Various

By Una Hudson

Half an hour after the new tenant had taken possession of the house next door, Miss Clementina Liddell looked out of her parlor window and saw a small, brown dog making himself very much at home on her front lawn.

Now, though the dog himself was small, his feet were not, and he was industriously digging a hole in the middle of Miss Clementina’s bed of scarlet geraniums.

Miss Clementina was indignant. But for her unwillingness to speak to a gentleman to whom she had not been properly introduced, she would have promptly crossed the strip of grass between the two houses and demanded that the intruder be forced to return to his own lawn.

As it was, she went out and attempted to “shoo” him off. But the little brown dog would not shoo. He stopped digging, and, with much waving of his stubby tail and a friendly bark or two, launched himself at Miss Clementina.

She stepped hastily backward, but not before the front of her neat, pink morning gown had been hopelessly soiled by the dog’s muddy feet.

“You bad, bad dog,” she scolded, energetically, emphasizing her words by a lifted forefinger.

The little dog barked cheerfully and circled twice around her. He was so frankly, so joyously irrepressible, that Miss Clementina did not know whether to feel amused or vexed.

“Oh, well,” she compromised, “I dare say you mean well. And we can fill up the hole you’ve dug, but I do hope you won’t do it again.”

She looked him over critically.

“You’re thin,” she decided, mentally; “shockingly thin. I’m afraid your master doesn’t feed you enough. He probably has an absurd notion that a dog shouldn’t be fed but once a day. I’ve heard of such things, and I think it’s positively inhuman.”

Miss Clementina glanced furtively toward the house next door. No one was in sight. She bent over the wriggling brown dog.

“You poor thing,” she whispered, “come around to the kitchen. For once in your life you shall have all you can eat.”

It was a rash promise, and the keeping of it involved the chops for luncheon and all the milk in the house.

“He’s rather a nice dog, don’t you think?” Miss Clementina said to the maid, as she watched him eat. “But he has a dreadful appetite. I think we’d best tell the butcher’s boy to bring some dog’s meat; chops are so expensive.”

II.

Mr. Kent Maclin took his hat and stick and started for his customary after-dinner stroll. On the front porch he found a small, brown dog busily engaged in reducing the doormat to a pulp.

Mr. Maclin recognized the dog as one belonging to the next door neighbor; he had seen him earlier in the day digging in a bed of scarlet geraniums. If people would keep dogs, Mr. Maclin thought they ought at least to teach them to behave. Still, if the lady who owned the dog could stand it to have her flower beds ruined, Mr. Maclin supposed he ought not to mind a chewed-up doormat.

The dog was only a puppy, anyway. His manners would probably improve as he grew older. Mr. Maclin stooped and patted him kindly on the head. The stubby brown tail thumped the floor ecstatically, and a red tongue shot out and began licking the polish from Mr. Maclin’s shoes.

“Jolly little beggar, aren’t you?” said the gentleman. But he backed hastily away from the moist, red tongue.

III.

Mr. Maclin ordered a new doormat every three days, and kept a package of dog biscuits in the drawer of the library table. He dealt these out with a lavish hand whenever the little brown dog saw fit to call for them, and was not without hope that a cultivated taste for dog biscuit might in time replace a natural one for doormats.

Mr. Maclin would have been glad to make the acquaintance of the supposed owner of the little brown dog, but didn’t quite know how to go about it.

But one day, as he watched the little brown dog digging as usual in the geranium bed, he had an inspiration.

He paid a visit to the florist, and came back with a long pasteboard box tucked under his arm. It was filled with a glowing mass of red geraniums.

The composition of a suitable note to accompany the flowers was a task requiring much time and mental effort.

Finally, in sheer desperation, Mr. Maclin wrote on one of his cards, “To replace the flowers the dog has dug up,” and dropped it among the scarlet blossoms.

He had hesitated between “the dog” and “your dog,” but had decided against the latter, being fearful that it might, perhaps, be construed as conveying a subtle hint of reproach. Mr. Maclin’s lawn also was defaced by many unsightly holes.

Miss Clementina wondered a little that the article “the” should have replaced the possessive pronoun “my.” But on reflection she decided that one might not unreasonably object to confessing in so many words to the possession of a dog who so persistently did all the things he ought not to do. And, anyway, it was nice of Mr. Maclin to have sent the flowers.

Miss Clementina wrote a charming note of thanks, and earnestly assured Mr. Maclin that she didn’t object in the least to the little dog’s digging up her lawn.

Mr. Maclin smiled at the naÏvetÉ of the little note, and tucked it carefully away in his pocketbook.

Thereafter the two bowed soberly when they chanced to meet, and occasionally exchanged a casual remark concerning the weather.

And once, when Miss Clementina was picking the dead leaves from what was left of the geranium plants, Mr. Maclin paused to remark that the little brown dog seemed very fond of her.

“And of you, too,” Miss Clementina had quickly returned. It couldn’t be pleasant, she thought, for Mr. Maclin to feel that his pet had deserted him for a stranger.

“It’s the dog biscuits I give him,” Mr. Maclin explained, confidentially.

“Oh,” said Miss Clementina, “is he fond of them? I’ve always considered meat much more nourishing.”

“I dare say it is,” Mr. Maclin agreed. “But dog biscuits are handier to keep about. And he comes for them so often.”

Then, covered with confusion, he beat a hasty retreat. He hadn’t intended to hint at the voracious appetite of Miss Clementina’s pet.

IV.

Miss Clementina looked with dismay at the much battered object the little brown dog had just brought in and laid at her feet. It was all that remained of Mr. Maclin’s best Panama hat.

