Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier

by Frances Trego Montgomery

The children ran after it, screaming with laughter, but when they caught up to the rolling ball and discovered their well-known, mischievous Zip rolled up so tight he was helpless, they clapped their hands with delight. He looked so crestfallen and funny that they forgave him on the spot for the loss of their candy. How they did shout with laughter as they were trying to get the candy off him!

"I know the best way to get the sticky stuff off," said Helen Hardway, the little girl who was giving the party. "Let's put him in the bath tub and soak it off."

"Just the very thing!" one of the boys replied. "Wait till I get something to wrap him in so I won't get all stuck up with the candy."

On hearing this, Zip began to struggle and squirm, for he had visions of hot water and soapsuds in his eyes, with each one of the children feeling it was their duty to give him an extra scrub.

"Here, you Zip, keep still, or you'll slip out of the apron you're wrapped in and get my best suit all sticky," called the little boy who held him in his arms and was carrying him up to the bathroom.

By squeezing him tightly, the boy managed to get him to the room and was just about to drop him in the tub from the apron when he discovered that the apron was sticking to the candy. One of the boys gave it a jerk to loosen it, but sad to relate, he gave too vigorous a pull and Zip dropped from the boy's arms, not into the tub, but at one side and by a mighty effort he gave himself two rolls which brought him to the head of the stairs. Another roll sent him tumbling bumpety-bump down the long flight that led to the kitchen. On the way he hit a hamper of clothes on the landing, and it joined him and went bumpety-bump, bangety-bang to the bottom and out into the kitchen, hitting the waitress who was carrying a tray of glasses filled with fruit lemonade to the little guests in the parlors who had not joined in the dog hunt.

The sudden appearance of a hamper apparently on legs coming toward her, surprised her, but nothing like the queer thing that was rolling about her feet, and which she could not see for the big tray in her hands. She could not seem to escape it, and finally she stumbled and fell, sending the glasses of delicious lemonade flying in all directions.

Hearing a noise on the back stairs, as if the house was falling, Mrs. Hardway went to see what the trouble was, and opened the kitchen door just in time to receive a full glass of lemonade squarely on the chest.

When the waitress stumbled, she fell on Zip, pinning him under her. In his roll down the stairs, he had lost some of the candy, so that now his mouth and nose were free, though he was minus a tooth and several of his long smeller whiskers. Now he began to howl as if being killed. This brought more of the guests to the spot, and you would have laughed could you have seen their faces when first they peered into the kitchen, which looked as if a cyclone had struck it.

A few feet from the door was the maid, sitting with limbs outspread, too dazed to move, while from under the corner of her skirt rolled a big, sticky ball of some kind that howled as it rolled. Beyond him was an overturned hamper of soiled clothes, with stockings, collars, sheets and petticoats spilling out of it. At the other end of the room stood Mrs. Hardway, wiping the lemonade off her dress, while all over the place were slices of lemon and pieces of fruit and Maraschino cherries. When all the children came from upstairs, they told Mrs. Hardway how it had all come about from Zip getting in their candy and their trying to wash it off his coat.