CHAPTER XXIII.
Dogs Coming to Their Senses.—A Very Slow Process.—Marvellously Leather-headed Economic Reasoning, which Shows That Working Dogs are Almost as Pig-headed as Laboring Humans, in Discerning Self-Evident Facts.
Illustration: ILL FARES THE LAND - ILLUSTRATED LETTER ‘N’.
NOW it was at this evil time, when the meagre, weak and bloodless misery of the dogs had reached its depth, and the burden upon them of the unasked-for means for their salvation was heaviest; and the fleas had reached the limit of their biggest and tightest expansibility, that a vague terror took possession of the fleas. This was occasioned by the strange behavior of the dogs at various times.
Sometimes a dog, right in the midst of his very insanest scratching for food, would flop suddenly down in the gutter and look up to heaven, and sigh and scratch his head as though he had a dark problem on his mind, the solution of which might be found up there. After a spell of this sort of contemplation the dog would as suddenly resume his insanity, apparently having concluded that his looking up there was in vain.
Then it was noticed that several insane dogs, when they met, would stop and all together look up to heaven, and sigh and then look into each other’s eyes, as though seeking therein for light on some dark conundrum; when, after a few moments of such contemplation, they would all simultaneously let off a bark of disappointment, resume their insanity and scatter.
On brilliant moonlight nights, some of the dogs that had looked up to heaven in the daytime and seen nothing, would stare up at the moon for a long time and wag their tails and heads with apparent satisfaction, and bark vociferously; but no one gave heed to them, as they were said to be lunatics.
Others meandered down to the edge of the pond, and after gazing in a distraught and far-away manner for a time, would shake their heads, and, suddenly turning tail, would scamper off and fall to their scratching more madly than ever.
Sometimes hundreds of them would gather in the open places and look, some towards the East, some towards the West, some towards the North, and some towards the South, and some towards the zenith, and each set would bark.
And it was told the eminent fleas, and the large fleas, and the Monstrous Fleas, how many of the dogs were behaving. And the fleas were much concerned, and called all the wise fleas that could be found, and diligently inquired of them what time this erratic behavior had broken out, and what it might mean?
And the wise fleas answered they didn’t know unless it was that some queer and unusual disease had broken out amongst them, and they were having spells of sanity, and might during those spells, be thinking and pondering and meditating, in which case it behooved the fleas to watch them closely and take steps to apply some remedy.
Some of the fleas said that was sound advice and ought to be taken at once, as thinking was the very worst disease a dog could have. Experience had shown that this disease was a most insidious one, whose first symptoms were very insignificant and unimportant, but in time developed into a most contagious,infectious and deadly plague, and they would advise that a Board of Health be organized at once, and a number of inspectors be appointed to make domiciliary visits amongst the dogs to ascertain and report on their mental condition. Thus, a possible epidemic of thinking might be checked in its incipiency, and a possibly great calamity avoided.
But most of the fleas said they didn’t think there was any cause for alarm—at least just now; for if the dogs had really caught the thinking infection, it was so slightly that it would amount to nothing; but if the case should really grow serious, they had great confidence that the police dogs were so good and faithful (being well fed), that any very serious case would be promptly quarantined; and if extreme measures should be called for, the dog so afflicted could be killed; which was, in the opinion of all eminent fleas, an infallible cure in the case ofthatdog, and an infallible preventive of the disease in any other.
So the fleas went on making themselves comfortable and did not form any Board of Health.
The dogs, however, got no better, and still went about staring at vacancy.
One day a dog that had flopped down in the gutter to sigh and scratch his head, and look up to heaven, seeing another dog looking up into heaven said unto him: “Why gazest thou so earnestly up into heaven?”
And the other dog said: “And why gazestthouso earnestly up into heaven?”
And the first dog replied: “Because I am convinced that it comes from above.”
And the second dog, encouraged, said: “That also is my conviction. I am sure we work hard enough to make a living, yet the harder we work the harder it is to make a living.”
“It is a mystery,” said the first dog.
“It is, indeed,” replied the second dog, “a great and deep mystery. It must be that Heaven is angry with us for our sins, and that this our everlasting hunger and defeat of the object ofall our life-long scratching for food is Heaven’s chastisement, which, as the good missionaries and Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite have so often told us, though for the present it seemeth grievous, will at last work out for us a far more exceeding plenty in the grubful Canaan up there.”
Which far-away heavenly prospect made them both sigh tremendously, and bring their gaze back again to earth, where they saw, not many yards away, another dog looking up into heaven. He gazed thitherward for a long time, and sadly sighing, was about to resume his normal insanity and rush off, when he gave a terrible yelp, which was caused by an unusually venomous nip, by an unusually large and powerful flea, right in the region of the root of his tail. Turning to pay attention to the trouble there, he saw a lot of fleas skipping and scampering about, and having a most hilarious time, and some, he imagined, were laughing at him.
