  I WAS up in Tommy’s room lying under the bed with one of his shoes in my mouth. It was one of his school shoes. I had dragged it out of the closet one day when Mary left the door open. I didn’t feel so lonesome when I had it in my mouth. He had been gone for several days now. Well, I was lying there, and sometimes I chewed the top of the shoe and sometimes I just held it, and then I heard James whistling and calling me. I wondered what he wanted, so I left the shoe under the bed where it was safe and ran down to see. He was standing in the front hall, and Bijou and Fifine were there, too. “Come along, Muffins,” said James, and as soon as I came near enough The automobile was standing out in front of the house, and Bijou and Fifine thought we were going for a ride and they wanted to go too, but James pushed them back with his foot and told them to stay at home. He shut the door behind us and went over to the automobile and got up in front beside William. He put me down on his knees but still he held me, and then we started off. I was very much excited. I had never been in an automobile before. All the other dogs had. I had often watched from the window and seen them starting out with the mistress, but she never took me. We rolled along down the street, with William holding the wheel, and there were other automobiles and crowds of people, and I saw some other dogs, too. After a while we turned into a narrower street and stopped in front of a queer-looking shop. It had a big window with a sort of cage in it with an upstairs and a downstairs, and puppies and some long-haired cats in it. William stopped the automobile in front of the shop. “This is the place,” he said. Then he got down and took me from James and carried me into the shop. I never heard such a noise as there was in there. It had cages all along one side with dogs and cats in them, and some other animals that I didn’t know, and the dogs were barking and yelping, and big green birds were shrieking, and there were chickens making a noise, too. A man came forward from the back of the shop, and William said, “This is the dog.” He shut the door of the cage and fastened it, and then he gave William some money. William took it and put it in his pocket, but he kept looking at me in a sorry sort of way, and he came up close to the cage and put his fingers through, and said, “Well—good-bye, Muffins, old chap.” Then he turned away. All of a sudden I knew he meant to leave me there, and I lifted my nose and howled, and yelped and howled again. William looked back at me, and then he turned to the man and asked him something. “Oh, he’ll be all right in a little while,” said the man. William looked at me once more in the same He had gone and left me. But if only I could get out of the cage I might still run after him. I cried and whined and tore at the door with my claws, but I couldn’t get it open. Suddenly I felt a cold nose against mine and a little tongue licked my cheek. One of the other puppies in the cage was trying to make friends with me. I stopped tearing at the door and sniffed at him, and I liked his smell. He smelled friendly. After we had smelled each other he gave a sudden little frisk and tried to get me to play, but I sat down and didn’t pay any more attention to him. I felt too sad and lonely to care anything about playing. “I guess you don’t like it here, do you?” said the little dog. “No, I don’t, and I want to go home.” “Did you have a home?” I asked. “Yes, but I don’t often think about it. I guess maybe some time someone will take me away and I may have another home.” “But I don’t want to stay here a long time,” I said. It made me whine to think of it. “Well, maybe you won’t. Some of the dogs only stay here a little while. They just come here and then they go away again.” “Where do they go?” “People come and get them. I guess they go to different places.” I felt too sad and lonely to care anything about playing. I looked around the cage and saw there were a great many puppies. None of them were alike. Some were bigger than others, but none of them were very big. They were almost all asleep, some lying on top of others, but presently one of them woke and yawned and got up. He didn’t The friendly puppy and I talked together a a long time. He told me his name was Fido. I told him my name was Muffins. He said the shop was a place where people came when they wanted an animal. Some of the dogs there were very fine dogs. I told him about Fifine and Bijou and Prince Coco, and he said some of the dogs in the cages around us were just as fine as they were, if not finer. We weren’t, though. None of the dogs in our cage were worth much. He said there was a sign on the front of our cage. He had heard people read it and he knew what it said. It said: “Just plain dogs! Two dollars and a half apiece.” Well, it got on toward supper time and I grew hungry. Every now and then I whined and yelped. Then the man came along and put some food in our cage, and the other dogs woke up and we all ate from the plate together. One dog kept growling all the while he ate, but nobody paid any attention to him. It grew dark in the shop and the man went away, and all the animals were still. Then came the morning and the noise began again, and the man opened the shop and fed us. People came and went. Sometimes they took a dog or a cat or a bird away with them, but no one took a puppy from our cage. They just looked at us and read the sign and went on. After a while we were turned out in a dark, narrow yard to run about for a while, and then we were put back in our cage. After I had been there a while—not so very long though—a queer-looking man and woman came to the shop. The woman had a bright hat, and the man had black hair, and eyes that made me feel queer when he looked at me. He didn’t look at me at first, though. He looked at the finer dogs that were in open cages down below us. They were chained there, and there were no tops or fronts to the cages but just backs and sides to keep the dogs from getting at each other. The man and woman stopped in front of my cage, and the woman said, “How about a poodle?” They were looking at the dog just below us. Then he raised his eyes and looked straight at me. I was sitting at the front of the cage, and when he looked at me I stood up and wagged my tail and then I grinned. “See! See!” cried the man, and he caught the woman by the arm. “It is he! The one we want. His eyes, so full of intelligence! And that smile, for it is a smile. There is our clown dog. Just the one we want!” He turned and snapped his fingers, and called to the shopman in a quick, sharp voice. The man came hurrying toward him. “This one,” said the stranger. “The little dog with the black around his eye. Take him out that I may see him!” I grinned at him. The shopman took me out and gave me to the man, and the man held me up close to his face and looked into my eyes and smiled at me, and I “Yes, he is the one,” said the stranger. “We will take him. Have you a basket in which to carry him?” The shopman had. It was a queer basket. I had never seen one like it before. It was just big enough to hold me, and it had a cover, and a window at one end so I could look out. The stranger put me in it and fastened the lid. He let the basket stand on the floor while he paid the shopman, and then he picked it up and started off. I should have liked to say good-bye to Fido, but I had no chance. I looked out of the window and I could see him up in the cage looking after me, but he couldn’t see me very well. It was a long time before we ever saw each other again, and when we did it was in the queerest way. But that comes later in my story. |
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