“Yes, sir,” says Jack, ignoring my remark, “that Squint has turned into some kid, believe me! And the first time I saw him he was a sight. It was about dusk, one summer afternoon three years ago, and he was sitting down in the grass by the side of the road six or seven miles from town, crying and talking to himself. I sat down a little way off and listened. He had run away from home, and I didn't blame him any, either. Besides the curls and shoes and stockings I have mentioned, there were other persecutions. He never went fishing, for instance, unless his father took him. He didn't dast to play marbles for keeps. They wouldn't let him have a Flobert rifle, nor even a nigger shooter. There were certain kids he wasn't allowed to play with—they were too common and dirty for him, his folks said. So he had run off to go with a circus. He had hacked off his Fauntleroy curls before he started only he hadn't got 'em very even; but he had forgot to inquire which way to go to find a circus. He'd walked and walked, and the nearest thing to a circus he had found was a gipsy outfit, and he had got scared of an old man with brass rings in his ears, and run, and run, and run. He'd slung his shoes and stockings away when he started because he hated 'em so, and now he had a stone bruise, and he was lost besides. And it was getting dark.
“Well, I felt sorry for that boy. I sat there and watched him, and the idea came to me that it would be a Christian act to adopt him. He wasn't a sissy at heart—he had good stuff in him, or he wouldn't have run away. Besides, I wanted a change; I'd been working for a farmer, and I was pretty sick of that.”
“It's no life for a dog with any sporting instinct,” I said, “farm life isn't. I've tried it. They keep you so infernally busy with their cows and sheep and things; and I knew one farm dog that had to churn twice a week. They stuck him in a treadmill and made him.”
“A farm's no worse than living in a city,” said Mutt Mulligan. “A city dog ain't a real dog; he's either an outcast under suspicion of the police, or a mama's pet with ribbons tied around his neck.”
“You can't tell me,” says Jack. “I know. A country town with plenty of boys in it, and a creek or river near by, is the only place for a dog. Well, as I was saying, I felt sorry for Percival, and we made friends. Pretty soon a man that knew him came by in a buggy, going to town. He was a doctor, and he stopped and asked Percival if he wasn't pretty far from home. Percival told him he'd left home for good and for all; but he sniffled when he said it, and the doctor put him into his buggy and drove him to town. I drilled along behind. It had been dark quite a while when we got home, and Percival's folks were scared half to death. His mother had some extra hysterics when she saw his hair.
“'Where on earth did you get that ornery-looking yellow mongrel?' says Percival's father when he caught sight of me.
“'That's my dog,' says Percival. 'I'm going to keep him.'
“'I won't have him around,' says his mother.
“But Percival spunked up and said he'd keep me, and he'd get his hair shingled tight to his head, or else the next time he ran away he'd make a go of it. He got a licking for that remark, but they were so glad to get him back they let him keep me. And from that time on Percival began to get some independence about him. He ain't Percival now; he's Squint.”
It's true that a dog can help a lot in a boy's education. And I'm proud of what I've done for Freckles. I will always remember 'one awful time I had with him, though. I didn't think he'd ever pull through it. All of a sudden he got melancholy—out of sorts and dreamy. I couldn't figure out what was the matter with him at first. But I watched him close, and finally I found out he was in love. He was feeling the disgrace of being in love pretty hard, too; but he was trying not to show it. The worst part of it was, he was in love with his school-teacher. She was a Miss Jones, and an old woman—twenty-two or twenty-three years old, she was.