Why he paid especial regard to such a common phenomenon, he did not know and could not have told. Probably it was because he was afflicted with a more than usually bad spell of sanity and mental lucidity, and had what the other dogs called a “Jag” on, during the continuance of which he had visions of things as they really were. Whatever the reason, he stared at them even more fixedly and concentratedly than ever he had gazed up into heaven. His eyes grew big and bulged, and the longer he stared the bigger they grew and the more they bulged. Then slowly there came into them a strange and unaccustomed light, as of a consciousness that was returning after a prolonged absence from home. After a time he winked an eye and then rubbed both very hard with his paws, and ejaculated: “Blamed if I don’t think I have been looking in the wrong direction. I don’t think it comes from above, after all. I do believe it’s fleas.” And he wagged his head sapiently and looked at the fleas again, and wagged his head once more, which having done several times, as though to confirm himself in the surety that hehad really made a great discovery, he trotted away; and the other two observing dogs followed him.
He trotted away to where some of the other dogs were gazing steadfastly up into heaven, and poking some of them in the ribs he cried, “Fleas, fleas;” then leaving them to growl and curse his disturbance of their meditations, he trotted down to a group that were gazing far away over the pond, and poking some of their ribs, he cried, “Fleas, ye blind! Fleas;” and leaving them to snarl and curse, he betook himself to the public places where sundry groups were gazing and barking towards the East and towards the West, and towards the North and towards the South, and cried aloud, “Fleas, ye fools! Fleas.” But most of the dogs, whose gazing was thus rudely disturbed, took umbrage thereat, and chased him, and demanded to know why he had thus violently and ill-behavedly broken in upon their meditations?
“Because,” said he, “I want you to look in the right direction; I have just found out what is amiss with us all—it isfleas;Fleas, andnothing but fleas.”
But the heavenward gazers said: “Not so; our troubles come from above; it is Heaven that hath mysteriously, but, no doubt, in infinite wisdom, afflicted us, as say the salaried barkers.”
“Heaven!” cried another crowd, “Nonsense; they do not; any fool can see they come from the East.”
“Yes, and nonebutfools can see they come from the East or from Heaven; all wise dogs know they come from the West, from the land of the almond-eyed, long-tailed Yellow Dog,” cried the Westward gazers, who themselves had come from the East.
“A fine lot of wise dogs ye are!” cried the Southward gazers, “since it’s as plain as daylight that our hunger and poverty are entirely from the South, in the shape of those inferior kinky-haired Black Dogs that are used to hunger and can bear it better than we.”
“Ha! Ha! Ha! He! He! He!” laughed the Northward gazers. “Come off, do. That is the silliest explanation yet. Anyone with the smallest and feeblest faculty of observation can see that the North is the only and all sufficient source of all our afflictions.”
“Bah! Fools and idiots that ye are!” yelled the pondward gazers. “Ye are all wrong; any one can see that our troubles are all due to the coming of those dirty dogs from over the pond, from Hungryland, Dirtland and Choleraland.”
“Yes,” cried a little crowd that had arrived but a short time from thence, “It’s a shame to allow so many in, filling up the country and snatching our bones. There ought to be a law passed.”
Illustration: THEY GOT INTO AN AWFUL FIGHT.
“And if it had not been for your coming,” screamingly replied a crowd that had arrived a long time before, “we would not be starving now. The gates ought to have been shut long ago.”
“Aye, Aye,” sneered a lot of the native born dogs, “the day afteryougot safe in, of course. For our part, we think it a wicked outrage on us that foreigners were allowed here at all, taking the bread out of the mouths of the rightful owners of the country. There ought to have been a law passed at first to keep out foreigners.”
“And where would your fathers have been then?” sneered back the foreigners.
And the contention waxed hot; each angrily vociferating that all the others were fools, idiots and liars, and they put out their tongues at one another, and snarled and growled; and at last they got into an awful fight; from which many of them emerged with torn ears and noses, broken legs, loosened teeth and amputated tails.
But as for the unfortunate dog that said “Fleas,” he was badly battered, for in the general fight every one of the combatants struck athim. But he got away at last and hid himself.
Nevertheless there were some of the far-away gazers that after the fight could not help thinking over the suggestive words he had let fall; and they thought thatpossiblytheir afflictions did come wholly and solely from their fleas.
The consequence was that these dogs took to regarding the fleas continually and very intently; and other dogs, wondering what they were looking at so much, began also to look at the fleas.