The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-06-02
"Yaller Dogs"
MARK rwA1N's HISTORY OF THE FOUNDER OF
THE FAMILY AND HIS DESCENDANTS.

When Noah disembarked at Ararat he had
scarcely touched the pier when he proceeded to
tally his passengers. He had just checked his
last item in the list-a Mr.. and Mrs. Bedbug-
when the cringing figure of quadruped came
sneaking down the gang plank with his tail be-
tween his legs. "Drat it, if there amt that
waller dog p says Noah, aiming vicious kick
with his brogan at the brute But, with fa-
cility born Of long and bitter experience, the
brute lodged the projectile: and calculating
aki-yi," which is Syriac for declined with
thanks" or mot for Jo'-he disappeared, while
Noah, who had his sea-legs on, was unable to
recover his equilibrium, and sat down with en-
phasis on the back of his head.
Noah arose, and, in accordance with the style
prevalent among the patriarchs, he proceeded
to soothe his affronted dignity by pronHounc;ing
variegated anathema upon the yaller dog,
served on board, in the confusion Of putting to
sea, and capsized the captain at the first port.
He cursed that dog in body, limb, bark, hide,
hair, tail and wag, and all his generations, re-
lations and kindred, by consanguinity or affini-
ty, and his heirs and assigns. He cursed him
withsendless hunger, with perpetual fear, with
perennial laziness, with hopeless mango, with
incessant feas, and with his tail between his
legs. He, closed his stock of maledictions by a
sparkling display of pyrotechnics from the de-
moralizing effect of which the yaller dog has
never recovered.
With the curse sticking to him like a revenue
stamp, theyaller dog cannot help being "cnssed."
He don't try to help it. He follows Noah's pro-
gramme with sneaking fidelity: He IS an lsh-
maelite among dogs He receives the most op-
pressive courtesies in the form OF br1ckDats,
boots and hot water, which make his LIE an
animated target excursion. He boards around
like district school teacher, and 1t IS meal
time with him twenty-four hours IN the day
The rest of the time he bankers after something
to eat. BE is too omniverous for an epleure
Cram him at Delmonico's and he would hum
per for desert from an Albany clearinghouse.
He can't be utilized. He is too tired. AS a
swillcart locomotive, hunter, or a sentinel, he
is an ignominious failure. The dog churn was
stragetic attempt to employ his waste energies,
and butter had too much self-respectto to come
ut his persuasion. So the dog churn was
dropped.
No sausage-maker dare foreclose his lien on
the yaller dog, lest his: customers-no longer
"soothed and sustained by an unfaltering trust"
transfer their patronage to some less auda-
ciots dealer. The savages, who admire baked
dog, and who can even. attack tripe and explore
the mysteries of hash, without dismay, ac-
;knowledged the yaller dog to be too much tor
their gastric intrepidity.
He always manages to belong to ragged,
tobacco chewing, whisky-drinking master,
whose business IS swapping dogs and evading
the dog tax The yaller dog is acquainted with
himself, and he enjoys the intimacy with edl-
flying contempt. He sinks along through life,
on a diagonal dog-trct, as in doubt as to which
end of him is entitled to the precedence. He
is always pervaded by hang-dog sense of guilt,
and when retributive tinware is fastened to his
tail, he "flies from the wrath to come" with a
Mortified celebrity which ought to be very sug-
gestive to two-legged sinners of similar Or
deal in store for them.
The yaller dog is-well, to speak in italics,
he is slouch.