-roomwhen there was company, and by going with the children to Sunday-schooland listening there; and whenever she heard a large word she said it overto herself many times, and so was able to keep it until there was adogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off, andsurprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, whichrewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger he was nearlysure to be suspicious, and when he got his breath again he would ask herwhat it meant. And she always told him. He was never expecting this butthought he would catch her; so when she told him, he was the one thatlooked ashamed, whereas he had thought it was going to be she. Theothers were always waiting for this, and glad of it and proud of her, forthey 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 withadmiration that it never occurred to any dog to doubt if it was the rightone; and that was natural, because, for one thing, she answered up sopromptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking, and for anotherthing, where could they find out whether it was right or not? for she wasthe only cultivated dog there was. By and by, when I was older, shebrought home the word Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty hardall the week at different gatherings, making much unhappiness anddespondency; and it was at this time that I noticed that during that weekshe was asked for the meaning at eight different assemblages, and flashedout a fresh definition every time, which showed me that she had morepresence of mind than culture, though I said nothing, of course. She hadone 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 washedoverboard in a sudden way--that was the word Synonymous. When shehappened to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks before andits prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a strangerthere of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes, then hewould come to, and by that time she would be away down wind on anothertack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cashin, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvasflicker a moment--but only just a moment--then it would belly out tautand full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymouswith supererogation, " or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectlycomfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane andembarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor with their tails inunison and their faces transfigured with a holy joy. 

And it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a whole phrase, ifit had a grand sound, and play it six nights and two matinees, andexplain it a new way every time--which she had to, for all she cared forwas the phrase; she wasn't interested in what it meant, and knew thosedogs hadn't wit enough to catch her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! Shegot so she wasn't afraid of anything, she had such confidence in theignorance of those creatures. She even brought anecdotes that she hadheard the family and the dinner-guests laugh and shout over; and as arule 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 shedelivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed andbarked in the most insane way, while I could see that she was wonderingto 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 ashamedof themselves for not seeing the point, and never suspecting that thefault 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 frivolouscharacter; still, she had virtues, and enough to make up, I think. Shehad a kind heart and gentle ways, and never harbored resentments forinjuries 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 alsoto be brave and prompt in time of danger, and not to run away, but facethe peril that threatened friend or stranger, and help him the best wecould without stopping to think what the cost might be to us. And shetaught us not by words only, but by example, and that is the best way andthe surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, thesplendid 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; noteven a King Charles spaniel could remain entirely despicable in hersociety. 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 neversaw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; butshe comforted me as well as she could, and said we were sent into thisworld for a wise and good purpose, and must do our duties withoutrepining, take our life as we might find it, live it for the best good ofothers, and never mind about the results; they were not our affair. Shesaid men who did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward by andby in another world, and although we animals would not go there, to dowell and right without reward would give to our brief lives a worthinessand dignity which in itself would be a reward. She had gathered thesethings from time to time when she had gone to the Sunday-school with thechildren, and had laid them up in her memory more carefully than she haddone 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 andthoughtful 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 ourtears; and the last thing she said--keeping it for the last to make meremember it the better, I think--was, "In memory of me, when there is atime 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, withpictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloomanywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with floodingsunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden--oh, greensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same asa member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did notgive me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to mebecause my mother had given it me--Aileen Mavourneen. She got it out ofa 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 slenderlittle 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, andnever could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, andlaughing out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, andtall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick inhis movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and withthat kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle withfrosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know whatthe 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-doglook sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one wasLaboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would skinthe tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a book, or apicture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college president's dogsaid--no, that is the lavatory; the laboratory is quite different, and isfilled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strangemachines; and every week other scientists came there and sat in theplace, and used the machines, and discussed, and made what they calledexperiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood around andlistened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in lovingmemory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realizing what she waslosing 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, shegently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it was acaress; other times I spent an hour in the nursery, and got well tousledand made happy; other times I watched by the crib there, when the babywas 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 withSadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on the grass in the shade ofa tree while she read her book; other times I went visiting among theneighbor dogs--for there were some most pleasant ones not far away, andone very handsome and courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired Irishsetter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me, andbelonged to the Scotch minister. 

The servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me, andso, as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be a happierdog that I was, nor a gratefuller one. I will say this for myself, forit is only the truth: I tried in all ways to do well and right, andhonor my mother's memory and her teachings, and earn the happiness thathad come to me, as best I could. 

