The Corner House Girls Growing Up Part 35

It was a strange dog; n.o.body knew where it had come from. It had bitten several other dogs in his course as far as the school. Some of these dogs were sent to the pound to be watched; but some foolish owners would not hear of sacrificing their pets for the general good. So, within a fortnight there was a veritable epidemic of rabies among the dogs of Milton.

One man lost a valuable horse that was impregnated with the poison from being bitten by the stable dog that had been his best friend.

The order went forth that all dogs should be muzzled and none should be allowed on the street save on a leash. Sammy was very careful to keep Buster chained. Buster had not many friends in the neighborhood at best.

So Sammy took no chances with his bulldog.

As for Tom Jonah, the old dog was such a universal pet, and was so kindly of disposition that n.o.body thought of including him in the general fear of the canine dwellers in Milton.

Tom Jonah was old, and had few teeth left. He was troubled now and then with rheumatism, too; and he seldom left the Corner House yard save to accompany the girls on some expedition. He went with them often in the automobile, especially when they went picnicking on Sat.u.r.days. He and Scalawag were very good friends, and sometimes he accompanied the little folks in their afternoon rides around the Parade Ground.

But as soon as the mad-dog scare started the girls were all very careful about letting Tom Jonah go off the premises. He was too old and dignified a dog to run out to bark at pa.s.sing teams, or to follow strange dogs to make their acquaintance. Therefore the Kenways and Neale O'Neil thought it was not necessary for poor old Tom Jonah to wear an ugly and irritating muzzle all the time. The old fellow hated the thing so!

"I don't blame poor Tom Jonah for not liking to wear that old thing,"

Dot said thoughtfully. "It's worse than the bit in Scalawag's mouth. And see how Billy b.u.mps hates to be harnessed up. Supposin'," added the smallest Corner House girl, "_we_ had to put on a harness and have our mouths tied up when we started for school. Oh! wouldn't it be dreadful?"

"I guess it would, Dot Kenway," Tess agreed vigorously. "I guess it isn't so much fun being a dog or a horse or even a goat."

"Huh!" growled Sammy who had become pretty well tired of school by this time; "anyway, they don't have to study," and he looked as though he would willingly change places with almost any of the pets about the old Corner House.

Neale always walked to school with the little folks now, for Ruth was fearful that there might be other dogs loose afflicted with the terrible disease. A panic among little children is so easily started. She could trust Neale to have a watchful care over Dot and Tess.

Nothing so bad as that happened; but there did come a day when tragedy because of the mad-dog scare stalked near to the Corner House.

The dog-catchers were going about town netting all the stray dogs they could find. Foolish people who would not obey the law deserved to lose their pets. And if they wished to, if the dogs were p.r.o.nounced perfectly healthy at the pound, the owners could appear and claim their pets by paying two dollars.

This last fact, however, was something the little Corner House girls and Sammy Pinkney knew nothing about. They had a horror of "the dog catchers." The collecting agents of the S. P. C. A. are bugbears in most communities. When the children saw the green van, with its screened door in the back, and heard the yapping of the excited dogs within, Dot and Tess stuffed their fingers in their ears and ran.

The children did not understand that stray dogs were likely to be bitten as those other dogs had been by one afflicted with the rabies; and that it was much more humane to catch the unmuzzled animals, that n.o.body cared for, and dispose of them painlessly, than to have them become diseased and a menace to the neighborhood.

To make the children understand that it was dangerous to play with strange dogs was a difficult matter. The little Corner House girls were p.r.o.ne to be friendly with pa.s.sing animals.

All hungry and sore-eyed kittens appealed to Tess and Dot; the wag of a dog's tail was sufficient to interest them in its owner; each horse at the curb held a particular interest, too. They were trusting of nature, these little girls, and they trusted everybody and everything.

In coming home from school one afternoon Neale was in a hurry to do an errand, and he left the little folk at the corner, hurrying around to Con Murphy's on the back street, where he lived. Ruth was away from home and Agnes had not yet arrived at the Corner House.

The Willow Street block, however, seemed perfectly safe. Tess and Dot strolled along the block, their feet rustling the carpet of leaves that had now fallen from the trees. Sammy Pinkney was playing solitaire leapfrog over all posts and hydrants.

