Pierrot, Dog of Belgium

by Walter A. Dyer

They were sober, industrious, thrifty folk, the Van Huyks, and prosperous among their neighbours. In Belgium a peasant is always a peasant, and there is a wide gulf fixed between the rich and the poor, but Père Jean owned his little dairy farm six miles out from Brussels on the Waterloo Road, beyond the Forest of Soignies, and they were very comfortable and happy.

It was a pleasant country, with green pastures and meadows, nodding wheat and rye fields, and trim, orderly market gardens on every hand, and with straight, smooth, hard roads all leading to town between tall rows of poplar trees. Père Jean tilled the little farm and he and Gran’père milked the cows and made the cheese, while Mère Marie took the milk in to Brussels every morning in big brass and copper cans which she kept very clean and shiny.

Farther back from the city, where the farms were poorer and the market not so near, the peasants wore rough smocks and clumsy wooden shoes and lived mostly on coarse rye bread and bacon and potatoes, with milk and rice and dried herring on Fridays. But Père Jean and Mère Marie always wore leather shoes when they went to town, and only the children clumped around in yellow sabots to save their Sunday shoes, and Gran’père because he preferred them.

Mère Marie was a plump, fresh-faced young woman with a beautiful, heavy crown of golden brown hair which was always neatly dressed, no matter how much of a hurry she was in. She went bareheaded, winter and summer, except when it rained; then she drew her shawl over her head. She wore a trim short skirt and a clean white apron.

On Sundays the family went regularly to mass, dressed in their finest clothes, and then feasted on hare and eggs and butter and cheese and many kinds of vegetables. In the afternoon Père Jean took his cornet and went to practise with the band, and sometimes he took Henri with him. It was a wonderful band, for all Belgians love to make music, and little Henri could hardly wait for the time when his father would teach him to play, too. But when the band played the martial music, ah, then little Henri’s bosom swelled almost to bursting, and he determined to be a soldier when he grew up. That would be grand, indeed! But Père Jean only smiled and told him that being a soldier wasn’t all bands and fine uniforms.

Some of the peasants used dogs to harrow and cultivate their vegetable gardens, but Père Jean owned a big black horse named Medard, so that Luppe’s only duty was to draw the milk-cart and to bark at night if strangers approached. When Pierrot grew old enough Luppe taught him to wake up and bark at strange noises and to keep quiet at other times, for a good watchdog does not waste his breath on the moon. When the huntsmen rode by with their chiens de chasse Pierrot would become very much excited and wanted to follow them, but Luppe explained to him that their vocation was a very foolish and frivolous one, and beneath the dignity of a chien de trait, though Luppe himself would often lose his head over the warm scent of a hare, or even of a rat or mole.

Old Luppe was, as you see, a very wise and experienced dog. He knew all the roads like a book and most of the streets of Brussels. He knew how to bring his cart safely across crowded thoroughfares without guidance, and to stop without instructions before the houses of Mère Marie’s customers in the city. Also he knew how to pull his load with the least possible expenditure of strength and wind, and to lie down and rest in his harness whenever he stopped for a minute.

All these things he would one day teach to Pierrot, but meanwhile the puppy’s education was chiefly in the fundamentals. When Luppe was away on his business Pierrot would romp and play for hours with the children, and as his first teeth dropped out and his second set came, white and strong, he learned just how hard it is fitting to bite a soft hand or plump ankle in play or in love. Sometimes he would follow Père Jean and Gran’père about the farm or dairy, and they taught him to come at a call and to lie down and wait until he was wanted. This was a very hard lesson to master, you may believe. Also it was hard to learn that Sunday shoes are not meant to be chewed like a broth bone.

So Pierrot lived happily through his baby days on the dairy farm on the Waterloo Road. There was plenty of skim milk and other things for him to eat, and after he had overcome a slight predisposition to colic he began to grow very fast. His feet persisted in keeping ahead of him in growth, and he was still awkward when he ran fast, but his bones were getting big and strong and he was growing solid and heavy. As the cold weather came on his bark grew deeper and less squeaky and the stiff hairs began to show through the soft puppy coat. Pierrot was fast growing into a fine big dog, black and white with spots of tan above his eyes and on his muzzle and forelegs.