The Story of Dago

Chapter 2

WHAT DAGO SAID TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON TUESDAY.

Ring-tail, what do you think of Miss Patricia? I'm afraid of her. The night we came home she met us in the hall, looking so tall and severe in her black gown, with those prim little bunches of gray curls on each side of her face, that I went under a chair. Then I thought I must have misjudged her, for there were tears in her eyes when she kissed the children, and I heard her whisper as she turned away, "poor little motherless lambs!" Still I have seen so many people in the course of my travels that I rarely make a mistake in reading character. As soon as she caught sight of me I knew that my first thought had been right. Her thin Roman nose went up in the air, and her sharp eyes glared at me so savagely that I could think of nothing else but an old war eagle, with arrows in its talons. You may have seen them on silver dollars.

"Tom Tremont," she exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you have brought home a monkey!" I wish you could have heard the disgust in her voice. "Of all the little pests in the world, they are certainly the worst!"

"Yes, Aunt Patricia," he answered. "They've been a great pleasure to the boys."

"They!" she gasped. "You don't mean to say that there are two!" Then she saw Matches climbing up on Phil's shoulder, and words failed her.

"Yes; their grandfather gave each of the boys one of his pets. He said that they would be company for them on the way home, and would help divert their thoughts from their great loss. They grieved so, poor little lads."

That softened Miss Patricia again, and she said nothing more about our being pests. But when she passed me she drew her skirts aside as if she could not bear to so much as brush against me, and from that hour it has been war to the knife between us.

Matches and I were given a little room up in the attic under the eaves, but at first we were rarely there during the day. The boys took us with them wherever they went. We had been there some time before we were left alone long enough for me to do any exploring.

It was almost dark when that first chance came. I prowled around the attic awhile. Then I climbed out of the window and swung down by the vines that covered that side of the house, to the shutters of the room below. It happened to be Miss Patricia's room. As I perched on the top of the shutters, leaning over and craning my neck, I could see Miss Patricia sitting there in the dusk beside her open window. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was rocking gently back and forth in a high-backed rocking-chair, with her eyes closed.

I thought it would be a good chance for me to take a peep into her room, so I ventured to swing over and drop down on the window-sill beside her, on all fours. I did it very quietly, so quietly, in fact, that I do not see how she could possibly have been disturbed; yet I give you my word, Ring-tail, that woman shrieked until you could have heard her half a mile. I never was so terrified in all my life. It paralysed me for an instant, and then I sprang up by the vines to the lightning-rod, and streaked up it faster than any lightning ever came down. Once in my room, I shook all the rest of the evening.

Matches said that Miss Patricia was probably worse scared than I was, but that's impossible. I never made a sound, and as for her--why, even the cook came running when Miss Patricia began to shriek, and she was in the coal-cellar at the time, and is deaf in one ear.

But Matches always disagreed with me in everything, and I was not sorry when we parted company. I'd better tell you about that next. It happened in this way. Stuart came into the room one day with Sim Williams, one of the boys who was always swarming up the stairs to see us. Sim was older than Stuart, and one of those restless, inquiring boys, never satisfied with letting well enough alone. He was always making experiments. This time he wanted to experiment on me with a handful of tobacco,--coax me to eat it, you know, and see what effect it would have. But Stuart objected. He was afraid it might make me sick, and proposed trying it on Phil's monkey first. So they called Matches, and the silly little beast was so pleased and flattered by their attention that she stood up and ate all they gave her. She did not like it, I could see that, but they praised her and coaxed her, and it turned her head. Usually I received the most attention.

It did not seem to hurt her any, so Sim offered me some. But I would not take it. I folded my hands, first over my ears and then over my eyes. Then I held them over my mouth. Stuart thought it wonderfully smart of me, and so did Sim, when he found that it was a trick that Stuart's grandfather had taught me. The old man had an ebony paper-weight on his library table, which he called "the three wise monkeys of Japan." They were carved sitting back to back. The first one had its paws folded over its eyes in token that it must never see more than it ought to see, the second covered its ears that it might not hear more than it ought to hear, and the third solemnly held its paws over its mouth, in order that it might never say more than it ought to say.

Stuart thought that I had forgotten the trick. He told Sim that it was the only one I knew. I was glad that he had never discovered that I am a trained monkey. If he had known how many tricks I can perform life wouldn't have been worth living. It would have been like an endless circus, with me for the only performer. As it was, I was made to go through that one trick of the wise monkeys of Japan until I was heartily disgusted with it, or with anything else, in fact, that suggested the land of the Mikado.

Stuart was in a hurry to show me off to the other fellows, so he caught me up under his arm, and started off to the ball-ground, where most of them were to be found. Matches tried to follow us, but Sim drove her back, and the last I saw of her she was under the table, whimpering. It was a soft little complaining cry she had, almost like the chirp of a sleepy bird, and when she made it her mouth drew up into a pitiful little pucker.

I slept in the laundry that night, for it was after dark when we got home, and the boys were not allowed to carry a light up into the attic. Next day, when Stuart took me back to my room, there lay Matches, stretched out on the floor as dead as a mummy. The tobacco had poisoned her. Phil was crying over her as if his heart would break. He didn't know what had killed her, and the boys did not see fit to tell. As for me, I remembered my lesson, never to say any more than I ought to say, and discreetly folded my hands over my mouth whenever the subject was mentioned.

