Prairie Gold Part 9

Sonny's Wish

_By Bertha M. H. Shambaugh_

Sometimes before I go to bed I 'member things that Grandpa said When I sat close beside his knee And Grandpa laid his hand on me.

I 'member how he'd smile and say, "Well, what did Sonny do to-day?"

'Cause Grandpa always liked to know (I s'pose that's why I miss him so).

I never had to coax and plead For things I really didn't need: I'd 'splain it in an off-hand way And Grandpa brought it home next day.

When I grow up I'd like to be A grandpa with a boy like me To live with and to bring things to: That's what I'd like the _most_ to do.

I'd rummage 'round and hunt about For things the boy could do without, Because you see of course I'd know That's why the boy would like them so.

And when I'd bring some brand new toy And someone said, "You'll spoil that boy!"

I'd only shake my head and say, "A _good boy_ isn't spoiled that way."

When Sonny said he'd like to get A nice wee doggie for a pet, And when the grown-ups one and all Said, "Oh, no, Son! You're much too small,"

I'd whisper, "Come, don't look so blue 'Cause Grandpa bought a dog for you, A birthday present! Schh! Don't cry!

He's black and just about _so_ high."

Oh, yes! I'm sure I'd like to be A grandpa with a boy like me To live with and to bring things to: That's what I'd like the _most_ to do.

Dog

_By Edwin L. Sabin_

The dog we have always with us; if not active in the garden or pa.s.sive on the best bed, then gracing or disgracing himself in other domestic capacities. For the dog is a curious combination, wherein heredity constantly opposes culture; and therefore though your dog be a woolly dog or a smooth dog, a large dog or a small dog, a house-dog, yard-dog, hunting-dog or farm-dog, he will be ever a delight and a scandal according as he reveals the complexities of his character. Just as soon as you have decided that he is almost human, he will straightway unmistakably indicate that he is still very much dog.

As example, select, if you please, the most pampered and carefully nurtured dog in dog tribe: some lady's dog--beribboned King Charles, bejeweled poodle, befatted pug--and give him the luxury of a half-hour in the nearest genuine alley. Do you think that he turns up his delicate nose at the luscious smells there encountered? Do you think that because of his repeated scented baths he sedulously keeps to the middle of the narrow way? Do you venture to a.s.sert that he whose jaded palate has recently declined the breast of chicken is now nauseated by the prodigal waste encountered amidst the garbage cans?

Fie on him, the ingrate! Why, the little rascal fairly revels in the riot of debris, and ten to one he will even proudly return lugging the most unsavoury of bones filched from a particularly odorous repository!

His lapse into atavism has been prompt and certain. I agree with Robert Louis Stevenson that every dog is a vagabond at heart; in adapting himself to the companions.h.i.+p of man and woman, and the comforts of board and lodging, he leads a double life.

In this respect the dog is far more servile than the cat, his contemporary. Generations of attempted coercion have little influenced the cat. She (it seems a proper distinction to speak of the cat as "she") steadfastly maintains the distance that shall divide cat life from man life. Without duress, and in spite of duress, she accepts the material favors of civilization and domesticity only to an extent that will not inconvenience her; she has no notion of responsibilities or indebtedness. Having achieved her demands for a warm nap or a full stomach, she then makes no false motions in following her own inclinations entirely. But the dog, occupying a limbo between his natural instincts and his acquired conscience, must always be a master of duplicity.

The dog (as again points out the admirable Stevenson) has become an accomplished actor. Observe his ceremonious approach to other dogs.

Mark the mutual dignity, the stiff-leggedness, the self-conscious strut, the rivalrous emulation, all of which plainly says: "I am _Mister_ So-and-So; who in the deuce are you?" No dog so small, and only a few faint-hearts so squalid, that they do not carry a chip on their shoulder. Compare with their progenitors, the wolves in a city park. Here encounters are quick and decisive. The one wolf stands, the other cringes. Rank and character are recognized at once. The pretences of human society have not perverted wolf ethics.

