The Delaware ledger. (Newark, Del.) 1879-19??, 1884-08-30
He NIistook the Dog.

There were two men in Hamburg,
just outside the village, whose farms
adjoined, and quarrels over the line
fence had made them about as bad
friends as church members can consi5.
tently be. One was the owner of a
coach dog--one of those harmless spot
ted dogs that never let wave of trou-
BILE roll across their peaceful breasts.
ThN other owned mongrel cur-that
kind of dog that hides in fence cor
ner and as you drive by jumps out
suddenly under your horses feet and
about twice week causes a runaway
and keeps up the sale Of seven.shooters.
One day the owner of the coach dog
was driving into town with his canine
under the wagon. Some one had stolen
dog day or two before, 80 he had
the coach dog chained to the axle. He
was moving along slowly past his neigh
boris house, taking squint meanwhile
at the line fence. when out jumps his
neighbor's dog and seeing his dog tied
up what does the cowardly cur do but
jump out and before the man could
alight just about chew the coach d og
into sausage meat. The owner of the
coach dog, for member in good stand
ing of church with steeple on it,
was exceedingly wrought up, and all
the way to town and all the way back
again his mind was active. When he
went into the house that night he told
his wife he was going to Buffalo, and
he went, going direct to Dean Wilson's,
whete in no time he had negotiated for
a bulldog that had record of being
able to clean out anything from an
elephant to a sewer.
just as the shades of evening had
settled firmly on Hamburg the farmer
ani his bulldog alighted from the train
and stole across lots. The bull dog
was chained up in the barn that night
and the next morning the farmer got a
brush and black paint, and he did such
job on that dog that you couldn't
have told at ten feet distance that he
wasn't the twin brother of the coach
dog. When the farmer got that dog
painted you should have witnessed his
fiendish grin. He called out his wife
and pointed in triumph at what he cal
led his masterpiece, and more pleased
man never existed. That night the
farmer hltched up his horse, put
chain on the bulldog, tied the chain to
the axle with thin twine and lifting
his wife in the wagon started toward
Hamburg. 1t was happy party.
Even the bulldog seemed unusually
contented for that kind of dog. Slow
ly the farmer drove along towards his
neighbours and as he neared he saw the
neighbor and the mongrel cur at the
front gate. He felt so good that as he
got even with the gate he had almost
said ''good evening" when the neigh
boris cur, seeing what he thought was
coach dog chained under the wagon,
made a rush in that direction and
alighted on the bulldogs back. Talk
of transformation scenesl The change
that occurred the next second was the
most startling and sudden that was
ever witnessed. That bulldog just
gave one grunt, and in the time taken
to vibrate a lambs caudal appendage
had b roken loose from that wagon and
closed ON that cur's throat with the
grip of wise. There was no use trying
to call the dog off. He'd made up his
mind he had good thing and the SELL
sible thing was to keep it. Half an
hour later when they'd pried his jaws
open with a wagon stake, the cur's
spirit as found to have climbed the
golden staircase that leads to the canine
hereafter.