memoris of a yellow dog o henry 1963

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.~ - .. Memoirs. of a Yellow Dog

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,~.I".bri't.snppo~e it will knock .any of you people off your":~:'.perch to read a contribution from. an animal .. 'Mr, Kiplingy ; . : ' ~ C : l : ·a:.,good many ..others hav.e demonstrated the fact .that~' i; ::a9;iQ1~can express themselves in remunerative .English, and.

~~~~'~:~~#.9".~~g¢ne! goes to press nowadays without an animal story .; ~ : f : - , : ~ J : ~ . i l i , ' . '~" .excepe .the old-style' monthlies. that are' still running~ r ; I t 1 ; : . p ~ ~ e sfBryap. and the Mont Pelee horror. . .i~~/:;·~,~~.~u;_t,you .needn't look ..for ;.any< stuck-up literature .in .my ..r : ; ~ ) ' · p ~ . e ~ e ; : .uch as Bearoo, .the bear, and Snakoo, -the snake, andi: t~':;J '~~oo, the :tiget~taIk in the -junglebooks, A yellow. dogD ~ : ~·that's spent most of his life in a cheap New' York flat, sleep-~::,.iqg in.a' corner on an old sateen underskirt .(the one she

:::. spilled ...po:f1:wine on .at the Lady Longshoremen's banquet),'~:.. mustn't be. expected to perform any tricks with the art of: > . 'speech, .. .: '. ' .' . .~:.'. .1 W~ ·h.o~ .a yellow pup; . date, -Iocality, pedigree andl:weight. unknown, The first thing ,1 can -.ecollect, ~ old'.woman had me in a basket at Broadway and Twenty-third

..: .trying to sellme to a"fat Iady.Old Morhez-Hubbard was:" boosting me to beat the band ~ a genuine Pomeranian-Ham-

r . 'bletonian':'Re~-Iris~-Cochin-China-S~oke-~ogis fox .terrier,

~.:. TIt: fat ..lady cha~seda V aro~d. amor;tg the samples ' o ! gros~ : :. g . r ; a lI 1 flannelette ill her shoppmg bag till she' cornered it, and~.'. gave. up. From that moment I was. a .pet-a mamma's own

~...wootsey .squidlums. Say, gentle reader,' did you ever have a

l ~ : : . : · ·f Q O - p ~ u n d woman br.eath~g a flavor. of Ca~emb~rt cheeseI l l . and .Peau d'Espagne pick you up and wallop her nose alloverl.ou, remarking all the' time in an Emma Eames tone ofI I ' : ' "v?ice:: -os, o.O'S urn oodluin, d0 0d lum,' w -S >0 dlum , toodlum..

l..itsy-witsy skoodlums?"1 · · -72



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,*·'~~)!romedigreed ye~ow. pup.I grew· up to be an .anony~t tW~US yellow cur looking like a C r ? S S between an Angora cat

~~ifid a box of lemons. B"':lt my nustress never tumbled. .She~~)llioughtthat the two pruneval pups that Noah chased mto

~tlhe ark were but a collateral branch of my' ancestors, It took

~~~o policemen to :keep her from .eneering me at the Madison~~$guare Garden for the Siberian bloodhound prize. . '.

~ f i ' i : n : r'll tell you about that :flat. The house w a s the ordinary~j!~irigin New York; paved with. Parian marble in the. en-~~?trancehall and cobblestones above the first floor, Our fiat~tw~three-ewell, not flights-climbs· up.· My mistress rented~~;~~·'nnfurnished, and put in the .regular things-1903 antique~r:}npholst~ed parlor set, oil chromo of geishas in a Harlem tea~~::;~house,ubber plant and hUsband.. ' ..:. ..;. . ' . .'1 < , , : · . -By Sirius! there was a biped I felt sorry for.:He was a . .little

