The Story My Doggie Told to Me

by Ralph Henry Barbour

After a bit I heard Alfred shout and then Mother barked and the Baby began to cry and I knew just what had happened. I went back to the house and sat on the lawn and waited, and pretty soon they came back looking very sorrowful. The Baby had fallen down in the swamp and she was covered with black mud from head to toes. Alfred was leading her with one hand and trying to wipe off the mud with the other, and Freya, who never knows when she isn’t wanted, was getting in the way and barking and acting perfectly stupid. Father and Mother stayed behind, trying to look as if nothing much had happened. When they all passed me I just looked at them without a word and I can tell you they felt silly! The Mistress saw them from a window and came hurrying out to meet them, and Alfred’s mother came out, too.

“Oh, Mildred, what have you done?” cried the Mistress. “Just see that nice clean dress I put on you not half an hour ago!”

“She—she fell down in the mud over there,” said Alfred. “We—we were hunting Indians.”

Did you ever hear anything so foolish? Just as though there were any Indians around there! Even if there had been Freya and I would soon have scared them away. Well, the Mistress led the Baby into the house and Alfred’s mother said: “Alfred, come with me, please,” and Alfred said “Yes’m,” in a voice that seemed to come from his shoes. Father and Mother went down to the stable in a hurry and Freya came over and sat down beside me.

“A nice thing you did,” I said.

“It wasn’t my fault,” said Freya with a whine.

“You should have watched out for the Baby,” I said sternly. “You’ll catch it when the Mistress finds you.”

So Freya suddenly remembered that she had left a bone behind the stable and trotted off after it, looking back now and then at the front door. Presently Alfred came out all alone. He had one arm over his eyes, but he couldn’t fool me. I knew he was crying. I guess his mother had whipped him, or maybe just scolded him, for letting the Baby fall in the mud. He didn’t see me and he went around the house and sat down on the back door-step and sniffled. I followed him. If you don’t like a person you enjoy seeing them cry. At least, you ought to, I think. But Alfred kept on crying kind of softly, just as though his heart was broken, and I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to go away and leave him there, but—but somehow I couldn’t do that either.

So after a bit I crept over to him and got up on the step beside him and licked his face. He peeked out and saw it was me and was so surprised that he forgot to cry for a minute. Then he put his arm around me and I licked his face some more and—and, oh, well, after that we liked each other a lot.

Mother said afterwards that it was just jealousy that had kept me away, and I guess it was. Alfred stayed a whole week after that and [we had some fine times together]. When he went back to the City I missed him a great deal. The place seemed very lonely. I think I missed him almost as much as the Baby did, and the Baby cried all one day. I tried my best to comfort her and I licked her nose and her cheeks and her ears, but it didn’t do much good. She kept right on saying that she wanted her “booful A’fed.” The Mistress told her that she would see him again very soon because they were all going to the City to stay a long, long time. But that didn’t help me any, because I was quite sure they wouldn’t take me.