The House of All Sorts (16 page)

ONLY ONCE DID I
come upon a Bobbie who was a near-fool; he was a dog I bought because of his registration, for I went on coveting registration for my dogs. Lorenzo was advertised: “A magnificent specimen of the noble breed—registered name—‘Lorenzo.'” He was impressive enough on paper; in the flesh he was a scraggy, muddle-coloured, sparse-coated creature, with none of the massive, lumbering shagginess of the true Bobbie. His papers apparently were all right. His owner described the dog as “an ornament to any
gentleman's
heel.” I wanted dignity of registration for my kennels, not ornament for my heels.

Lorenzo had acquired an elegant high-stepping gait in place of the Bobtail shamble, also a pernickety appetite. He scorned my wholesome kennel fare, toothing out dainties and leaving the grosser portions to be finished by the other dogs.

Lorenzo was mine for only a short time. I had a letter asking for a dog of his type from a man very much the type of Lorenzo's former owner. The letter said, “I have a fancy for adding an Old Country note to my Canadian farm in the shape of an Old English Bobtail sheep-dog. I have no stock to work, but the dog must be a good heeler—registration
absolutely necessary
.”

High-stepping Lorenzo was in tune with spats and a monocle, was registered and a good heeler. I told the man I had better-type dogs unregistered, but a check came by return emphatically stating that Lorenzo was the dog for him.

Lorenzo's buyer declared himself completely satisfied with foolish, high-stepping, bad-typed Lorenzo—Lorenzo was registered.

THE EARTH WAS
fairly peppered with David Harbin's cousins. No matter what part of the world was mentioned David said,“I have a cousin out there.” David was a London lawyer. During law vacation he visited cousins all over the world. He always came to see me when visiting Canadian cousins.

David and I were sitting on my garden bench talking. David said, “My last visit (to a Canadian cousin) has left me very sad. Cousin Allan and I were brought up together; his parents died and my mother took Allan. He was a deaf-mute. His dumbness did not seem to matter when we were boys. We used dumb language and were jolly. When Allan had to face life, to take his dumbness out into the world, that was different—he bought a ranch in Canada, a far-off, isolated ranch. Now he is doubly solitary, surrounded by empty space as well as dead silence.”

While David talked a mother Bobtail came and laid her chin on his knee. His hand strayed to her head but he did not look at her. His seeing was not in the garden; it was back on the lonely ranch with dumb Allan. The dog sensed trouble in David's voice, in his touch she felt sadness. She leapt, licked his face! David started.

“Down, Sissy,” I called.

But David shouted, “Dog,
you're
the solution. Is she for sale?” “Sissy,” I said, “was intended for a kennel matron. But she was temperamental over her first litter, did not mother them well. She will do better next time perhaps, unless…”

I caught David's eye…

“Unless I send her over to mother dumb Allan!”

David fairly danced from my garden, he was so happy in his solution for Allan's loneliness.

From England he wrote, “Allan's letters have completely changed, despondency gone from them. Bless Bobtails!—Sissy did it.”

IN THE PUBLIC MARKET
the butcher's scale banged down with a clank. The butcher grinned first at the pointer, then at me. The meat on the scale was worth far more than I was paying.

“Bobtails,” murmured the butcher caressingly—“Bobtails is good dogs!…'Member the little 'un I bought from your kennel a year back?”

“I do. Hope she turned out well—good worker?”

“Good worker! You bet. More sick nurse than cattle driver. Our Min's fine! Y'see, Missus be bed-fast. Market days she'd lay there, sun-up to sun-down, alone. I got Min; then she wan't alone no more; Min took hold. Market days Min minds wife, Min minds farm, Min keeps pigs out of potatoes, Min guards sheep from cougars, Min shoos coon from hen-house—Min, Min, Min. Min runs the whole works, Min do!”

He leaned a heavy arm across the scale, enraging its spring. He wagged an impressive forefinger and said, “Females understands females.” Nod, nod, another nod. “Times there's no easin' the frets of Missus. Them times I off's to barn. ‘Min,' I sez, ‘you stay,' an' Min stays. Dogs be powerful understandin'.”

He handed me the heavy parcel and gave yet another nod.

“FIDO'S CHOP, BUTCHER!”

