Raggety’s Education
Where he had come from no one knew but himself. He had all the pretty ways of a pet dog when he came, loved to be petted, could sit on his haunches and beg, give paw, and had the ingratiating ways of a loved and loving comrade. What sort of a home had he left? Why did he leave it voluntarily to follow the Raggedy Man? Was his soul fettered and cramped and did he long for Adventure and the Open Road and,—dare it? When you see what a little dog he is, when you know his liberty-loving spirit, when you realize that he meets change and vicissitude with courage, you feel sure that he comes of good stock. Mary Cholmondley said in one of her books, “Good blood is never cowardly,” and Raggety has good blood.
Three humiliating and exasperating new bonds he learned to endure with me. First, a collar, and a collar with an annoying bell which jingled as he walked and scampered. How he rolled and pushed his head about, and wriggled on his back to get rid of that abominable thing about his neck! Second, he had to learn to walk attached to a leash and that was terrible. I carefully fastened the clip of the leash into the ring of his collar and started, and he refused to use his legs. So for a few steps I dragged him on his little body but that looked and seemed cruel. Then I carried him for a few steps, set him down again, again no legs, and the little body dragged over the dirt of the road. Alas and alack, how long it took before he submitted!—was it days, was it weeks? I have forgotten, but just as he chose to return and stay with me, one fine day he decided that he would walk properly at the end of a leather strap. Now it has come to mean a walk, so he kisses it.
The third thing he had to learn with his new mistress and to which he never in all the years of our friendship has become reconciled is the weekly bath. “Any refuge in a storm,” he seeks the darkest closets and the deepest corners under beds as safe retreats and is only dislodged by coaxing most persuasive and long-continued. How he hates it!
His Love of Travel
Whether his instinctive love of adventure persists, or whether he has the confidence that where I go he too may go in safety, I do not know, but I do know that Raggety really loves to travel, to go, that the excitement of change rouses and amuses him. When bags and trunks are brought out he is very depressed for often they mean separation, a parting from one he loves, and once when a trunk, half-packed, was left standing open, in he got and curled down to sleep, saying quite plainly, “If this goes, pack me in it and take me along.” But when the time comes for departure and he finds he is to go too, his excitement is intense. Capering, jumping, barking, he expresses his joy and rapture.
When going for long visits he takes his bed with him, an open dog-basket inherited from older generations of little pet dogs. He gets into this of his own accord, is lifted into the baggage car, his leash is attached to one of the handles and there he stays. Unless the kindly baggage-men find that he can sit up and “beg,” when he often has the freedom of the car. And the men always report at the end of the journey, “A very good dog, ma’am,” sometimes adding, “and a cute one.” His wide friendliness and gentle manners win him friends on street cars, trains, among any community where he lives. His traveling equipment is such as belongs to any gentlemanly dog. His bed, his mattress, his blanket,—for Royalty ever carry Their Own,—his comb and brush, his washcloth, his soap, his powder (for a chance and vulgar inhabiter), his collars, and his harness (now grown fat in later years, a collar slips over his head and is not safe in traveling). This harness was also an inheritance from a dear little dead girl-dog, of whom you will hear again.
How Raggety Proved Himself a Real Dog
Most men like big dogs, hunting dogs, useful dogs, watch dogs. They don’t understand that idea of a little dog, a dog small enough to take up in your arms and cuddle. A dog that will get up on the lounge beside you, lay his tiny head in your lap, give a comfortable and comforting sigh, and settle himself for a delicious nap next to “Missie Nannie” while she reads or sews. Men don’t have that ache for something little in their arms the way we empty-armed women do. So they don’t care for and love little dogs. And my brother-in-law was one of the most men. Even during the courtship he ventured, when he ought to have been studying to make good impressions, to call Raggety “a silly dog,” “a lollypop.” I know Raggety resented this as much as I did, for he soon showed Brother-in-Law that he was no “lollypop.”
They were tremendously in love, with that beautiful abandon and obliviousness of surroundings which is characteristic of the Divine Passion, and they went to walk that lovely summer afternoon by the ponds and never even saw that Raggety had gone along. He trotted demurely at their lagging heels until the pond was reached, then with a squeal of joy he chased a water-rat, dug deep into its watery hole, emerged panting, triumphant, the rat in his jaws, gloriously black-mud from nose to tail. The oblivious ones were forced to witness the triumph and a mild feeling of respect crept over Brother-in-Law’s indifference. The oblivious ones were also beautifully dressed in fresh and gay-colored clothing as becometh lovers. Having dispatched the rat, Raggety saw their awakened interest and pleasure and running gaily to them shook violently, depositing all the black mud and water possible upon that gay clothing, and frisked about as much as to say, “Now, will you ever call me a silly dog again?”