CHAPTER XXIII
THE MAD DOG SCARE
The primary and grammar grades, and the high school, were in beautifulbrick buildings side by side at this end of Milton. The little folk hada large play yard, as well as basement recreation rooms for stormyweather. The Parade Ground was not far away, and the municipality ofMilton did not ornament the grass plots there with "Keep Off the Grass"signs.
No automobiles were allowed through the street where the schools were atthe hours when the children were going to or coming from school.Besides, two big policemen--the very tallest men on the force--werestationed at the crossings on either side to guide the school childrenthrough the danger zone.
However, Tess usually waited for Dot after school so that the smallestCorner House girl should not have to walk home alone. It happened oneafternoon during these first few weeks of school, while Tess was waitingwith some of her classmates for the smaller girls, that Sammy Pinkney,Iky Goronofsky, and half a dozen other boys of Tess' age, came whoopingaround from the boys' entrance to the school, chasing a small,disreputable dog that ran zigzag along the street, acting verystrangely.
"Oh, Tess!" cried Alfredia Blossom, the colored girl, "see those boyschasin' that poor dog. I declar'! ain't they jest the wust--"
"Oh, dear me, Alfredia!" urged Tess, gravely, "_do_ remember what MissShipman tells you. 'Worst,' not 'wust.'"
"I'm gwine to save dat dog!" gasped Alfredia, too disturbed by thecircumstances to mind Tess' instructions.
She darted out ahead of the boys. Sammy Pinkney yelled at the top of hisvoice:
"Let that dog alone, 'Fredia Blossom! You want to catch hydrophobia?"
"Wha' dat?" demanded Alfredia, stopping short and her eyes rolling.
"That dog's mad! If he bites you you'll go mad, too," declared Sammy,coming puffing to the spot where the little girls were assembled.
At this startling statement some of the girls screamed and ran back intothe yard. There they met the smaller girls coming forth, and for a timethere was a hullabaloo that nearly deafened everybody on the block.
Said Sammy with disgust:
"Hoh! if hollerin' did any good, those girls would kill all the mad dogsin the State."
As it was, the police officer at the corner used his club to kill theunfortunate little animal that had caused all the excitement. TheS. P. C. A. wagon came and got the poor dead dog, and the doctors atthe laboratory examined his brain and sent word to the newspapers thatthe animal had actually been afflicted with rabies.
It was a strange dog; nobody knew where it had come from. It had bittenseveral other dogs in his course as far as the school. Some of thesedogs were sent to the pound to be watched; but some foolish owners wouldnot hear of sacrificing their pets for the general good. So, within afortnight there was a veritable epidemic of rabies among the dogs ofMilton.
One man lost a valuable horse that was impregnated with the poison frombeing bitten by the stable dog that had been his best friend.
The order went forth that all dogs should be muzzled and none should beallowed on the street save on a leash. Sammy was very careful to keepBuster chained. Buster had not many friends in the neighborhood at best.So Sammy took no chances with his bulldog.
As for Tom Jonah, the old dog was such a universal pet, and was sokindly of disposition that nobody thought of including him in thegeneral fear of the canine dwellers in Milton.
Tom Jonah was old, and had few teeth left. He was troubled now and thenwith rheumatism, too; and he seldom left the Corner House yard save toaccompany the girls on some expedition. He went with them often in theautomobile, especially when they went picnicking on Saturdays. He andScalawag were very good friends, and sometimes he accompanied the littlefolks in their afternoon rides around the Parade Ground.
But as soon as the mad-dog scare started the girls were all very carefulabout letting Tom Jonah go off the premises. He was too old anddignified a dog to run out to bark at passing teams, or to followstrange dogs to make their acquaintance. Therefore the Kenways and NealeO'Neil thought it was not necessary for poor old Tom Jonah to wear anugly and irritating muzzle all the time. The old fellow hated the thingso!
"I don't blame poor Tom Jonah for not liking to wear that old thing,"Dot said thoughtfully. "It's worse than the bit in Scalawag's mouth. Andsee how Billy Bumps hates to be harnessed up. Supposin'," added thesmallest Corner House girl, "_we_ had to put on a harness and have ourmouths tied up when we started for school. Oh! wouldn't it be dreadful?"
"I guess it would, Dot Kenway," Tess agreed vigorously. "I guess itisn't so much fun being a dog or a horse or even a goat."
"Huh!" growled Sammy who had become pretty well tired of school by thistime; "anyway, they don't have to study," and he looked as though hewould willingly change places with almost any of the pets about the oldCorner House.
Neale always walked to school with the little folks now, for Ruth wasfearful that there might be other dogs loose afflicted with the terribledisease. A panic among little children is so easily started. She couldtrust Neale to have a watchful care over Dot and Tess.
Nothing so bad as that happened; but there did come a day when tragedybecause of the mad-dog scare stalked near to the Corner House.
The dog-catchers were going about town netting all the stray dogs theycould find. Foolish people who would not obey the law deserved to losetheir pets. And if they wished to, if the dogs were pronounced perfectlyhealthy at the pound, the owners could appear and claim their pets bypaying two dollars.
This last fact, however, was something the little Corner House girls andSammy Pinkney knew nothing about. They had a horror of "the dogcatchers." The collecting agents of the S. P. C. A. are bugbears in mostcommunities. When the children saw the green van, with its screened doorin the back, and heard the yapping of the excited dogs within, Dot andTess stuffed their fingers in their ears and ran.
The children did not understand that stray dogs were likely to be bittenas those other dogs had been by one afflicted with the rabies; and thatit was much more humane to catch the unmuzzled animals, that nobodycared for, and dispose of them painlessly, than to have them becomediseased and a menace to the neighborhood.
