The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-01-22
,eh noise as there would have been had

/ mneh noise as there would have been had
~ other two joined the concert.
II thought 1t so probable that the
l rnosher who had visited me was only the
krst of procession of mothers that / gave
M the idea OF going out TO look for q nurse,
l and stayed at home TO receive the mothers
politeIy. 1t was no. long before one pre-
sented herself She wasan Irishwornan.
| and the only sensible one of the lot. When
she saw that her baby was safe and con-
tented. and had good grip on the hair OF
biack-eyed baby, she sat down and
hughed, and said that she never saw any
thing so sweet before. According to her
account, she lived about mile from my
house, and she was standing at her front
i door looking al the landscape when the
dog bounded in, caught up the baby out
Of the cradle and carried II oil. At trst
she thought the dog was the devil. but
.n-esently she remembered that the devils
t,me was too much occupied With Irish af-
r. fairs to permit him TO steal babies in Iowa,
20 she followed the dog as rapidly as she
could make her way through the snow.
! Che tracked him By the prints OF his paws
until she came to my door. and instead of
/ esllne me kidnaper and talking about
the police, she was full of pity for me and
/ volunteered TO stay and take care Of the
vhoie menagerie until the last of the ba-
bies should be called for and taken away.
.rhe remaining mothers arrived in the
course of an hour. l locked myself in the
TOP of the house and left the Irishwoman
| 10 explain things. As afterwards
learned, the intelligent dog had knocked
two women down in the street and stolen
their babies out of their arms. and had also
| broken into two houses, in the last one of
which he had bagged his brace of twins
All the mothers. except the Irishwoman,
we're as unreasonable as they could Dos
i5ly be. They insisted that: lIeliber-
stey trained dogs 10 steal babies, and
they had no doubt that my object in steal
ing them WIS to vivsect them. As for
the dog, they were convinced that he was
mad, and that their babies would be
sure to die OF hydrophobia. Two of the
women brought their husbands with them.
who asked to see me, explaining that they
desired to blow my head off. The Irish
woman nobly lied TO them, telling them
she had driven me out OF the house with a
Cub, and that l was on my way to Chi
cago. and far out of reach. The mothers
and their husbands went away at last.
and as soon as it was dark | stole out of
the back door and took the first train for
ST. Paul. | didn't show myself in New
Bertinopolisville for the next year.
"What became of the dog? On! I forgot
TO say that the Irishwoman promised to
take care of him and to cure him of his
passion iOr DaDieS. am sorry to saw that
she did not succeed. She kept him tied
Up for six weeks, but one day he broke
loose and captured a baby out of q baby
wagon in the park. But the baby's father
happened 10 be with 1t, and he was one of
the best pistol shots in the town, having
been a judge of the Montana supreme
court. He got the drop on the dog before
the beast had gone ten feet away with the
baby, and though they afterwards had to
pry the dogs jaws open in order to get the
baby loose. no harm was done to the lat
ter. / settled all the law suits without
letting them go to trial, although it cost
me considerable, and 1 finally Judged it
best to remove to another state.
Now | suppose that some one will be
enough of an idiot TO repeat this story
with variation, as proof Of the wonder
fui intelligence Of the st. Bernard dog.
II it is intelligence that leads dog to
steal other peoples babies and dunn them
on respectable man, I'd like to see what
idiocy would do for such dog. No, sir !
Depend upon it, the stories about st. Ber-
Dard dogs are invented by the monks after
Eliminating their minds by reading the
Lives of the Saints, and by going trout
hshing. Probably the monks have gradu-
ally brought themselves to believe most of
1 the stories. They look like credulous
set OF people and | should rather like 10
/ Try them with a good American political
speech. full of campaign statistics. and
| see II they could believe il, | shouldn't be
IN the least surprised if thew could"
w. l.. ALDEN.