CHAPTER XXX
No rough-and-ready surgery of the Del Mar sort obtained at
Cedarwild, else Michael would not have lived. A real surgeon,
skilful and audacious, came very close to vivisecting him as he
radically repaired the ruin of a shoulder, doing things he would
not have dared with a human but which proved to be correct for
Michael.
"He'll always be lame," the surgeon said, wiping his hands and
gazing down at Michael, who lay, for the most part of him, a
motionless prisoner set in plaster of Paris. "All the healing,
and there's plenty of it, will have to be by first intention. If
his temperature shoots up we'll have to put him out of his misery.
What's he worth?"
"He has no tricks," Collins answered. "Possibly fifty dollars,
and certainly not that now. Lame dogs are not worth teaching
tricks to."
Time was to prove both men wrong. Michael was not destined to
permanent lameness, although in after-years his shoulder was
always tender, and, on occasion, when the weather was damp, he was
compelled to ease it with a slight limp. On the other hand, he
was destined to appreciate to a great price and to become the star
performer Harry Del Mar had predicted of him.
In the meantime he lay for many weary days in the plaster and
abstained from raising a dangerous temperature. The care taken of
him was excellent. But not out of love and affection was it
given. It was merely a part of the system at Cedarwild which made
the institution such a success. When he was taken out of the
plaster, he was still denied that instinctive pleasure which all
animals take in licking their wounds, for shrewdly arranged
bandages were wrapped and buckled on him. And when they were
finally removed, there were no wounds to lick; though deep in the
shoulder was a pain that required months in which to die out.
Harris Collins bothered him no more with trying to teach him
tricks, and, one day, loaned him as a filler-in to a man and woman
who had lost three of their dog-troupe by pneumonia.
"If he makes out you can have him for twenty dollars," Collins
told the man, Wilton Davis.
"And if he croaks?" Davis queried.
Collins shrugged his shoulders. "I won't sit up nights worrying
about him. He's unteachable."
And when Michael departed from Cedarwild in a crate on an express
wagon, he might well have never returned, for Wilton Davis was
notorious among trained-animal men for his cruelty to dogs. Some
care he might take of a particular dog with a particularly
valuable trick, but mere fillers-in came too cheaply. They cost
from three to five dollars apiece. Worse than that, so far as he
was concerned, Michael had cost nothing. And if he died it meant
nothing to Davis except the trouble of finding another dog.
The first stage of Michael's new adventure involved no unusual
hardship, despite the fact that he was so cramped in his crate
that he could not stand up and that the jolting and handling of
the crate sent countless twinges of pain shooting through his
shoulder. The journey was only to Brooklyn, where he was duly
delivered to a second-rate theatre, Wilton Davis being so
indifferent a second-rate animal man that he could never succeed
in getting time with the big circuits.
The hardship of the cramped crate began after Michael had been
carried into a big room above the stage and deposited with nearly
a score of similarly crated dogs. A sorry lot they were, all of
them scrubs and most of them spirit-broken and miserable. Several
had bad sores on their heads from being knocked about by Davis.
No care was taken of these sores, and they were not improved by
the whitening that was put on them for concealment whenever they
performed. Some of them howled lamentably at times, and every
little while, as if it were all that remained for them to do in
their narrow cells, all of them would break out into barking.
Michael was the only one who did not join in these choruses. Long
since, as one feature of his developing moroseness, he had ceased
from barking. He had become too unsociable for any such
demonstrations; nor did he pattern after the example of some of
the sourer-tempered dogs in the room, who were for ever bickering
and snarling through the slats of their cages. In fact, Michael's
sourness of temper had become too profound even for quarrelling.
All he desired was to be let alone, and of this he had a surfeit
for the first forty-eight hours.
Wilton Davis had assembled his troupe ahead of time, so that the
change of programme was five days away. Having taken advantage of
this to go to see his wife's people over in New Jersey, he had
hired one of the stage-hands to feed and water his dogs. This the
stage-hand would have done, had he not had the misfortune to get
into an altercation with a barkeeper which culminated in a
fractured skull and an ambulance ride to the receiving hospital.
To make the situation perfect for what followed, the theatre was
closed for three days in order to make certain alterations
demanded by the Fire Commissioners.
No one came near the room, and after several hours Michael grew
aware of hunger and thirst. The time passed, and the desire for
food was supplanted by the desire for water. By nightfall the
barking and yelping became continuous, changing through the long
night hours to whimpering and whining. Michael alone made no
sound, suffering dumbly in the bedlam of misery.
