Lady and the Tramp: The Story of Two Dogs Page 2

  “Hi, fellers,” said the dog. “Heard you yip-yapping about babies and thought I’d butt in and give you the real lowdown.”

  The bloodhound and the Scottie ignored him. They still strained at attention. Lady daintily stepped back.

  “Waiting for another whistle?” asked the dog, still grinning his sociable grin. “Shucks, fellers, you fall easy. That was me!”

  Trusty allowed his great head to turn. Jock scowled.

  “You don’t believe it? Listen—.”

  The strange dog lowered his head and shook his tousled hair. A second whistle split the breeze. He winked at Lady.

  “Wasn’t that a wowzer?” he bragged.

  “I’m afraid,” said Lady primly, “I don’t know what a wowzer is.”

  “Well, crack my cuspids,” exclaimed the stranger. “If it ain’t a gal!”

  Lady was so taken aback by this truthful yet, put as it was, somewhat roguish statement that her legs trembled. Had she been alone she might have run away. A growl beside her relieved but frightened her. Trusty hushed Jock McGinnis with a shake of the head.

  “Did you really whistle?” demanded Trusty.

  “Sure! Want to hear another?”

  “But I never knew of a dog who could whistle. Only men whistle.”

  “That’s what you think, big boy.” Again his chuckle held a lilt that excused his pertness. “Whoever said dogs can’t be as smart as men? Or a sight smarter! Ever hear a man bark?”

  “See here, you!” snarled Jock. “Just who do you think you are?”

  The strange dog’s eyes flickered; it was the only sign that he had heard Jock. He went on talking to Trusty, though Lady had a weird sensation of being tied to the corner of his glance. A shimmer of excitement seemed to fill the air around her.

  “Of course they try to bark but, my paws and pants, you know what a flop they are, believing they can fool a dog and all that hash. Not that it ain’t good sense to make believe you’re fooled sometimes, bark back and play crazy and be a dope. Gets treats maybe and besides, it gives ‘em a laugh. Shucks, I got nothing against men!”

  Jock McGinnis could stand this nonsense no longer. “I said,” he howled, “just who do you think you are?”

  “Who, me?” The stranger cocked an innocent eye toward Jock. “They call me the Tramp.” His cold nose suddenly nudged a McGinnis rib. “What’s the name?” he snapped.

  Jock made a rush. He turned a somersault. The Tramp had skipped aside.

  “Tut tut, Sandy!” the Tramp warned as the Scottie tried to recover from his bump and his chagrin. “Keep your fur on; I don’t fight; it’s dumb. Certainly not in front of the little pigeon here.”

  Lady’s legs shook again. She feared she had been insulted, the more so because the dog winked his gay wink. Really, she should run away. But a guilty fascination held her. She even found herself whispering, “Pigeon? Pigeon? But pigeons are lovely birds!”

  There was no fight. Jock McGinnis was so crestfallen that he subsided into a low mutter. Trusty was still lost in wonder at a dog who could whistle and had such small respect for men. The Tramp’s tail and tongue wagged on. He talked, apparently, to Trusty, but Lady felt that every word he said was addressed to her and that he planned it that way wickedly.

  “Getting back to babies, somebody said they were sweet. Oh my tongue and tail! They scratch, pull, bump, squeeze, do everything a dog hates. Tell you another thing—they’re homewreckers. The worst kind of homewreckers! Dog thinks he’s got it pretty soft; nice food, nice bed, nice fleas to scratch, nice moon to bark at. Along comes a baby. Does the dog get steaks any more? Nope; too much dough; gotta buy baby a pram. Does he sleep inside? Nope, might be bad for the baby. Can he scratch? Heavens no! Fleas might hop on baby. Can he bark? I should say not; he might wake the baby.” Now he looked and spoke directly at Lady. “I’ll tell you something straight from the boneyard, pigeon—when a baby moves in, the dog moves out!’

  His audience fell silent in the face of such authority and over Lady crept a fit of shivers. The Tramp regarded her kindly.

