“Well,” said Ben Grevis, “that is a sad story. But I don't know as you're sadder, at that, than the Widder Watson is.”
The stranger spat colourfully into the road, and again the faint semblance of a smile, a bitter smile, wreathed itself about his mouth.
“Yes, I be!” he said, “I be a sadder person than the Widder Watson. It was her I married!”
DOGS AND BOYS (As told by the dog)
If you are a dog of any sense, you will pick you out a pretty good sort of a boy and stick to him. These dogs that are always adopting one boy after another get a bad name among the humans in the end. And you'd better keep in with the humans, especially the grown-up ones. Getting your scraps off a plate at the back door two or three times a day beats hunting rabbits and ground-squirrels for a living.
What a dog wants is a boy anywhere from about nine to about sixteen years old. A boy under nine hasn't enough sense, as a rule, to be any company for an intelligent dog. And along about sixteen they begin to dress up and try to run with the girls, and carry on in a 'way to make a dog tired. There are exceptions of course—one of the worst mistakes some dogs make is to suppose that all boys are alike. That isn't true; you'll find just as much individuality among boys as there is among us dogs, if you're patient enough to look for it and have a knack for making friends with animals. But you must remember to be kind to a boy if you're going to teach him anything; and you must be careful not to frighten him.
At the same time, you must keep a boy in his place at once. My boy—Freckles Watson is his name—understands just how far he can go with me. But some dogs have to give their boys a lesson now and then. Jack Thompson, who is a fine, big, good-natured dog, has a boy like that. The boy's name is Squint—Squint Thompson, he is—and he gets a little overbearing at times. I remember one Saturday afternoon last summer in particular. There were a lot of us dogs and boys fooling around up at Clayton's swimming-hole, including some stray boys with no dogs to look after them, when Squint began to show off by throwing sticks into the water and making Jack swim in and get 'em. Jack didn't mind that, but after a while he got pretty tired and flopped down on the grass, and wouldn't budge.
“Grab him by the tail and the scruff of the neck, and pitch him in, Squint,” says my boy, Freckles. “It's a lot of fun to duck a dog.”