CHAPTER XI
BILLIE SUNDAE BEGINS THE STORY OF HER LIFE
WELL,” said Billie, “my name used to be Tina when I was a puppy, and the first thing I can remember is a kick that landed me in the middle of the floor.
“I must have had many kicks before, and I had many after, but I remember that one because I was too small and short-legged to climb back into bed. I had to spend the night on the floor, and as it was winter the occurrence was stamped on my puppy brain.
“I slept with some Italian children who belonged to a man called Antonio and his wife, Angelina. They lived in a tiny house in the Bronx neighborhood in New York. They were rather kind people in their way, except when they flew in a rage. Then the woman would chase me with her broom and the man would kick me. I am rather a stupid little dog, and
timid too, and I used to get in their way.
“The children mauled me, but I liked them, for whenever they tumbled down to sleep anywhere, whether it was on the floor or on their queer, rickety bed heaped high with old clothes and torn blankets, I was allowed to snuggle up to them and keep warm.
“Antonio, the father of the family, used to get his living by digging drains in the new roads they were making about New York, and when he came home at night, he would feel my sides, and if I seemed very hollow, he would say to his wife, ‘A bit of bread for the creature,’ and if I seemed fat, he would say, ‘She needs nothing. Give the food to the little ones.’
“You can imagine that this treatment made me get my own living. I had to spend a great deal of time every day in running from one back yard to another, to see if I could pick up scraps from the old boxes and barrels in which the Italians in the neighborhood used to put their rubbish, for they did not have nice shiny trash cans, like rich people.
“Other dogs got their living in the same way I did, and as I am no fighter, I had to work pretty hard to get enough to eat.