Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools Part 25

THE c.o.o.n DOG

SARAH ORNE JEWETT

(In _The Queen's Twin and Other Stories_)

I

In the early dusk of a warm September evening the bats were flitting to and fro, as if it were still summer, under the great elm that overshadowed Isaac Brown's house, on the Dipford road. Isaac Brown himself, and his old friend and neighbor John York, were leaning against the fence.

"Frost keeps off late, don't it?" said John York. "I laughed when I first heard about the circus comin'; I thought 'twas so unusual late in the season. Turned out well, however. Everybody I noticed was returnin'

with a palm-leaf fan. Guess they found 'em useful under the tent; 'twas a master hot day. I saw old lady Price with her hands full o' those free advertising fans, as if she was layin' in a stock against next summer.

Well, I expect she'll live to enjoy 'em."

"I was right here where I'm standin' now, and I see her as she was goin'

by this mornin'," said Isaac Brown, laughing, and settling himself comfortably against the fence as if they had chanced upon a welcome subject of conversation. "I hailed her, same's I gener'lly do. 'Where are you bound to-day, ma'am?' says I.

"'I'm goin' over as fur as Dipford Centre,' says she. 'I'm goin' to see my poor dear 'Liza Jane. I want to 'suage her grief; her husband, Mr.

'Bijah Topliff, has pa.s.sed away.'

"'So much the better,' says I.

"'No; I never l'arnt about it till yisterday,' says she;' an' she looked up at me real kind of pleasant, and begun to laugh.

"'I hear he's left property,' says she, tryin' to pull her face down solemn. I give her the fifty cents she wanted to borrow to make up her car-fare and other expenses, an' she stepped off like a girl down tow'ds the depot.

"This afternoon, as you know, I'd promised the boys that I'd take 'em over to see the menagerie, and nothin' wouldn't do none of us any good but we must see the circus too; an' when we'd just got posted on one o'

the best high seats, mother she nudged me, and I looked right down front two, three rows, an' if there wa'n't Mis' Price, spectacles an' all, with her head right up in the air, havin' the best time you ever see. I laughed right out. She hadn't taken no time to see 'Liza Jane; she wa'n't 'suagin' no grief for n.o.body till she'd seen the circus. 'There,'

says I, 'I do like to have anybody keep their young feelin's!'"

"Mis' Price come over to see our folks before breakfast," said John York. "Wife said she was inquirin' about the circus, but she wanted to know first if they couldn't oblige her with a few trinkets o' mournin', seein' as how she'd got to pay a mournin' visit. Wife thought't was a bosom-pin, or somethin' like that, but turned out she wanted the skirt of a dress; 'most anything would do, she said."

"I thought she looked extra well startin' off," said Isaac, with an indulgent smile. "The Lord provides very handsome for such, I do declare! She ain't had no visible means o' support these ten or fifteen years back, but she don't freeze up in winter no more than we do."

"Nor dry up in summer," interrupted his friend; "I never did see such an able hand to talk."

"She's good company, and she's obliging an' useful when the women folks have their extra work progressin'," continued Isaac Brown kindly.

"'Tain't much for a well-off neighborhood like this to support that old chirpin' cricket. My mother used to say she kind of helped the work along by 'livenin' of it. Here she comes now; must have taken the last train, after she had supper with 'Lizy Jane. You stay still; we're goin'

to hear all about it."

The small, thin figure of Mrs. Price had to be hailed twice before she could be stopped.

"I wish you a good evenin', neighbors," she said. "I have been to the house of mournin'."

"Find 'Liza Jane in, after the circus?" asked Isaac Brown, with equal seriousness. "Excellent show, wasn't it, for so late in the season?"

"Oh, beautiful; it was beautiful, I declare," answered the pleased spectator readily. "Why, I didn't see you, nor Mis' Brown. Yes; I felt it best to refresh my mind an' wear a cheerful countenance. When I see 'Liza Jane I was able to divert her mind consid'able. She was glad I went. I told her I'd made an effort, knowin' 'twas so she had to lose the a'ternoon. 'Bijah left property, if he did die away from home on a foreign sh.o.r.e."

