HOW BINGO LOST HIS SPOTS
BINGO was a nice little puppy and a dear little puppy. He played with Charlie and Topsy all day long. He frisked around and barked “Yap, yap,” for though he was getting to be a big little puppy, he could not yet say “Bow-wow,” though you may be sure he tried to over and over again.
Charlie and Topsy and Bingo had lots of fun playing together and, when Charlie was playing with them, Topsy and Bingo were always good; but sometimes, when Topsy and Bingo played alone together, they were as bad as bad could be and got into all kinds of mischief—especially Bingo.
Yes, Bingo could think up the naughtiest things to do! He liked to dig in the flower beds and bury bits of sticks that he pretended were bones. That was lots of fun for Bingo but very bad for the flowers! And he liked to go into people’s bedrooms and hide their bedroom slippers so that they could not find them anywhere.
But most of all he liked to eat up the carpet in the dining room. Oh, my goodness! What fun Bingo did have with that carpet! He would hold one corner in his mouth and he would waggle his tail and scrabble with his paws and he would growl and growl and he would chew at that carpet till the wonder was he did not chew it all up.
Yes, Bingo thought up all these naughty things to do when he was playing by himself and he also tried to imitate the things that Topsy did.
Topsy was very fond of climbing, and he could climb beautifully. He hardly ever knocked anything down. No indeed! Topsy could jump straight on to the mantelpiece and walk among the ornaments and not knock a single one down!
Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie did not like Topsy to do this. They were afraid that some day he might throw something down—but he never did. Bingo thought that he would love to be able to climb like that. He looked at Topsy with admiring eyes and this made Topsy all the more anxious to show off.
Sometimes Topsy would climb up the dining room curtains all the way to the top, and that made Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie very angry, because his little sharp claws made scratches on the curtains. Then they would shake them hard so that Topsy would have to climb down. He would not learn that he must not do it again.
For Topsy loved to show off. He knew that he could climb better than anybody in the house and so he wanted to do it all the time, and the more he did it the more Bingo wanted to show Topsy that he could climb as well. But of course he could not.
One reason was that Bingo could not jump as high as Topsy. A little dog never can jump as high as a kitten. They are not made that way. So when Bingo wanted to climb he had to scramble up with his paws and he always knocked against something or other which would come down with a crash and a bang and somebody would say, “Oh, you bad Bingo, you have broken something again!” It was very discouraging.
One day Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie had gone out. They had gone downtown to do some shopping so they had decided to leave Bingo at home, as one cannot very well take a little dog into a department store.
So Topsy and Bingo were left all alone with nobody to look after them but Jane, and she was not much good, as she was feeling very sleepy and had gone up to the attic to sleep undisturbed.
Topsy and Bingo decided that they would have a glorious time with nobody to interfere with them, no matter what mischief they might be up to.
First they went into the dining room and they had a grand time playing with the rug. This, as you know, was one of Bingo’s favorite games and he showed Topsy ex-act-ly how to play it—how you pretend that the rug is a wild animal, and how you grab the end in your mouth and kick and scrabble with your paws and growl in a low and dreadful voice. Topsy thought that this was a grand game. He liked the growling part especially. You should have heard the ferocious growls that Topsy made. Bingo felt quite frightened, although he knew it was only in fun.
When they got tired of that game, they went into the kitchen to see what interesting things they could find to do there. And, of course, Topsy began to climb—yes, he climbed up on everything in the kitchen except on the kitchen stove. He was too wise a kitten to do that. He climbed up on to the window sill and on to the table and on to the sink. Then he jumped up on to the kitchen dresser and climbed to the very top shelf, where he walked in and out among the plates, and yet he did not knock a single one down! Every now and then Topsy looked down at Bingo and tossed his head, as if to say, “Don’t you wish you could do it, too?” Bingo was wild with excitement. He jumped up on his hind legs and barked, “Yap, yap, yap!” in his funny, hoarse little voice.
At last he determined that he would climb up on the kitchen dresser, too. Yes, he would climb up to the very top shelf and show Topsy that he could climb, too!
There was a chair close to the kitchen dresser and Bingo first managed to climb up on that, then he scrambled up on to the dresser. He felt very proud when he looked down to the floor and saw what a height he had climbed to. Topsy was still up on the top shelf looking down at him with his head on one side.
Bingo then stood up on his hind legs and he put his paws up on the next shelf—but, oh, dear! Bingo was unlucky again! He knocked against a big, round, white tin that had FLOUR written on it in gold letters. And it toppled right over!—yes, it toppled right over and banged Bingo on the head, and a lot of white, powdery stuff fell all over him and got in his eyes. It was awful!
Poor Bingo did not want to climb any more. He jumped straight off the kitchen dresser on to the floor, and he ran out of the kitchen with his little short tail hanging down. He went into the living room and hid under the sofa—poor Bingo was feeling very unhappy and he wanted to be alone.
Soon he heard the front door open and he heard Charlie’s voice in the hall. Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie had come home.
Charlie said, “Oh, Mother, look at those funny white tracks all along the floor. What do you think they can be?”
His Mother and his Auntie looked, and they said, “How extraordinary! They look like Bingo’s footprints. I wonder what he can have been up to.”
Then Bingo himself came running out into the hall to meet Charlie. He had forgotten his troubles and he jumped up in the air and barked, “Yap, yap, yap,” he was so glad that Charlie had come home again. But when Charlie saw Bingo, he called out in amazement, “Mother, Auntie, look! What has happened to Bingo! He has lost his spots!”
And it was true. Bingo had lost all his spots! He had lost the black spot on his head, and the ones on his ears, and the big black spot on his back, and the little black spot on the end of his stumpy tail! Yes, Bingo was now white all over without a particle of black anywhere.
“What have you done to yourself?” said Charlie as he picked him up. Bingo tried to tell him all about it, as he wriggled and barked and tried to lick Charlie’s face. And—lo and behold! the black spots began to show again, first the one on Bingo’s head, then the ones on his ears, then the big one on his back, and last of all the little one on his tail. But now it was Charlie who was white—yes, he was white all down the front of his coat!
Then Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie followed Bingo’s little white tracks to where they came from. They wanted to discover what in the world Bingo had been doing to get himself white all over. Yes, they followed the tracks all the way to the kitchen, and there they found the tin of flour lying on the floor near the dresser—and then they knew what Bingo had been doing while they were out.
Oh, how Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie did laugh at the idea of poor, fat, little Bingo trying to climb up on the kitchen dresser, and knocking the tin of flour all over himself! But they were sorry for Bingo, too, because they knew how it must have frightened him.
So Charlie’s Auntie found Bingo’s brush, and she took him out into the back yard and brushed all the rest of the flour off him—all that wasn’t on the carpet or the kitchen floor or on Charlie’s coat! And Charlie’s Mother swept up the flour in the kitchen, and swept the tracks on the living-room carpet, and she gave Charlie a whisk broom to brush off the front of his coat. And then she went to the ice box and got a little bone, and she gave it to Bingo to comfort him.
So Bingo was happy again after all his troubles—but never again did he try to climb up on high pieces of furniture, no matter how perky Topsy looked at him and tried to egg him on. No, Bingo was a wise little dog now, and when Topsy climbed up on the mantelpiece and looked down at him, tossing his head as much as to say, “Don’t you wish you could climb like me?” Bingo would jump in the air and bark, “Yap, yap!” Then he would stand up on his hind legs and beg—and that was one thing that Topsy did not know how to do!