Morning of the second day dawned; the slow hours dragged by to the
second night; and the darkness of the second night drew down upon
a scene behind the scenes, sufficient of itself to condemn all
trained-animal acts in all theatres and show-tents of all the
world. Whether Michael dreamed or was in semi-delirium, there is
no telling; but, whichever it was, he lived most of his past life
over again. Again he played as a puppy on the broad verandas of
MISTER Haggin's plantation bungalow at Meringe; or, with Jerry,
stalked the edges of the jungle down by the river-bank to spy upon
the crocodiles; or, learning from MISTER Haggin and Bob, and
patterning after Biddy and Terrence, to consider black men as
lesser and despised gods who must for ever be kept strictly in
their places.
On the schooner Eugenie he sailed with Captain Kellar, his second
master, and on the beach at Tulagi lost his heart to Steward of
the magic fingers and sailed away with him and Kwaque on the
steamer Makambo. Steward was most in his visions, against a hazy
background of vessels, and of individuals like the Ancient
Mariner, Simon Nishikanta, Grimshaw, Captain Doane, and little old
Ah Moy. Nor least of all did Scraps appear, and Cocky, the
valiant-hearted little fluff of life gallantly bearing himself
through his brief adventure in the sun. And it would seem to
Michael that on one side, clinging to him, Cocky talked farrago in
his ear, and on the other side Sara clung to him and chattered an
interminable and incommunicable tale. And then, deep about the
roots of his ears would seem to prod the magic, caressing fingers
of Steward the beloved.
"I just don't I have no luck," Wilton Davis mourned, gazing about
at his dogs, the air still vibrating with the string of oaths he
had at first ripped out.
"That comes of trusting a drunken stage-hand," his wife remarked
placidly. "I wouldn't be surprised if half of them died on us
now."
"Well, this is no time for talk," Davis snarled, proceeding to
take off his coat. "Get busy, my love, and learn the worst.
Water's what they need. I'll give them a tub of it."
Bucketful by bucketful, from the tap at the sink in the corner, he
filled a large galvanized-iron tub. At sound of the running water
the dogs began whimpering and yelping and moaning. Some tried to
lick his hands with their swollen tongues as he dragged them
roughly out of their cages. The weaker ones crawled and bellied
toward the tub, and were over-trod by the stronger ones. There
was not room for all, and the stronger ones drank first, with much
fighting and squabbling and slashing of fangs. Into the foremost
of this was Michael, slashing and being slashed, but managing to
get hasty gulps of the life-saving fluid. Davis danced about
among them, kicking right and left, so that all might have a
chance. His wife took a hand, laying about her with a mop. It
was a pandemonium of pain, for, their parched throats softened by
the water, they were again able to yelp and cry out loudly all
their hurt and woe.
Several were too weak to get to the water, so it was carried to
them and doused and splashed into their mouths. It seemed that
they would never be satisfied. They lay in collapse all about the
room, but every little while one or another would crawl over to
the tub and try to drink more. In the meantime Davis had started
a fire and filled a caldron with potatoes.
"The place stinks like a den of skunks," Mrs. Davis observed,
pausing from dabbing the end of her nose with a powder-puff.
"Dearest, we'll just have to wash them."
"All right, sweetheart," her husband agreed. "And the quicker the
better. We can get through with it while the potatoes are boiling
and cooling. I'll scrub them and you dry them. Remember that
pneumonia, and do it thoroughly."
It was quick, rough bathing. Reaching out for the dogs nearest
him, he flung them in turn into the tub from which they had drunk.
When they were frightened, or when they objected in any way, he
rapped them on the head with the scrubbing brush or the bar of
yellow laundry soap with which he was lathering them. Several
minutes sufficed for a dog.
"Drink, damn you, drink--have some more," he would say, as he
shoved their heads down and under the dirty, soapy water.
He seemed to hold them responsible for their horrible condition,
to look upon their filthiness as a personal affront.
Michael yielded to being flung into the tub. He recognized that
baths were necessary and compulsory, although they were
administered in much better fashion at Cedarwild, while Kwaque and
Steward had made a sort of love function of it when they bathed
him. So he did his best to endure the scrubbing, and all might
have been well had not Davis soused him under. Michael jerked his
head up with a warning growl. Davis suspended half-way the blow
he was delivering with the heavy brush, and emitted a low whistle
of surprise.
"Hello!" he said. "And look who's here!--Lovey, this is the Irish
terrier I got from Collins. He's no good. Collins said so. Just
a fill-in.--Get out!" he commanded Michael. "That's all you get
now, Mr. Fresh Dog. But take it from me pretty soon you'll be
getting it fast enough to make you dizzy."