The voice was overbearing and tart; then it crooned down to the yapping, blanketed, wriggling “Pom” under her arm, “Oo's chopsie is coming, ducksie!”

The butcher slammed a meagre chop on to the scale, gathered up the corners of the paper, snapped the string, flung the package over the counter, tossed the coin into his cash box—then fell to sharpening knives furiously.

THE DOGS AND I
were absorbing sultry calm under the big maple tree in their play-field. They sprawled on the parched grass, not awake enough to seek trouble, not asleep enough to be unaware of the slightest happening.

A most extraordinary noise was happening, a metallic gurgle that rasped in even-spaced screeches. The noise stopped at our gate; every dog made a dash. Punk and Loo, who had been sitting on top of the low kennel against which I rested, leaped over my head to join the pack. The fence of their field angled the front gate. A weary woman shoved the gate open with the front wheels of the pram she pushed. A squeal or two and the noise stopped.

The woman drove the baby-carriage into the shade of the hawthorn tree and herself slumped on to the bench just inside my gate. Her head bobbed forward; she was so asleep that even the dogs' barking in her ear and pushing her hat over one eye, pawing and sniffing over the fence against which the bench backed, did not wake her. For a few seconds her hand went on jogging the pram, then dropped to her side like a weighted bag. I called the dogs back and every soul of us drowsed out into the summer
hum. Only the sun was really awake. He rounded the thorn-tree and settled his scorch on to the baby's nose.

The child squirmed. He was most unattractive, a speckle-faced, slobbery, scowling infant. A yellow turkish-towelling bib under his chin did not add to his beauty. In the afternoon glare he looked like a sunset. He rammed a doubled-up fist into his mouth and began to gnaw and grumble. The woman stirred in her unlovely sleep, and her hand started automatically to jog the pram handle. I had come from the dog-field and was sitting beside her on the bench. Eyes peering from partly stuck-together lids like those of a nine-day-old kitten, she saw me.

“Teethin',” she yawned, and nodded in the direction of the pram; then her head flopped and she resumed loose-lipped, snorting slumber.

“Wa-a-a-a!”

The dogs came inquisitively to the fence.

“'Ush, 'ush!”

She saw the dogs, felt their cool noses against her cheek.

“Where be I?—Mercy! I come for a pup!
That's
where I be! 'Usband says when we was changin' shifts walkin' son last night. ‘Try a pup, Mother,' 'e sez—‘We've tried rattles an' balls an' toys. Try a live pup to soothe 'is frettiness.' So I come. 'Usband sez,‘Git a pup same age as son'—Sooner 'ave one 'ouse-broke meself— wot yer got?”

“I have pups three months old.”

“Ezzact same age as son! Bring 'em along.”

She inspected the puppy, running an experienced finger around his gums.

“Toothed a'ready! 'E'll do.”

She tucked the pup into the pram beside the baby who immediately seized the dog's ear and began to chew. The pup as immediately applied himself greedily to the baby's bottle and began to suck.

“Well, I never did!” said the mother. “Let 'im finish—'ere's a comfort for son.”

She dived into a deep cloth bag.

“That pup was brought up on a bottle,” I explained.

“That so? Tote!” she commanded. I operated the pram's screech till the comfort was in the baby's mouth and the pup paid for.

Loo and I, watching, heard the pram-full of baby whine down the street. Loo, when satisfied that the noise was purely mechanical, not puppy-made, shook herself and trotted contentedly back to the field—finished with that lot of puppies. Nature would now rest Loo, prepare her for the next lot of puppies. Life, persistent life! Always pushing, always going on.

DISTEMPER SWOOPED UPON
the kennel. Dance went from strong, straight legs leaving trembling weakness. Noses parched, cracked with fever, eyes crusted, ears lay limp; there were no tailless, all-over wobbles of joy, anticipation, curiosity; dinners went untouched.

One veterinary advocated open air and cold, the other sweating in a steam-box. I tried every distemper remedy then known. Death swept the kennel. A bucket of water stood always ready beside the garden tap for the little ones. When convulsions set in, I put an end to the pup's suffering. After convulsions started the case was hopeless.

These drowning horrors usually had to be done between midnight and dawn. The puppies yelped in delirium. (Tenants must not be disturbed by dog agony.) In the night-black garden I shook with the horror of taking life—when it must be done, the veterinary destroyed adult dogs that could not recover.

