The Safety First Club

Memory of the successful raid by Mr. Mercer’s big hound and its unhappy results rankled in the breasts of Poke and Step.

It was one thing, they agreed, to be joint victims of hard luck; but it was quite another thing—and a deal harder to endure—to behold the author of their misfortunes jogging about the streets, wholly unpunished for his misdeeds. Step even had a gloomy notion that the dog was plumper than usual, which, if well founded, was higher tribute to the nourishing qualities of the looted chicken than to the prevalence of even-handed justice, to Step’s way of thinking. This view, confided to Poke, met ready acceptance.

“Sure thing! And there ought to be something we could do about it,” observed Poke.

“Oh, I’ll find a way to get even,” Step declared.

“How?”

“Oh, you wait, and you’ll see,” said Step darkly.

Poke, as has been related, had leanings toward philosophy. Now he meditated briefly.

“See here, Step!” he said. “If you’re going to get at this thing, you’d better get at it right. You ought to teach him a lesson.”

“That’s just what I’ll do!”

Poke shook his head. “No; you don’t get me. You’re thinking of letting drive a stone at him, or giving him a whipping, but what’d be the use? He wouldn’t know why you did it.”

“Huh! Guess he would,” growled Step.

“He wouldn’t,” Poke insisted. “That is, he wouldn’t unless you schemed out a way to remind him of the stolen rooster. There’s got to be something to make him see there’s a connection—get me?”

Step sniffed contemptuously. “What you want me to do? Make him a speech or send him a letter about it?”

“Neither,” quoth Poke calmly. “But unless you make him understand that he’s being punished for stealing, he’ll think you’re thrashing him out of pure meanness.”

Step rubbed his chin. “I suppose that’s so,” he admitted. “But how can you work it? How can you make him understand? I’m weak on dog-lingo, myself.”

Poke smiled, a little pityingly. “Listen, and I’ll tell you something I read the other day. There was a chap who owned a dog, and he was a bully dog, except that he would steal chickens. So the man tied a dead hen to his collar, and left it there till—well, till that dog didn’t want ever to see another one or get anywhere near it. And that’s my idea—something like it, anyway—for teaching the hound a lesson.”

Step began to take interest. “Gee, but you have got an idea there! Only, if there’s anything left of the chicken he stole, we don’t know where to find it. And——”

“Don’t need to!” Poke broke in. “Look here now! Say you’re dealing with chickens. What do you come to first?”

“Hen-house,” said Step promptly.

Poke frowned. “No, no! Wake up! You come first to the feathers.”

“Oh, that way? Yes!”

The frown vanished. “Exactly!” said Poke. “So, if we teach that dog to let feathers alone, he won’t bother many chickens—see?”

Step’s manner was slightly skeptical. “Oh, that’s easy to talk about, but, practically, how are you going——”

Poke didn’t let him finish the sentence. “Ever smell burning feathers? Well, I guess you have, all right! And don’t you think that if we tie a pail to his collar, and there are some burning feathers in the pail, Mr. Dog’ll get enough of chickens to last him a lifetime?”

Step was a generous fellow; he didn’t grudge a friend a triumph.

“Gee, Poke, but you’re a corker! How’d you ever work that out? But I say! I can improve on the pail. Up in our attic’s one of those queer, old-fashioned lanterns with tin sides punched full of holes—like a colander, you know. And there’s a double chain to it—guess they used to hang it up outdoors. And there are snaps on the chain—might have been made for us. Only”—he paused an instant—“only how’re you going to be sure the stuff will burn?”

Poke smiled the smile of easy confidence. “Don’t you worry! A few rags soaked in kerosene, and stuffed in with the feathers will take care of that, all right!”

From this discussion and activities which followed, it happened that when Sam turned a corner near Mr. Mercer’s gate he came upon his two chums engaged in friendly overtures to a large and somewhat suspicious dog. Poke, as he saw, had a tempting bit of meat, while Step held behind him a rusty contrivance of tin, from which loops of still more rusty chain depended.

“Halloo! What’s up?” Sam demanded curiously.

“Oh, first class in dog manners—that’s all,” responded Step lightly.

Poke whistled softly, and held the meat nearer the dog, which took a step forward, halted, eyed the tidbit greedily.

Sam, far from clear as to what was afoot and inclined to caution not only by his new resolves but also by acquaintance with other ventures of his friends, watched the proceedings dubiously.

“I don’t yet grasp what’s the game,” he remarked.

Poke was lavishing blandishments upon the dog, and extending the bait; so it was left to Step to make explanation.

“It’s that chicken business. We’re going to get even—teach him a lesson, I mean.... Got a scheme, a crackerjack scheme. Just you keep your eyes peeled.”

“They’re peeled, all right, but——” Sam hesitated an instant. “I say, you fellows, better not get in trouble. Remember, you belong to the Safety First Club!”

“Huh! No chance of trouble—for us!” Step insisted. “Look here, Sam!” He displayed part of the chain with a snap at the end. “Two just like this—see? Well, we’re going to pass one of ’em around the dog’s neck, so-fashion.” In illustration he wound the chain about his own left wrist and for good measure took an extra turn. “Then we fasten it.” Another illustration, the rusty spring of the catch being moved with some difficulty. “Then, having fixed it so he can’t get rid of it, we——”

There Step broke off, for good and sufficient reason. For things were beginning to happen, and the procession of events was moving with startling speed.

The dog, sacrificing caution to appetite, came within Poke’s reach; whereupon Poke, dropping the meat, caught the hound as he tried to gobble up the bait; deftly slipped the second chain about the animal’s neck, successfully worked the snap at the first attempt; wheeled; whipped out a match; struck it, and lighted a rag protruding like a fuse from the old tin lantern, which had been brought from behind Step’s back, as that youth gave Sam an object lesson.