Just as they reached the corner of the Corner House yard Tom Jonah heard and saw them. He rose up, barking the glad tidings that his little friends were returning from school, and as he felt pretty well this day, he leaped the fence into the street and came cavorting toward them, laughing just as broadly as a dog could laugh.

Even as Tess and Dot greeted him, Sammy Pinkney emitted a shriek of dismay. A big auto-van had turned the corner and rolled smoothly along the block. One man on the front seat who was driving the truck said to his mate:

"There's another of 'em, Bill. Net him."

The fellow he spoke to leaped out as the green van came to a halt. He carried a net like a fish seine over his arm. Before the little girls who were fondling Tom Jonah realized that danger threatened--before the frightened Sammy could do more than shout his useless warning--the man threw the net, and old Tom Jonah was entangled in its meshes.

The little girls screamed. Sammy roared a protest. The men paid no attention to the uproar.

"Got a big fish this time, Harry," said Bill, dragging the struggling, growling Tom Jonah to the back of the van. "Give us a hand."

For the big dog, his temper roused, would have done his captor some injury had he been able. The driver of the dog catchers' van drove the other dogs back from the door with a long pole, and then between them he and his mate heaved Tom Jonah into the vehicle.

Sammy Pinkney scurried around for some missile to throw at the dog catchers. The little girls' shrieks brought neighboring children to yards and doors and windows. But there chanced not to be an adult on the block to whom the dog catchers might have listened.

"Oh, Mister! Don't! Don't!" begged Tess, sobbing, and trying to hold by the coat the man who had netted Tom Jonah. "He's a good dog--a real good dog. _Don't_ take him away."

"If you hurt Tom Jonah my sister Ruthie will do something _awful_ to you!" declared Dot, too angry to cry.

"Wish my father was home," said Sammy, threateningly. "He'd fix you dog-catchers!"

"Aw-gowan!" exclaimed the man, pus.h.i.+ng Tess so hard that she almost fell, and breaking her hold upon his coat.

But Tess forgot herself in her anxiety for Tom Jonah. She bravely followed him to the very step of the van.

"Give him back! Give him back!" she cried. "You must not hurt Tom Jonah.

He never did you any harm. He never did _anybody_ any harm. Give him back to us! Please!"

Her wail made no impression on the man.

"Drive on, Harry," he said. "These kids give me a pain."

The green van moved on. Tom Jonah's gray muzzle appeared at the screened door at the back. He howled mournfully as the van headed toward Main Street.

"Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?" cried Tess, wringing her hands.

"Let's run tell Ruthie," gasped Dot.

"I wish Neale O'Neil was here," growled Sammy.

But Tess was the bravest of the three. She had no intention of losing sight of poor Tom Jonah, whose mournful cries seemed to show that he knew the fate in store for him.

"Where are you going, Tess?" shouted Sammy, as the Corner House girl kept on past the gate of her own dooryard, after the green van.

"They sha'n't have Tom Jonah!" declared the sobbing Tess. "I--I won't let them."

"And--and Iky Goronofsky says that they make frankfurters out of those poor dogs," moaned Dot, repeating a legend prevalent among the rougher school children at that time.

"Pshaw! he was stringin' you kids," said Sammy, with more wisdom, falling in with Dot behind the determined Tess. "What'll we do? Tess is going right after that old van."

"We mustn't leave her," Dot said. "Oh! I _wish_ Ruthie had seen those horrid men take Tom Jonah."

As it was there seemed nothing to do but to follow the valiant Tess on her quest toward the dog pound. As for Tess herself she had no intention of losing sight of Tom Jonah. She made up her mind that no matter how far the van went the poor old dog who had been their friend for so long should not be deserted.

At the seash.o.r.e, soon after Tom Jonah had first come to live with the Corner House girls, the dog had been instrumental in saving the lives of both Tess and Dot. He had often guarded them when they played and when they worked. They depended upon him at night to keep away prowlers from the Corner House henroost. No ill-disposed persons ever troubled the premises at the Corner of Willow and Main Streets after one glimpse of Tom Jonah.

"I don't care!" sobbed Tess, her plump cheeks streaked with tears, when her little sister and Sammy caught up with her a block away from home.

"I don't care. They sha'n't put poor Tom Jonah in the gas chamber. _I_ know what they do to poor doggies. They sha'n't treat him so!"

"But what'll you do, Tess!" demanded Sammy, amazed by the determination and courage of his little friend.