Annie Fellows Johnston - The Story of Dago
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Annie Fellows Johnston >> The Story of Dago
[Illustration: "ALL WENT WELL UNTIL WE REACHED AN ALLEY CROSSING."]
Little Elsie rubbed her sleeve across her eyes and swallowed hard. "I
wouldn't ask to go back, brother, really and truly I wouldn't, but I'm
so cold and mizzible I feel most like I'm going to be sick."
Phil looked at her little bare red hands and tear-stained face, and
said, gruffly, "Well, then, get on the wheelbarrow. You can sit on the
music-box and hold Dago in your lap, and I'll wheel you a piece until
you get rested."
Elsie very willingly climbed up and took me in her lap. It was hard
work for Phil. He grew red in the face, and his arms ached, but he
kept bravely on, although he was out of breath from the hard pushing.
All went well until we reached an alley crossing. Phil, whose
attention was all on the wheel of his barrow, which he was trying to
steer safely between the cobblestones, did not see a long string of
geese waddling down the alley on their way home from the commons,
where they had been feeding all day. They came silently along in an
awkward, wavering line, as quietly as a procession of web-footed
ghosts, until they were almost upon us. Then the leader shot out his
wings with a hoarse cry, every goose in the procession followed his
example, and with a rush they flapped past us, half running, half
flying. It was done with such startling suddenness that it caused a
general upsetting of our party. Phil veered to one side, and over we
went in a heap, music-box, Elsie, barrow, and all, with myself on top.
There was a frightened scream from Elsie, followed by a steady
downpour of tears as Phil picked her up. She had struck her forehead
on a cobblestone, and a big blue bump was rapidly swelling above one
eye. Her nose was bleeding a little, too. Phil was so occupied in
trying to comfort her, and in wiping away the blood, that it was
several minutes before he thought of the music-box. When he picked it
up he found it was so badly broken that it would no longer play.
"Oh, what will papa say!" cried Elsie. The little fellow made no
answer, but could scarcely keep from crying himself, as he lifted it
on the barrow, to start back home.
"When will we be there, brother?" asked Elsie, when they had trudged
along for some time. She was holding on to the tail of his jacket,
sniffling dismally. Phil stopped, for they had reached a street
corner, and looked around. It was growing dusk. Then he turned to her
with a dazed, scared fate.
"Oh, Sis," he cried, "I don't know what to do. This isn't the street
that I thought it was. I'm afraid we're lost!"
They had reached the edge of the town by this time. Only one more
block of pretty suburban homes stood between them and the outskirting
fields.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Phil, after a moment's pause,
bravely choking back his own fears at sight of his little sister's
frightened face. "See that house over there with the firelight shining
through the windows, so bright and warm? It looks as if kind people
lived there. We'll go and ask them to show us the way home."
"I wish I was home now," mourned Elsie. "I wish I was all clean and
warm, sitting at the supper-table with my good clothes on, beside my
papa. Maybe we'll never find our way back, any more! Maybe he'll
never kiss me and say, 'Papa's dear little daughter,' again! He'll
think I'm dead. Maybe we'll have to go and live with beggars, and be
somebody's poor children all our life to punish us for running away;
and, oh, maybe we'll never have any 'home, sweet home' any more!"
At the picture she made for herself, of the cheerful room with the
dear home faces gathered around the table, which she might never see
again, she began to sob wildly. The tears were falling so fast now
that she could hardly see, but stumbled blindly along, stumping her
tired toes at every step, and clinging fast to Phil's old jacket.
They had almost reached the house with the friendly windows, when a
great iron gate just ahead of them swung open, and an elegantly
dressed old lady walked out to step into a carriage, drawn up at the
curbstone. Behind her came another old lady, tall and stately, and
with something so familiar in appearance that both the children stood
still in astonishment. She was looking about her with sharp,
eagle-like eyes. Her skirts swished softly as she walked, and the
little bunches of gray curls on each side of her face bobbed gently
under her imposing black bonnet.
"Aunt Patricia!" screamed little Elsie, darting forward and clasping
her arms around the astonished old lady's knees. "Oh, Aunt Patricia!
