Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1905-05-20

pedlS " me! L feel just like Cutler.
In the past | have owned several dogs
and have been acquainted with several
more that somewhere out in the
great unknown there's a place for"
and If there isn't, something is wrong.
l would rather go to heaven with
some dogs | have known than with
some men, and make that statement
with all due reverence. Believing that
in the land beyond the sky the dis
positions of men and women are
changed until they are fit for any one
to live with, | expect that Paradise
will be a right peaceful place in which
to dwell, but just think of being
turned loose in the land that is fairer
than day with all it's cities, its valleys,
its shining rivers and it's cool groves
clothed in beauty and after getting
used to the place a bit, look around
for the old dog and not find him.
Imagine accosting a bright and shin
ing angel and asking him where old
"Shep" is and have the radiant being
say that dogs have no souls; hence
"Shep" is wiped off the map of exist
ence. Then imagine humping into the
rejuvenated wrath of some skinny,
hide-bound, rasping, grasping, penur
ious, parsimonious, mean, scrubby,
penny-wise, niggardly, close listed
grudging, gripping, ungenerous, mer-
cenary, venal, covetous, avaricious,
mackerel backed old pirate who lived
on earth for the sole purpose of loan.
ing money to poor people at five per
cent month. Wouldn't a fellow feel
as If there was a screw loose in tho
eternal fitness of things? OF course
he would. No, sir; there are dogs in
heaven, and cats and kittens and
birds, and rabbits, and little fishes,
and flowers and babies, and little pup
pies and everything else in the line
of animated creation that goes to
make existence here below better and
more pleasant. They don't use gold
for money either and a fellow doesn't
have to hump himself from early morn
until dewey evening trying to get
enough of it to pay an installment on
his piano or his cook stove, for in that
land of pure delight they use the stuff
for paving blocks, just to show how
cheap it is; not for it's beauty, for
there is nothing handsome about a
gold brick. And when | walk through
the gate of pearl up the main avenue
with it's rows of grand old trees;
where the fountains sparkle and the
air is full of music | expect that sit.
ting right inside will be that old fiste
of mine, Frank, who used to run rab
bits and tree pheasants, and with him
will be old Ring" my fox hound
and all his fourteen companions, and
there will be "Shep" and Map" and
all the other dogs l used to own, and
when they see me the arches and
towers of the New Jerusalem will fair
ly culver to the music of their well
come. And we won't loaf around the
middle of the town trying to play a
harp, but we will go out in the fields,
and on the wooded hills and I'll bet
old Ring" starts fox in less time
than it takes me to write it, and that
over the rising ground and down
through the dales they'll run the
bushy tailed ghost of the old boy I'M
til he holes up in some spectral eXca-
walton in order that he may live on to
amuse us some other time. Dogs go
to heaven? Why of course they do.
What sort of a heaven would it be
without dogs? 1t would be-well let's
CT riobt bara