The Madisonian. (Virginia City, Mont.) 1873-1915, 1895-03-30
THAT DOG.
h Story of Napoleon and How He Met
His Waterloo.

me-the man did-that if / would treat
him kindly and give him plenty of corn
bread-give the dcg-he would guarantee
the man would-that he would grow up
the dog would grow up-to be an honor
to him-to the man.
Napoleon got to be the largest dog and
did it in the quickest manner of any dog
I ever knew. l wore long curls at that
time, I remember, into which boys used
to cast burs, which hurt me a good deal,
especially when Napoleon would take his
claws and try to run them through my
locks, although the locks never opened in
that way.
They We're combination locks, I suppose,
and 1 didn't yet have my letters in my
head to set the combination on. He also
. grew very strong, Napoleon did, SO that I
found it difficult to keep him at home
unless l tied him, and even then it both
cred me if another dog happened to be go
ing by.
Catching sight of that dog, Napoleon
would utter a glad cry and bound over the
fence, utterly unmindful of the rope or
me at the other end of it. Down the street
he would prance, giving vent to short
barks and drawing the attention of the
people after him, also myself. Neighbors
coming to the window used to marvel at
the black and white streak we made in
passing by.
Sometimes I wouldn't get home till
long after mealtime, which in those days
was quite a detriment to me-, though not
SO to Napoleon, whose appetite soon be-
came celebrated throughout the whole
town, for when he couldn't get a pair of
rubbers or a fur muff to Stake the gnaw-
ing of hunger he would go out and collect
<lo 1ooroc ~ 1rN~r,o L~ooI t1D% 1,ol-o,c I,l
left upon the adjacent stoops. Wouldn't
like to print the things that people used
to say about him at such times.
We grew up together, or at least Ma
poleon did, for he had two feet the start
of me. We were inseparable. Neighbors
said they never saw anything more so,
but that was chiefly because l couldn't
get the rope unfastened in time.
1t was NapoleOn's appetite that ulti-
mately accomplished his ruin, just as it
has many another a Aunt and I'm
Gle Chesterfield came to visit us that fall.
They lived at Jay Corners and really
ought never to have gone anywhere else,
but there they were, getting out of the
stage at our front gate, and what could
we do?
I heard father say that to mother as
they stood looking out of the II TO-
gether. Uncle Chesterfield wasn't really
our uncle. you understand, but just an
old friend of father's-I don't know how
old. but he looked every day of it and
more. We called him uncle because he ap-
peared that way.
Aunt Chesterfield had tic do%uloureux,
which used to cause her to make up the
awfullest faces. realize now that it was
from pain, but at that age l used to laugh,
whereupon she said l was a wicked boy.
She also had a brown wig and hcuma
tism. Uncle Chesterfield didn't have any
thing but just warts-I think l counted
7O-and Aunt Chesterfield. But I heard
father tell mother that that was enough.
Mother put them into the spare cham
Der, where the old fashioned canvas bot
tom bed was with the white valance.
There were also some green worsted lamp
mats on tho bureau. We all said good
night, father wound up the clock and ev-
erybody went to bed.
l always was a sound sleeper as a boy,
so you must know that Aunt Chesterfield
had to Shrek pretty loud to get me out,
but she did it and could have fetched me,
l think, if l had been dead. l got right
up and ran into the spare chamber before
anybody could stop me.
Aunt Chesterfield was sitting in the
w VI UAO bSV III a 1CN uIII IlSAu-
gown. l didn't know her at first, because
her mouth was wide open, shrieking, and
her face twisted with tic douloureux, and
the whitest, shiniest head you ever saw,
which l remembered with copious locks of
brown.
But I saw how that was in a minute,
for there was Napoleon over in the corner
with a brown wig in his mouth, which he
was tossing and worrying and carrying on
d%readfully.
Uncle Chesterfield you couldn't see at
first, but by and by you found him with
his legs stuck through the rounds of a
rocking chair, and every time he moved
Napoleon would growl, not being ac-
quainted with Uncle Chesterfield, n he
was scared almost to death.
They tool the stage back to Jay Corners
the very next day. Mother was dreadfully
shocked, but l noticed father didn't get
excited.
II wonder who let that dog up s~tairs?"
he said musingly after the stage was gone.
I intended to say that l didn't know,
but I got to stammering and mixed my
self up, and before I realized what l was
doing I blurted the truth right out and
said that I did. Father gave me a quarter.
I didn't know what for, but I supposed at
the time that it was for telling the truth.
"But the dog must go" he added. His
appetite is growing too in~discriminate.'
So we sold him to a man who kept a
farm, and who soon afterward shot him
for biting a calf on the leg. Napoleon used
to do that to book canvassers when he
was with us, and nobody found any fault
with him, but on a farm it is different. -
w. o. Fuller, Jr., in Rockland (Me.
Tribune.