R K ' : ; J J 1 a n with sandy hair and whiskers a . good deal. l i k e mine.:~:~rHenpecked?~well, toucans' and flamingoes and pelicans all:;~~{hadheir bills in him. He wiped the dishes and Iistened' .tor ~ , t " I n Y mistress .tell about the .cheap, ragged things the lady~~:~~.ith the ..squirrel-skin coat on the second floor hung out on

: { ~ i <her line. to 'dry. And every evening while. she. was gettingK ( ~ ; · : :supper· she made him take me .out on the end of .a string for a//;walk. . ' . . . . .'. I

~.',:"If. men .knew how women pass· the ;time .when they. are .'.

.. alone they'd never marry. Laura .Lean Jibbey, peanut brittle, .~::~ little 'almond cream on the neck .muscles, dishes unwashed,'':.'.half. an hour's talk with the iceman; reading. a .package ofold letters, a :couple of pickles "and ..wo bottles of malt. ex-tract, one hour peeking through a hole 'in the window shadeinto the flat across · the .air-shaft-e-that's about all there is toit. Twenty minutes before time for' him .to come home from.' work she' Straightens .up the house,' fixes her rat. so it won't

show, and gets outa lot of sewing foraten-minute bluff .. ,I led a dog's Iife in that fiat. 'Most·all day , I lay there inmycorner watching that fat woman kill- time. .I .slept some-times and had pipe dreams about-being out chasing cats into.basements and growling at old ladies with black mittens, as adog ·was intended to .do.. Then she. would pqunce. upon me

. with a lot of that drivelling. poodle palaver and kiss me onthe nose-but what could I ·do?A dog can't chew cloves. .Lbegan to feel sorry for Hubby;' dog my cats if I didn't.

We looked so much. alike that people noticed it when wewent OUt; so we shook the streets that, Mor~an's cab drives



down, and took to climbing th e piles of last D " " _ . . . .,.L.lU~snow on. the streets where cheap people live.One evening when we were thus promenading, andLj

trying to look like a prize St. Bernard, and the old . '..trying to look like he wouldn't have murdered the .gan-grinder he heard play Mendelssohn's wedding-manlooked up at him and said, inmy way:

"What are .you looking so sour about, you oakumlobster? She don't kiss you. You don't have to sit on ..lap and listen to talk that would make the. book' of a .comedy sound like the maxims of Epictetus. You. ought.thankful you're not a dog. Brace up, Benedick, and .blues·begone.": . . .

'. _The matrimonial mishap looked down at me with Q..I..L:.L.I~

can ine intelligence inhis face. . ''I ._

"Why, doggie," says he, "good doggie. You almost .

like you could speak. What is it, doggie-:-Ca~?" -::.·Cats! Could speak! . .But, of course, he couldn'ft understand. Humans were'

nied the speech of animals. The only common ground ..· .

. communication ripon which dogs and men can get .• • .J:! • . . ,15mncnon, .. .

Inthe flat across the hall from us lived a lady with aand-tan rerrier. Her husband strung itand took it Outevening, but he. always came horne cheerful and YY:-.L .I.4 o l . ,~ct.J:iPfi\l

One day I touched noses with the black-and-tan in the "'&~II:U

and I struck h im for an elucidation,"See here, -Wiggle-and-Skip," I says, "you. know that>,

ain't the nature of a real inan to play dry nurse to a' .public. I never saw one .leashed to a bow-wow yet ·that d l ~ ' _ 1 1

look like he'd like to -lick· every other man that looked'him. But your boss comes in every- day as perky and set-Upan amateur prestidigitator doing the egg trick. How does

do it? Don't tell me he likes it," . ."H~?'~ says the black-and-tan, "Why, he -uses N

Own Remedy. He g!!ts spifHicated. At first when we, gohe's as shy as the man on the steamer who would ratherpedro when they make 'em all jackpots. By the time' webeen in eight saloons. he don't care' whether the thing onend of his line .is a dog or a catfish. I've lost t.wo inchesmy tail trying to sidestep those swinging doors.". .The pointer I got from that terrior-e-vaudeville rueases

copy-set me to thinking.



