Читать книгу Don, a Runaway Dog: His Many Adventures - Richard Barnum - Страница 3

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Don was one of five little puppies. With his brothers and sisters he cuddled up close to Mrs. Gurr, the mother dog, to keep warm, for it was rather cool for little dogs, even though there was plenty of straw in the kennel, or house, where they lived. Don shivered and trembled, but when his mother put her soft, warm paw over him and the other little dogs, Don felt better.

Don was such a little puppy that, as yet, his eyes were not open. I suppose they were made to stay closed until he grew to be a little stronger, for the sunlight was very bright outside of the kennel, and Don might have squinted, had his eyes been open.

But then Don and his brothers and sisters did not need to see much when they were so little.

“I can tell you everything that happens,” said Mrs. Gurr, the mamma dog. “You little puppies just stay close together when I go out to get a bone, or something else to eat, and you will keep warm, and nothing will happen to you.

“Humm! Humm! Humm!” whined Don. He really was the largest and strongest of the litter of puppies, and perhaps that is why he seemed to come first.

“What’s that you’re saying?” asked his mother. For you know, doggies have a language of their own. They cannot speak as we do, but they can understand when we speak to them. Dogs are smarter in some ways than we are. They can understand, and know, what we say to them, but we can only guess at what they say, when they bark, growl or whine.

“What’s that you say?” asked Mrs. Gurr, of Don.

“Humm! Umph! Wee-wee!” went Don.

“Oh, you’re cold, are you?” asked Mrs. Gurr, who had this name because she sometimes made a noise that sounded that way—“gurr”—away down in her throat.

“Yes, I’m cold,” said Don, shivering.

“Well, cuddle up close to me, and you’ll soon be warm,” said the mamma dog. So Don, and his brothers Spot and Prince, and his sisters Violet and Ruby, crept still closer to their mother, for she was a big dog, and her hair was very warm.

For over a week Don and the other little dogs could see nothing, because their eyes were not open. They could hear strange noises going on outside their kennel, but they did not know what they meant.

Don especially, had many adventures, and a great many strange things happened to him. In this book I am going to tell you all about them, how he ran away, and was locked in a freight car, and how a bad boy tied a tin can to his tail—but there—I am getting ahead of my story. Those things did not happen until Don grew to be big. So I shall have to start at the beginning.

And the beginning was when Don still did not have his eyes open.

Whining, barking just a little, and tumbling about like little balls of cotton yarn, Don and the other puppies stayed in the straw in the kennel with their mother. Sometimes she went out to get something to eat, and then the little dogs crept closer to each other to keep warm. They slept a great deal of the time, for dogs, like babies, grow when they sleep.

Once, just before Don had his eyes open, he heard strange noises outside of the kennel house where he lived. Don did not know what the noises meant, but I shall tell you what they were. They were the voices of some boys talking.

“Oh, look at the puppies!” exclaimed one boy.

“What a lot of them,” said another.

“Yes, and they’re all mine,” spoke a third boy.

“Oh, Willie! Can’t I have one?” asked the first boy, and he reached down in the straw, and picked up Don. Mrs. Gurr, the mamma dog, growled a little and whined, for she did not like strange boys to handle her little puppies.

“You can’t have that one, Charlie,” answered the boy who had been called Willie.

“Why not?” asked Charlie.

“Because I promised him to Bobbie Black,” said Willie. “Bobbie came one day, and picked that puppy out for his. He’s going to call him Don, Bob is.”

“That’s a fine dog,” said Charlie, as he gently put the puppy Don back in the straw again. “I wish I had one.”

“You can have that one,” said Willie, and he pointed to Prince.

Of course Don did not understand all this talk, but his mamma understood. She whined when she heard Willie talking about giving her puppies away. Willie was the boy at the house where the man lived who owned Mrs. Gurr and the puppies.

“When is Bob coming for his dog?” asked Charlie.

“Oh, as soon as they get their eyes open,” answered Willie. “That will be in a few days, now.”

The boys stayed a little longer, and then they went off to play ball—I mean the boys went off to play ball for, though puppy dogs can do many queer things, I never saw any of them play ball—did you?

Wait, though, if you please. Once, in a circus, I did see a dog bounce a big, red, rubber ball about with his nose, but that was not exactly playing as the boys do, so I suppose it did not count.

All at once, one day, a very strange thing happened to Don and the other puppies. Their eyes were suddenly opened, and the darkness they had been in so long gave place to light.

Out in front of the kennel was a broad patch of sunlight, and the straw in the kennel itself looked like streaks of gold. Up over head was blue sky, and the green trees waved their branches.

“Oh, what is it all?” asked Don, as he stood up with his little legs far apart. He had to stand that way, for he was not very strong as yet, and, though he tried to stand steadily, he swayed to and fro as the elephants do in the circus when they are eating peanuts. “What is all that which I see?” asked Don, speaking in dog language, which he understood without being taught.