We're lost! _Please_ take us home!"
If a dirty little grizzly bear had suddenly sprung up in the path and
begun hugging her, Miss Patricia could not have been more amazed than
she was at the sight of the ragged child who clung to her. She pushed
back the old silk muffler from the tousled curls, and looked
wonderingly on the child's blood-stained face with the blue bump still
swelling on the forehead.
"Caroline Driggs," she called to the lady who stood waiting for her at
the carriage door, "am I dreaming? I never saw my nephew's children in
such a plight before. I can scarcely believe they are his."
"Oh, we are! We are!" screamed little Elsie. "I'll just _die_ if you
say we are not!"
Phil stood by, too shamefaced to plead for himself, yet fearful that
she might take Elsie and leave him to his fate, because he had refused
to apologise for his rude speech.
Miss Patricia had been spending the day with Mrs. Driggs, who was an
old friend of hers, and who was now about to take her home in her
carriage. Mrs. Driggs seemed to understand the situation at a glance.
"Come on," she said. "We'll put the children in here with us; the
monkey and the rest of the gypsy outfit can go up with the coachman.
Here, Sam, take this little beast on the seat with you, and lift up
the barrow, too."
If those children were half as glad to sink down on the comfortable
cushions as I was to snuggle under the coachman's warm lap-robe, then
I am sure that Mrs. Driggs's elegant carriage never held three more
grateful hearts. As we climbed to our places I heard Mrs. Driggs say,
kindly: "So the little ones were masquerading, were they? It is a cold
day for such sport."
Miss Patricia answered, in a voice that trembled with displeasure:
"Really, Caroline, I am more deeply mortified than I can say, to think
that any one bearing my name--the proud, unsullied name of
Tremont--could go parading the streets, in the garb of a beggar,
asking for alms. I cannot trust myself to speak of it calmly."
All the way home I felt sorry for Phil. I didn't envy him having to
sit there, facing Miss Patricia, with his conscience hurting him as it
must have done. That is the advantage of being a monkey. We have no
consciences to trouble us. I didn't envy his home-coming, either,
although I knew he would be glad enough to creep into his warm, soft
bed. His feet were badly blistered from his long tramp in his new
shoes.
Stuart looked after my comfort, and I was soon curled up snugly on a
cushion before the fire. Phil and Elsie had a hot bath, and hot bread
and milk, and were put to bed at once. Elsie was coughing at nearly
every breath, and the doctor seemed troubled when he came up to rub
some soothing lotion on the poor little swelled forehead. He brought
something for Phil's blistered feet, too, but he never spoke a word
all the time he was putting it on.
After it was done he stood looking at him very gravely. Then he said:
"Your little sister tells me that you took her out to dance and sing
in the streets to-day to earn money, in order that you may run away
from home. Is that so?"
"Yes, sir," answered Phil, in a very faint voice.
"So you are tired of your home," continued the doctor, "and think you
could find kinder treatment among strangers who care nothing for you.
I am sorry that my little son has come to such a conclusion. But if
you are determined to leave us, there is no necessity for you to slip
off like a thief in the night. Winter is coming on, and you will need
all your warm clothes. Better take time to pack them properly, and
collect whatever of your belongings you want to keep. I am very much
afraid that this day's work is going to make your little sister ill.
No doubt you will feel worse for it yourself, and will need a good
rest before starting out. Maybe you'd better wait until Monday, before
you turn your back for ever on your home and family."
The doctor waited a moment, but Phil made no answer. After waiting
another moment, still without a word from Phil, the doctor said, "Good
night, my son," and walked down-stairs into the library.
Now, I know well enough that, when we started out in the morning, Phil
was fully determined to run away from home, as soon as he could earn
enough money to take him. I couldn't understand what had changed his
mind so completely. You can imagine my surprise when he began to sob,
"Oh, papa! papa! You didn't kiss me good night and you don't care a
bit if I run away! Oh, I don't want to go now! I don't _want_ to!"