  “Oh, well,” he said, “if humans are suckers for babies, they can be suckers for dogs, too. If a baby moved in on me, f’r example, I’d just move out on another family. You folks don’t use the old brain. I bet not one of you has more than one family. Take me, I’ve got six. I picked ‘em scattered so they don’t cross trails and I visit ‘em all according to what’s cookin’. Boy, it’s a merry-go-around, keeping six families certain they own you even if you do wander, but it’s worth it for the old bread-basket.”

  The Tramp had spread himself on the walk like a terrier settling and now he shimmied his stomach in a way Lady could only consider vulgar. But he rattled on as if nothing was more natural.

  “Tell you a joke—none of them think I’m the same kind of dog. Family on Elm Street calls me a boxer. Family out Greentrees way says I’m part police. Been called everything from a borzoi to a poodle. Just goes to show you men don’t know the first thing about dogs.”

  His tongue ran in and out in hearty laughter at man’s confusion and, no doubt, his own ancestry’s.

  “By the way,” spoke Trusty, and his bass was very deep, “just what breed are you?”

  “Who, me?” The Tramp scratched leisurely. “I dunno—I’m a mutt, I guess.”

  In Lady’s mind the word rang a bell. She remembered that day at the butcher’s and Darling’s

  disgust. With fresh shock and pity she gazed at the Tramp, who merely thumped a leg.

  “But let’s not yap about me,” the Tramp was saying. “Let’s hear about you fellers—’scuse it, the pigeon, too. What’s buried around here and how’s scraps? Tell you what—how’d you like to come over to one of my houses? In the next block there’s a widow woman bakes cookies every Tuesday. She’s a pushover for a moan. Let’s—hey, fellers, where you going?”

  For Trusty and Jock McGinnis, as at a sharp command, had swung on their paws and were stalking toward their respective homes. The Tramp watched them go with a faint glint in his eyes and his tongue only halfway out.

  “Well, tie me down and bob my bottom,” he drawled, “if they ain’t a pair of pucklepups. The blue-ribbon boys, eh? What do you say, pigeon, shall me and you go a’roamin?”

  Lady swallowed a gasp. He could have thought it meant yes when actually she was only scared. Her gallants had deserted her, she was too timid to follow them and she was alone with a mutt. What could she do except shake her head?

  “Every dog to his own likes.” The Tramp rose, scratched and yawned. “Just the same, some day you may be wishin’ for a lot you’re missin’.” He grinned at her. “Say, I’m a poet and don’t know it, what? Well, so long, pigeon. If you ever need a pal, gimme a yip.”

  The Tramp cantered down the street. When he was a block away the ghost of a cheery whistle drifted back to Lady. It was to haunt her for many days. She returned to her own yard sedately. But she was most unhappy. Somehow her friends had failed her. Darling was going to have a baby and a strange dog, a mutt, had left her safe but miserable. For the first time since she was a puppy Lady crawled into her kennel and cried.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LADY’S LIFE in the days that followed was not what it once was. Another dog might still have envied her, for she was fed and sheltered. But she was no longer princess of the white and green house.

  Her meals became uncertain and not very good. Now Darling often did not get up for breakfast. Jim Dear made his own coffee and it was bad. If he remembered to pour a sip in a saucer before he rushed away, Lady could scarcely lap it. If he gave her cereal, he forgot to sprinkle sugar. Most of her meals were leftovers. There were never any second helpings. Even the bones were poor; Darling did not seem to care whether the butcher sent knuckles or not. Lady dug up old bones from the yard. But they had lost their juice and were good for nothing much except tossing. As for ice-cream, that was just a memory.

  “But Jim dear, you shouldn’t,” said Darling on the single occasion when
Jim Dear came home with a pint of plain vanilla. “No sweets, he said.”

  They gave Lady most of the pint and the poor thing, having gone without ice cream for so long, gobbled it. Of course she got sick. Again the man with the black bag arrived and again the most unpleasant results happened.

  “Not enough exercise,” said the man.

  So Lady and Darling took long walks which Darling said would be good for them both. But the streets were getting hot, Darling hummed absent-mindedly instead of laughing, and Lady’s paws hurt. Then autumn came and soon the first snow and the streets were filled with slush and ice. Lady should have had a bath; her nails needed cutting. She moped.

  “We really should do something about her,” said Darling. “She’s too dirty to sleep on our beds.”