That bout of distemper took the lives of fifteen of my Bobtails, and took two months to do it in. Creena, a beautiful young mother dog I had just bought, was the last adult to die. The vet took her body away; there was room for no more graves in my garden. Two half-grown dead pups in dripping sacks lay in the shed
waiting for dark—of Loo's eight puppies (the ones the Prince of Wales had admired and fondled in the Victoria show a few weeks earlier) only two were left; they were ramping around their box in delirium. I could endure no more. It might be several days yet before they died. I took them to the garden bucket.

Now the kennel was empty except for Loo, Punk and Flirt. We must start all over again. That night when dark came I heaped four dripping sacks into the old pram, in which I brought bones from the butcher's, and trundled my sad load through black, wild storm to the cliffs off Beacon Hill. Greedy white breakers licked the weighted sacks from my hands, carried them out, out.

PUNK WAITED AT
home. The tragedy in the kennel he did not comprehend—trouble of the human being he loved distressed the dog sorely. Whimpering, he came close—licked my hands, my face for sorrow.

THE MAN SAID
, “The garden belongs to my cousins, I board with them.”

I could see he minded being only a “boarder,” minded having no ground-rights.

The resentful voice continued, “Gertie has outgrown her pen and her welcome.”

Pulling a stalk of wild grass, he chewed on it furiously. This action, together with the name of the dog, made me remember the man. A year ago he had come to my kennel. I had been impressed with the hideousness of the name “Gertie” for a dog. He had looked long at Loo's pups, suddenly had swooped to gather a small female that was almost all white into his arms. “This one!” he exclaimed, “daintiest pup of them all!” and, putting his cheek against the puppy, he murmured, “Gertie your name is, Gertie,
Gertie
!” Then he tucked her inside his coat and went sailing down the street, happy.

Now Gertie was up for sale and I was buying her back.

With a squeezing burst Gertie shot through her small door to fling herself upon her master. We stood beside the outgrown pen.

“I made it as big as the space they allowed would permit,” giving a scornful glance at the small quarters of the big dog. “All right when she was little. Now it is cruel to keep a creature of her size in it.”

Gertie was circling us joyously. Her glad free yelps brought the cousins rushing from their house, one lady furnished with a broom, the other with a duster. One dashed to the pansy-bed waving the duster protectively. The other broomed, militant, at the end of the delphinium row.

“Leash her!” squealed Pansy.

“Leash her!” echoed Delphinium.

The man took a lead from his pocket and secured Gertie. The women saw me take the lead in my hand, saw me put Gertie's price into his. He dashed the money into his pocket without a look, as if it burned his hand to hold it, turned abruptly, went into the house. The duster and the broom limped. The women smiled.

“Destructive and clumsy as a cow!” said Pansy, and scowled as Gertie passed them on her way to the gate, led by me.

“Creatures that size should be banned from city property!” agreed Delphinium with a scowl the twin of Pansy's.

Gertie, her head turned back over her shoulder, came with me submissively to the gate; here she sat down, would not budge. I pushed her out on to the pavement and shut the gate behind her—neither coaxing nor shoving would get Gertie further.

Suddenly there was a quick step on the garden walk—Gertie sprang, waiting for the gate to open, waiting to fling herself upon her adored master, pleading. I let go the lead, busied myself examining blight on the hedge. I was positive the sun had glittered on some unnatural shininess on the man's cheek. He handed me Gertie's lead. “I shall not come to see her. Will you give her the
comfort of retaining the sound of her old name? Gertie,” he whispered, “Gertie!” and the dog waggled with joy.

Gertie! Ugh, I
loathed
the name—Gertie among my patriarchs!

I said, “Yes, I'll keep the sound.”

He commanded, “Go, Gertie.”

The dog obeyed, rising to amble unenthusiastically in the direction of his pointing finger and my heels.

Honestly, I “Gertied” Gertie all the way home. Then, taking her head between my hands and bending close said, “Flirtie, Flirtie, Flirtie,” distinctly into the dog's ear. She was intelligent and responded just as well to “Flirtie” as to “Gertie.” After all, I told myself, it was the
sound
I promised that Gertie should keep.