_Raggety_

[Illustration: RAGGETY]




  RAGGETY

  HIS LIFE AND
  ADVENTURES

  BY
  MARY JOSEPHINE WHITE

  WITH DRAWING BY
  CLIFFORD K. BERRYMAN


  PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY
  H. L. & J. B. MCQUEEN, INC.
  WASHINGTON, D. C.
  1913




  COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY MARY JOSEPHINE WHITE

  NUMBER ....

  OF THIS EDITION THREE HUNDRED AND
  FIFTEEN COPIES HAVE BEEN PRINTED FROM
  CASLON TYPE AND THE TYPE DISTRIBUTED




  _To
  The Lovely Lady
  and
  The Lovely Lady’s Husband_




CONTENTS


   1 The Arrival of Raggety                      13

   2 Raggety Chooses                             19

   3 Raggety’s Education                         22

   4 His Love of Travel                          25

   5 How Raggety Proved Himself a Real Dog       28

   6 How He “Borned His Baby”                    32

   7 How Raggety Met His Lovely Lady             35

   8 His Devotion to His Lovely Lady             38

   9 How Raggety Bit The Great Man and How
       He Then Apologized                        41

  10 Raggety’s Ears                              45

  11 Raggety’s Tail                              49

  12 His Athletic Interests                      51

  13 Raggety’s Love Affairs                      55

  14 Raggety’s Friendships                       58

  15 Raggety and The Dear Man Who Passed         61

  16 Me and Jeems                                63

  17 What The Lovely Lady Says                   67

  18 Raggety Trots Out of His Book               71




RAGGETY IS A REAL DOG

To begin with, he is a really truly dog; not a dog in a picture, not
a dog in a story, not a dog in a book, but a real dog. One that would
come up and lick your hand with his warm little tongue if you spoke to
him, and would jump up and down and wiggle all over if you asked him to
go for a walk.




THE MINTIE

Once I was walking in the Fields of the Earth[A] and there I met a
Mintie, with a head on before and a tail on behind, and inside the
Mintie there lived a Growl. Now the Growl had neither head, body, nor
legs, but it lived inside of the Mintie.


FOOTNOTES:

[A] Apologies to John Bunyan.




A SUGARED DESCRIPTION

He’s all made of lollipops stuck together with treacle, and then there
was a high wind blowing and lots of sugar in the air. And the sugar
stuck all over him and that’s the reason he’s fluffy.




[Illustration: _Raggety_

_His Mark_]




                                                _The Arrival of Raggety_


He trotted into my life one sunshiny day in May over there in a town
on the Hudson. He was trying to teach a hound puppy with very large
dull paws how to play. The puppy was clumsy, he was slow, he panted
abominably, but the little yellow dog went round and round him in
flashing circles, the circles growing smaller and faster. The center of
them all came and the fluff turned like down before the wind and flew
away to rest. I laughed out loud with joy at the fun of that little
yellow dog. As he rested he thrust his hind-legs out on either side,
in a way peculiar to terriers, and from my window looked an animated
doormat. “How slow and stupid that hound puppy is!” said every hair of
the gay little yellow body.

Next morning I was sitting on the doorstep watching the robins busy
among the rain of apple blossoms. I know I felt expectant: there was
that delicious Spring hush of an awakening world, and one’s heart
waited too.

Round the hedge that same little yellow dog trotted into my life. I
called to him, “Raggety, Raggety, how do you do?” And he came straight
to me, looked at me with sad questioning beautiful brown eyes, my
eyes answered, and we knew each other. From that moment I belonged to
him and he to me. He let me carry him to my room,--he was such a tiny
thing, so little, so independent,--protesting with faint growls. I saw
his neglected hair was matted, tangled, muddy, and that his nose was
sore; his eyes alone preserved the beauty to which he had been born.
Then I let him go but found from the gardener where he belonged. Where
he came from no one knows but he himself and he has never told me a
word about it.

This is all I could find out. Down in the poor little settlement under
the hill, which we called “The Cabbage Patch” in memory of Mrs. Wiggs,
there lived The Junkman with his wife, many children big and little,
and an old white horse. Every Monday the man hitched the white horse to
his peddler’s cart and drove back among the hills and the tiny villages
and scattered farms. The cart was always filled on Mondays with new
bright jingling tins, pots, pails, pans, with here and there a japanned
tea-caddy or a bright blue wash basin for a touch of color. When the
cart came back to town towards the end of the week,--the better the
trade, the sooner it came,--all its glory had departed. No more shining
pans, but instead great dingy bags of rags, the clank of old iron,
and perhaps on the top of the heap a dilapidated baby-carriage, the
cast-off things of life. The horse seemed older and wearier; the man
more bent, more broken. Earlier that Spring, on his way down from the
hills, The Junkman noticed a little dog trotting under the cart. Where
he joined him he did not know, at what house he had seen him he could
not remember, only that the little long-haired yellow dog had come down
from the hill-farms with him, had followed the cart, did not leave him
when he reached home, and had become a playmate to his children. Little
tousled things the children were, tumbling over each other in the two
rooms that were home to them. The little yellow dog shared their play,
their food, their bed, until the day that he came up the hill to teach
that stupid hound-puppy to run races.

