The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-09-21

came. The young sportsman, it is only
justice to say, shot one chicken the
second day he was out. But the farmer
made him pay for it. He brought it
in, but it was so tough the dogs couldn't
eat it, so the hunters cut it up into
wads.
The presence of these dogs make the
place look delightfully."- free and easy.
There is an air of vagabondage about
these retrievers and pointers and settlers
that makes the very air restful. They
lie about under the trees. In which
ever direction you turn, the grave, ear
nest, intelligent face of bird dog is
ready to answer your glance. Occa-
slonally one of them will get up and
come to you to ask if you think of 60
ing out to-day. Sometimes two or
three of them will cluster together and
discuss the weather. They make friends
with every new baby that comes to the
house, and asked him where he came
from and if he ism awful hot and dusty,
and why he didn't ride in the baggage
car where he could get a drink, when
ever he wanted it, out of the can of ice
water, before it was passed around to
the passengers, and they hand the baby
their long silky ears to pull and they swab
off his little face with their great hot
tongues, and are friends from the start.
The bird dogs are about as faithful
nurses as the babies have up here. But
when boy seven years old appears on
the scene, it is a solemn, ineXplicable
mystery what becomes of the dogs.
The first dog that sees the boy fall
out OF the 'bus-they always do fall out
tells all the others and then they
scatter. Some of them climb trees,
others dig into the bowels of the earth,
and the rest of them, old veterans.
watch their chances and bite the boy
when nobody is looking; and then when
the bowling youth tells his parents and
the owner of the dog is found, and the
dog is hunted up and confronted with
the charge, he Indignantly denies it,
solemnly crosses his heart and SAYS he
hopes to die and he is son of q
gun if he did it, and all the other
dogs come up out of their holes and
down out of the trees and say that's
so, that they've been with him all
the time and can prove it. Then the
owner of the dog says he never knew
the dog to tell a lie about such Il little
thing as that before, but to satisfy the
parents he will punish the dog and will
keep him chained up. So he leads the
dog out into the back yard, and stoops
down and pats his head and SAYS,
Good old boy, good fellow, good old
dog" and gets his face swabbed for it
by every dog whose tongue is long
enough to reach him. Then he says he
doesn't know where in thunder that
chain is, and goes in to smoke a cigar
on the piazza while he tries to remem-
Der why he didn't bring it along with
him. while the dogs walk around on
their hands and remark, "Ah, hap !
am with the dogs a great deal, and
hear and see them say and do a great
many things that nobody else ever
notices. The great. roomy, pleasant,
homelike grounds Of the hotel, car
peted with velvety turf, and shaded
with graceful trees, would look lone
some and incomplete without the dogs
scattered about them. Why some of
the dogs can play croquet. They don't
play, but that is because they don't
want to, or haven't time or something.
But they could if they wanted to.
sat down out here to write something
about Albert Lea, but the dogs came
around me and put everything out
of my head. They don't write them
selves, but they take great deal of
interest in what other people write; and
it isn't easy work to write with one
hand and pat three dogs with the other.