I have no doubt but that I could have eaten as much tobacco as Matches did, and escaped with only a short illness, but the sickly little mossback didn't have the constitution that we ring-tails have. She was a poor delicate creature that the least thing affected. I couldn't help feeling sorry for her, and yet I was so glad to be rid of her that I capered around for sheer joy. When I realised that never again would I be kept awake by her snoring, never again would I be disturbed by her disagreeable ways, and that at last I was even with her for spilling me out of my berth on the sleeping-car, I swung on my turning-pole until I was dizzy. No one knew what a jubilee I had all alone that night in my little room under the eaves.

Little did I dream of the humiliation in store for me. The next day I found that Matches was to have a funeral after school, and that I--I, who hated her--was to take the part of chief mourner. The boys took off my spangled jacket and dressed me up in some clothes that belonged to Elsie's big Paris doll. They left my own little cap on my head, but covered it and me all over with a long crape veil that dragged on the ground behind me and tripped me up in front when I tried to walk. It was pinned tightly over my face, and I nearly smothered, for it was a hot September afternoon. I sputtered and gasped under the nasty black thing until I was almost choked. It was so thick I could scarcely breathe through it, but the more I sputtered the more it pleased the children. They said I seemed to be really crying and sobbing under my veil, and that I was acting my part of chief mourner beautifully.

All the children of the neighbourhood came to the funeral. There was a band to lead the procession; a band of three boys, playing on a French harp, a jew's-harp, and a drum. Johnny Grey's Newfoundland dog was hitched to the little wagon that held Matches's coffin. Phil drove, sitting up solemnly in his father's best high silk hat with its band of crape. It was much too large for his head, and slipped down over his curls until the brim rested on the tips of his ears. It was serious business for Phil. His eyes were red and his dirty face streaked with tears. He had grown to be very fond of Matches.

Elsie and I followed on a tricycle. She had borrowed an old-fashioned scoop bonnet and a black silk apron from one of the neighbours. I sat beside her, feeling very hot and uncomfortable in the crape veil in which I was pinned. The others walked behind us, two by two, in a long procession. We went five times around the circle, while Sim Williams, on the wood-shed roof, tolled a big auction bell, which he had borrowed for the occasion.

When it was all over and the little mound over Matches's grave had been covered with sod, the children were loath to stop playing funeral. They had enjoyed it so much. Somebody said that we ought to march down the street so that people could see how funny I looked in my crape veil; but I could stand it no longer. When I saw that the band was really moving toward the gate, and that Stuart was about to lift me into the wagon that had carried Matches's coffin, I shrieked with rage and bit and tore at my veil until I was soon free.

In about a minute it was nothing but a heap of rags and tatters, and Phil and Stuart were looking at it and then at each other with troubled faces. "It's Aunt Patricia's!" one of them gasped. "And it is all torn to bits! Oh, Dago, you little mischief, how could you? Now we'll catch it!" As if it were my fault. I don't know what happened when the veil was taken back. Luckily I had no share in that part of it, although Miss Patricia seemed to add that to the long list of grievances she had against me, and her manner toward me grew even more severe than before.

The excitement of the funeral seemed to make Phil forget the loss of Matches that day, but he cried next morning when Stuart came down with me on his shoulder, and there was no frisky little pet for him to fondle and feed. How he could grieve for her is more than I could understand. I didn't miss her,--I was glad she was gone. Every day Phil put fresh flowers on her grave. Sometimes it was only a stiff red coxcomb or a little stemless geranium that had escaped the early frost. Sometimes it was only a handful of bright grasses gone to seed. The doctor's neglected garden flaunted few blooms this autumn, but the little fellow, grieving long and sorely, did all he could to show respect to Matches's memory.

One day, nearly a month later, he went crying into his father's office, saying that Matches was gone. Stuart and Sim Williams had dug her up and sold her skeleton to a naturalist in the next block for fifty cents. He had just heard of it. I never saw a child so excited. He was sobbing so hard that he could not breathe except in great choking gasps, and it was some time before his father could quiet him enough to understand what he was talking about.

Oh, but Doctor Tremont was angry! And yet it did not sound so bad when Stuart had explained it. He hadn't thought that he was doing anything dishonest or unkind to Phil. He only thought what an easy way it would be to make fifty cents. He didn't see how it could make any difference to Phil, so long as he never found it out, and Sim had sworn not to tell. The mound would still be there, and he could go on putting flowers on it just the same. Sim was the one who had first spoken of it, and Sim had half the money.

I was not in the room all of the time, so I cannot tell what passed between Stuart and his father. I could hear the doctor's voice for a long time, talking in low, deep tones, very earnestly. I know he said something about Phil's being such a little fellow, and how the mother who had gone away would have been grieved to know that he was so unhappy. What he said must have hurt Stuart more than a whipping, for when he came out his eyes were red, and he looked as solemn as an owl.

He had promised his father several things. One was that he would have nothing more to do with Sim Williams, who was always leading him into trouble, and another was that he would beg Phil's pardon, and do something to make up for the injury he had done him. Stuart thought and thought a long time what that should be. I know the doctor's talk must have gone deep, for by and by he took me,--Dago,--his best-beloved possession, and gave me to Phil.

At first the little fellow couldn't believe it. "Oh, brother!" he cried. "Do you really mean it? Is it for keeps?"

"Yes, it's for keeps," said Stuart, grimly. Then he put his hands in his pockets and walked away, whistling, although there were tears in his eyes. But Phil ran after him with me in his arms.

"Oh, I couldn't take all of him, Stuart," he said. "You are too good. That would be too much, when you are so fond of him. But I'd love to own half of him. Let's go partnerships. You claim half, and I'll claim half."

Well, they decided to settle it that way, after a great deal of talking. You can't imagine, Ring-tail, how queer it makes me feel to be divided up in such a fashion. Sometimes I puzzle over it until I am dizzy. Which of me belongs to Stuart, and which of me belongs to Phil?