'a quiet, place on a safe street Iightened the line of my(.;)t.v~·u ...~ in front of an attractive, refined saloon. I made '2

scramble for the doors, whining like a dog inpress despatches that lets the family know ·that little

",.,,'r1UL.I. __ is bogged while gathering lilies in the brook., . d a r n my eyes," says the old man, with a grin~"darn

eyes if the saffron-colored .son of a seltzer lemonadeasking me in to ·tak~ a drink, Lemme see-showlong's it

I~Wt~ClJ.since I saved shoe Ieather by keeping ~ne foot on the

Ibelieve I'll "" . .'

::.,..r knew Ihad him. Hot Scotches he took, sitting a t . a table ..•• . an hour he kept the Campbells coming, I sat by .his side

. for the waiter with my tail, and eating free lunch

;-;.:i;.,,,U ...&JI. as ~a in her flat never equalled with her home-~'" truck bought at a delicatessen store eight minutes be-~}!orepapa comes home. .~ 0 i : 'When the products of Scotland were all exhausted except

;\t~e rye bread -the old man unwound me from the table legm ' a n d played ~e outside like' a fisherman plays a salmon. Out~Zmerehe took off my collar and threw it into' the street. :".: "Poor doggie," says he; "good doggie. She shan't kiss you: : , : a n y more. '5 a darned shame. Good doggie, go away and get.nm over by a street car and be happy."" I refused to leave. I leaped and frisked around the' old. inan's legs happy as a pug on a rug. -.- "You' old flea-headed woodchuck-chaser," I said to him-

''you moon-baying, rabbit-pointing, egg-stealing old beagle,_can't' you see that I don't want to leave' you? Can't you seethat we're both Pups in the .Wood and the missis is the crueluncle after you with the dish towel and me with the flea lin-. iment and a pink bow t o tie on my· tail, Why not cut that anout and be pards forever more? ".' ... Maybe you'll say he didn't understand-s-maybe he didn't.,But he land of got a grip on the Hot Scotches, and stood still .for a minute,

thinking. .' . ."nnO'O'lP" savs he. finallv, "we don't live more. than a

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: .' ~vening about 6 o'clock my mistress ordered him to

and do the ozone act for Lovey. I have concealed it

now but that is what she called me. The black-and-tan"".u.o'~

called "Tweetness," I consider that I have the bulge on

as far a s you could chase a rabbit. Still "Lovey" is some-",lI:.l.,;lnlT of a nomencl-atural tin' can on the tail of one's self-re-



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76 Memoirs '0 " a' Yellow Dog

.dozen lives on this earth, and very few of u s live to h e £c&&v.,rr.-

than 300.· If I ever se~ that flat any more I'm a flat,you do you're' flatter; and that's no flattery. I'm'to 1that Westward Ho wins out by the length or a , '-AQ"'~U

hund." , . '.

There was ..no string, but I frolicked along with my ~n ...

to the 'Twenty-third Street ferry. And the .cats on the .. saw reason to give thanks that prehensile claws had h.......> : l i ' ! .

given to them. .'. . . . .

On the Jersey .side my master said to a Stranger w40 ~n;j"-H

eating a currant bun:' ."Me and my doggie, ':Veare bound for the 'Rocky. , , ,

tams. . ...

..But what pleased me most was when myoId manboth of my ears until I howled, and said:. "You' common, monkey-headed, rat-tailed, snlphu '.'ored son of a door mat; do you know what I'm going to·,·.you?". . . .... ,

I thought of "Lovey," Ind I whined dolefully. ."I'm g'oing to call you 'Pete,'" says my master; and .. :bad five tails I couldn't have done enough wagging to .justice to the occasion, ..

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memoris of a yellow dog o henry 1963

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