Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: PETER-KINS LEAPED ONTO A TURKEY GOBBLER THAT WAS STRUTTING AROUND THE YARD ALL SWELLED OUT WITH PRIDE

(_Page Fifty-Five_)]

But instead of coming down the trunk as he had before, Peter-Kins ran out on one of the long, slender, drooping limbs that reached nearly to the ground, and when it bent within three feet of the earth, he dropped and lit on the back of a rooster.

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Then the fun began, for the poor old rooster was beside himself with fright, and ran around and around the yard, trying to get between the palings of the fence, into holes no larger than his head, into chicken coops and out, in amongst the other fowls, squawking and gurgling as he went. Then all of a sudden he was relieved of his rider, for Peter-Kins leaped from his back onto a turkey gobbler that was strutting around the yard all swelled out with pride, every feather spread out to its fullest extent. Now another race began, the turkey gobbling and the monkey chattering as they made the rounds.

Now while Peter-Kins had been riding the rooster, this very gobbler called out, "You stupid fellow! Stop running round and round! Go under the fence and scratch that beast off your back!"

But alas, for him! He could give advice, but not live up to it himself, for while he was gobbling, Peter-Kins leaped from the rooster's back to his own, and with shrunken feathers, he began running around and around the yard, just as the rooster had done, too frightened to know what he was doing, or to pay attention to his own advice, while all the chickens were now cackling at him, "Run under the fence! Run under the fence and scratch him off!"

"Run under the fence and scratch him off!" quacked the ducks.

"Run under the fence and scratch him off!" hissed the geese.

"Run under the fence and scratch him off!" gobbled his wife, the old turkey hen.

But no; he was deaf to their cries, and with pride gone and feathers clinging to his sides, he was running and jumping around the yard madly and blindly, nearly knocking his head off as first he ran dizzily into this and then into that.

When Zip had watched the excitement as long as he cared to, he thought, "Now is my time to grab Peter-Kins by the tail and pull him off that turkey's back before it kills itself."

So with one bound he was through the fence and had Peter-Kins' tail in his mouth before he ever saw him coming. But the monkey did not drop from the turkey's back as Zip thought he would. He only clung the tighter, and with his arms around the turkey's neck and with his knees digging into the turkey's sides, Zip could not dislodge him.

Zip being too stubborn to let go the monkey's tail, the three queer looking objects went running around and around the barnyard together, under wagons, between coops, across the watering trough. Sometimes running, sometimes jumping or half flying went the long-legged turkey with the bobbing monkey on its back, whose tail was in the little dog's mouth.

This was what Miss Belinda saw when she returned from market and looked into her barnyard to see what was causing all her fowls to make such a fuss.

"Well, I declare, if there isn't a little dog chasing my chickens and turkeys! But what is that on the big gobbler's back? Sure as I live, it is Peter-Kins! Here, you horrid little dog, let go my darling Peter-Kins'

tail!" and Miss Belinda picked up a long-handled rake that was leaning against the fence and went after Zip.

All this time Polly had been screeching, "Help! Help! Naughty Peter-Kinks!

Spank! Spank!"

Zip held on the monkey's tail until the rake appeared over his head, then he let go quickly, giving an extra bite to the tip, which came off in his mouth. He jumped back just in time to save himself from being hit on the head, for the rake came down with such force that it laid both the turkey and Peter-Kins out flat on their backs, where they lay kicking as if in the throes of death.

Miss Belinda thought she had killed her pets, and began to cry as she picked them up.

As for Zip, he slunk away and ran back to the doctor's buggy just in time to jump in as the doctor started for home. So by the time Miss Belinda had gathered up Peter-Kins and saw that the turkey was more frightened than hurt, Zip was blocks away, laughing to himself at the whack the monkey and turkey had gotten instead of him, and at the funny spectacle the three of them must have made as they ran around and around the yard.

"And won't Tabby laugh when I tell her about it?" he thought.