It sounded so pitiful that I got up off my cushion and walked over to
the bed. All that I could do was to take his head in my arms and rub
it and pat it and rub it again. I think it comforted him a little,
although he sobbed out at first: "Oh, Dago, you're the only friend
I've got! It's awful when a little boy's mother is dead, and there
isn't anybody in the whole world to love him but a monkey!"
The door was open into Elsie's room. She heard what he said, and in a
minute, she came pattering across the carpet in her little bare feet
and climbed up on the bed beside me.
"Don't say that, brother," she begged, leaning over and kissing him.
"Dago isn't the only one that loves you, 'cause there's me. Don't
cry."
"But, oh," wailed Phil, "papa didn't say one word about my staying! He
doesn't care if I run away. He never once asked me not to, and I
believe he'll be glad when I'm gone, 'cause he can't bear to see Aunt
Patricia worried, and everything I do seems to worry her. She says she
doesn't understand boys, and I s'pose it's best for me to go. But I
don't want to. _Aow, I don't want to!_"
By this time he had worked himself up into such a spasm of crying that
he could not stop, for all little Elsie's begging. She wiped his eyes
on the sheet with her little dimpled hands, and kissed him a dozen
times. Then I think she must have grown frightened at his sobs, for
she slipped off the bed to the floor, "I'll tell papa that you don't
want to go," she said, trailing out of the room in her long white
nightgown. She had to hold it up in front to keep from tripping, and
her little bare feet went patter, patter, down the long stairs to the
library. Wondering what would happen next, I followed her into the
hall, and swung by my tail over the banister.
Doctor Tremont was sitting in a big armchair before the fire, with his
head in his hands. He looked very much troubled over something. She
opened the door, and ran up to him.
"Why, Elsie, child, what is the matter?" he cried, catching her in his
arms. "What do you mean by running around the house in your nightgown?
Doesn't my little daughter know that it will make her cough worse, and
maybe make her very, very ill?"
He started quickly up the stairs with her, to carry her back to bed.
She clasped her arms around his neck, and laid her soft pink cheek
against his. "Oh, daddy dear," I heard her say, "Phil is crying and
crying up there in the dark, and the monkey's patting his head, trying
to make him stop. He's crying because you don't love him any more. He
said you didn't kiss him good night, and you don't care if he runs
away, and he hasn't a friend in the world but me and the monkey. He
feels awful bad about having to leave home. Oh, daddy dear, _please_
tell him he can stay!"
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT DAGO TOLD THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON SUNDAY.
As soon as Elsie was put back to bed, Doctor Tremont came into the
room where I was still trying to comfort Phil, for I had skipped back
to him when they started up the stairs. Stirring the fire in the grate
until it blazed brightly, he turned to look at Phil. There was a long
silence; then he said, "Phil, come here, my boy. Come and sit on my
knee by the fire. I want to talk to you awhile."
His voice was so kind and gentle that it seemed to me nobody could
have been afraid of him then, but Phil climbed out of bed very slowly,
as if he did not want to obey. Wrapping him in a warm, fleecy blanket,
the doctor drew him over to a big rocking-chair in front of the fire,
and sat down with him on his knee. I crawled back to my cushion on the
hearth.
For a little while there was nothing said. The old chair crooned a
comforting lullaby of _creakity-creak_, _creakity-creak_, as the
doctor rocked back and forth, with the boy's curly head on his
shoulder. At last he said: "You think that I am unkind, Phil, because
I want to send your pet away, and cruel because I punished you for
speaking rudely to your Aunt Patricia. Now, I am going to tell you her
story, and maybe you will understand her better. The truth is, you do
not understand your Aunt Patricia, or why many of the little things
you do should annoy her. I want you to put yourself in her place as
near as you can, and see how differently you will look at things from
her standpoint.
"She was the only child in a houseful of grown people, and growing up
among prim elderly persons made her orderly and exact in everything
she did. When she was a very little girl she was sent to a strict,
old-fashioned school every morning, where she learned to work samplers
as well as to read and spell. They used to tell that, at the age of
seven, she came home one day with two prizes which she had taken. One
was for scholarship, and one was for neatness in her needlework.
