Queer little people

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Of all beautiful shapes in dog form, never was there one more perfect than this. His hair shone like spun glass, and his skin was as fine and pink as that of a baby; his paws and ears were translucent like fine china, and he had great, soft, tremulous dark eyes; his every movement seemed more graceful than the last. Whether running or leaping, or sitting in graceful attitudes on the parlor table among the ladies’ embroidery-frames, with a great rose-colored bow under his throat, he was alike a thing of beauty, and his beauty alone won all hearts to him.

When the papa first learned that a third dog had been introduced into the household, his patience gave way. The thing was getting desperate; we were being overrun with dogs; our house was no more a house, but a kennel; it ought to be called Cunopolis,—a city of dogs; he could not and would not have it so; but papa, like most other indulgent old gentlemen, was soon reconciled to the children’s pets. In fact, Giglio was found cowering under the bed-clothes at the Professor’s feet not two mornings after his arrival, and the good gentleman descended with him in his arms to breakfast, talking to him in the most devoted manner:—“Poor little Giglio, was he cold last night? and did he want to get into papa’s bed? he should be brought down stairs, that he should”;—all which, addressed to a young rascal whose sinews were all like steel, and who could have jumped from the top stair to the bottom like a feather, was sufficiently amusing.

Giglio’s singular beauty and grace were his only merits; he had no love nor power of loving; he liked to be petted and kept warm, but it mattered nothing to him who did it. He was as ready to run off with a stranger as with his very best friend,—would follow any whistle or any caller,—was, in fact, such a gay rover, that we came very near losing him many times; and more than once he was brought back from the Boston cars, on board which he had followed a stranger. He also had, we grieve to say, very careless habits; and after being washed white as snow, and adorned with choice rose-colored ribbons, would be brought back soiled and ill-smelling from a neighbor’s livery-stable, where he had been indulging in low society. For all that, he was very lordly and aristocratic in his airs with poor Stromion, who was a dog with a good, loving heart, if he was black and homely. Stromion admired Giglio with the most evident devotion; he would always get up to give him the warm corner, and would sit humbly in the distance and gaze on him with most longing admiration,—for all of which my fine gentleman rewarded him only with an occasional snarl or a nip, as he went by him. Sometimes Giglio would condescend to have a romp with Stromion for the sake of passing the time, and then Stromion would be perfectly delighted, and frisk and roll his clumsy body over the carpet with his graceful antagonist, all whose motions were a study for an artist. When Giglio was tired of play, he would give Stromion a nip that would send him yelping from the field; and then he would tick, tick gracefully away to some embroidered ottoman forbidden to all but himself, where he would sit graceful and classical as some Etruscan vase, and look down superior on the humble companion who looked up to him with respectful admiration.

Giglio knew his own good points, and was possessed with the very spirit of a coquette. He would sometimes obstinately refuse the caresses and offered lap of his mistresses, and seek to ingratiate himself with some stolid theological visitor, for no other earthly purpose that we could see than that he was determined to make himself the object of attention. We have seen him persist in jumping time and again on the hard, bony knees of some man who hated dogs, and did not mean to notice him, until he won attention and caresses, when immediately he would spring down and tick away perfectly contented. He assumed lofty, fine-gentleman airs with Prince also, for which sometimes he got his reward,—for Prince, the old, remembered that he was a dog of blood, and would not take any nonsense from him.

Like many old dogs, Prince had a very powerful doggy smell, which was a great personal objection to him, and Giglio was always in a civil way making reflections upon this weak point. Prince was fond of indulging himself with an afternoon nap on the door-mat, and sometimes when he rose from his repose, Giglio would spring gracefully from the table where he had been overlooking him, and, picking his way daintily to the mat, would snuff at it, with his long, thin nose, with an air of extreme disgust. It was evidently a dog insult, done according to the politest modes of refined society, and said as plain as words could say,—“My dear sir, excuse me, but can you tell what makes this peculiar smell where you have been lying?” At any rate, Prince understood the sarcasm, for a deep angry growl and a sharp nip would now and then teach my fine gentleman to mind his own business.

Giglio’s lot at last was to travel in foreign lands, for his young mistresses, being sent to school in Paris, took him with them to finish his education and acquire foreign graces. He was smuggled on board the Fulton, and placed in an upper berth, well wrapped in a blanket; and the last we saw of him was his long, thin Italian nose, and dark, tremulous eyes looking wistfully at us from the folds of the flannel in which he shivered. Sensitiveness to cold was one of his great peculiarities. In winter he wore little blankets, which his fond mistresses made with anxious care, and on which his initials were embroidered with their own hands. In the winter weather on Zion Hill he was often severely put to it to gratify his love of roving in the cold snows; he would hold up first one leg, and then the other, and contrive to get along on three, so as to save himself as much as possible; and more than once he caught severe colds, requiring careful nursing and medical treatment to bring him round again.

The Fulton sailed early in March. It was chilly, stormy weather, so that the passengers all suffered somewhat with cold, and Master Giglio was glad to lie rolled in his blanket, looking like a sea-sick gentleman. The captain very generously allowed him a free passage, and in pleasant weather he used to promenade the deck, where his beauty won for him caresses and attentions innumerable. The stewards and cooks always had choice morsels for him, and fed him to such a degree as would have spoiled any other dog’s figure; but his could not be spoiled. All the ladies vied with each other in seeking his good graces, and after dinner he pattered from one to another, to be fed with sweet things and confectionery, and hear his own praises, like a gay buck of fashion as he was.

Landed in Paris, he met a warm reception at the Pension of Madame B⸺; but ambition filled his breast. He was in the great, gay city of Paris, the place where a handsome dog has but to appear to make his fortune, and so Giglio resolved to seek out for himself a more brilliant destiny.