By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happinesswas perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth andsoft and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws, and suchaffectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face; and it made me soproud 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 tome 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 thecrib, which was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace. Itwas the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it made of gauzy stuffthat you can see through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers werealone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the slopeof the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream from thebaby 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 secondwas half-way to the door; but in the next half-second my mother'sfarewell 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 thewaist-band, and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor together in acloud of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and dragged the screaming littlecreature along and out at the door and around the bend of the hall, andwas still tugging away, all excited and happy and proud, when themaster's voice shouted:

"Begone you cursed beast!" and I jumped to save myself; but he wasfuriously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at me with hiscane, I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a strong blowfell 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 thenurse's voice rang wildly out, "The nursery's on fire!" and the masterrushed away in that direction, and my other bones were saved. 

The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time; he mightcome back at any moment; so I limped on three legs to the other end ofthe hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a garretwhere old boxes and such things were kept, as I had heard say, and wherepeople seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I searched my waythrough the dark among the piles of things, and hid in the secretestplace 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 havebeen 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, andrushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for someminutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began togo down; and fears are worse than pains--oh, much worse. Then came asound that froze me. They were calling me--calling me by name--huntingfor 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 wentall about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all therooms, 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 andhours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago been blottedout by black darkness. 

Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away, andI was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke beforethe twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable, and Icould think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was, to creepdown, 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 insidefilling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start on myjourney when night came; my journey to--well, anywhere where they wouldnot know me and betray me to the master. I was feeling almost cheerfulnow; 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 stay whereI 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 thecalling began again! All my sorrows came back. I said to myself, themaster will never forgive. I did not know what I had done to make him sobitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a dog could notunderstand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful. 

They called and called--days and nights, it seemed to me. So long thatthe hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I wasgetting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and Idid. Once I woke in an awful fright--it seemed to me that the callingwas right there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice, andshe 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 sadwithout our--"

I broke in with SUCH a grateful little yelp, and the next moment Sadiewas plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber andshouting for the family to hear, "She's found, she's found!"

 The days that followed--well, they were wonderful. The mother and Sadieand the servants--why, they just seemed to worship me. They couldn'tseem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for food, theycouldn't be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that were outof season; and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to hearabout my heroism--that was the name they called it by, and it meansagriculture. I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once, andexplaining it in that way, but didn't say what agriculture was, exceptthat it was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times aday Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say Irisked my life to say 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 aboutme, and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; andwhen the people wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed andchanged the subject, and sometimes when people hunted them this way andthat way with questions about it, it looked to me as if they were goingto cry. 

And this was not all the glory; no, the master's friends came, a wholetwenty 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 saidit was wonderful in a dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct theycould call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence, "It's far aboveinstinct; it's REASON, and many a man, privileged to be saved and go withyou and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less of itthat this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to perish;" and thenhe laughed, and said: "Why, look at me--I'm a sarcasm! bless you, withall my grand intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that the dog hadgone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the beast'sintelligence--it's REASON, I tell you!--the child would have perished!"

They disputed and disputed, and I was the very center of subject of itall, and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor had come tome; it would have made her proud. 

Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certaininjury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could notagree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by and by; andnext they discussed plants, and that interested me, because in the summerSadie and I had planted seeds--I helped her dig the holes, you know--andafter days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there, and it wasa wonder how that could happen; but it did, and I wished I could talk--Iwould have told those people about it and shown then how much I knew, andbeen all alive with the subject; but I didn't care for the optics; it wasdull, and when they came back to it again it bored me, and I went tosleep. 

Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely, and thesweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy good-by, and wentaway on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master wasn't anycompany for us, but we played together and had good times, and theservants were kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily andcounted the days and waited for the family. 

And one day those men came again, and said, now for the test, and theytook 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 puppyshrieked, 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 as blind as a bat!"

And they all said:

"It's so--you've proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you agreat debt from henceforth, " and they crowded around him, and wrung hishand cordially and thankfully, and praised him. 

But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my littledarling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood, andit put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in my heartit was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its mother'stouch, though it could not see me. Then it dropped down, presently, andits little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was still, and didnot move any more. 

Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman, andsaid, "Bury it in the far corner of the garden, " and then went on withthe 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. Wewent far down the garden to the farthest end, where the children and thenurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of agreat elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going toplant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a finehandsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for thefamily when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame legwas no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is nouse. When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up, hepatted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: "Poorlittle doggie, you saved HIS child!"

I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up! This last week afright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something terribleabout this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick, and Icannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food; and they petme so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say, "Poor doggie--dogive it up and come home; don't break our hearts!" and all this terrifiesme 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 hourthe servants, looking toward the sun where it was sinking out of sightand the night chill coming on, said things I could not understand, butthey carried something cold to my heart. 

"Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in themorning, 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: 'Thehumble little friend is gone where go the beasts that perish. '"