CHAPTER VIII

ZIP AT THE CANDY PULL

That evening the doctor had no calls to make, so Zip was left to amuse himself as best he could. He had finished telling Tabby about the monkey and the turkey and was wondering what to do with himself when he heard children laughing in the back yard of the house opposite. Looking up, he saw that the house was lighted more than was usual, and he knew right away that they must be having a little dance or a children's party of some kind. Just then he thought he got a whiff of boiling mola.s.ses. He stuck his nose up in the air and gave a long sniff. Yes, it was mola.s.ses he smelled!

"They are having a candy pull. That's what is going on! I'll just go over and stick around until they have refreshments, and then perhaps I can sneak into the kitchen and steal a piece of cake," thought Zip.

But alas! He was so busy gazing up at the lighted windows to see what was going on inside the house, that he neglected to look where he was stepping, and the first thing he knew, he was standing with all four feet in a pan of hot mola.s.ses candy. And he found himself sticking fast in an entirely different way than he had meant when he left home. The candy was just in that state of cooling when the top is a little hard and the bottom is soft and sticky. So when he tried to lift his feet, the candy pulled up from the bottom of the pan and made long, stringy ends, but did not leave his feet. Instead it got between his toes and held him still faster. He tried to bite it off, but instead of coming off, it only stuck to his teeth and he found himself sticking to the pan with his mouth as well as his feet. Indeed, he was held securely by the sticky, stringy candy. Just then he thought he heard the children coming to see if their sweets were cool.

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Yes, they were surely coming! He could not stand it to have these children he saw every day find him in such a fix. He would never hear the last of it. So he made a frantic effort to loosen himself. In doing this he pulled backwards so far that his feet slipped somehow, and he sat down in the candy. And now he _was_ caught! For his four feet, mouth, one ear and tail were all sticking to the pan of candy. As the children began to come down the back steps, he gave one yelp, doubled himself up and began to roll, so that what the children saw was a big ball of mola.s.ses candy rolling down the sloping walk. All they could see in the semi-darkness was the candy, for Zip was too balled up to show a bit of dog sticking out of the soft mess.

The children ran after it, screaming with laughter, but when they caught up to the rolling ball and discovered their well-known, mischievous Zip rolled up so tight he was helpless, they clapped their hands with delight.

He looked so crestfallen and funny that they forgave him on the spot for the loss of their candy. How they did shout with laughter as they were trying to get the candy off him!

"I know the best way to get the sticky stuff off," said Helen Hardway, the little girl who was giving the party. "Let's put him in the bath tub and soak it off."

"Just the very thing!" one of the boys replied. "Wait till I get something to wrap him in so I won't get all stuck up with the candy."

On hearing this, Zip began to struggle and squirm, for he had visions of hot water and soapsuds in his eyes, with each one of the children feeling it was their duty to give him an extra scrub.

"Here, you Zip, keep still, or you'll slip out of the ap.r.o.n you're wrapped in and get my best suit all sticky," called the little boy who held him in his arms and was carrying him up to the bathroom.

By squeezing him tightly, the boy managed to get him to the room and was just about to drop him in the tub from the ap.r.o.n when he discovered that the ap.r.o.n was sticking to the candy. One of the boys gave it a jerk to loosen it, but sad to relate, he gave too vigorous a pull and Zip dropped from the boy's arms, not into the tub, but at one side and by a mighty effort he gave himself two rolls which brought him to the head of the stairs. Another roll sent him tumbling b.u.mpety-b.u.mp down the long flight that led to the kitchen. On the way he hit a hamper of clothes on the landing, and it joined him and went b.u.mpety-b.u.mp, bangety-bang to the bottom and out into the kitchen, hitting the waitress who was carrying a tray of gla.s.ses filled with fruit lemonade to the little guests in the parlors who had not joined in the dog hunt.

The sudden appearance of a hamper apparently on legs coming toward her, surprised her, but nothing like the queer thing that was rolling about her feet, and which she could not see for the big tray in her hands. She could not seem to escape it, and finally she stumbled and fell, sending the gla.s.ses of delicious lemonade flying in all directions.