Through the gardener’s helper I made a bargain with The Junkman. He
was glad of the little extra money, even though the children were
sorry to lose their gay good-natured playmate, and the little yellow
dog became mine.

I shall never forget that first arrival. The gardener’s man (I always
feel that the larger part of the little bargain money went into his
pocket) came leading him proudly, with a rope heavy enough to have
dragged a cow to market about that active liberty-loving fluffy neck,
and reproaches stared from those brown eyes.

Then began a series of struggles, heartrending for the little dog
and for his new mistress. He had to be washed, not once, but twice
and thrice, yea, unto the fourthly, to get him clean and sweet and
habitable and uninhabited. We emerged from the bath room, he a glaring,
fiercely protesting bundle in a bath towel, I with flaming cheeks,
weary back, and collar awry.

He mourned the loss of his little jolly tousled playmates, refused
to eat, refused to be comforted. Then he persisted in returning to
the Cabbage Patch at every opportunity, and this meant fees to the
gardener’s helper, anxious waiting, and laborious cheerfulness when he,
sulky and unwilling, returned.




                                                       _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 should see 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 of unwashed 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.




                                                   _Raggety’s Education_


Where he had come from no one knew but himself. He had all the pretty
ways of a pet dog when he came, loved to be petted, could sit on his
haunches and beg, give paw, and had the ingratiating ways of a loved
and loving comrade. What sort of a home had he left? Why did he leave
it voluntarily to follow the Raggedy Man? Was his soul fettered and
cramped and did he long for Adventure and the Open Road and,--dare it?
When you see what a little dog he is, when you know his liberty-loving
spirit, when you realize that he meets change and vicissitude with
courage, you feel sure that he comes of good stock. Mary Cholmondley
said in one of her books, “Good blood is never cowardly,” and Raggety
has good blood.

Three humiliating and exasperating new bonds he learned to endure with
me. First, a collar, and a collar with an annoying bell which jingled
as he walked and scampered. How he rolled and pushed his head about,
and wriggled on his back to get rid of that abominable thing about his
neck! Second, he had to learn to walk attached to a leash and that was
terrible. I carefully fastened the clip of the leash into the ring
of his collar and started, and he refused to use his legs. So for a
few steps I dragged him on his little body but that looked and seemed
cruel. Then I carried him for a few steps, set him down again, again
no legs, and the little body dragged over the dirt of the road. Alas
and alack, how long it took before he submitted!--was it days, was it
weeks? I have forgotten, but just as he chose to return and stay with
me, one fine day he decided that he would walk properly at the end of a
leather strap. _Now_ it has come to mean a walk, so he kisses it.

The third thing he had to learn with his new mistress and to which he
never in all the years of our friendship has become reconciled is the
weekly bath. “Any refuge in a storm,” he seeks the darkest closets and
the deepest corners under beds as safe retreats and is only dislodged
by coaxing most persuasive and long-continued. How he hates it!




                                                    _His Love of Travel_


Whether his instinctive love of adventure persists, or whether he
has the confidence that where I go he too may go in safety, I do not
know, but I do know that Raggety really loves to travel, to go, that
the excitement of change rouses and amuses him. When bags and trunks
are brought out he is very depressed for often they mean separation,
a parting from one he loves, and once when a trunk, half-packed, was
left standing open, in he got and curled down to sleep, saying quite
plainly, “If this goes, pack me in it and take me along.” But when the
time comes for departure and he finds he is to go too, his excitement
is intense. Capering, jumping, barking, he expresses his joy and
rapture.

When going for long visits he takes his bed with him, an open
dog-basket inherited from older generations of little pet dogs. He
gets into this of his own accord, is lifted into the baggage car, his
leash is attached to one of the handles and there he stays. Unless the
kindly baggage-men find that he can sit up and “beg,” when he often
has the freedom of the car. And the men always report at the end of
the journey, “A very good dog, ma’am,” sometimes adding, “and a cute
one.” His wide friendliness and gentle manners win him friends on
street cars, trains, among any community where he lives. His traveling
equipment is such as belongs to any gentlemanly dog. His bed, his
mattress, his blanket,--for Royalty ever carry Their Own,--his comb and
brush, his washcloth, his soap, his powder (for a chance and vulgar
inhabiter), his collars, and his harness (now grown fat in later years,
a collar slips over his head and is not safe in traveling). This
harness was also an inheritance from a dear little dead girl-dog, of
whom you will hear again.




