Raggety’s Education
Where he had come from no one knew but himself. He had all the pretty ways of a pet dog when he came, loved to be petted, could sit on his haunches and beg, give paw, and had the ingratiating ways of a loved and loving comrade. What sort of a home had he left? Why did he leave it voluntarily to follow the Raggedy Man? Was his soul fettered and cramped and did he long for Adventure and the Open Road and,—dare it? When you see what a little dog he is, when you know his liberty-loving spirit, when you realize that he meets change and vicissitude with courage, you feel sure that he comes of good stock. Mary Cholmondley said in one of her books, “Good blood is never cowardly,” and Raggety has good blood.
Three humiliating and exasperating new bonds he learned to endure with me. First, a collar, and a collar with an annoying bell which jingled as he walked and scampered. How he rolled and pushed his head about, and wriggled on his back to get rid of that abominable thing about his neck! Second, he had to learn to walk attached to a leash and that was terrible. I carefully fastened the clip of the leash into the ring of his collar and started, and he refused to use his legs. So for a few steps I dragged him on his little body but that looked and seemed cruel. Then I carried him for a few steps, set him down again, again no legs, and the little body dragged over the dirt of the road. Alas and alack, how long it took before he submitted!—was it days, was it weeks? I have forgotten, but just as he chose to return and stay with me, one fine day he decided that he would walk properly at the end of a leather strap. Now it has come to mean a walk, so he kisses it.
The third thing he had to learn with his new mistress and to which he never in all the years of our friendship has become reconciled is the weekly bath. “Any refuge in a storm,” he seeks the darkest closets and the deepest corners under beds as safe retreats and is only dislodged by coaxing most persuasive and long-continued. How he hates it!