Читать книгу The Black-Eyed Puppy - Katharine Pyle - Страница 4

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WHEN I first opened my eyes I hardly knew where I was. Then I remembered. I was in the laundry, and I hadn’t had any breakfast yet. It was lonesome there, all by myself. I began to whine and yelp. I yelped louder and louder. Presently I heard somebody coming. I cocked my head on one side and listened, and then I began to wag my tail for I felt sure it was the boy. And it was.

He opened the door and came in, and patted me and made a fuss over me. “Poor Muffins,” he said. “Poor boy! Poor little fellow! I know you were lonesome. Come on, boy! Come on!”

He led the way out and up the stairs, and I followed close at his heels.

We went along a hall and into a big bright room that smelled of food. Some people were sitting at the table eating—two of them. There was the man I had seen the night before and a lady. The boy called her mother.

“Look, mother!” he said. “Isn’t he a cunning little fellow? Mayn’t I keep him? Please say I may.”

“Oh, Tommy!” said the lady. And then I didn’t hear her say anything else, because two little dogs rushed out from under the table and began barking at me. They were the very same dogs that had chased me out of the basement the night before. There was another little dog, and she barked, too, but she stayed under the table.

The dogs came at me and I thought they were going to jump on me, so I barked and showed my teeth, but Tommy drove them away, and the lady called to them and hit at them with a white cloth she had in her lap.

The gentleman said, “Take him away, Tommy. Shut him up somewhere until after breakfast.”

So I was taken downstairs again and shut up in the same room where I had been before, but the boy brought me some breakfast,—all I could eat, so I didn’t mind.

I did hope I was going to stay and not be sent away, and that I could be Tommy’s dog and not have to go back to the O’Gradys’. I loved that boy and he loved me, and I wanted to be his dog.

And so I was. Somehow I had been afraid the lady would send me away, but she didn’t; not just then, anyway. I stayed and stayed, for days and days and days and days.

The lady didn’t like me much, and the dogs didn’t like me at all.

The boy brought me some breakfast.

The names of the three dogs were Prince Coco and Bijou and Fifine. Prince Coco was rather old and fat. Fifine was a snappish little dog. I liked Bijou best, but they were all very proud and haughty with me. They were the kind of dogs that are called Pekinese. They said that was the finest kind of dog that any dog could be, and Prince Coco told me he and the others were very handsome and worth a great deal of money. (Money is what you give to people when you want to get something from them.)

He asked me what kind of a dog I was, and I had to tell him I didn’t know, I guessed I wasn’t any particular kind of a dog; and after that they were prouder with me than ever. Fifine said she thought it was very hard that they should have to associate with such a common little dog as I was. She said it was something she had never expected to do.

Prince Coco never was friendly with me, but Bijou was sometimes, if the other dogs weren’t there; but as soon as they came in he treated me in just the same sort of proud way the others did. It didn’t make me very happy, but I didn’t mind much.

One day Fifine was talking again about my being there. She was talking to Prince Coco, and I was under the sofa pretending to be asleep, but she knew I heard her. “I don’t see why our mistress allows him to stay,” she said. “He’s not at all like any dogs I ever associated with before. He’s just like those common little dogs we see running about the street when we go out riding in the automobile.”

Prince Coco yawned and stretched and rolled over on his side. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said. “He won’t be here much longer now.”

I pricked up my ears when I heard that.

“Why not?” asked Fifine.

“I heard the mistress talking this morning when Mary was brushing my hair. She said Tommy seemed so fond of ‘the little stray’ (as she called him) that she hadn’t had the heart to send him away just yet; but soon Tommy would be having a holiday and then they were all going off for a visit, and William was to give Muffins to a friend of his.”

(William was the man who made the automobile go, and Mary waited on the mistress.)

When Prince Coco said that I jumped up.

“Tommy won’t let them send me away,” I barked.

“Oh! so you weren’t asleep after all,” said Prince Coco in his lazy voice; and Fifine snarled, “Just pretending!”

“Yes, I was pretending,” said I, “and I heard all you said, and if you think Tommy’s going to let them send me away you’re mistaken, so you needn’t be counting on that!”

And then I marched out of the room and didn’t stop to hear anything else they might say. But for all that I spoke up that way, so bravely, I was worried, and I went upstairs and crawled in under Tommy’s bed and lay there till he came home; and then when I heard him I ran down to meet him, and we had such a fine play that I forgot all about what Prince Coco had been saying. As long as Tommy loved me and kept me with him, I didn’t care what any one else said.