The Dogs of Boytown

by Walter A. Dyer

Mrs. Whipple was in a good humor that Christmas morning, and she really wanted her boys to be happy all day, so although she added one admonition to another, she allowed the boys to play with the puppies in the sitting-room. They would have to part with them soon enough, she thought, and meanwhile they might as well have as much fun as they could.

But as the day wore on her good nature and kind intentions were sorely tried. Romulus and Remus appeared to think that the house was some sort of hunting ground especially provided for little dogs, and that it was their duty to pursue, worry, and kill every sort of strange creature they could find. Evidently they were imaginative puppies, for they discovered enemies in overlooked corners of the room, on closet floors, and everywhere. These enemies might be the discarded paper wrappings of Christmas presents, or they might be perfectly good balls of darning cotton. It mattered not to Romulus and Remus so long as their primitive impulse to catch and slay was satisfied. They were very bloodthirsty little dogs.

But it ceased to be a joke, even to the boys, when Mrs. Whipple, for awhile put off her guard by a period of unusual quiet, discovered Romulus and Remus engaged in the joint pastime of reducing to small woolly bits a new gray felt slipper which she herself had presented to her husband that very morning. Hastily she cleared out the bottom of a closet, thrust the puppies inside, and ruthlessly closed the door, deaf alike to the piteous little squeaky whines of Romulus and Remus and the louder protests of Ernest and Jack.

"Now you see what they've done!" cried Mrs. Whipple, holding up the forlorn and tattered remnants of the slipper. "I guess this will about finish it. Wait till your father comes home."

Mr. Whipple had gone out for a little while that afternoon, and the boys awaited his return without much optimism. When his key was at last heard in the latch they looked at each other with eyes big with apprehension.

Somebody had given Mr. Whipple a big cigar, and a lot of people had wished him Merry Christmas, and he was in a very jovial mood indeed. Mrs. Whipple and the boys expected to see this mood suddenly change when he observed the ruined slipper.

Mrs. Whipple handed it to him without a word. He took it, examined it carefully with a puzzled expression, and then (strange to relate) began to grin. (I wonder if the fact that Mr. Whipple detested felt slippers could have had anything to do with it.)

The grin broke into a hearty laugh, and Mr. Whipple sank into a chair, still holding the slipper before him.

"Well," said he, "they certainly made this look like a last year's bird's nest. My eye! I should like to have seen them at it. The little rascals! How did they ever escape your eagle eye, mother?"

But Mrs. Whipple did not reply. Two red spots glowed in her cheeks and her eyes were snapping. She turned and left the room. Mr. Whipple puffed thoughtfully at his cigar for a moment and then rose and followed her, leaving the boys to engage in whispered conjectures as to the outcome of the affair.