                                 _How Raggety Proved Himself a Real Dog_


Most men like big dogs, hunting dogs, useful dogs, watch dogs. They
don’t understand that idea of a little dog, a dog small enough to take
up in your arms and cuddle. A dog that will get up on the lounge beside
you, lay his tiny head in your lap, give a comfortable and comforting
sigh, and settle himself for a delicious nap next to “Missie Nannie”
while she reads or sews. Men don’t have that ache for something little
in their arms the way we empty-armed women do. So they don’t care for
and love little dogs. And my brother-in-law was one of the most men.
Even during the courtship he ventured, when he ought to have been
studying to make good impressions, to call Raggety “a silly dog,” “a
lollypop.” I know Raggety resented this as much as I did, for he soon
showed Brother-in-Law that he was no “lollypop.”

They were tremendously in love, with that beautiful abandon and
obliviousness of surroundings which is characteristic of the Divine
Passion, and they went to walk that lovely summer afternoon by the
ponds and never even saw that Raggety had gone along. He trotted
demurely at their lagging heels until the pond was reached, then
with a squeal of joy he chased a water-rat, dug deep into its watery
hole, emerged panting, triumphant, the rat in his jaws, gloriously
black-mud from nose to tail. The oblivious ones were forced to witness
the triumph and a mild feeling of respect crept over Brother-in-Law’s
indifference. The oblivious ones were also beautifully dressed in fresh
and gay-colored clothing as becometh lovers. Having dispatched the rat,
Raggety saw their awakened interest and pleasure and running gaily to
them shook violently, depositing all the black mud and water possible
upon that gay clothing, and frisked about as much as to say, “Now, will
you ever call me a silly dog again?”

Later, after the honeymoon, when earth had once more become their
abode, Raggety visited the Brother-in-Law. He at once adopted him as
a comrade, not that Brother-in-Law wanted to be so adopted, but that
made no difference to Raggety’s enthusiasm. He insisted upon walking
with him, and as there was deep snow that winter, my sister said she
often would see her tall man approaching, followed by what looked
like a yellow feather. Buried between the snow banks, only the tip of
Raggety’s tail waved into sight. Then too he adopted Brother-in-Law’s
favorite chair. Pushed out of it at first whenever its master wanted
it, Raggety genially but continuously chose that special chair as his
own place of repose and never offered to leave it voluntarily. Instead
he would raise polite beseeching eyes, and with a casual wave of his
tail, question, “You don’t really want this chair, do you?” It was all
so politely, so serenely accomplished that in the end Raggety won out
and kept the chair. Ever since then Brother-in-Law has had respect
for the “silly dog” and even inquires how he does with a reminiscent
chuckle. He remembers the episodes of the mud-bath and the winner of
the disputed property-rights in special chairs.




                                              _How He “Borned His Baby”_


During one winter it was not possible for me to keep Raggety with me.
I had to find him a home in the village near enough so that I could
go and get him for a daily walk. His home was with the family of one
of the undergardeners, where there was already one baby girl toddling
about and hugging Raggety to her heart’s content. He adores children,
no amount of pulling or patting or hugging by tiny hands and arms can
upset his good-nature. If his hair becomes too much involved, a faint
growl warns tiny fingers to be more gentle, but Raggety can always be
trusted with children.

So Raggety lived and played with the Donahues and then a new baby came.
Mrs. Margaret faintly told them that Raggety was under the bed, so down
on hands and knees got Mr. Donahue and the doctor, but no coaxing, no
blandishments would dislodge the faithful little yellow dog who had
mounted guard over his Margaret, who had been so good to him and was
now in such mortal distress. Vicious snapping teeth and savage small
glaring green eyes were the welcome given out-stretched hands which
would have pulled him forth. There was much to be done otherwise,
the attempted evictment was abandoned, the little dog-guardian was
forgotten. So through the long night he waited without food, without
water, without rest. In the dim light of early dawn, Mrs. Margaret
lying quiet with a tiny baby on her right arm felt the gentle touch of
a little dog’s paw on her shoulder. It was Raggety come to see her and
the strange little bundle. She spoke his name, “Raggety,” he answered
with a soft whimper of relief, sighed with pleasure and stretched
himself on Margaret’s other arm, across from the new baby. Margaret
was _his_ Margaret, the baby was _his_ baby.




