That was enough to excite the passers-by, who had read in the papers various accounts of supposed cases of rabies. “He is weak,” said one person, “and he totters.” “He is frothing at the mouth,” said another. A boot-black ran after him and threw his box at the thoroughly frightened animal. A crowd gathered, and ran and shouted. “Shoot him! Shoot him!” was the eager cry.
Douglas did indeed froth at the mouth from excessive running. A lady hurried along and said, “Let me have the dog. He is not mad, but has lost his owner. Frothing at the mouth is not a sign of hydrophobia, as the best physicians will tell you.”
“No, madam,” said a looker-on. “Don’t touch the dog. We men will not allow you to be bitten.”
A policeman fired his pistol, and the ball entered Douglas’s shoulder. Half dead with pain as well as fright, the dog rushed on and finally escaped.
He lay in his hiding-place till midnight, and then when no human eye could see him he crept away from the city. If only Miss Benson could see him now, and dress his wounds, and say the petting words of old that he had so loved to hear!
Towards morning, exhausted, he lay down by the fence in the front yard of a house in the outskirts of the city. The owner of the home was a lawyer, a kind-hearted man, in part because he had a noble mother and wife.
“There’s a poor wounded dog on our lawn, Jeannette,” Mr. Goodman said to his wife. “Call him in at the back door, and we’ll see if we can’t help him.”
Mrs. Goodman took a basin of warm water and castile soap and carefully washed the wound, the children standing about and anxiously watching the operation. “Nice dog,” said Teddy, a boy of five. “He no bite.”
“No,” said his mother, as Douglas looked pitifully up into her face. “He is a kind dog, and must belong to a good home somewhere.”
After she had finished washing the sore and tender place Douglas licked her hand in appreciation. “Have Dr. Thayer come in,”—he was the veterinary surgeon,—said Mrs. Goodman to her husband. “We might as well make the care of animals a part of our missionary work in the world. The doctor will find the ball, if it is still there, and save the dog, I hope.”