"You don't mean that 'Bijah Topliff's left anything!" exclaimed John York with interest, while Isaac Brown put both hands deep into his pockets, and leaned back in a still more satisfactory position against the gatepost.

"He enjoyed poor health," answered Mrs. Price, after a moment of deliberation, as if she must take time to think. "'Bijah never was one that scattereth, nor yet increaseth. 'Liza Jane's got some memories o'

the past that's a good deal better than others; but he died somewheres out in Connecticut, or so she heard, and he's left a very val'able c.o.o.n dog,--one he set a great deal by. 'Liza Jane said, last time he was to home, he priced that dog at fifty dollars. 'There, now, 'Liza Jane,'

says I, right to her, when she told me, 'if I could git fifty dollars for that dog, I certain' would. Perhaps some o' the circus folks would like to buy him; they've taken in a stream o' money this day.' But 'Liza Jane ain't never inclined to listen to advice. 'Tis a dreadful poor-spirited-lookin' creatur'. I don't want no right o' dower in him, myself."

"A good c.o.o.n dog's worth somethin', certain," said John York handsomely.

"If he _is_ a good c.o.o.n dog," added Isaac Brown. "I wouldn't have parted with old Rover, here, for a good deal of money when he was right in his best days; but a dog like him's like one of the family. Stop an' have some supper, won't ye, Mis' Price?"--as the thin old creature was flitting off again. At that same moment this kind invitation was repeated from the door of the house; and Mrs. Price turned in, unprotesting and always sociably inclined, at the open gate.

II

It was a month later, and a whole autumn's length colder, when the two men were coming home from a long tramp through the woods. They had been making a solemn inspection of a wood-lot that they owned together, and had now visited their landmarks and outer boundaries, and settled the great question of cutting or not cutting some large pines. When it was well decided that a few years' growth would be no disadvantage to the timber, they had eaten an excellent cold luncheon and rested from their labors.

"I don't feel a day older'n ever I did when I get out in the woods this way," announced John York, who was a prim, dusty-looking little man, a prudent person, who had been selectman of the town at least a dozen times.

"No more do I," agreed his companion, who was large and jovial and open-handed, more like a lucky sea-captain than a farmer. After pounding a slender walnut-tree with a heavy stone, he had succeeded in getting down a pocketful of late-hanging nuts which had escaped the squirrels, and was now snapping them back, one by one, to a venturesome chipmunk among some little frost-bitten beeches. Isaac Brown had a wonderfully pleasant way of getting on with all sorts of animals, even men. After a while they rose and went their way, these two companions, stopping here and there to look at a possible woodchuck's hole, or to strike a few hopeful blows at a hollow tree with the light axe which Isaac had carried to blaze new marks on some of the line-trees on the farther edge of their possessions. Sometimes they stopped to admire the size of an old hemlock, or to talk about thinning out the young pines. At last they were not very far from the entrance to the great tract of woodland. The yellow sunshine came slanting in much brighter against the tall trunks, spotting them with golden light high among the still branches.

Presently they came to a great ledge, frost-split and cracked into mysterious crevices.

"Here's where we used to get all the c.o.o.ns," said John York. "I haven't seen a c.o.o.n this great while, spite o' your courage knocking on the trees up back here. You know that night we got the four fat ones? We started 'em somewheres near here, so the dog could get after 'em when they come out at night to go foragin'."

"Hold on, John;" and Mr. Isaac Brown got up from the log where he had just sat down to rest, and went to the ledge, and looked carefully all about. When he came back he was much excited, and beckoned his friend away, speaking in a stage whisper.

"I guess you'll see a c.o.o.n before you're much older," he proclaimed.