                                       _How Raggety Met His Lovely Lady_


He met His Lovely Lady long before I met her. And perhaps somewhere
else she’ll tell you herself about their meeting, but this is what I
know of it. I was going away for the summer to study and in a place
where little dogs are not encouraged, so he had to stay behind,
and Nellie Jones, who was in my Sunday School class and also my
god-daughter, brought him to the train to say “Good-bye.” He was
rather excited by the crowds and the train so I did not let him come
out onto the platform but made Nellie stay in the waiting-room with
him, and there I, with a sad heart, said good-bye for a little while.
He wagged his tail encouragingly, his eyes fixed on mine waiting for
that happy permission to go which I could not give; Nellie cried and
clung about my neck and I hurried away so that the parting, which
must be, might be quickly accomplished. I turned at the door and saw
the sad little group, Nellie with her scant little skirt and long legs
dangling from the bench, and sitting next to her, with that world-old
look of infinite patience and of things not understood but endured, sat
that little yellow comrade I was leaving behind. “Good-bye, Raggety.
Good-bye, dear faithful little friend.”

How many times have I said it through the long years, but as many times
have I said in greeting as I said at our very first meeting, “Raggety,
Raggety, how do you do?” I dare not think of that time when I must say,
“Good-bye, Raggety. Good-bye, dear faithful little friend,” with no
hopes of a greeting to follow.

There the Lovely Lady found them, Nellie and Raggety. And two years
later I told her of my little dog, for did not the Lovely Lady herself
have precious tiny Balribbie of gentle memory. I told her of Raggety’s
living at the Donahue’s, and how I missed his warm fluffiness. And then
I spoke of one of the many homes Raggety and I have had together and
she exclaimed with delight, “Why, I know Raggety!” And she’s going to
tell you herself how they met.




                                       _His Devotion to His Lovely Lady_


First of all the Lovely Lady loves dogs and knows what they think
about, and what they like to do, and what they want. Then she has the
most enchanting way of talking to you if you are a dog and a little
fluffy dog. She has a dance that fills you with pleasure, so that you
caper about her in sheer ecstasy of joy. Best of all her possessions,
besides her own lovely self, is “Jeems.” Jeems is a terrier too, young,
rather rough, but good company for a walk, and since Raggety has licked
him into shape by many instructions of what to do and what not to do,
administered in the shape of growls, Jeems is really an all-round good
dog. When Raggety came to live near to his Lovely Lady and Jeems, he
found that of a morning a breakfast with these friends started the
day satisfactorily. So off he will start with never a thought of “Home
and Mother,” when there is the prospect of a ’licious breakfast, to be
followed by a walk in the woods.

His marked attentions to his Lovely Lady are witnessed and encouraged
by me and by the Lovely Lady’s Husband. Neither of us could be even
a tiny bit jealous of the Lovely Lady and her devoted little lover,
Raggety. Only recently Raggety showed that it is indeed his Lovely
Lady and no one else whom he follows. One unhappy day she packed her
trunk and went away for a visit, and during all her absence neither the
gambols of Jeems nor the blandishments of the Lovely Lady’s Husband had
any effect on his faithful little heart. He simply would not, could not
go to that empty house; he stayed away for many days.

And will you tell me how he learned of the Lovely Lady’s return? He
was fast asleep in his little bed at home at the late hour of her
arrival. But bright and early the next morning he was at her door
greeting her with barks of welcome, ready to go in and have breakfast
with her. What or who told him that she was back again? Did some
dog friend tell him early in the morning that she had come? Did the
fragrance of her presence come to his keen sagacious nostrils? Did some
occult sense, denied us human beings, tell him that his loneliness was
over, and that his little heart again might beat with joy?




                                      _How Raggety Bit The Great Man and
                                                 How He Then Apologized_


He had just come to live in the house of The Great Man, and as neither
Raggety nor I were quite sure whether The Great Man would allow him to
stay or not, it behooved us both to be exceedingly circumspect. It was
therefore most unfortunate that The Great Man should have chosen to
behave so strangely. They were playing Bridge that evening, The Great
Man and the others, and Raggety politely put aside the curtains with
his nose and advanced into the room to ask them how the game was going.
He waited a moment, waving a propitiating tail, then advanced further.
At this critical moment he came under observation and The Great Man
ordered him from the room.

Now, between you and me, I do not believe that Raggety had ever been
ordered from a room. Let us plead in extenuation that he did not
understand the order. At any rate, he did not go. So of course the
order was more vehemently repeated. Stunned, astonished, surprised,
Raggety remained passive. Then The Great Man came to him and took him
by the collar to pull him ignominiously from the room. Now neither a
well-bred dog nor man allows fingers to be inserted under his collar
without protest. Raggety protested. He shook off the offending hand
and taking the nearest finger, vigorously pinched it between his
teeth. It was his way of saying quickly and positively, “None of that,
please,--let go.” Then, to end the unpleasant scene, he left the room,
while the others bound up the pinched finger,--no skin was broken, no
blood flowed,--and soothed the wounded feelings of The Great Man.

