Zip's Curiosity Is His Undoing

About a week after Zip's last visit to Miss Belinda's, he was out on one of his midnight prowls, about which the doctor had scolded him time and time again. In fact, he had forbidden him to leave the yard at night, warning him that some day he would be shot while poking around in other people's back yards, or that he would be poisoned by eating some meat that had been prepared purposely for stray cats or dogs. But Zip thought he was smart enough not to get caught, and he did not believe that anyone could put poison on meat and he not be able to smell it.

So this night he went with a rat terrier, a friend of his, down into a poor quarter of the town, where they often went to kill rats, just for the fun of it and to see who could kill the most.

To-night there seemed to be no rats in sight, and while nosing around to get on the track of some, Zip smelt meat and soon came upon a small piece of fresh, juicy beefsteak, which he gobbled down without a thought. As he swallowed the last bit, he thought he detected a queer taste to it, and the thought flashed through his mind, "I have been poisoned! I might have known no one would throw away so good a piece of meat as that without a purpose. That meat was prepared for some cat, dog or rat to eat and die. Oh, my! I am beginning to have fearful pains in my stomach now and I feel myself beginning to swell already! Rats," he called, for that was his friend's nickname, "I've eaten a piece of meat with rat poison on it, and I must get home before I swell up so I can't walk at all. If I am able to get to the doctor, he will help me, I know."

"I thought you had more sense than to eat a piece of meat, cheese or anything else you saw lying around in places where they have lots of rats. You might have known it had rat poison on it!" replied his friend.

"I know, but I did not think. For mercy's sake, don't scold me when I am in such awful pain, but help me get home," wailed Zip.

They made as good headway as they could, though Zip had to roll on the grass every once in a while to relieve his pain, but he did not dare stop often for his stomach was swelling so rapidly that he felt it would burst before he reached his home. At last they reached the doctor's house, but too late to find the doctor still up. He had gone to bed, so Zip told his friend to howl as if he was being killed, and the doctor would hear him and think it was his own dog, and come down to see what was the matter. The rat terrier howled lustily, while Zip dropped down on the door mat and groaned as loudly as he could. Rats barked, howled, and threw himself against the front door, making a terrible noise generally.

Presently the doctor stuck his head out of an upper window and called:

"Zip, for mercy's sake, shut up! What is the matter with you?"

But when in the bright moonlight he saw it was not Zip, but a strange dog instead, with Zip lying at his feet, and when he heard Zip groan, he hurriedly stepped into his bathrobe and slippers and came downstairs. Then he opened the front door, and saw Zip on the mat, all swollen up the size of two pups. He knew at a glance, of course, that his pet had been poisoned, so he picked him up tenderly in his arms and carried him up straight to the bathroom and began pumping out the contents of his stomach. This done, he heated some milk and made Zip drink a lot of it, as milk is a very good thing to take when one has been poisoned. Besides, it was warm and soothing to his poor stomach. Then he rolled him up in a big blanket shawl and carried him to his own room, where he put him on the cushion of a big, cozy rocking-chair, and pulled it up close beside his bed, where he could watch him the rest of the night and give him medicine every once in a while.

"You poor little fellow," said the doctor, "I am awfully sorry you are in such pain, but I hope it will teach you a lesson to stay at home nights and not disobey my orders and go gallivanting off into other people's yards. Why, you are shaking as if you had a chill! Just a second now, and I will get a hot-water bag and put it on your stomach!"

"Oh, my! Oh, my! I believe I am going to die," wailed Zip to himself. "If ever I get well I never will disobey the doctor again! He is so good to me, and I am ashamed to think what a naughty dog I have been. But I do so love to go snooking around and not stay at home nights like Tabby does. I never saw such a good cat as Tabby is. She never goes prowling around, though most cats do. And it isn't because she is not coaxed to go, either, for nearly every night the neighbors' cats come and try to persuade her to go with them to somebody's house or barn."

Just then the doctor came back with a nice warm hot-water bag, which he put close against Zip's stomach, and then he wrapped him up snugly in the shawl once again.

"There, little fellow, you will be all right in the morning. Go to sleep now and forget all your trouble. But if you hadn't gotten to me when you did, you would have been a little angel dog by this time. The poison was working so fast that I could not have saved you had you come twenty minutes later. By the way, that is a smart friend you have, and he has good lungs, I think, by the noise he was making. He must have awakened all our neighbors. If he is around in the morning, I will give him a good hot breakfast. I never would have known you were home and sick if he had not kicked up such a racket, for you were far too ill to make noise enough to awaken me," and patting Zip on the head, the doctor crawled into his bed and was soon fast asleep.

Zip was about to fall into a doze when he heard a noise down on the front porch. Listening intently, the voices of Tabby and his friend, Rats, came floating in the window, and he knew by the soft murmur they made that they were talking in a most friendly manner and not fighting with each other.

"I am glad that Tabby found Rats, for now he can tell her all that has happened to me," thought Zip.

The warm milk and the hot-water bottle were beginning to soothe Zip and make him feel comfortable, and in fifty winks he was fast asleep and snoring.

And so once more Zip's adventures ended happily for him.

By FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY

The wonderful tale of a wonderful goat. Billy Whiskers is full of pranks and good fun. He makes hosts of friends wherever he goes. Every child knows about his adventures told by Mrs. Montgomery in the popular Billy Whiskers Books.

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