When she brought them home, her grandmother (that is your
great-great-grandmother, you know) praised her for the first; but her
grandfather (the one whose portrait Stuart shot) said: 'Nay, it is for
the neatness that the little lass should be most commended, for it is
ever a pleasing virtue in a woman.' Then he gave her a gold dollar, to
encourage her in always being neat and exact. She was so proud of it
that nothing could have persuaded her to spend it. She had a hole
bored in it so that she could hang it on a ribbon around her neck. For
a long, long time she wore it that way. She has often said to me that
the sight of it was a daily reminder of what her grandfather wanted
her to be, and that it helped her to form those habits of orderliness
and neatness in which her family took such pride. Long after she
stopped wearing the little coin, the sight of it used to recall the
old proverbs that she heard so often, such as '"A stitch in time saves
nine," Patricia,' or, 'Remember, my dear, "have a place for
everything, and everything in its place."' It used to remind her of
the praise they gave her, too. Her grandfather's 'Well done, my good
little lass,' was a reward that made her happy for hours.
"Her room was always in perfect order. Even her toys were never left
scattered about the house. She has her old doll packed away now, in
lavender, in nearly as good condition as when it was given to her,
sixty years ago. You can see how anything would annoy her that would
break in on these lifelong habits of hers. She was a child that took
great pleasure in her little keepsakes, and the longer she owned them
the dearer they became. She kept that little gold coin, that her
grandfather gave her, for over half a century; and that is the dollar
that Dago lost. Do you wonder that she grieved over the loss of it?
"The old blue china dragon is one of her earliest recollections. It
used to sit on a cabinet in her grandmother's room, and there were
always sugar-plums in it, as there have been ever since it was given
to her. I can remember it myself when I was a boy. One of the
pleasures of my visit to the old house was listening in the firelight
to grandfather's 'dragon tales,' as we called them. They were about
all sorts of wonderful things, and we called them that because, while
he told them, the old dragon was always passed around and we sat and
munched sugar-plums. That jar has been in the family so long that your
great-great-grandfather remembered it when he was a boy,--and that is
the jar that Dago broke.
"There were very few children in the neighbourhood where your Aunt
Patricia lived. For a long time she had no playmates except the little
boy who lived on the adjoining place, Donald McClain. But he came over
nearly every day for four years, and they grew to love each other like
brother and sister. It was a lonesome time for the little Patricia
when the McClains moved away. Donald brought her a tiny carnelian ring
the day he came over for the last time. 'To remember me by,' he said,
and she put it on her finger and remembered him always, as the
kindest, manliest little playmate any child ever had.
"She grew up after awhile to be a beautiful young girl. I will show
you her miniature sometime, with the pearls around it. The little
carnelian ring was too small then, and she had to lay it away; but she
never forgot her old playmate. When she was nineteen her mother died,
and, soon after, her father lost his eyesight, and she gave up all her
time to caring for him. She sang to him, read to him, led him around
the garden, and amused him constantly. She never went anywhere without
him, never thought of her own pleasure, but stayed alone with him in
the quiet old house, year after year, until he died.
"Donald came back once after he was a man, and had been through
college, and stayed all summer in his old home. He was going to
Scotland in the fall. Before he left, he asked Aunt Patricia to be his
wife and go with him. She said, 'I would, Donald, if I were not needed
so much here at home; but how could I go away and leave my poor old
blind father?'
"He would not take no for an answer, but went away, saying that he
would be back again in a year, and then they would take care of the
dear old father together. But when the year was over, the ship that
was bringing him home went down at sea in a storm, and all that Aunt
Patricia had left of his was his letters, and the little carnelian
ring he had given her, when they were children, to 'remember him by.'
And that is the ring that Dago lost."
Phil raised his head quickly from his father's shoulder. "Oh, papa!"
he cried. "I'm so sorry! I never could have said anything mean to her
if I had known all that."
His father went on. "That is why I am telling you this now, my son.