And I hearing the tale trembled, fearing that Raggety’s protest meant
banishment for him.

But there is a pleasant sequel to the tale.

A day or two later, while his fate was hanging in the balance, Raggety
again nosed aside the curtains of the rooms of The Great Man. The
latter tells the rest of it this way: “I had been drowsily reading the
newspapers, probably took a cat-nap and woke with a consciousness of
something breathing in the room. I looked about for our big cat but
could not find him. Then on the floor, beside my chair, that little
cock-eared dog was sitting up, quietly begging.” Mr. Great Man opened
his eyes to find Raggety sitting up on his haunches, waving entreating
paws. Nor would he get down until The Great Man stretched out a
forgiving hand, took his paw, and there was peace between them. As The
Great Man says, “When one gentleman asks pardon of another whom he has
hurt, what can the latter do but forgive him generously?” So The Great
Man and Raggety have been firm friends ever since.




                                                        _Raggety’s Ears_


I always wonder what people who do not own a dog do for general
conversation. The very young, the uninteresting and uninterested alike,
the dangerous, and the facetious can always be safely steered onto the
discussion of dogs or _the_ dog, if there happens to be a dog in the
room. When you have not an idea, and your guest hasn’t an idea, when
the man is treading on delicate ground or is approaching the barriers,
if you just introduce Raggeties into the conversation the day is saved,
the feelings are preserved, your own supremacy maintained. If politics
and the market flavor the situation between men, dogs and dress savour
the conversation with women. Take heed, if the woman has been driven to
the dogs conversationally, you are losing headway and heart-way. This
is about Raggety’s ears. They always, sooner or later, come into the
conversation.

The fact is Raggety’s ears are very interesting. Haven’t I told you
about them before? He has one ear that stands up and one ear that flops
down and never stands up. You can never remember whether it is the
right ear that stands up and the left ear that lies down, or the left
ear that stands up and the right ear that lies down. Which is it? Well,
I myself after knowing Raggety intimately for many years do not feel
quite sure!

Those ears cause an endless amount of surmise and conjecture. A person
sits in my room enjoying stereotyped conversation and invariably says,
“What do you suppose makes one of Raggety’s ears stand up and the other
flop over?” Now here are the three theories with which I invariably
entertain my questioner in stereotyped form. The first is my own
theory, which is that when Raggety was a baby-puppy, his mother or one
of his baby-brothers bit him through the ear, just in play and broke
the muscles. But when I once advanced this theory to a Doctor-friend of
Raggety, he scoffed at it.

“Oh, no,” said Raggety’s Doctor-friend, “muscles don’t give out in that
way. It is paralysis. The dog was kicked, probably in the head, once
upon a time and that side is paralyzed and so he can not raise his
ear.” This sounded professional and so thereafter I quoted this theory.
But when I told this to a dog-trainer who observed and of course
commented on the famous mismatched ears, again such theory was scorned
as unprofessional.

“Why,” laughed the dog-trainer, “if the dog was kicked, his brain
injured and paralysis occurred, he would have had all that side
paralyzed, not just an ear. That isn’t it at all! That dog had
a prick-eared father and a lop-eared mother,--or the other way
round,--and so he just took one ear from each. That’s no paralysis!”

So you can choose your theory after you look at Raggety’s picture. You
see I do not know which is right--do you?




                                                        _Raggety’s Tail_


Yes, it’s a very sore subject with me, though Raggety is entirely
indifferent. His tail is not pretty, indeed, it is rather ugly. It’s
too long and it isn’t very fluffy and he carries it arching over his
back, which makes it look twice as long as it is. Some rude boys
once even pretended that they thought his name was Rag-tail, instead
of Raggety! Yes, decidedly his tail is his weakest spot, a sort of
Achilles’s heel. I never talk much about tails before him, for as I say
his tail is a very sensitive subject.

Nevertheless, Raggety’s tail is beautifully responsive to suggestion!
It is an emotional tail, reflecting the wearer’s innermost feelings.
Indeed it seems as though sometimes it would wag itself off. And some
of his girl friends say that it is a “pinned-on tail” and does not
belong to him, it is so ready and waggy whenever it has the least
encouragement. But his tail is not beautiful, and were it not that this
is a _true_ story of a truly dog, I should not even mention Raggety’s
tail.

       *       *       *       *       *

He’s a molasses dog, with butter-scotch ears, chocolate-cream eyes,
licorice nose, pink peppermint tongue, and teeth like the little
candies that come in Christmas tree cornucopias. “But,” said one of the
little girls, “isn’t his tail butter-scotch too?” “Oh, no,” I hurried
to reply, “it’s molasses, only it’s darker because it is not _pulled_
as much, _for we never pull tails_!”




