CHAPTER XVI
The Spotted Dog Again
The Judge and the boy were just arriving gayly home from a most enjoyable drive. They had been driving, not in the direction of Cloverdale, but away down the frozen river as it silently wound toward the sea.
Dallas had sprung out of the sleigh, and was standing respectfully aside waiting for the Judge to alight, when the big hall door flew open and little Bethany appeared, being held back, however, by the protesting Jennie.
Her face was absolutely beatific, and she called out clearly, “O, Daddy Grandpa, I’ve got the joyfullest surprise for you!”
The Judge, with an affectionate glance at her, began to ascend the steps in his usual dignified way.
“Now I have something to thank Satan for,” continued Bethany, dancing in Jennie’s resolute grasp. “Now I could almost love the naughty creature.”
The Judge had reached her now, and she broke away from Jennie and clung to him. “I missed my drives most dreadfully. Jennie took me for a walk the day before yesterday, Jennie took me for a walk yesterday, Jennie took me for a walk to-day, and what do you think I found?”
“Come inside, child, come inside; you will take cold,” said the Judge, and he motioned to Jennie to close the big front door.
“There they are—what I found,” screamed Bethany. “O, I am a thankful little girl to Satan for tempting me that day, ’cause if he hadn’t tempted me I’d not have walked with Jennie, and if I hadn’t walked with Jennie I’d never have found my sweet colored boy and my precious, precious Bylow.”
The Judge groaned inwardly. Sure enough, in the middle of the hall stood the grinning colored boy and the ugly yellow spotted dog.
The Judge preserved a calm exterior, though the colored boy called warningly, “Keep back, sah—you’s got on a good coat, and he do hate fine cloes. I’ll hang on to him,” and with might and main he pulled back on the dirty brown strap about the dog’s neck.
Dallas, not as wary as the Judge, went nearer, and was saluted by a snap from the dog’s powerful jaws that made him jump in the air.
“O, Bylow, Bylow!” cried Bethany, in dismay, and to the Judge’s great disapprobation she threw her arms round the snapping dog. “My precious dog, you must not be so bad.”
The dog put out a long red tongue and lapped her forehead.
“Bethany,” said the Judge, “come here.”
“O, Daddy Grandpa!” she exclaimed, fairly throwing herself at him. “Bethany is ’most dead with joy, and I knew you’d be dead, too.”
In face of so much enthusiasm and such perfect trust in his hearty coöperation, the Judge felt that it would be very hard to disappoint the child, but he was firm on the subject of vicious animals.
“In the middle of the hall stood the grinning colored boy and the ugly yellow spotted dog.”
“Boy,” he said to the grinning Brick, “what is the matter with that dog?”
“Your cloes, sah—turn your coat, sah, jes’ for fun—you’ll not see no teeth, sah. He’ll jus’ love you. Look-y-here—” and he pointed to a most disreputable-looking figure descending the staircase from the floor above.
The Judge somewhat helplessly took off his heavy coat and threw it over a chair. These children were turning his house upside down. That was a tramp coming downstairs—a tramp, pure and simple. But what was it—a snicker from young Jennie notified him that there was mystery afoot.
The supposed tramp was apparently youthful, but his rags were so clean and evidently so freshly made that the Judge became suspicious, and then that smooth, dark young chin and the red lips under the battered hat—surely they belonged to his grandson Titus. The old bathrobe, too, he thought he recognized as one of his own. What nonsense was this?
Bethany was laughing and clapping her hands, Dallas was giggling, and Brick was grinning more alarmingly than ever. “Come on, young sah—he’ll jus’ eat you up wid kindness—no feah in dat dress. Come on, come on—I’se loosin’ him,” and he let the dog go.
The creature with the hideous yellow spots actually ran toward Titus with his mouth open, but instead of devouring him he fawned on him, licked him, and soon was romping all over the hall with him.
“Titus,” said his grandfather, “stop this noise and explain your actions to me.”
Titus drew up in front of him, and, still holding the dog, who was playfully biting at his fingers, gave his old hat a blow that sent it spinning into a corner of the hall. Then he said breathlessly, “This is the queerest dog you ever saw, grandfather. He hates well dressed people. When he came he ripped down the seam of my trousers. Brick told me to go and dress up like a tramp, and see the difference. You know Brick has been a tramp’s boy.”
“A what?” inquired the Judge.
“A boy that goes about with a tramp—you’ve heard of them, grandfather. He waits on the tramp. Bylow went with him, and he hates well dressed people and nice houses.”
“Then his place is plainly not here,” observed the Judge, but under his breath, for fear of Bethany, who was now ecstatically smoothing the colored boy’s coat and sleeve.
