Читать книгу The Dogs and the Fleas - Frederic Scrimshaw - Страница 10

Table of Contents

The Great Idea.—Combination to Agree.—The White Label.—“Lengthen the Handle.”—Formation of the White Leg Association.—Gracious Reception of the Idea by the Monstrous Fleas.

IT came to pass one day when the Handle went more heavily than usual, that one dog was seen to jump up from his work with a yelp as though bitten by ten thousand fleas all at once. His eyes rolled in a fine frenzy; he rolled over and over on the ground and turned somersaults by the dozen. All the dogs at the Handle were temporarily paralyzed with consternation, and dropped work to inquire what was amiss. “What’s the matter?” said one of the crowd to him; but he only yelped the harder and turned more somersaults. “He’s gone crazy with hunger,” said they; “we must put him in the madhouse;” and they seized him by the ears and the tail for to take him there; which caused him suddenly to come back to sobriety.

“Brethren,” said he, “while turning at that infernal Handle I was suddenly seized with an Idea. It is a grand Idea; it is none other than how we may ameliorate the cruel lot of the grinders at the Handle and raise our wages.”

“Raise our wages?” they all cried in astonishment, letting go of the Handle. “Oh tell us how, and tell us quickly.”

“Well,” said he, “you see, it stands to Common Sense that if all dogs would combine and agree not to turn that Handle for less than so much a day, those big bloats would have to give it us or suffer the cessation of the Stream.”

“That’s so; so it is,” cried the other dogs in astonishment; “we never thought of that; why, that must be one of those Revelations, those deep abstrusities which the philosophers call ‘Axioms’—self-evident truths. And only to think it was given to a common dog to make the discovery! But canst thou tell us, oh wonderful discoverer, how we may all combine, with all those other dogs around us who cannot get a chance at the Handle? That is a problem, beside the complexity of which the Great Truth is simplicity itself.”

“Oh, ye simpletons,” said the dog with the Idea, “these things are hidden from the wise and prudent and are revealed unto pups. The thing is self-evidently simple. All we require is simply that all dogs shall agree.”

“But,” said the other dogs, “how art thou going to get the outside dogs to agree not to turn except for so much, when now they neither turn nor get a lick; it is simply asking a dog to abstain from doing what he hasn’t done, and is not going to do. The agreement can only interest those at the Handle, while it does not interest the others who want to be there but cannot get there.”

“Well,” said the dog with the Idea, “we at the Handle must keep up our wages, anyhow; so I propose that we make the agreement and that, as a mark to be known by, each dog that agrees, have a white label bound on his right hind leg; and we will further agree that whomsoever has not on the ‘White Label’ shall be called a Black Leg and be worried and cast away from the Handle.”

But there arose another dog, and said he had an Idea, too, that was much better. Said he: “Suppose all of us do adopt the White Label, and do live up to the solemn agreement—which is not probable—what will it avail us to worry and cast away from the Handle all those that have not the White Label, when there are so many more dogs who through hunger will jump in to take their places? We can’t worry them all. My Idea is to lengthen the Handle so that all the unemployed dogs can catch on and help to turn.”

But some said, “What good would that do? You could not make it long enough to give every dog a place; and besides, the Handle belongs to the Mill, and the Mill belongs to the fleas, and they won’t permit it to be lengthened, so that settles it.”

“Well, then,” replied the other dog, “let us agree to work fewer hours so as to put some of the unemployed at the Handle; average things, as to speak.”

“Bow-wow wow-wow!” barked all the other dogs in chorus. “What! Put ourselves on half time for unemployed dogs! Why, we don’t make a living as it is on full time. Thou art no friend of ours. Want us to reduce our wages, do you? Out with him!” And they worried him and cast him out.

And it was so that they did agree; and each dog did bind on his right hind leg a White Label and they called themselves the Great United Order of White-Legged Handle Turners, and called themselves “White Legs” for short.

By this time the big bloats around the Tank, having perceived that the Mill was going very slowly on account of the grinders’ attention being taken up with the Agreement, sent up to them a terrible conundrum wanting to know why the half-a-dozen Satans they didn’t grind, and what in half-a-dozen Everlasting Profundos they meant by robbing their employers by such laziness.

But when it was told them that the grinders had been taking a recess to hold a mysterious confab, and that all the Handle Turners had white badges on their right hind legs, they called down several of the dogs and demanded of them what this new thing should mean? And one of the dogs meekly answered that they had formed an Association of White Legs, and that the purpose of the said Association was to petition the big fleas at the Tank to raise their allowance of blood to the old standard of the good licks at the liberally smeared spoon, when they first began to turn the Handle.

And the big fleas said that was all right, and it did them great credit to wish to better their condition, and that provided they confined their efforts to mutual help, and to making their members more honest, industrious and well behaved, and to improving their minds in their leisure hours, and didn’t go to demanding more blood, but left the raising of their allowance entirely to the good judgment and good-heartedness of their employers, and didn’t go to violating the inalienable rights of their employers to shove away from the Handle any objectionable dog, or the inalienable rights of the unlabelled dogs to take their places at the Handle and to make free contracts as free-born dogs should, and didn’t conspire to incite to breaches of the Blood and Bones Grinding Laws, but confined themselves to peaceful methods and the use of moral suasion, why, they would have their hearty good wishes for their prosperity, and everything would be lovely.

So the dogs returned to their fellows and reported the gracious reception they had met with, and all the White Legs rejoiced and went back to their grinding with a will and with new hopes in their hearts. But though the dogs turned for many days, they found things go on just as usual; they turned and ground and fainted and were thrown into the hopper, but their allowance was not raised, although they sent down many humble petitions to the fleas to raise it.