The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1876-11-03
Come, Herzegovina, come como in and
get acquainted with your friends.
HerzeQoyina was not very promising

Herzegovina was not very promising
looking dog. He had a PAIR OF black,
boad]ike eyes, that were set in such a
steady stare they never winked, but
glared through the tangled mass of
grizzly hair that hung over them in a
heavy fringe. One of his ears had been
run over by freight train or something,
and was broken about amidships, the
end banging down like a half masted
signal of distress. The other ear stood
up bolt upright, like the sample on a
rod wagon. His coat was an
indescribable pepper and salt color, and
the dog appeared to have grown gray
from premature trouble. Every time
one OF the family spoke TO him he started
and sided under a chair or behind the
sofa with an agility that could only come
from long experience, and when Mr..
Sommerbeck stopped down to pat his
head, the cautious creature gave howl
that made the windows rattle, and dived
under the nearest table.
"Never mind" said Mr.. Sommerbeck,
"never mind ; he will learn to know us
in few days. He will learn to know
us. Learn to know us. Know us.
When the family retired that night
the dog was shut up in the carriage-shed,
as it was feared he might feel lonesome
and stray away from his new home.
The last lamp had hardly been put out,
however, when Mrs. Sommerbeck heard
strange noises in the yard. Somebody
was prowling around the barn. MIR.
Sommerbeck groaned as he left his snug
bed and leaned out of a window to listen
and catch centennial cold in the head.
Evidently there was something or some
body out in the barn, and the master
groaned and dressed and went down
with his heat in his mouth and lantern
in his hand to reconnoiter. He put his
ear against the crack of the door he
heard rasping noise as of some one
examining things into bag. He opened
the door and the first thing he saw was
strip of a buggy cushion. Then he
saw some fragments Of stuff that looked
like the lining of his buggy, and was at
tracted to kind of geyser OF curled
hair, and he saw the faithful dog throw
ing his whole soul into the work Of
digging for rats where no rat ever was,
in the buggy cushions. The faithful
dog had already gnawed the whip in
three pieces, chewed the check rains and
one of the traces up into hard, moist
looking knots, and torn Mr.. Sommer-
beck's stable coat and a. horse blanket
into carpet rags.
Gone consolation" said Mr.. Som
merbeck, It's very evident he's pow
erful ratter.''
Mr.. Sommerbeck sat out in the cold
Il h,a al, hal
the cog by the neck, wondering what to
do with him.
Confinement is irksome to him, and
makes him restless, maybe" said Mr..
Sommeibeck, wondering if he couldn't
get the buggy fixed before Mrs. S. saw
it. 81 guess I'll tie him out"
So he tied him to the back fence with
piece of the clothes line, and again
sought his downy couch. he had been
in bed about ten minutes when n howl
of most unearthly import smote the air,
dying away in prolonged, shNddering
gurgle that lifted every hair ON Mr..
Sommerbeck's head, and emptied all the
shrieking, fainting women in the house
into his raom in one wailing, bysterical
torrent. Again and again the howl
came swelling up through the closed
windows, az though it walled out Of the
very wall of tho house, and then would
come series of choking, gurgling gasps
and asthmatic groans that were too full
of horror TO listen to without shrieking.
Mr.. Sommerbeck could feel his hair try
ing to lift itself ont by the roots, and he
tried to shout for the police, but the
sound of his terror s.ricken voice awed
him into silence.
CT will go down and see what it is, ;"
he said in tone of forced calmness.
He dressed, and took the lantern and
revolver and went out. Guided by the
terrible sounds he came to where he
had tied the dog. No dog was visible,
across the top of the fence showed where
he was. The docile animal had jumped
over the fence and the rope was just
long enough to let his hind legs touch
the ground. AS long as he could stand,
the dog could howl till he
hushed the railroad whistles, and when
his weakening legs buckled and let him
down, the rope frightened and shut off
his wind in series of chokes and gasps
and gurgles that were too awful to think
about. Mr.. Ssmmerbeck climbed pain
fully over the fence and tried to lift the
dog back into the yard, and as he pushed
the bowling animal over the fence, it
paved the top of his bald head until it
looked like a map of the Servian war.
Mr.. Sommerbeck wished the faithful dog
at the Centennial. Then it crawled its
hind legs down the neck of his night
shirt and braced its fore-paws against
the fence and pushed back, and walked
all over Mr.. Sommerbeck' upturned
face, bowling all the time. Finally Mr..
Sommerbeck pushed him over and heard
him drop with heavy thump OH the
ground. Then he tried to climb over
himself. 1t was slow, painful task, for
Sommerbeck is not lightweight, nor
is he so young as he once was. AT lust
he got one leg over the top of the fence
after many grunts, and with n great
groan of satisfaction balansed himself
on top. HIS sudden appearance seemed
to ill the dog with terror, and with
flash, just as Mr.. Sommerbeck dropped
on the inside of the fence, the faithful
dog went up like rocket and shot out
OF sight on the other, and recommended
his hIdeous howls and gasps. Mr..