“So your name is Brick,” he said, addressing the stranger.
“Yes, sah,” and Brick showed every tooth in his head.
His color was indeed somewhat brickish. The Judge had never seen a colored boy of just this shade before, and he suspected keenly that he had not been washed for some time.
“You like this little girl?” he said, indicating Bethany.
“She nice little girl, sah,” responded the boy, opening his mouth so alarmingly wide that the Judge saw not only his whole stock of teeth, but such an expanse of pink gums, tongue, and throat that he gazed at them in mild fascination. His words were fairly swallowed up in this pink gulf.
“She nice little girl,” Brick continued. “She good to dogs an’ cats. I like dogs meself. Me an’ Bylow’s great friends,” and he nodded toward the dog, which had calmed down and was lying at his feet panting and with half-shut eyes.
“Daddy Grandpa,” said Bethany, in sudden anxiety, “where are they going to sleep? O, where are they going to sleep?”
The Judge put up a hand and vigorously stroked his mustache. He knew Bethany’s generous heart prompted her to wish for them the best in the house.
“Well,” he replied, kindly, “we’re pretty well filled up inside, but there’s a good room out in the stable opposite Roblee’s.”
“Daddy Grandpa,” she said, timidly, “there’s the big spare room—the blue velvet room with the gilt furniture.”
“My friend Colonel Hansom is to occupy that next week,” said the Judge. “It would be awkward to turn out the boy for him.”
Brick was exploding with laughter. He was a good deal older than Bethany and appreciated the situation perfectly.
“I guess we’s all right in the stable, missie,” he said, with a snicker. “Bylow an’ me’s used to sleepin’ with hosses. Then we can guard you when the bogies come about. There’s lots of bogies these days,” and his eyes grew round, and he rolled them wildly to and fro.
“Did you see many out West?” asked the little girl, in an awestruck voice.
“The air was thick with ’em, missie. They jus’ called me an’ Bylow till we didn’t know which way fer to go.”
“Help! Help! Mum-mum-murder!” yelled a sudden voice.
“Blow that ’ere, Bylow!” muttered Brick, and he made a dart for the back stairway. “If he aint sneaked away!”
Titus and Dallas dashed after him, while little Bethany, twisting her tiny hands in dismay, brought up the rear with the Judge.
“It’s Higby,” she said, tearfully. “I told Titus to tell him to put on old clothes. I suppose Titus forgot. O, dear, dear!”
“Mum-mum-murder,” went on the voice, “help; there’s something caught m-m-me behind. M-m-missis Blodgett! Girls!”
“We’re coming,” called Titus, at the top of the stairway; “hold on.”
“Ca-ca-catch the dishes, some one,” wailed Higby. “O! law-law-law me! There they go!”
There was a terrible clatter of falling china, and then Higby’s voice rose higher and shriller than ever.
“H-h-he’s got m-m-me by the leg. O! O! O! he’s a-rippin’ me! Help, I say, help!”
The boys dashed valiantly down the stairway. Brick caught the dog by the neck. Higby, true to his habit of backing when agonizing for words, promptly stepped out behind, and fell in a heap on Brick, Bylow, and the broken china. Titus and Dallas, nearly choking with laughter, wrestled with the man, dog, and colored boy to get them on their feet, while Mrs. Blodgett and the maids rushed from the kitchen and stood with horror-stricken faces.
“Boys,” said the Judge’s voice from the top of the stairway, “boys!” and his voice brought calm to the situation.
“Yes, sir,” gasped Titus, who was manfully placing Higby against the wall and holding him there.
“Take the colored boy to the stable,” pursued the Judge, “and get him to lock up that dog.”
“Yes, sir—yes, sir,” replied Titus; then he added, in an undertone, “Hush up, Higby.”
“I ca-ca-can’t hush up,” whined Higby. “Look at my pa-pa-pants. Torn an’ hang-hang-hangin’ like a woman’s skirt. An’ them gir-gir-girls a-laughin’!”
It was, alas! too true! Finding that Higby was not hurt, and that his assailant was only a mischievous, medium-sized dog with his tongue lolling good-naturedly from his mouth, and that the china broken was not the best in the house, the maids were laughing heartily.
“Get up to your room, then, and change your clothes,” said Titus, giving Higby a friendly push, “and you, boy,” and he beckoned to Brick, “come on out to the stable with me.”
Bethany seized upon Higby as he came toward her and the Judge, and so bewailed his misfortune, and so sweetly comforted him, that the old man went on his way upstairs with a calmer face.
“Hurry up,” said Titus to Brick. “I want to get you in your den before Roblee comes. He’s something of a prig. Dallas, come on, too.”