Take a dog at his tricks: not the game of seeking and fetching, which he enjoys when in good humor, but parlor tricks. He has learned through fear of punishment and hope of reward. Having performed, either sheepishly or promptly, with what wrigglings and prancings and waggings, or else with what proud self-appreciation does he court approval. He knows very well that he is a.s.suming not to be a dog, and trusts that you will admit he is smarter than mere dog. On the contrary, the cat tribe, jumping through a hoop, does it with a negligent, spontaneous grace that makes the act a condescension. The cat does not aspire to be human; she is fully content with being cat.

Elevate a dog to a seat in an automobile (any automobile), or even to the box of a rattle-trap farm-wagon. How it affects him, this promotion from walking to riding! It metamorphoses the meekest, humblest of so-called curs into a grandee aristocrat, who by supercilious look and offensive words insults every other dog that he pa.s.ses. He calls upon the world about to witness that he is of man-kind, not of dog-kind. A dog riding abroad is to me the epitome of satisfied a.s.sumption.

It would be interesting to know how much, if any, the dog's brain has been increased by constant efforts to be humanized. The Boston bull is, I should judge, (and of course!) faster in his intellectual activities than is the ordinary English bull. And then I might refer to the truly marvelous feats of the sheep-dog, who will, when told, cut out any one sheep in a thousand; and I might refer to the finely bred setter, or pointer, and his almost human field work; and I can refer to my own dog, whose smartness, both natural and acquired, generally is extraordinary--although at times woefully askew, as when he buries pancakes in the fall expecting, if we may believe that he expects, to dig them up during the winter.

And there are dogs with great souls and dogs with small souls. We are told of dogs n.o.ble enough to sit by and let a needy dog gobble the meal from the platter--but I suspect that such dogs are complacent because comfortably fixed. We hear of dogs making valiant defenses of life and property--which perhaps is the development of the animal instinct to guard anything which the animal considers its own. And dogs sometimes effect heroic rescues, by orders or voluntarily--although one may query whether they consider all the consequences.

The dog's brain must be an oddly struggling ma.s.s of fact and fancy. We have done our best for him, and as a rule he creditably responds. I love my dog; he appears to love me; and by efforts of me and mine he has been humanized into a very adaptable personage. But I am certain that first principles remain the same with him as when he was a wolf-dog of cave age. He might grab me by the collar and swim ash.o.r.e with me, but if on the desert island there was only one piece of meat between us and starvation, and he had it, I'd hate to have to risk getting my share without fighting for it.

The Unredeemed

THE BALLAD OF THE LUSITANIA BABES

_By Emerson Hough_

THE HOLY THREE BEHOLD

G.o.d the Father leaned out from Heaven, His white beard swept His knee; His eye was sad as He looked far out, Full on the face of the sea.

Saith G.o.d the Father, "In My Kingdom Never was thing like this; For yonder are sinless unredeemed, And they may not enter Our bliss."

And Mary the Mother, She stood near by, Her eyes full sad and grieved.

Saith Mary the Mother, "Alas! Alas!

That they may not be received.

Now never since Heaven began," saith She, "Hath sight like this meseemed, That there be sinless dead below Who may not be redeemed!"

And Jesu, the Saviour, He stood also, And aye! His eyes were wet.

Saith Jesu the Saviour, "Since Time began, Never was this thing yet!

For these be the Children, the Little Ones, Afloat on the icy sea.

They are doomed, they are dead, they are perished, And they may not come unto Me!"

THE CHILDREN CRY OUT

They float, forever unburied, Their faces turned to the sky; With their little hands uplifted, And their lips forever cry:

"Oh, we are the helpless murdered ones, Blown far on the icy tide!

No sin was ours, but through all the days, On the northern seas we ride.

No cerements ever enshroud us, We know no roof of the sod; We float forever unburied, With our faces turned to G.o.d.

"So foul the deed that undid us, So d.a.m.ned in its dull disgrace, That even the sea refused us, And would not give us place.

Nor ever a place in the sky-- We are lost, we are dead, we are perished, Ah, Jesu, tell us why!"

Now the Three who heard They wept as one, But Their tears they might not cease.

Saith G.o.d the Father, "While unavenged These may not know Our peace!

When the sons of men are men again, And have smitten full with the sword, At last these sinless but unredeemed Shall enter unto their Lord.

"But deed like this is a common debt; It lies on the earth-race whole.