The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1880-08-14

fe0rO Is uOg 10 Degln WIFI, 50, IL
any reader thinks this story is to be
about an emperor, or evena Portuguese
grandee, and wishes to read that kind
Of story and isn't willing to read just
an everyday kind of dog-story, he
had better pass by this article alto
gether. s
Pedro began life under difficulties.
His mother did not move in good So
ciety. 1t may have been on account of
her color, for she was very black. 1t
may have been on account of her edu-
cation--for she hadn't any worth speak
ing of. 1t may have been because her
mother or mothers mother or grand
mother, or ever so many great-grand-
mothers, didn't go into good society.
They were very common family OF
dogs, who would lick the bones they
ate and make noise with their mouths
when they drank.
Pedro was born in barn; that was
against him. And it was rag-dealer's
barn at that, and his first bed was
pile Of smelly rags, and as his mother
had FIVE other little dogs exactly his
age to look after, she couldn't wash and
dress him properly, or tie his tail up in
papers 10 make it curl gracefully, or do
any of those things that well-bred dog
mothers are in the habit of doing for
their dog-babieR
Pedro opened his ewes one morning
and looked about him. What do you
think he sawP A big boy with a basket
and six stones in it. The boy took a
stone and began tying it to Pedro's
neck with piece OF cord. He did the
same thing to all of Pedro's brothers
and sisters. Did Pedro think it stranger
Not bit of 1.-THE was so young and
ignorant that he thought that was what
boys and stones and cords were for.
But Pedro's mother, poor thing, she
knew what it all meant. She knew
that of all the diseases incident to
puppyhood, boys and stones. compli-
Gated with cords, was the most fatal
Pedro's mother had lost seventeen of
her darlings in similar way. Talk
about scarlet fever, or the Group, or
diphtheria after that! She kissed her
precious children, moaned over them a
little and when they were taken away
in a basket, was SO overcome that she
hadn't even strength enough to lift her
dropping tail and wag them agood-bye.
The boy took the basket TO bridge,
and lifting the puppies one by one, sent
them over the parapet-down--down
to an anchorage at the bottom of the
river. Pedro didn't like it., 1t made
him dizzy going down; the weight of
the stone made the cord cut his neck,
and the water was cold. He went
straight to the bottom, and would have
drowned there like the rest if the cord
had been stronger. But the cord broke.
Pedro found out that he could swim
and he made for the shore. He was
very cold, very wet, very much dis
couraged. He did not like to go back
where that speckled-faced boy was; be-
sides, he didn't know the way. So he
made up his mind that he would set up
for tramp-and started at once on his
travels. 81 a
He was little fellow, but he grew
grew in spite of the kicks and cuffs that
he met. in spite of the stonings that bad
boys gave him, in spite Of being only
half fed. Grew to be big, black,
shaggy dog, with kind eye. and one
of the most friendly and wagiferous
tails / ever knew. And couldn't he
swim? He Just plowed right along in
the water, steering himself with his
shaggy tail. and winking and blinking
at the waves, that in the sunlight winked
and@b1inked at him.
But he had no home-poor dog. He
slept in the by-ways and hedges and
dropped in at wagon-sheds and crept
under roadside carts, and sometimes
he had to sleep in the great broad fields
among the clover and the daisies. He
wanted a home badly enough-every
dog does. But nobody would take him
in. He used to get driven of of premises
with sticks and whips and stones. No
body seemed to want him, and he would
have looked upon this world as very
hard world on dogs had he not seen,
now and then, some boys and girls that
we're treated quite as badly as he was.
So things went on for two years. 1t
was the close Of summer. The golden
rod had begun to blossom on the road
sides and Pedro knew that frost would
be along ere many weeks. He was in
q seaside town. for he loved the ocean,
and he sat down on the beach to think
himself over. He was getting to be
shiftless. He would wear burrs in his
shaggy coat for days and days, and
when a dog gets to this point of shift
lessness he must either turn over new
leaf or go to the bad pretty rapidly. He
lid not want to get into low-lived ways.
He wasa dog of excellent intentions re-
yarding himself but it somehow seemed
o him that he had had no kind of a
nance in life. He almost wished that
he stone hadn't slipped off his neck
when he had been thrown over the
fridge. He came very near being in
despair. The horrid thought crossed
is mind to go and bite somebody in the
illage and get shot for mad. 1t takes
o little trouble for dog to put himself
ut of misery in this way. / think he
1ould have gone and thrown himself