bow!

i always begin a story that way. it is what you two-legged folks call “making your bow.” with us dogs it means “hello” and “how do you do” and “good morning” and—and lots of other things too. and sometimes it means “look out!” you see, we have so many ways of saying it!

perhaps some day i’ll tell you how to know just what we mean when we say “bow!”—like that—sort of quick and friendly; and what we mean when we say it slow and gruff, way down in our throats.

and then there’s “wow!” too. “wow” is different from “bow.” and “bow-wow” is still different. but this isn’t telling my story, is it?

of course, you haven’t said you wanted me to tell you my story, but i’m almost sure you do. i think you’ll like it, because i am a very good story-teller—for a dog. and, although i am not quite three years old, i have seen a lot of things in my day.

you won’t mind if i wag my tail now and then, will you? it is very hard for a dog to tell a tale without wagging. some folks say a dog talks with his tail. he doesn’t though; not really. he just uses his tail the way you two-legged folks use your hands, to make others understand better what you are saying.

when you tell a story you should always start right at the very beginning, and that is what i am going to do.

the first thing i remember was when i was about two weeks old. i’m sure you can’t remember when you were two weeks old. i think that is very clever of me, don’t you? it shows what a fine memory i have. i was lying in a sort of cage made of criss-cross wires. there was sawdust on the floor. there were four of us in all, for i had two sisters and one brother. my mother’s name was gretchen and my father’s name was fritz. i am named after my father. he had two or three other names besides, but they’re very hard to say, being german. you see my father and mother were both born in germany and brought to this country when they were very young, and so, of course, they spoke german very nicely. but they never taught it to me. i suppose there wasn’t time. there are so many, many things a puppy has to learn. i didn’t see much of my father when i was a tiny puppy. sometimes he came to the cage where we lived and licked our noses through the wires, but he was a very busy dog and had lots of things to attend to.

my mother was very beautiful, with the loveliest soft brown eyes and the longest, silkiest ears and quite the crookedest front legs you ever saw. (you see, in my family crooked front legs are much admired.) we all loved her very dearly, but i am afraid we caused her a lot of trouble. but she was very fond of us and very proud of us. sometimes i wished she wasn’t so careful about keeping us clean, for lots of times when i wanted to play with my brother and sisters i couldn’t because she had to wash me all over. you see, puppies don’t like being washed much more than you do; and i heard you making an awful fuss this morning!

we lived very happily in the cage for several weeks. we ate and slept and played, but most of all we ate and slept. at first it must have been funny to see us trying to walk, for our legs were so weak that they just sprawled out under us when we wanted to use them. but it wasn’t long before we could run and jump as much as we pleased. i was the biggest and the strongest of us all, and i think my mother was every bit as fond of me as she was of my two sisters and my brother, but it did seem to me as if i got most of the punishment. maybe i was the naughtiest one, too!

as we grew older and stronger our mother used to leave us alone for a little while every day, and we didn’t like that at all at first. we used to whine and cry and feel very lonesome until she came back. but she always did come back, and pretty soon we got to know that she would, and so we didn’t mind so much. we had some lovely frolics, we puppies. we used to make believe that we were very cross, and tumble each other over in the sawdust and bite each other’s ears and legs and growl such funny little growls!

a man named william looked after us. he wore leather gaiters. they tasted very well. mother said he was a coachman. he was very kind to us and brought us things to eat and water to drink and petted us a lot. then there was another man who only came to see us a few times. we didn’t like him so well. he was a doctor and smelled of medicine. he came to see us once when my sister freya was sick and once when i had an awful pain in my insides. that was later, though, after we were out of the cage and running around in the yard. it was when i ate the harness soap. mother told me afterwards that it was a mistake to eat any kind of soap. i think she was right.

then, of course, there was the master, and the mistress, and, best of all, the baby. she wasn’t exactly a baby, because she was almost two years old, but every one called her the baby. we all loved her very much. she used to take us up one by one and kiss us on our noses and call us “booful dogums” and hug us. sometimes she hugged so hard it hurt, but we never let her know it. she had golden hair and blue eyes and two little fat red cheeks and was always laughing. her real name was mildred. the master was a very big man, so big that i could only see to the tops of his riding-boots when i was little. he had a very deep, gruff voice and called us “those little rascals!” but we knew he didn’t mean it and we liked him. but we liked the baby best of all, and after her the mistress, who was the baby’s mother. she was quite small for a grown-up and had such a nice voice that we loved to hear it and would all go running to the front of the cage or the yard fence when she came.

the family—we called the master, the mistress and the baby the family—lived in the country in a beautiful white house with green blinds that stood on top of a little hill and had trees and fields all around it. there was a pond, too, and a brook that ran out of it. that’s where the ducks lived. ducks are very funny things. later i’ll tell you something about them. there was a stable, as well, and outside the stable was a yard fenced in with wire netting, and in the corner of the yard was what they called the kennel. that was where i was born. the yard was quite large and after we were allowed to run around in it, we had a fine time. there was so much to see from it: the house and the duck-pond and the country road, with people going by that had to be barked at, and the place where william washed the carriages when the weather was fine, and many other things. also, there were squirrels in the trees, and birds, too. and there was ju-ju.