To make the children understand that it was dangerous to play withstrange dogs was a difficult matter. The little Corner House girls wereprone to be friendly with passing animals.
All hungry and sore-eyed kittens appealed to Tess and Dot; the wag of adog's tail was sufficient to interest them in its owner; each horse atthe curb held a particular interest, too. They were trusting of nature,these little girls, and they trusted everybody and everything.
In coming home from school one afternoon Neale was in a hurry to do anerrand, and he left the little folk at the corner, hurrying around toCon Murphy's on the back street, where he lived. Ruth was away from homeand Agnes had not yet arrived at the Corner House.
The Willow Street block, however, seemed perfectly safe. Tess and Dotstrolled along the block, their feet rustling the carpet of leaves thathad now fallen from the trees. Sammy Pinkney was playing solitaireleapfrog over all posts and hydrants.
Just as they reached the corner of the Corner House yard Tom Jonah heardand saw them. He rose up, barking the glad tidings that his littlefriends were returning from school, and as he felt pretty well this day,he leaped the fence into the street and came cavorting toward them,laughing just as broadly as a dog could laugh.
Even as Tess and Dot greeted him, Sammy Pinkney emitted a shriek ofdismay. A big auto-van had turned the corner and rolled smoothly alongthe block. One man on the front seat who was driving the truck said tohis mate:
"There's another of 'em, Bill. Net him."
The fellow he spoke to leaped out as the green van came to a halt. Hecarried a net like a fish seine over his arm. Before the little girlswho were fondling Tom Jonah realized that danger threatened--before thefrightened Sammy could do more than shout his useless warning--the manthrew the net, and old Tom Jonah was entangled in its meshes.
/> The little girls screamed. Sammy roared a protest. The men paid noattention to the uproar.
"Got a big fish this time, Harry," said Bill, dragging the struggling,growling Tom Jonah to the back of the van. "Give us a hand."
For the big dog, his temper roused, would have done his captor someinjury had he been able. The driver of the dog catchers' van drove theother dogs back from the door with a long pole, and then between them heand his mate heaved Tom Jonah into the vehicle.
Sammy Pinkney scurried around for some missile to throw at the dogcatchers. The little girls' shrieks brought neighboring children toyards and doors and windows. But there chanced not to be an adult on theblock to whom the dog catchers might have listened.
"Oh, Mister! Don't! Don't!" begged Tess, sobbing, and trying to hold bythe coat the man who had netted Tom Jonah. "He's a good dog--a real gooddog. _Don't_ take him away."
"If you hurt Tom Jonah my sister Ruthie will do something _awful_ toyou!" declared Dot, too angry to cry.
"Wish my father was home," said Sammy, threateningly. "He'd fix youdog-catchers!"
"Aw-gowan!" exclaimed the man, pushing Tess so hard that she almostfell, and breaking her hold upon his coat.
But Tess forgot herself in her anxiety for Tom Jonah. She bravelyfollowed him to the very step of the van.
"Give him back! Give him back!" she cried. "You must not hurt Tom Jonah.He never did you any harm. He never did _anybody_ any harm. Give himback to us! Please!"
Her wail made no impression on the man.
"Drive on, Harry," he said. "These kids give me a pain."
The green van moved on. Tom Jonah's gray muzzle appeared at the screeneddoor at the back. He howled mournfully as the van headed toward MainStreet.
"Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?" cried Tess, wringing herhands.
"Let's run tell Ruthie," gasped Dot.
"I wish Neale O'Neil was here," growled Sammy.
But Tess was the bravest of the three. She had no intention of losingsight of poor Tom Jonah, whose mournful cries seemed to show that heknew the fate in store for him.
"Where are you going, Tess?" shouted Sammy, as the Corner House girlkept on past the gate of her own dooryard, after the green van.
"They sha'n't have Tom Jonah!" declared the sobbing Tess. "I--I won'tlet them."
"And--and Iky Goronofsky says that they make frankfurters out of thosepoor dogs," moaned Dot, repeating a legend prevalent among the rougherschool children at that time.
"Pshaw! he was stringin' you kids," said Sammy, with more wisdom,falling in with Dot behind the determined Tess. "What'll we do? Tess isgoing right after that old van."
"We mustn't leave her," Dot said. "Oh! I _wish_ Ruthie had seen thosehorrid men take Tom Jonah."
As it was there seemed nothing to do but to follow the valiant Tess onher quest toward the dog pound. As for Tess herself she had no intentionof losing sight of Tom Jonah. She made up her mind that no matter howfar the van went the poor old dog who had been their friend for so longshould not be deserted.
At the seashore, soon after Tom Jonah had first come to live with theCorner House girls, the dog had been instrumental in saving the lives ofboth Tess and Dot. He had often guarded them when they played and whenthey worked. They depended upon him at night to keep away prowlers fromthe Corner House henroost. No ill-disposed persons ever troubled thepremises at the Corner of Willow and Main Streets after one glimpse ofTom Jonah.
"I don't care!" sobbed Tess, her plump cheeks streaked with tears, whenher little sister and Sammy caught up with her a block away from home."I don't care. They sha'n't put poor Tom Jonah in the gas chamber. _I_know what they do to poor doggies. They sha'n't treat him so!"
"But what'll you do, Tess!" demanded Sammy, amazed by the determinationand courage of his little friend.
"I don't know just what I'll do when I get there but I'll dosomething--you see if I don't, Sammy Pinkney!" threatened this usuallymild and retiring Tess Kenway.