The kerosene-soaked rag flamed fiercely; almost instantly, dense black smoke began to pour from the holes in the lantern. Poke, who had been busy with the contrivance and the dog, with never a thought of complications involving his comrade, sprang back with a shout of glee, which perhaps added somewhat—though increase was scarcely needed—to the terror of the hound, which gave a panic-stricken howl and a tremendous bound.

Step, who had been tearing desperately and quite vainly at the chain about his wrist—the rusty catch stuck as if it had been soldered—was caught off his balance; dragged forward and into a run, which, under the circumstances, he could not check. The big dog, as heavy and powerful as many a sledge-team leader of the Far North, bolted wildly, yet with a general purpose; and this purpose being to seek asylum from the infernal machine at his heels, he dashed through the gate and toward the house, Step following, willy-nilly, his long legs flying and his long arms going like the arms of a windmill in a gale; while dangling from the chain between dog and boy, the old lantern emitted great volumes of choking smoke of most evil odor.

“Say, Step, where you going?” shouted the bewildered Poke, who was still unaware of the difficulty in which his chum was involved. “What’s the matter? The pair of you look like an engine going to a fire!”

Now to this Step, for perfectly good reasons, made no reply. And Poke, seeing that Sam was running after his friend, joined in the pursuit. So the procession swept up the drive, turned a corner of the house, and headed for the side porch, under which the dog had a den of his own, entrance to which was secured by a break in the latticework. Through this opening he shot with a final tug of such violence that Step was jerked forward, falling on his knees, with his head close to the barrier. And as by this time his fright fairly matched the dog’s, and as he fell to shouting for help as lustily as he could against the odds of the suffocating smoke, which poured through the lattice, and as the dog was howling more madly than ever, it may be imagined that there was a pretty to-do under and about the side porch of the Mercer house.

Sam and Poke, naturally enough, tried to drag Step back from his most unpleasant position; but the dog had braced himself, or the chain had caught on some obstruction, so that the only result of their endeavors was to pull Step’s knees from under him, drop him flat on his stomach, and leave him, if anything, rather more helpless than before. Moreover, the cook came hurrying from the kitchen and the hired man from the barn; and jumping to the conclusion that where there was so much smoke there surely must be fire, both dashed buckets of water with better intention than aim. Very little of the water passed through the lattice; a fair share of it spattered Sam and Poke, and a great deal drenched the unhappy Step.

The cook ran back to the kitchen for a fresh supply; but, luckily, the hired man, sighting the chain extending from Step’s wrist, laid hold upon it, and tugged with all his strength, and the dog, recognizing his voice, changed tactics, and charged from under the porch, bounding over the prostrate Step so swiftly that he turned a complete somersault, when the chain tautened again. The old lantern, still smoking voluminously, fell between boy and dog.

“Jee-rusalem!” gasped the hired man in bewilderment.

“Sa-sakes alive!” quavered the cook, who had reappeared with a freshly filled bucket.

Poke began to laugh hysterically; but Sam kept his wits. He caught the bucket from the woman’s hand, and plunged the lantern into the water. There was a long, hissing sound, a final puff of steam—and then comparative peace.

Step sat up. The dog, trembling like a leaf and whining weakly, crawled to the hired man. From the vantage ground of the porch the cook spoke wonderingly and reprovingly:

“Well, I vum, but you boys do beat my time! What on earth do you think you’re up to? Playin’ horse with poor Hector there?”

“No—not a bit; ’twasn’t that at all!” protested Step.

The cook sniffed. “Feathers—burnin’ feathers! I can tell ’em every time! But what’s your notion in puttin’ ’em in that thing?” And she pointed at the ancient lantern.

Step got upon his feet. He fumbled at the chain at his wrist; and, by an irony of fate, the old catch now gave at a touch. Step rubbed the flesh into which the links had sunk. He tried to summon a propitiating smile.

“Oh, the feathers?” he said very mildly. “Oh, yes; the feathers. Why—why, we—we thought Hector there—he—well, he ought to know about ’em.”

“Land o’ love! but the boy’s crazy!”

The hired man scratched his head. “Must say it looks like it, Katy. Still, I dunno—boys’ll be boys. And this young man acted ’sif he was willin’ to learn same time Hector did. They were sharin’, and sharin’ alike, on the smudge-pot, te he!”

Step scowled, but Poke burst into a roar of laughter, which eased the situation. The cook chuckled; Sam smiled. The hired man smote his thigh with his hand.

“Gee-whillikens! but I never saw the like of it! And I guess no great harm’s done. Don’t seem to be no fire under the porch.”

Then Poke found tongue. “It’s this way: The dog stole a chicken, and got us into a scrape. We thought we’d—er—er—we’d teach him a lesson and sicken him of stealing. And feathers and chickens go together—and—er—er—get the idea, don’t you?”

“Sorter!” grinned the hired man. “Kind o’ think I do, sonny. And t’other fellow got tangled up, somehow. Wal, yes, I do see how ’twas.”

“Then, if you don’t mind, we’ll be going home.”

The hired man waved his hand. “I would, if I was you,” he said. “I’d go home and get into some dry clothes.”

The three friends moved down the drive, with Step, a truly disconsolate and melancholy figure between the other two. For a little none of them spoke. It was left to Poke to break the silence with one of his bits of philosophy.

“You’ve got to live to learn,” quoth he. “Now, who’d have thought—no use, though, crying over spilt milk! And what on earth made Step want to chain himself up—no; we won’t talk about that, either. But I say, Sam, I tell you there’s a lot of sense in that notion of yours! Safety First for me after this—yes, sir; Safety First every time!”