“Jim and me used to sit around the store up there on the corner, when we hadn’t nothing to do. The storekeeper had a dog, a little ornery cross between one cur and another cur, that hadn’t no more real, genuine dog blood into him than a sea-turtle. He was a monstrous proud dog though, and used to sit up in a chair and look as serious as a country gal at another gal’s wedding. When he had eat a good dinner and was a digesting it, he was pretty good natured; but if he was hungry, or had been kicked, or another dog had licked him, he wouldn’t allow no familiarity, not even if ’twas the Emperor of China that spoke to him. He had a funny way, too, that if anybody fetched him round the tail, or sides, or back, he wouldn’t bite that feller, but he would bite the man that was nearest to his mouth. For instance, you and me might be a setting here, and Spot—that was what they called the dog—Spot might be laying down atween us, with his head towards me and his tail towards you. Now, if you put your foot down on Spot’s tail, that confounded dog would let me have it right in the leg, and the more you put your foot down, the more he’d let his teeth into me, until they met. Lots of the fellers has been chawed by Spot, and the fun of it was, that them which was worst chawed was the ones that hadn’t fetched him.
“They got a new parson here once, and one day, when Jim and me was in the store, the parson happened along, and come in too.
“‘Fine morning,’ says he to us and the storekeeper, and of course we said ‘fine morning’ to him. He was a meek sort of chap, with a face like a plateful of mashed turnips, and he talked as if he thought divine Providence was easy of hearing, and could understand him if he didn’t speak much above a whisper.
“The parson talked round a while, and finally he happened to see Spot, who was a setting up in a chair with his tail sticking out between the rounds, and looking as if he was just going to Sunday school, and was a saying his lesson over to hisself.
“‘Ah, fine dog that,’ says the parson to the storekeeper. ‘Pears to look very gentle, and very intelligent too.’
“The storekeeper just then had his back turned, and we didn’t say nothing. The parson patted Spot on the head, and said, ‘Good doggie, good doggie.’ Spot was getting ready for a growl, and began to peel his ivories like the ripping up of an old shoe. The parson didn’t notice it, and kept on patting him, and said he could always make friends with any dog that he met.
HOW THE PARSON WAS BITTEN.
“Jim was a sitting next to Spot, and reached out on the sly, and pinched the critter’s tail. Spot made one grab for the parson’s wrist, and hung on like a locomotive pulling a freight train. The parson jumped around, howling worse than a coyote, and his mouth was as narrow as a hole in a cast iron letter box. Bimeby the dog dropped off, and the parson went out of the door and off for home, as if he’d just had a call to marry a rich couple that couldn’t wait. Jim and me laughed, but the storekeeper was mad, because he was afraid he’d lost the parson’s custom. So he talked rough to us and drove us off, and we haven’t been there since.
“Jim and me was over to Hampton one time, and loafing around a week or so among the boys. There was a gal at Hampton, mighty smart gal she was, and used to sing in meeting Sundays until you’d think she’d lift the roof of the meeting-house. Some of the young fellers was trying to shine up to her, but she shook ’em all off, and went sweet on a galoot that was keeping school over in the next town. He used to come to see her every week, and he always come on horseback. The Hampton boy’s sort of hated him, because he was a cutting them out, and so they used to rig up jokes on him sometimes. They’d tie the door of the house where him and his gal was, and once they took a big box and put it up agin the door, so that when he walked out of the house he walked into the box, just as though it was a front porch. They hid his saddle once, and made him ride home bare-back; and the folks where he kept school said he didn’t sit down much for three or four days afterwards.