The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-12-17
HOW PICHOU GOT HIS BAD
 NAME

A Dog That Was Compelled to Lead the Strenuous Life Against His
 will.
 It was the black patch over his left l eye that made all the trouble. In reali- 1 ty he was of a disposition most peace-
 ful and propitiating, a lover of order | and fair dealing, strongly inclined to a domestic life, and capable of extreme
 devotion He had vivid sense of jus tice, it is true, and any violation of it
 was apt to heat his indignation to the boiling point. When this occurred he was strong in the back, stiff in the neck and fearless of consequence But he was always open to friendly overtures and ready to make peace with honor.
 Singularly responsive to every touch
 of kindness, desirouS of affection, se-
 cretly hungry for caresses, he had a
 heart framed for love and tranquility.
 But nature saw fit to put black
 patch over his left eye; wherefore his days were passed in the midst of con- fiict and he lived the strenuous life.
 How this sinister mark came to him,
 he never knew. Indeed, 1t is not likely that he had any idea of the part that it played in his career. The attitude
 that the world took toward him from the beginning, an attitude of aggressive mistrust-the role that he was expected and practically forced to assume in the drama of existence, the role of a hero of interminable strife-must have seemed to him altogether mysterious and some- what absurd. But his part was fixed by the black patch. It gave him an as- pect so truculent and forbidding that all the clements of warfare gathered around him as hornets around sugar barrel, and his appearance in public was like the raising of a flag for battle.
 You see that Pichou," said Macin- tosh, the Hudson's bay agent at Min- gan, you see yon big black-eye deevil? The savages call him Pichou because he's ugly as lynx-'laid comme un pichou. D
 If he went out for walk on the beach Vigneaus dogs or Simards dogs regarded it as an insult, and there was a fight. Men picked up sticks, or showed him the butt-end of their dog whips, when he made friendly ap- breaches. With the children it was different; they seemed to like him a little; but never did he follow one of them that mother did not call from the house door: "Perrel Mariel come away puick That bad dog will bite you" Once when he ran down to the shore to watch the boat coming in from the mail steamer the purser had re- fused to let the boat go to land, and called out "M'sieu Macintosh, you git no malle dis trip, eef you not call away | dat dam dog"
 True, the Minganites seemed to take | a certain kind of pride in his reputa tion. They had brought Chouart's big f brown dog, Gripette, down from Shell { drake to meet him; and after the meet | ing was over and Gripette had been re- yived with bucket of water, every body excpt Chouart, appeared to be in good humor. The purser of the steam- ar had gone to the trouble of introduce ng a famous boule-dogge from Quebec, 1n the trip after that on which he had given such hostile opinion of Pichou. The bulldogs intentions were unmis- -akable; he expressed them the mo- nent he touched the beach; and when hey carried him back to the boat on a 1sh barrow many flattering words were spoken about Pichou. He was not nsensible to them. But these tributes 0 his prowess were not what he really wanted. His secret desire was for to- tens of affection. His position was but it was intolerably lone- y and full of trouble He sought peace md he found fights-Henry Van Dyke n Scribner's.