Raggety Chooses
This went on for four or five days. Then one morning I took him on my lap and said, “Raggety dear, I don’t want you to stay with me unless you want to. I want you for my pleasure, but if it isn’t your pleasure too, you must go back to the Cabbage Patch. Here you will have love and care, plenty to eat, and the baths which you hate. There you will have the little children to play with, scraps to eat, perhaps be cold, and surely will be dirty, with little sore eyes and nose. But I won’t try to keep you if you want to go, you must choose for yourself.” Those sad rebellious eyes looked into mine, and with aching heart I put him down and made no attempt at shutting the doors that day and off he went to his little playmates. I did not know whether I shouldsee him again. I waited through the day, but no Raggety. But quite late there came a gentle scratching at one of the long windows. You can imagine how I hastened to open it and in marched Master Raggety with a ridiculous air of possession, as much as to say, “Well, here I am, home again.” And the curious part of his choice was that it was final. He never again went back to the Patch, never even offered to go.
Of course, a very reasonable person, who does not understand dog nature, will say, “Why, The Junkman’s family drove him away, would not let him into the house, did not feed him; so after walking about for many hours, he decided to return to the place where he knew food and shelter waited for him.” But that does not, to my mind, explain why he never again wanted to return to The Junkman’s, why he seemed willing to leave his little playmates and a life ofunwashed freedom. I believe that he really chose me, that he understood my talk of the morning, knew my affection, and that his own little heart responded.