While the potatoes were cooling, Mrs. Davis kept the hungry dogs
warned away by sharp cries. Michael lay down sullenly to one
side, and took no part in the rush for the trough when permission
was given. Again Davis danced among them, kicking away the
stronger and the more eager.
"If they get to fighting after all we've done for them, kick in
their ribs, lovey," he told his wife.
"There! You would, would you?"--this to a large black dog,
accompanied by a savage kick in the side. The animal yelped its
pain as it fled away, and, from a safe distance, looked on
piteously at the steaming food.
"Well, after this they can't say I don't never give my dogs a
bath," Davis remarked from the sink, where he was rinsing his
arms. What d'ye say we call it a day's work, my dear?" Mrs.
Davis nodded agreement. "We can rehearse them to-morrow and next
day. That will be plenty of time. I'll run in to-night and boil
them some bran. They'll need an extra meal after fasting two
days."
The potatoes finished, the dogs were put back in their cages for
another twenty-four hours of close confinement. Water was poured
into their drinking-tins, and, in the evening, still in their
cages, they were served liberally with boiled bran and dog-
biscuit. This was Michael's first food, for he had sulkily
refused to go near the potatoes.
The rehearsing took place on the stage, and for Michael trouble
came at the very start. The drop-curtain was supposed to go up
and reveal the twenty dogs seated on chairs in a semi-circle.
Because, while they were being thus arranged, the preceding turn
was taking place in front of the drop-curtain, it was imperative
that rigid silence should be kept. Next, when the curtain rose on
full stage, the dogs were trained to make a great barking.
As a filler-in, Michael had nothing to do but sit on a chair. But
he had to get upon the chair, first, and when Davis so ordered him
he accompanied the order with a clout on the side of the head.
Michael growled warningly.
"Oh, ho, eh?" the man sneered. "It's Fresh Dog looking for
trouble. Well, you might as well get it over with now so your
name can be changed to Good Dog.--My dear, just keep the rest of
them in order while I teach Fresh Dog lesson number one."
Of the beating that followed, the least said the better. Michael
put up a fight that was hopeless, and was thoroughly beaten in
return. Bruised and bleeding, he sat on the chair, taking no part
in the performance and only sullenly engendering a deeper and
bitterer sourness. To keep silent before the curtain went up was
no hardship for him. But when the curtain did go up, he declined
to join the rest of the dogs in their frantic barking and yelping.
The dogs, sometimes alone and sometimes in couples and trios and
groups, left their chairs at command and performed the
conventional dog tricks such as walking on hind-legs, hopping,
limping, waltzing, and throwing somersaults. Wilton Davis's
temper was short and his hand heavy throughout the rehearsal, as
the shrill yelps of pain from the lagging and stupid attested.
In all, during that day and the forenoon of the next, three long
rehearsals took place. Michael's troubles ceased for the time
being. At command, he silently got on the chair and silently sat
there. "Which shows, dearest, what a bit of the stick will do,"
Davis bragged to his wife. Nor did the pair of them dream of the
scandalizing part Michael was going to play in their first
performance.
Behind the curtain all was ready on the full stage. The dogs sat
on their chairs in abject silence with Davis and his wife menacing
them to remain silent, while, in front of the curtain, Dick and
Daisy Bell delighted the matinee audience with their singing and
dancing. And all went well, and no one in the audience would have
suspected the full stage of dogs behind the curtain had not Dick
and Daisy, accompanied by the orchestra, begun to sing "Roll Me
Down to Rio."
Michael could not help it. Even as Kwaque had long before
mastered him by the jews' harp, and Steward by love, and Harry Del
Mar by the harmonica, so now was he mastered by the strains of the
orchestra and the voices of the man and woman lifting the old
familiar rhythm, taught him by Steward, of "Roll Me Down to Rio."
Despite himself, despite his sullenness, the forces compulsive
opened his jaws and set all his throat vibrating in accompaniment.
From beyond the curtain came a titter of children and women that
grew into a roar and drowned out the voices of Dick and Daisy.
Wilton Davis cursed unbelievably as he sprang down the stage to
Michael. But Michael howled on, and the audience laughed on.
Michael was still howling when the short club smote him. The
shock and hurt of it made him break off and yelp an involuntary
cry of pain.
"Knock his block off, dearest," Mrs. Davis counselled.
And then ensued battle royal. Davis struck shrewd blows that
could be heard, as were heard the snarls and growls of Michael.