                                                _His Athletic Interests_


Raggety is not built for an athlete. His general proportions are those
of a very fat sausage mounted on four tooth-picks, “with a head on
before and a tail on behind” (see rhapsody entitled “The Mintie”).
Nevertheless like many a man of athletic instinct and corporate
incapacity, he considers himself “an all-round one,” which perhaps is
as true as it sounds!

First of all, he loves to walk. The mere fact that you are a biped and
can walk wins Raggety’s interest. He even knows the word “walk” in a
general conversation and the magic of it waves his tail. Oh, me! oh,
my! what walks we have had together!

Then The Riding Lady once took him on horseback and from time to time
since he has ridden his horse. This is the way he rides with The
Riding Lady: he sits on the saddle-bow (is that the right name? I hope
it is for it sounds so nice and mediæval!) and puts a paw on each of
her arms, and when the horse trots he gently bounces up and down and
looks to right and left with a most knowing air.

One of his chiefest delights out-of-doors is swimming. Never can I
forget the first time he showed me that he could swim. We were living
in Portland, Maine, and below State Street Hill lie beautiful Deerings
Oaks, earlier celebrated by the poet Longfellow. I took Raggety to walk
in Deerings Oaks and he discovered the pond! Ducks swam in the pond
and lived in a wonderful little house on a tiny island in the middle
of the pond. He went down to the muddy bank, tasted the water, found
it good, in went fore-legs, body, hind-legs, tail; just that yellow
head and ears above the surface, and how fast those four legs moved
underneath! But that is not the worst of it! He saw the ducks and made
towards them, off they started quacking furiously, fast the yellow head
followed, barking. Round and round and round the pond they went, and my
whistles and calls were utterly unavailing. Visions of duck-keepers,
police, fines flitted through my head! He landed on the ducks’ island,
inspected their house, roused to activity any sitting mother-ducks and
having stirred the whole duckdom to hysterical agitation, came swimming
over to me, emerging more like a drowned rat rather than a fluffy
yellow dog! He rolled on the warm dry grass, then shook himself as who
would say, “There, those old ducks needn’t think they own that pond!”

One instinct born in every terrier’s blood is a love of the chase.
Naturally small game is appropriate, so mice, rats, moles, squirrels,
or a stray rabbit fill Raggety’s hunting soul with joy. To-day he is
too fat, too much petted, too old to have the ardor of his earlier
years, but recently I saw him dig a mole, seize it, crack its neck
with a celerity and dexterity which made me more than glad I was not a
mole burrowing under Raggety’s path. Squirrels are an endless source
of interest. You never catch one. I do not know whether secretly you
ever hope to catch one, but like the pursuit of virtue it shows off
your style to interested onlookers, and stirs your system to a healthy
vigor. And you can always trot back and say, “My! But he’s a swift one!
I did my best and you see how well I look in action.” Not alone the
attainment, but the pursuit of virtue ennobles!




                                                _Raggety’s Love Affairs_


Raggety’s bachelorhood has always been an anxiety to me. Limited
environment and force of circumstance have prevented my suing for the
paw of some gentle little terrier Miss, and setting Raggety and his
mate up in domesticity. Many times through the years simple and frank
women have said to me, “How adorable Raggety’s puppies would be!”

Yes, indeed, if they could all be Raggeties. But genius does not
always reproduce itself, and I’ve been fearful that the puppies might
have _two_ stupid prick-ears, or worse still, _two_ dull lop-ears.
But the hearts of dogs and men are not bound exclusively to domestic
felicity. Therefore Raggety has had his loves, and, like the Greatest
of Frenchmen, his love affairs show catholicity and wide range of
imagination.

When this imagination is upon him he is ardent and progressive, fights
with lordly rivals, and returns bloody but triumphant. Once he eluded
a whole band of rivals, crept through a broken pane of glass far too
small for the rest, and dropped eight feet below to the floor of the
cellar where the adorable Belle had been secreted by cruel guardians.
You may imagine the guardians’ surprise on the following morning when
they came to feed the imprisoned Belle! Raggety greeted them with
a cordiality and friendliness which exhibited his new and intimate
relation to the family and--Belle.

Jeems, on the other hand, leads a guarded life and knows that
virtue also has its rewards. I can only hope that Raggety has never
communicated to Jeems’s innocent mind the joys of nature and the love
of the sex. True follower of nature’s supreme law, how Raggety’s
independence and disregard of conventionalities would have delighted
the liberty-loving heart of the ardent Jean-Jacques!




