I don’t think there is any danger of George Washington ever killing any one. He is the fattest, sweetest, dearest specimen of a boy baby I ever saw. He has no temper, as cute little Cyria has. He jabbers baby-talk, and plays with us dogs, and never hurts one of us.
I heard master say the other day that he had no liking for a man who never changes his opinion, and I believe that saying is true with regard to dogs as well as men. I never used to like babies. Why? I never cultivated them. I love them now, because I study them, and it is one of the pleasures of my life to note the astonishing developments and differences, between the rapidly growing and changing Cyria, and little George.
Sometimes they bother me, but who has not trouble? A dog that dreams through life, lives in a back yard away out of sight, nobody notices or cares for. You’re bound to have a scrap occasionally, if you come out to the light.
I never liked living in a back yard, but I used to run like a greyhound from disagreeable things, and seek pleasant ones, and it kept me always on the jump. Now I have made up my mind to stay by this family, no matter what happens to them. There is great happiness in an accepted family. I notice some human beings are always trying to get away from their home environment, and many times it is with them as it is with me—it keeps them on the trot all the time.
I don’t want any one to think that I imagine I have become a perfect dog. Good gracious, no! I am just a good, plain, American every-day sort of a dog. I have no illusions about myself, or my owners. I want to do my duty in the dog walk of life to which I am called. I’ll go round a block to attend to my business and avoid a fight, but if trouble meets me the other side of the block, I’ll not dodge it, but I’ll grip it by the throat and try to down it. If it downs me, I’ll get up and shake myself, and hope for better luck next time. To keep myself humble, I often say, “Great Cerberus! what a fool I am, but still not half so much of a fool as I used to be.”
Another most important opinion I’ve changed, is that the city is a better place to live in than the country. How could I ever have made such a mistake? I’m a country dog, now and forevermore, and all my dog set has gone over with me. The country to live in—the city to visit.
You ought to hear old Gringo on the subject. “’Pon my word, Boy,” he often says when we gossip together, “I never dreamed that an old Bowery dog would get so stuck on green grass and blue sky.”
The Bonstones live right under a long and beautiful eminence called Green Hill. Their big, bare house spreads out like a barn under the hill slope. They haven’t one thing in that house they could do without. They have no carpets nor stuffed furniture, no draperies at windows, just plain shades, and their floors are of some smooth, shiny tiles that can be flooded with a hose, and the water runs down and waters window boxes on the floor below. They haven’t a table cloth in the house, but they have lovely things to eat on tables of finely polished wood, and they have plenty of big, soft cushions and comfortable wicker chairs, and many floor rugs that can be lifted easily and taken out-of-doors.
It’s the most sanitary house I ever saw, and Mrs. Bonstone says it reminds her of a hospital. However, she does not complain. She says that a little while after she was married, when she found her husband wanted to come to the country, she said, “It’s the man’s right to choose the place of domicile, and here’s one woman that will let her man go further than that, for he may build the house, and furnish it too.”
Everybody says it is an ugly house, and yet I notice everybody likes to visit it, and sit by the big jolly fires in winter, or loll on the spacious verandas in summer, and partake of the fine meals that are served in the dining-room.