The audience, under the sway of the comic, ignored Dick and Daisy
Bell. Their turn was spoiled. The Davis turn was "queered," as
Wilton impressed it. Michael's block was knocked off within the
meaning of the term. And the audience, on the other side of the
curtain, was edified and delighted.
Dick and Daisy could not continue. The audience wanted what was
behind the curtain, not in front of it. Michael was taken off
stage thoroughly throttled by one of the stage-hands, and the
curtain arose on the full set--full, save for the one empty chair.
The boys in the audience first realized the connection between the
empty chair and the previous uproar, and began clamouring for the
absent dog. The audience took up the cry, the dogs barked more
excitedly, and five minutes of hilarity delayed the turn which,
when at last started, was marked by rustiness and erraticness on
the part of the dogs and by great peevishness on the part of
Wilton Davis.
"Never mind, honey," his imperturbable wife assured him in a stage
whisper. "We'll just ditch that dog and get a regular one. And,
anyway, we've put one over on that Daisy Bell. I ain't told you
yet what she said about me, only last week, to some of my
friends."
Several minutes later, still on the stage and handling his
animals, the husband managed a chance to mutter to his wife:
"It's the dog. It's him I'm after. I'm going to lay him out."
"Yes, dearest," she agreed.
The curtain down, with a gleeful audience in front and with the
dogs back in the room over the stage, Wilton Davis descended to
look for Michael, who, instead of cowering in some corner, stood
between the legs of the stage-hand, quivering yet from his
mishandling and threatening to fight as hard as ever if attacked.
On his way, Davis encountered the song-and-dance couple. The
woman was in a tearful rage, the man in a dry one.
"You're a peach of a dog man, you are," he announced
belligerently. "Here's where you get yours."
"You keep away from me, or I'll lay you out," Wilton Davis
responded desperately, brandishing a short iron bar in his right
hand. "Besides, you just wait if you want to, and I'll lay you
out afterward. But first of all I'm going to lay out that dog.
Come on along and see--damn him! How was I to know? He was a new
one. He never peeped in rehearsal. How was I to know he was
going to yap when we arranged the set behind you?"
"You've raised hell," the manager of the theatre greeted Davis, as
the latter, trailed by Dick Bell, came upon Michael bristling from
between the legs of the stage-hand.
"Nothing to what I'm going to raise," Davis retorted, shortening
his grip on the iron bar and raising it. "I'm going to kill 'm.
I'm going to beat the life out of him. You just watch."
Michael snarled acknowledgment of the threat, crouched to spring,
and kept his eyes on the iron weapon.
"I just guess you ain't goin' to do anything of the sort," the
stage-hand assured Davis.
"It's my property," the latter asserted with an air of legal
convincingness.
"And against it I'm goin' to stack up my common sense," was the
stage-hand's reply. "You tap him once, and see what you'll get.
Dogs is dogs, and men is men, but I'm damned if I know what you
are. You can't pull off rough stuff on that dog. First time he
was on a stage in his life, after being starved and thirsted for
two days. Oh, I know, Mr. Manager."
"If you kill the dog it'll cost you a dollar to the garbage man to
get rid of the carcass," the manager took up.
"I'll pay it gladly," Davis said, again lifting the iron bar.
"I've got some come-back, ain't I?"
"You animal guys make me sick," the stage-hand uttered. "You just
make me draw the line somewheres. And here it is: you tap him
once with that baby crowbar, and I'll tap you hard enough to lose
me my job and to send you to hospital."
"Now look here, Jackson . . . " the manager began threateningly.
"You can't say nothin' to me," was the retort. "My mind's made
up. If that cheap guy lays a finger on that dog I'm just sure
goin' to lose my job. I'm gettin tired anyway of seein' these
skates beatin' up their animals. They've made me sick clean
through."
The manager looked to Davis and shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
"There's no use pulling off a rough-house," he counselled. "I
don't want to lose Jackson and he'll put you into hospital if he
ever gets started. Send the dog back where you got him. Your
wife's told me about him. Stick him into a box and send him back
collect. Collins won't mind. He'll take the singing out of him
and work him into something."
Davis, with another glance at the truculent Jackson, wavered.
"I'll tell you what," the manager went on persuasively. "Jackson
will attend to the whole thing, box him up, ship him, everything--
won't you, Jackson?"
The stage-hand nodded curtly, then reached down and gently
caressed Michael's bruised head.
"Well," Davis gave in, turning on his heel, "they can make fools
of themselves over dogs, them that wants to. But when they've
been in the business as long as I have . . . "