                                                 _Raggety’s Friendships_


Along with an ardent temperament, a love of liberty, and a wide
sympathy goes a democratic tendency. Quite true to the type, Raggety
of unknown pedigree shows his aristocratic stock. No recent upstart
can choose his friends as he elects. Only the true aristocrat can
be absolutely democratic. If you have a social position to make or
maintain, you must be careful that your associates are useful and
important in the structure of society; if you are absolutely sure of
your own position, your heart may reach up and down and round about
and say, “Thou art mine, for I am yours.” And it is thus that Raggety
elects his friends.

The Donahues, The Great Man, His Lovely Lady, Belle, Black Henry, the
four Brooklyn Aunties of those delicious chocolate crackers, Jeems,
Brother-in-Law, all have place in his heart without reference to their
place in the social edifice. Happy Raggety, to be free to choose and to
refuse! For he will not accept those whom he does not desire. No amount
of caressing or blandishment can fix his affections. I have discovered,
however, that food and an interest in outdoor exercise attract him,
but there must be some personal quality beyond to make this attraction
permanent. I have seen both fail; why, I can not explain.

If you should ask Raggety about Black Henry, I know he would reply,
“He is my invaluable friend.” Think of being invaluable to some one!
Isn’t it what we mortals are all striving to attain? To be valued when
present, to be missed when absent is the face-value of the note of
friendship. This is the bond between Henry and Raggety.

The first rattle of the coal which Henry brings to renew the fire
in the early morning awakes Raggety to the joy of the day. Henry’s
arrival means a breath of fresh air and breakfast to follow. Oh! and
if one only investigates the glorious mysterious pockets of Henry’s
white linen coat! Such tid-bits, shares of Henry’s own breakfasts and
luncheons and dinners! Then Henry walks to the post-office when every
other stupid person stays at home, so that on rainy days you can get in
a walk with him when all others fail.

Often have I seen Raggety kiss the hem of Henry’s trousers in
enthusiastic appreciation of some pleasant suggestion about walk or
food. Coming in of an evening one finds Henry seated on the hall
bench with Raggety beside him,--Henry the silent, the smiling, the
serviceable friend. Raggety lifts a forepaw and puts it lovingly on
Henry’s knee, saying, “What is race, what is rank between hearts that
love? This is my invaluable friend Henry.”




                                   _Raggety and The Dear Man Who Passed_


Of one of his friendships I must make special mention, because the
mortal part of it is no more. The Dear Man lived among Books, and
about his Book House stood tall oaks inhabited by bands of quite tame
squirrels. They were tame because they were loved by The Man and fed
from his hands. I have seen Raggety sit in twitching self-control
watching the squirrels feed, divided painfully between his desire to
pursue those virtuous squirrels and his love of The Dear Man whose
heart he could not grieve by the vain pursuit. When The Book Man wrote
his noble tribute to The Dear Man, Raggety appropriately ran into the
pages.

The Dear Man went away one summer and never returned, and the squirrels
have grown wild and fearful, for the hands that fed them feed them no
more.

Almost the last message from The Dear Man before He Passed was to
Raggety. I give it to you as it stands to-day, and on the reverse of
the card is a colored picture of the blooming orchards of Montana.

 MASTER RAGGETY:

 I’m thinking of a far-away dog, a companion even as he seeks
 companionship, who has a mind of his _own_, interests of his _own_, an
 independence of his _own_, but _who gives his little heart away_ to
 those whom it elects, and who look upon him to love him.

 He who writes this begs that he will _stand_ before the two friends
 who are with him and thus be the messenger to them of this friend’s
 love.

   _1 July, 1911._




                                                          _Me and Jeems_


(Raggety speaks)


Jeems is bigger than Me, but much, much younger and not half so clever;
but that is partly due to his bringing-up, which of course he can not
help, poor Pup!

Jeems belongs to The Lovely Lady and as Hers I thoroughly love and
respect him. Of course I too belong in a kind of way to The Lovely
Lady, for I love Her and she loves Me. Jeems came to take the place of
dear gentle Balribbie who died. I never saw pretty Balribbie; perhaps
if she had not died before I came to live here, our Mistresses might
have let us marry and there would have been little Raggeties and tiny
Balribbies. But pshaw! These are the Dream Puppies of an old bachelor
dog!

(Don’t be surprised that I know about dear Charles Lamb, for I live in
a literary atmosphere and there is much writing going on all about Me!)

Jeems is anything but a dream!--except of course in looks, for he is
very handsome and his tail is all right,--though Mistress would rather
I did not mention tails. Funnily enough, mine never bothers me the way
it does her. Well, Jeems is a bouncing barking breathless brother. But
he’s being trained to be awful particular, more’s the pity, for he’s a
true democrat at heart.