  “I’ll bathe her next week,” promised Jim Dear. “But she might as well get used to sleeping in the kitchen. It won’t be long before she’s sleeping there all the time.”

  So Lady slept in the kitchen and was lonely and wondered what she had done to be punished.

  “You’re not being punished,” Jock McGinnis reassured her. “It’s because her baby will be here soon. I heard my family say so.”

  “Oh that baby!” moaned Lady. “I still don’t know what babies are like.”

  “Sweet,” said Jock.

  Lady tossed her head. “That’s not what others say. They scratch, pull, bump, squeeze and—when a baby moves in, the dog moves out!”

  Jock eyed her somberly; in a moment he began to breathe in a heavy, strange, audible manner.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Lady.

  “Nothing’s the matter. What do you mean?”

  “That noise you were making; are you ill?”

  “I was whistling,” said Jock. “‘Annie Laurie.’”

  “Oh,” said Lady.

  After that a slight coolness sprang up between them; often when she heard Jock barking an invitation to come out, she stayed inside and brooded, not really wanting to play.

  The same was true of Trusty. Their quarrel, though scarcely a quarrel, dated from a day when he rumbled on at great length about ancestors. They were most important to a dog, he said. A dog should always remember them and try to live up to them and not associate with other dogs unless they had fine ancestors, too. A dog who didn’t know who his ancestors were, he said, was a dangerous dog to have around.

  “I don’t see why,” said Lady. “I should think it was much more important what you do rather than what your ancestors did. Besides, how do you know your ancestors were all fine dogs?”

  “My father, Old Reliable—” began Trusty.

  “Oh, bother your father!” snapped Lady and deliberately lifted a leg and began to scratch. It was a thing she had never done publicly before.

  She knew she had been rude and the next day she dug up one of the few knucklebones left and offered it to Trusty. He accepted sadly and they shared it, but she had a feeling that he disapproved of her, and the funny part of it was that she didn’t care.

  The truth was that Lady was homesick. Now homesickness is a trouble that can happen anywhere. You do not have to be away from home to be homesick if what makes home wonderful is away instead of you. Love had made Lady’s home wonderful. It was all around her, every day, in Darling, in Jim Dear, in herself. Now she could find it nowhere, though she searched the house. In its place were new rules and strange changes. She longed for a thing gone and could not understand why or where it had vanished.

  In her homesickness she remembered the dog who called himself the Tramp. He had had so many homes—six, he said—yet he had seemed the sort of dog, a mutt, who had no home at all. Whenever Jock tried to whistle, she thought of the Tramp, and she realized that in her tiff with Trusty she had been sticking up for the Tramp, though the Tramp was not mentioned by either. It might be fun to “go a’roamin’” with such a dog; maybe, together, they could find love.

  Sometimes she pricked up her ears when the wind brought a far whistle that might be his.

  Once she believed she saw him, leaping with some children through flying leaves. But they had faded into the autumn haze before she could be sure.

  And she dreamed of him. He came prancing toward her in his own tousled finery, rough hair and waving tail and red tongue. He was tossing cookies like a circus juggler. “See?” he called. “I can juggle better than men!” And he did—he juggled bones and balls and pretty soon bigger objects like kennels and beds and, at last, houses. “Come on!” he called. “Come on, little pigeon!” And now they were pigeons, she and Tramp, only they were still dogs and went flying over the top of the world towards the full moon. “Come on!” called Tramp and she watched him ahead of her, flying, dancing, tossing, and suddenly he was juggling the moon—one moon, two moons, a hundred moons—until they exploded in a burst on Tramp’s nose and she woke up. It was a lovely dream.

  But mostly she dreamed of babies and they were all had dreams. In her dreams she never saw them clearly, being confused by confusing descriptions, but they were there. They pulled, squeezed, scratched, bit, bumped, and then they bellowed and their smell was most unpleasant.

  On a freezing winter’s night Lady was sleeping uneasily in the kitchen when, all at once, she woke. She had heard a cry. At first she believed it was in her dream, a noisy baby perhaps. Then she heard it again. The cry was in the house and it was Darling’s voice but not as she had ever known it; there was pain in the cry.

  Lady got up. She stood shivering in the middle of the kitchen floor.