"I've thought it looked lately as if there'd been one about my place, and there's plenty o' signs here, right in their old haunts. Couple o'

hens' heads an' a lot o' feathers"--

"Might be a fox," interrupted John York.

"Might be a c.o.o.n," answered Mr. Isaac Brown. "I'm goin' to have him, too. I've been lookin' at every old hollow tree I pa.s.sed, but I never thought o' this place. We'll come right off to-morrow night, I guess, John, an' see if we can't get him. 'Tis an extra handy place for 'em to den; in old times the folks always called it a good place; they've been so sca'ce o' these late years that I've thought little about 'em.

Nothin' I ever liked so well as a c.o.o.n-hunt. Gorry! he must be a big old fellow, by his tracks! See here, in this smooth dirt; just like a baby's footmark."

"Trouble is, we lack a good dog," said John York anxiously, after he had made an eager inspection. "I don't know where in the world to get one, either. There ain't no such a dog about as your Rover, but you've let him get spoilt; these days I don't see him leave the yard. You ought to keep the women folks from overfeedin' of him so. He ought to've lasted a good spell longer. He's no use for huntin' now, that's certain."

Isaac accepted the rebuke meekly. John York was a calm man, but he now grew very fierce under such a provocation. n.o.body likes to be hindered in a c.o.o.n-hunt.

"Oh, Rover's too old, anyway," explained the affectionate master regretfully. "I've been wishing all this afternoon I'd brought him; but I didn't think anything about him as we came away, I've got so used to seeing him layin' about the yard. 'Twould have been a real treat for old Rover, if he could have kept up. Used to be at my heels the whole time.

He couldn't follow us, anyway, up here."

"I shouldn't wonder if he could," insisted John, with a humorous glance at his old friend, who was much too heavy and huge of girth for quick transit over rough ground. John York himself had grown lighter as he had grown older.

"I'll tell you one thing we could do," he hastened to suggest. "There's that dog of 'Bijah Topliff's. Don't you know the old lady told us, that day she went over to Dipford, how high he was valued? Most o' 'Bijah's important business was done in the fall, goin' out by night, gunning with fellows from the mills. He was just the kind of a worthless do-nothing that's sure to have an extra knowin' smart dog. I expect 'Liza Jane's got him now. Perhaps we could get him by to-morrow night.

Let one o' my boys go over!"

"Why, 'Liza Jane's come, bag an' baggage, to spend the winter with her mother," exclaimed Isaac Brown, springing to his feet like a boy. "I've had it in mind to tell you two or three times this afternoon, and then something else has flown it out of my head. I let my John Henry take the long-tailed wagon an' go down to the depot this mornin' to fetch her an'

her goods up. The old lady come in early, while we were to breakfast, and to hear her lofty talk you'd thought 't would taken a couple o'

four-horse teams to move her. I told John Henry he might take that wagon and fetch up what light stuff he could, and see how much else there was, an' then I'd make further arrangements. She said 'Liza Jane'd see me well satisfied, an' rode off, pleased to death. I see 'em returnin'

about eight, after the train was in. They'd got 'Liza Jane with 'em, smaller'n ever; and there was a trunk tied up with a rope, and a small roll o' beddin' and braided mats, and a quilted rockin'-chair. The old lady was holdin' on tight to a bird-cage with nothin' in it. Yes; an' I see the dog, too, in behind. He appeared kind of timid. He's a yaller dog, but he ain't stump-tailed. They hauled up out front o' the house, and mother an' I went right out; Mis' Price always expects to have notice taken. She was in great sperits. Said 'Liza Jane concluded to sell off most of her stuff rather 'n have the care of it. She'd told the folks that Mis' Topliff had a beautiful sofa and a lot o' nice chairs, and two framed pictures that would fix up the house complete, and invited us all to come over and see 'em. There, she seemed just as pleased returnin' with the bird-cage. Disappointments don't appear to trouble her no more than a b.u.t.terfly. I kind of like the old creator'; I don't mean to see her want."