Hearing a noise on the back stairs, as if the house was falling, Mrs.

Hardway went to see what the trouble was, and opened the kitchen door just in time to receive a full gla.s.s of lemonade squarely on the chest.

When the waitress stumbled, she fell on Zip, pinning him under her. In his roll down the stairs, he had lost some of the candy, so that now his mouth and nose were free, though he was minus a tooth and several of his long smeller whiskers. Now he began to howl as if being killed. This brought more of the guests to the spot, and you would have laughed could you have seen their faces when first they peered into the kitchen, which looked as if a cyclone had struck it.

A few feet from the door was the maid, sitting with limbs outspread, too dazed to move, while from under the corner of her skirt rolled a big, sticky ball of some kind that howled as it rolled. Beyond him was an overturned hamper of soiled clothes, with stockings, collars, sheets and petticoats spilling out of it. At the other end of the room stood Mrs.

Hardway, wiping the lemonade off her dress, while all over the place were slices of lemon and pieces of fruit and Maraschino cherries. When all the children came from upstairs, they told Mrs. Hardway how it had all come about from Zip getting in their candy and their trying to wash it off his coat.

As Zip was still in a ball and could not extricate himself, the same boy who had carried him to the bathroom before, put the ap.r.o.n around him again and took him back upstairs.

This time they got him in the tub safely and began to turn the water in.

The tub was slippery, and so was the candy, and as the water crept up to where Zip was tied, not hand and foot, but worse still, head, nose, ears and all four legs as well as tail, he howled and howled until one could have heard him a block away. He was so afraid of being drowned before the water would soak off the candy and when the children tried to pull it off it nearly killed him with pain, for it took all the little fine hairs of his coat with it.

The window of the bathroom was open and the doctor, coming out on his front porch to look at the sky before retiring, heard Zip howling somewhere across the street. He was crying in such a pitiful, frightened manner that the doctor knew he must be fast somewhere or hurt so he could not get home. Consequently he hurried across the street to see where his pet was, with the worried Tabby close at his heels.

The doctor made the circuit of the house and stable yard but could find no Zip. The howls seemed to come from up in the air somewhere as from the top of the house, so finally the doctor rapped on the Hardway kitchen door to ask the maid if Zip had not slipped in the house and gotten up on the roof. He knocked repeatedly but no one answered. As he still heard Zip howling and several people were talking all at once, he made bold to open the door and step in. What he saw you already know. As by this time the children had started to bathe Zip, the doctor was told to go right upstairs. When he appeared in the door all the children stopped laughing and stepped back to give him a chance to see Zip.

And this is what he saw.

Just one of Zip's eyes stuck out of a hole where the candy had dropped off, and his poor little tail stuck out like a handle on the other side of the ball. That was all that could be seen of Zip at that moment, for in his numerous rolls, the candy had spread all over him until he was no longer a dog with legs but just one round ball of mola.s.ses candy.

Seeing the water was fast climbing up to where it would reach Zip's mouth, and knowing it would drown him, the doctor turned off the spigot. The children had never thought that the poor dog could not move his head to keep out of the water. Now the doctor hurriedly took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and in a jiffy had Zip and the mola.s.ses ball in his hands and was holding it so that the water could not get to Zip's head. Then with one hand he gently threw the water upon the candy until it began to loosen and fall off. First he released the little dog's head, which had been bent down between his fore legs. As the candy began to loosen and drop off, first one black ear stood up and then the other, and last the little legs began to shoot out. All this made the children laugh to see what appeared to be a big ball of candy develop into a little dog. At last when Zip was entirely clean and had been wrapped in a big bath towel to dry, Doctor Elsworth apologized to Helen for his little dog spoiling her candy pull. But she declared that he had given them more fun than if he had not come over, and the mola.s.ses had cooled and they had had a regular candy pull.