  Soon there were other sounds, running feet that were Jim Dear’s, the spurt of a gas jet and Jim’s voice at the telephone, telling someone to “hurry!—hurry!”

  Then Lady was afraid. Fear crept into her throat and her legs and the pit of her stomach, fear as cold and hard as the ice outside. She was not afraid for herself; she was afraid for those she loved.

  Shaking, she walked to the kitchen door, which was closed tight. She knew she should not scratch it. But fear drove her. She rose on her hindlegs; she scratched and scratched in a frenzy to get out.

  No one came. Jim Dear had rushed upstairs again. The door stayed tight. Lady cowered close to the floor. She put her head on her paws.

  At last, after what seemed ages, there were other sounds, the ring of horses’ hooves and the squeak of a vehicle stopping. Jim’s footsteps plunged down the stairs two at a time.

  Lady dared to do another thing she had been taught not to do. The kitchen window was high but there was a chair beneath it. By jumping to the chair, rising on her hindlegs, putting her forelegs on the sill and stretching as high as possible, Lady could just look out.

  On the front porch, hatless, Jim Dear in his dressing-gown was calling again, “Hurry! Hurry!” Striding up the walk was a man. He carried a black bag.

  Lady dropped weakly to the floor. The worst was going to happen!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LADY CRAWLED as far as she could under the kitchen sink. Here were the darkest shadows. Here she drew herself tensely against the wall, waiting for the man with the black bag to come and get her.

  But the man did not come. Instead, upstairs, she heard the constant sound of moving feet, four feet. She could tell Jim Dear’s. The other two must be the man’s. There was a new smell in the ar. It was like the smell of medicine; it made her a little dizzy. Suddenly the remembered something Trusty had said. Was this the way babies smelled? No, no, that would be too awful!

  She heard their voices, Jim Dear’s and the man’s. Jim Dear’s was so stuttery and fast she could hardly make out what he was saying. The man’s was slow and calm, like a human’s telling a dog not to pull on the leash.

  She heard the man say, “Now, now, Jim, take it easy; you’re not the world’s first father.” This was puzzling. The only father Lady knew much about was Trusty’s and she couldn’t picture Jim Dear as Old Reliable.

  Then she heard the man say, and with the words all her forebodings crashed upon her, “This isn’t the first
baby I’ve delivered, either!”

  Lady’s forelegs dropped. Her head sank. Nothing she could do now would help anybody, least of all herself…

  “When a baby moves in, the dog moves out…” Yes, but where? She didn’t have six families!

  Once, early in that dreadful night, she saw Jim Dear, though Jim Dear did not see her. He banged into the kitchen, made for the stove, turned on all the jets, lit them, and covered the flames with pot after pot of water. All the time he was talking to himself: “Keep calm he said, don’t get excited he said, water he said, we’ll need plenty of hot, hot water!”

  Lady couldn’t make head nor tail of that one. Why didn’t they just run water in the tub the way they did when Jim Dear bathed her?

  Lady tried to sleep. She whimpered and shivered and finally she did sleep, but she dreamed of nothing but babies, and they were ogres.

  The windowpanes were light when she woke. She listened, but all the house was still. Carefully she stepped from under the sink, softly she jumped to the bench, stretched high and looked out. The horse and buggy she had seen before were gone. Then the man with the black bag must be gone, too.

  A door creaked behind her. In a panic because she had broken the rules, Lady jumped down. But Jim Dear, who stood there, did not scold her. Though his hair was as tousled as the Tramp’s, and his eyes were puffed and red, he was smiling. And what did he do but drop to his knees and take her in his arms!

  “Lady, Lady!” he whispered. “You’re the first to know—it’s a boy! And my Darling’s all right, Lady, everything’s going to be okay!”

  Lady licked his face and realized that he had been crying. She had never tasted his tears before and she licked with all her might to wash them away.

  “Here, here, stop that!” said Jim Dear, laughing. When he pushed her away, he pushed gently. He stood in the middle of the floor, his hands in the pockets of his dressing-gown, while Lady looked at him. He heaved a heavy sigh. “Oh, shucks,” he said, “I guess I’ve got to telephone Aunt Sarah.”