Miss Clementina picked it up gingerly. She crossed the strip of lawn between the two houses and rang her neighbor’s doorbell.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, extending the hat to its owner. “It’s really too bad of the little dog.”

“It’s of not the very slightest consequence,” returned Mr. Maclin, gallantly.

“Oh, but I think it is,” Miss Clementina insisted. “He’s a very bad little dog, really. Don’t you think perhaps you ought to whip him—not hard, but just enough to make him remember?”

“Whip him! Whip your dog! My dear Miss Liddell, I couldn’t think of such a thing.”

Miss Clementina’s eyes seemed very wide indeed.

“But he’s not my dog at all,” she protested. “Isn’t he yours, Mr. Maclin?”

“I never laid eyes on him,” said Mr. Maclin, “until I moved here. The first time I saw him he was digging in your geranium bed.”

“Oh!” said Miss Clementina, and began to laugh.

“And to think,” she said, “of all the outrageous things he has done! And neither of us daring to say a word because we each thought he belonged to the other.”

Mr. Maclin laughed with her. “I think,” he said, “that from now on the little brown dog will have to reform.”

V.

But the little brown dog did not reform. With unabated cheerfulness he continued to dig in Miss Clementina’s geranium bed, and to chew Mr. Maclin’s doormat.

“He’s hungry,” said Miss Clementina; “you should give him more dog biscuits.”

“He has too much to eat,” retorted Mr. Maclin. “He digs holes in the geranium bed to bury the bones you give him.”

The little brown dog was fast becoming a bond of union between the lonely man and the lonelier woman.

“Your dog has chewed up my new magazine,” Miss Clementina would call to her neighbor. “Do take him home.”

“Oh, no,” Mr. Maclin would call back. “That is not my dog. My dog is chasing a gray cat out of the back yard.”

But one day the little brown dog disappeared. Mr. Maclin laid down a new doormat, and said he was glad it needn’t be chewed up right away.

Miss Clementina filled in the holes in the geranium bed, and set out some new plants. She gathered up a bone, two old shoes and a chewed-up newspaper, and expressed the hope that once more she might be able to keep the lawn tidy.

Twenty-four hours later the little brown dog had not returned. Mr. Maclin went out and gave the unoffending new doormat a savage kick. Then he put on his hat and went down the street—whistling. It was not a musical whistle. On the contrary, it was shrill and ear-piercing. It was, in fact, the whistle that the little brown dog had been wont to interpret as meaning that Mr. Maclin desired his immediate presence.

Once, when Mr. Maclin paused for breath, he heard faintly: “Dog, dog, dog!”

It was thus that Miss Clementina had been in the habit of summoning the little brown dog.

Mr. Maclin turned and walked in the direction of her voice. Folly, like misery, loves company.

“The little brown dog,” said Miss Clementina, when Mr. Maclin had overtaken her; “where do you suppose he can be? I’ve called until I’m hoarse.”

“And I have whistled,” said Mr. Maclin, “but he doesn’t answer.”

“I can’t believe that he ran away,” said Miss Clementina; “he was so fond of us.”

“And I’m sure he wasn’t stolen,” said Mr. Maclin. “He wasn’t valuable enough to steal.”

“I thought,” said Miss Clementina, “that I was glad to have him leave. He certainly did mess the place up terribly. But I miss him so, I’d be downright glad to have him come back and dig a hole in the geranium bed.”

“I’ve a new doormat waiting for him,” said Mr. Maclin. “Miss Clementina, where do you suppose he is?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Clementina. “I only wish I did. Why, there’s a little brown dog now. Perhaps——Here, dog, dog!”

Mr. Maclin’s whistle supplemented Miss Clementina’s call, but the brown dog took no heed.

“It’s some one else’s dog,” said Miss Clementina. “Don’t you see, he has on a collar?”

But Mr. Maclin had seen something else—a small, brass tag attached to the dog’s collar.

“Miss Clementina,” said he, “do you suppose the little brown dog’s tax was paid?”

“Tax?” questioned Miss Clementina.

“Yes, the dog tax, you know.”

“I didn’t know there was a dog tax,” said Miss Clementina.

“I’m afraid,” said Mr. Maclin, “that the dog-catcher has caught the little brown dog.”

To Miss Clementina’s mind the dog-catcher suggested awful possibilities. “Oh!” she said, “what can we do?”

“I shall go at once to the pound,” said Mr. Maclin, determinedly, “pay his tax and take him out.”

VI.

At the end of an hour Mr. Maclin returned. With him came the little brown dog. He wriggled joyously, and planted his dirty feet on Miss Clementina’s trailing skirts.

“His manners are just as bad as ever,” she said. “But I’m so glad to have him back. Was it the dog-catcher?”

“It was the dog-catcher,” said Mr. Maclin. “But it won’t happen again. I’ve paid his tax and bought him a collar. See, there’s a place on it for his owner’s name. But, of course, I couldn’t have it engraved, for he seems to have no owner. Miss Clementina, don’t you think it a pity for so nice a little dog not to belong to some one?”

There was that in Mr. Maclin’s voice that brought a faint flush to Miss Clementina’s cheek.

“I suppose,” went on the gentleman, “when he’s digging in your geranium bed he thinks he’s your dog, and when he’s chewing my doormat he’s probably laboring under the delusion that he’s my dog. Miss Clementina, it would be so easy to make him our dog. Don’t you think we’d better?”

“I—I don’t know,” faltered Miss Clementina.

But the words were muffled against Mr. Maclin’s coat, and he took the liberty of assuming that she did know.