 | Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches |  |
A BOYS' DOG.
AS I lift my eyes from the paper, I observe a
dog lying on the steps of the opposite house.
His attitude might induce passers-by and casual
observers to believe him to belong to the people
who live there, and to accord to him a certain
standing position. I have seen visitors pat him,
under the impression that they were doing an act
of courtesy to his master, he lending himself to
the fraud by hypocritical contortions of the body.
But his attitude is one of deceit and simulation.
He has neither master nor habitation. He is a
very Pariah and outcast; in brief, “A Boys' Dog.”
There is a degree of hopeless and irreclaimable
vagabondage expressed in this epithet, which may
not be generally understood. Only those who are
familiar with the roving nature and predatory
instincts of boys in large cities will appreciate its
strength. It is the lowest step in the social scale
to which a respectable canine can descend. A
blind man's dog, or the companion of a knife-grinder,
is comparatively elevated. He at least
owes allegiance to but one master. But the Boys'
Dog is the thrall of an entire juvenile community,
in the neighborhood, attached to and serving not
the individual boy so much as the boy element
and principle. In their active sports, in small
thefts, raids into back-yards, window-breaking, and
other minor juvenile recreations, he is a full participant.
In this way he is the reflection of the
wickedness of many masters, without possessing
the virtues or peculiarities of any particular one.
If leading a “dog's life” be considered a peculiar
phase of human misery, the life of a Boys'
Dog is still more infelicitous. He is associated in
all schemes of wrong-doing, and unless he be a dog
of experience is always the scapegoat. He never
shares the booty of his associates. In absence
of legitimate amusement, he is considered fair
game for his companions; and I have seen him
reduced to the ignominy of having a tin kettle
tied to his tail. His ears and tail have generally
been docked to suit the caprice of the unholy band
of which he is a member; and if he has any spunk,
he is invariably pitted against larger dogs in mortal
combat. He is poorly fed and hourly abused; the
reputation of his associates debars him from outside
sympathies; and once a Boys' Dog, he cannot
change his condition. He is not unfrequently sold
into slavery by his inhuman companions. I remember
once to have been accosted on my own
doorsteps by a couple of precocious youths, who
leading by a rope. The price was extremely moderate,
being, if I remember rightly, but fifty cents.
Imagining the unfortunate animal to have lately
fallen into their wicked hands, and anxious to
reclaim him from the degradation of becoming a
Boys' Dog, I was about to conclude the bargain,
when I saw a look of intelligence pass between
the dog and his two masters. I promptly stopped
all negotiation, and drove the youthful swindlers
and their four-footed accomplice from my presence.
The whole thing was perfectly plain. The dog
was an old, experienced, and hardened Boys' Dog,
and I was perfectly satisfied that he would run
away and rejoin his old companions at the first
opportunity. This I afterwards learned he did, on
the occasion of a kind-hearted but unsophisticated
neighbor buying him; and a few days ago I saw
him exposed for sale by those two Arcadians, in
another neighborhood, having been bought and
paid for half a dozen times in this.
But, it will be asked, if the life of a Boys' Dog
is so unhappy, why do they enter upon such an unenviable
situation, and why do they not dissolve the
partnership when it becomes unpleasant? I will
confess that I have been often puzzled by this
question. For some time I could not make up my
mind whether their unholy alliance was the result
of the influence of the dog on the boy, or vice versa,
nature. I am satisfied now that, at first, the dog
is undoubtedly influenced by the boy, and, as it
were, is led, while yet a puppy, from the paths of
canine rectitude by artful and designing boys. As
he grows older and more experienced in the ways
of his Bohemian friends, he becomes a willing
decoy, and takes delight in leading boyish innocence
astray, in beguiling children to play truant,
and thus revenges his own degradation on the boy
nature generally. It is in this relation, and in
regard to certain unhallowed practices I have detected
him in, that I deem it proper to expose to
parents and guardians the danger to which their
offspring is exposed by the Boys' Dog.
The Boys' Dog lays his plans artfully. He begins
to influence the youthful mind by suggestions
of unrestrained freedom and frolic which he offers
in his own person. He will lie in wait at the
garden gate for a very small boy, and endeavor to
lure him outside its sacred precincts, by gambolling
and jumping a little beyond the inclosure. He
will set off on an imaginary chase and run around
the block in a perfectly frantic manner, and then
return, breathless, to his former position, with a
look as of one who would say, “There, you see
how perfectly easy it 's done!” Should the unhappy
infant find it difficult to resist the effect
which this glimpse of the area of freedom produces,
he is utterly demoralized. The Boys' Dog owns
him body and soul. Straightway he is led by the
deceitful brute into the unhallowed circle of his
Bohemian masters. Sometimes the unfortunate
boy, if he be very small, turns up eventually at
the station-house as a lost child. Whenever I
meet a stray boy in the street looking utterly bewildered
and astonished, I generally find a Boys'
Dog lurking on the corner. When I read the advertisements
of lost children, I always add mentally
to the description, “was last seen in company
with a Boys' Dog.” Nor is his influence wholly
confined to small boys. I have seen him waiting
patiently for larger boys on the way to school, and
by artful and sophistical practices inducing them
to play truant. I have seen him lying at the
school-house door, with the intention of enticing
the children on their way home to distant and remote
localities. He has led many an unsuspecting
boy to the wharves and quays by assuming the
character of a water-dog, which he was not, and
again has induced others to go with him on a gunning
excursion by pretending to be a sporting dog,
in which quality he was knowingly deficient. Unscrupulous,
hypocritical, and deceitful, he has won
many children's hearts by answering to any name
they might call him, attaching himself to their
persons until they got into trouble, and deserting
assistance. I have seen him rob small school-boys
of their dinners by pretending to knock them
down by accident; and have seen larger boys in
turn dispossess him of his ill-gotten booty for
their own private gratification. From being a tool,
he has grown to be an accomplice; through much
imposition, he has learned to impose on others; in
his best character, he is simply a vagabond's vagabond.
I could find it in my heart to pity him, as he
lies there through the long summer afternoon, enjoying
brief intervals of tranquillity and rest which
he surreptitiously snatches from a stranger's door-step.
For a shrill whistle is heard in the streets,
the boys are coming home from school, and he is
startled from his dreams by a deftly thrown potato,
which hits him on the head, and awakens him to
the stern reality that he is now and forever — a
Boys' Dog.
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