Читать книгу Reminiscences of a Raconteur, Between the '40s and the '20s - George H. Ham - Страница 15

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We generally have had pet animals in the family, and amongst them were a French-Canadian chestnut stallion, eleven and a quarter hands high, and Major, Fido, Bismarck and Toby, of the canine family, and old Tom of the feline tribe. Pascoe, the pony, was a beauty, and I guess he must have been a Protestant, for one Twelfth of July, when an Orange parade was passing with bands playing, he ran amongst a group of onlookers on the lawn in front of the house and seizing Miss Annie Carroll, a young lady visiting my mother, by the shoulders with his teeth, threw her down and tried to trample on her. Fortunately we interfered in time and prevented her from being hurt. Annie was the only Roman Catholic in the crowd—and, unless Pascoe had had strong religious convictions, it was difficult to understand why he should have deliberately picked on the only Roman in the party.

Fido was a little black and tan with a religious turn of mind, and he knew when Sunday came around. He accompanied the family to St. John’s Church, over a mile away, and always heralded our coming with loud sharp barks, which never ceased until all of us, including Fido, were seated in the pew. This got to be a nuisance, and Fido was confined in the barn the following Sunday morning. When we tried to find Fido the next Sunday morning, to tie him in the barn, his dogship could not be found—until we reached St. John’s, where he, with his infernal loud bark, was waiting at the church door, and joined us as usual in the morning devotions.

Bismarck was named after the ex-Chancellor of Germany, because he looked like him, and was a good watch-dog. I had been away from home for five years, and, returning one evening, was met at the gate by Biz, who growled at me. We stood facing each other for several minutes, Biz evidently determined that I should not go further, and I awaiting developments. Finally I called out, “Why, Biz”. While he had forgotten me, he instantly recognized my voice and jumped joyfully at me, wagged the stump of his short tail vigorously and gave every demonstration of joy. Poor Major, who had reached an advanced age, and for whom food was specially cooked by mother, went out one evening, ate some ground glass mixed with lard which some fiends had placed on the streets, came home and, lying with head on the doorstep, passed away with a wistful look in his great brown eyes, which brought tears to ours. Toby, who joined my family in recent years and is still with us, is a French fox terrier, and can do anything requiring intelligence except talk. Toby is very fond of my grandson George, whose especial pet she is. She had never seen a German helmet to our knowledge, but one day when George put one on she ferociously flew at him in a towering rage. He went out of the room and returned with a German forage cap on his head, and again the dog made a quick, vicious dash at him, and he had to hide the offending headgear before she could be quieted. There was intelligence for you, but not so much as she displayed when, as George wrote me at Atlanta: “Toby is getting along fine. She bit the Chinaman to-day, when he brought the laundry bill.”