This in-breeding training of his makes him a bit slow. When we both sit
up and beg for those good sweet crackers at afternoon-tea, I always
get his share too, for he’s slow at finding. Of course his Mistress
always sees that he gets enough, but he’s never had to fend for himself
and _I_ have, and it makes a dog or a man mighty sharp, doesn’t it?
Jeems has had milk and chicken in painted saucers ever since he was
born. I’ve told him how especially good very old chicken bones out of
a garbage pail are, but his tastes remain simple. I can’t get up his
enthusiasm!

Jeems never goes out alone as I do. And he is always cleaned and combed
so that The Lovely Lady doesn’t like him to get muddy in water-rat
holes or stuck up with burrs. But with The Lovely Lady as companion and
guide, Me and Jeems have elegant walks! Of course occasionally I have
to break through and lie in a mud-puddle just to get the Nature-feel,
but I know that Jeems and The Lovely Lady are both helpful to me, as
they are refined and particular. It is not good for even a dog always
to lead a dog’s life.

Best of all, Jeems speaks my language--doggerel, does one call it? Even
when humans are dear and good and kind, one’s native tongue is sweet
in the ears. So when Jeems and I dash down the hall together and he
shouts, “Hurrah, here goes for a run!” I shout back as sharp and loud
as I can, “Hi, Jeems, off we are!” The Lovely Lady laughs, even while
she holds on to her ears, for she almost knows the doggerel language
herself since we, Me and Jeems, took up her education doggedly.

“Hi, Jeems Pitbladdo, there’s a squirrel on that oak! See who’ll get
there first!” And off we go.




                                             _What The Lovely Lady Says_


It was quite by accident that years ago I met a warm devoted bit
of life called Raggety. He has since become a near neighbor and an
intimate and devoted friend.

First in my memory, I see a bundle of wet yellow fur carried up a
stairway in a northern city by the sea, and when I interestedly
inquired _who_ it was, received the reply, “Don’t you know Raggety?”

But the really truly introduction came in a railroad station one fine
June morning, how long after our first meeting I do not know. I was
unhappy. I had said good-bye for a whole Summer to my precious pet
Balribbie, and left my bit of Blue Skye happiness behind me. It was
no use, the tears would come when I thought of that little bunch
of affection with its soft yellow head sitting in the farmhouse
window,--waiting, watching for her truant mistress.

Raggety’s little paw touched me and his cold wet black nose nuzzled
into my hand with the wonderful sympathy of discovering a friend.
Raggety’s lovely brown eyes were also filled with tears. He was in
trouble and pining for the Mistress who had just left him. Every one
was going away and he gasped at the loneliness of life.

We sat side by side on the hard station bench and had ten minutes of
affection and bliss. All I could do was to say softly, “Wait a minute,
wait a minute! Suddenly Time goes by and Mistresses reappear, tails
wave round, and long happy walks begin again for little doggies!”

My train came and there was another tear at Raggety’s heart strings.
The casual stranger of a few minutes before had become endeared
forever by her knowledge of the comforting scratching places of little
beasties.

Summers in Europe went and came; Time slipped by and one day he took
little dog Balribbie with him, and hurly-burly Jeems begged to take her
place. Then as accidentally as Raggety and I had met in that distant
railroad station, so Time brought Raggety and his Mistress and Jeems
and his Mistress to live in a pretty southern village and we four
became a dog club or show!

And here Raggety is to-day making friends as he needs them, or
dropping them when he yearns for quiet; always ready for a walk with
an agreeable companion, or a fight with Al Kelly’s dog up the road; a
swim in the cold creek; a tid-bit (if it’s the same to you!); a scurry
through the brush after Molly Cottontail or a plunge into the deep wet
meadow where the frogs sing and the violets bloom. Even a great pig
does not fright him until he sees the snout bear down upon his little
paws, to lift him up and off and away!

This is why Raggety is loved. He was born a little trusting dog and he
has made himself the companion of scholars and sages.

You, dear Raggety, are one of the Dog-stars in my firmament of loves.
Along with Balribbie and Teddy and Jeems, you will greet your slower,
earth-plodding Mistresses in some far-off Heaven. We shall see you
wagging your long tail of welcome and tinkling your little silver bell,
ushering us into that Kingdom of Love.




                                         _Raggety Trots out of His Book_


Raggety trotted into my life and heart long years ago; he has trotted
into the lives and hearts of many people since; he has trotted into
your life too! It is good to love even a fluffy little yellow dog and
have him love you. See, his tail is wagging! Will you say to him as I
did, “Raggety, Raggety, how do you do?”

*       *       *       *       *




Transcriber’s note

Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. The
following Printer errors have been changed.

  CHANGED  FROM                          TO

  Page 13: “thrust his hind legs”        “thrust his hind-legs”
  Page 38: “Devotion to His Lovely Laay” “Devotion to His Lovely Lady”

Other inconsistencies are as in the original.