Maybe children could understand old people better, if they knew how
much they had suffered in their long lives, how much they had lost,
and how much they had given up for other people's sakes. Aunt Patricia
has been like a mother to me ever since I was left without any, when I
was Stuart's age. She sent me to college, she gave me a home with her
until I was successfully started in my profession, and has shown me a
thousand other kindnesses that I have not been able to repay. I have
been able to make up to her what she has spent in money, but a
lifetime would not be long enough to cancel my debt to her for all the
loving care she has given me. But even if she hadn't been so kind;
even if she were crabbed and cross and unreasonable, I couldn't let a
son of mine be rude to an old lady under my roof. One never knows what
troubles have whitened the hair and made the wrinkles come in the
temper as well as the face. Old age must be respected, no matter how
unlovely.
"As for Aunt Patricia,--if you would only remember how good she was to
you after your accident, how she nursed you, and waited on you, and
read to you hour after hour,--she has been tender and loving to all of
you, especially little Elsie, and is trying to help me bring up my
children as best we can, alone. And, Phil, my boy, sometimes it is as
hard for us as it is for you, to always know what is best to do
without the little mother's help."
Phil's arm stole around his father's neck. "I'll ask Aunt Patricia's
pardon in the morning, the very first thing," he said, in a low voice.
"I'll tell her that I didn't understand her, just like she didn't
understand me, and after this I'll be like the three wise monkeys of
Japan."
"How is that?" asked his father, smiling.
"Why, never say or hear or see more than I ought to. Keep my hands
over my eyes or ears or mouth, whenever I'm tempted to be rude.
Instead of thinking that she's fussy and particular, I'll only see the
wrinkles in her face that the trouble made, and I'll remember how good
she's been to you and all of us."
His father hugged him closer. "If you can always remember to do that,"
he said, "your part of the world will certainly be a happy place to
live in. If you can be blind and deaf to other people's faults and
speak only pleasant things."
"Papa," said Phil, in the pause that followed, hiding his face on his
father's shoulder and speaking with a tremble in his voice, "I'm
mighty sorry I did so many bad things to-day: broke the music-box, and
ran away with Elsie, and mortified the family name, begging on the
streets. That's what Aunt Patricia told Mrs. Driggs. I never want to
run away again as long as I live. Oh, if you'll only forgive me and
let me stay, I'd rather be your little boy than anybody else's in the
whole world!"
The doctor gathered him closer in his arms and kissed him. "Do you
think that anything in the whole world could make me give you up, my
little Philip?" he said. "You have been a great worry to me sometimes,
but you are one of my very greatest blessings, and I love you--oh, my
child, you will never know how much!"
A great, happy "bear-hug" almost choked him, as Phil's arms were
clasped about his neck. Then he said, "I think we understand each
other all the way around, now. Shut your eyes, little man, and I'll
rock you to sleep."
Phil snuggled down against him like a little bird in a warm nest, and
there they sat in the firelight together. The old rocking-chair threw
a giant shadow on the wall as it swung slowly back and forth, back and
forth. "_Creakity-creak_," droned the rockers. "_Creakity-creak_,
_squeakity-squeak_," and to the music of their drowsy song Phil fell
fast asleep in his father's arms.
CHAPTER VIII.
DAGO BIDS FAREWELL TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY.
Hey there, Ring-tail, I've just slipped in a moment to say good-bye.
I'm off for California in the morning. It seems that I'm at the bottom
of all the trouble in this family, so I'm to be shipped by the fast
express. But you needed waste any sympathy on _me_. I am going back to
the old California garden among the vines and the pepper-trees, where
I shall miss all the winter's snow and ice that I have been dreading.
The boys do not feel that they are giving me up entirely, for they
will see me once a year when they visit their grandfather. I am sorry
to leave them, but the kindest master in the world couldn't make me as
happy as the freedom of the warm, wide outdoors. Next time you hear of
me I shall be back in that land of summer, watching the water splash
over the marble mermaid in the fountain, and the goldfish swim by in
the sun.
Think of me, sometimes, Ring-tail; not as you have known me here,
caged in a man-made house, and creeping about in everybody's way, but
think of me as the happiest, freest creature that ever swung from a
bough. Free as the birds and the bees in the old high-walled garden,
and as happy, too, as they, when the sunshine turns to other sunshine
all the Gold of Ophir roses. Good-bye! old fellow!
[Illustration]
THE END.
Works of Annie Fellows Johnston
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