“That is part of the world you live in,” said Mrs. Gurr. “You see the sunshine, the shadows and the trees.”

“What makes the trees wiggle so?” asked Prince, who was one of Don’s brothers.

“The wind blows them,” said the mother dog. “And when you go outside the kennel, and the wind blows, you must be careful not to get dust in your eyes. For your eyes are open now, you know, and if you don’t take care you’ll get things in them. So watch out when you leave the kennel.”

“Why!” exclaimed Don. “Is there anything outside of our kennel? I thought this was the only place there was.”

“Oh, indeed there are many more places than this,” said Mrs. Gurr, with sort of a barking laugh. “This is only a very small part of the world. You will find it very large when you start out. I hope you do not get lost.”

“What do you mean—lost?” asked Don.

“Going so far away you cannot find your way back to the kennel,” said the mother dog. “When you children are a little older, I shall give you some lessons in how to find your way home when you go away from it.”

So the days went on, the sun shone warmer and warmer, and the leaves grew larger on the trees, for summer was coming. And as the tree leaves grew, so the little puppy dogs grew, until they were large enough to run outside the kennel, and play about on the ground.

They were not very strong on their legs as yet, and often Don and his brothers and sisters would tumble and fall, as they raced about, playing a game something like your game of tag.

“Come on, let’s have a race, Prince,” said Don one day.

“All right, I will,” answered the other little puppy dog, and off they started down the gravel path that led from their kennel.

On they went, faster and faster, turning around the corner by the house, until, all of a sudden, they saw a queer little animal in front of them.

“What’s that?” asked Don, stopping short.

“I don’t know,” answered Prince, speaking in dog language.

“It looks like a puppy,” went on Don, “but it doesn’t belong to our family. See how big its tail is, and its back is all humped up. And listen to what a funny noise it’s making.”

The other animal, on the gravel path, was hissing like a steam radiator on a cold and frosty morning.

“Let’s go closer and see what it is,” suggested Don.

Together he and Prince went up, walking sort of sideways on their funny, wobbling legs. Then the queer animal suddenly jumped up in the air, and Don and Prince felt something sharp scratch their little black noses.

“Ouch!” whined Prince.

“Wow!” howled Don. “I’m scratched.”

“Let’s go home and tell mamma!” cried Prince.

Tucking their little tails, like lead pencils, between their legs, home they wobbled to the kennel.

“Oh mamma!” barked Don as he saw the mother dog. “You can’t guess what happened to us.”

“No!” cried Prince. “We saw another puppy dog, and his tail was so big! And his back was all humped up, and he made a funny noise and stuck something sharp in our noses, and it hurt.”

“That’s what it did!” cried Don, and he rubbed his nose with his paw.

“Oh, you funny puppy dogs!” exclaimed Mrs. Gurr. “What you saw was not a little dog.”

“What was it then?” asked Don. “It had four legs and a tail.”

“Well, everything that has four legs and a tail isn’t a puppy,” said the mother dog. “That was a cat, and cats almost always scratch dogs, just as we dogs almost always chase cats.”

“Oh! then if that was a cat we forgot to chase it!” cried Don. “We didn’t know we had to. Come on back, Prince, and we’ll chase it.”

“No, you don’t need to,” said Mrs. Gurr, the dog lady. “All dogs don’t chase cats, for some cats are nice. Besides, you wouldn’t find that cat now. After this, be more careful, and let cats alone.”

But Don and Prince thought they knew more than their mother did, and that afternoon they started out to find the cat who had made such a big tail at them, and had scratched them.

They searched all over the garden, Don and Prince did, for the cat, but they could not find her. But they had a good time, the two little puppy dogs did, rolling over in the soft dirt, pretending to bite each other’s ears, and playing racing games and tag.

Pretty soon Don said:

“I’m hungry. Let’s go home.”

“All right,” answered Prince. “We will.”

But when those two little puppy dogs started off, they could not find their kennel. They did not know which way to go. First they went one way, and then another, but the harder they tried the worse it seemed. Though they did not know it, Don and Prince were lost.

“Oh, what shall we do?” whined Don.

“I don’t know,” answered his brother. “Let’s go this way.”

Well, they started off a new way, but, all of a sudden, Don slipped down a bank, and right into a puddle of muddy water he fell!

“Ouch! Oh! Wow!” howled the little puppy dog, as he found himself all wet. “Oh, what is going to happen to us?”

But Don, like nearly all animals, knew what to do when he fell into the water. He began to paddle with his little paws, and to swim, for he did not want to be drowned.

“Oh, can you get out? Can you get out?” howled Prince, standing on the bank of the puddle and looking at his brother. It was not a very large puddle, but it was pretty big for a little puppy dog.

“Can you get out?” asked Prince.

“I—I guess so! I’m trying hard!” whined Don, paddling with his paws faster than ever.