"So _you_ are the cause of my finding the water so often dirty and all stirred up, are you? I have been wondering and wondering what caused it.
Well, you can just stop riling old Jim"s drinking water."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
But to Zip"s dismay, the soot would not come off as the mud and dough had.
It stuck and made him look greasy and black.
"Here, you little rascal, come with me, and I will get soap and towels and give you a good bath."
And that is how it happened that when Tabby came home from her visit to her cousin, the first thing she saw was the doctor sitting on the lower step of the side porch with scrubbing brush in one hand and a cake of soap in the other, scrubbing Zip for all he was worth.
"Well, whatever has happened to you, Zip?" asked Tabby.
"Oh, go lie down and I"ll tell you after awhile," barked Zip in a cross voice, for he was not enjoying the scrubbing in the least, as every once in a while a lot of soapsuds would run into his eyes, making them smart dreadfully. But the doctor kept on rubbing, not knowing what was making Zip squirm so. He thought it was just because he hated to be washed in this way. At last Zip could stand it no longer, and he bounded from the doctor"s hands and shot out of the yard into the road and deliberately lay down in the softest, dirtiest place he could find, and then rolled and rolled, trying to dry himself. And though the doctor called and called and whistled himself hoa.r.s.e, Zip did not come back. He waited until it grew dark, and then he sneaked in and jumped into the watering trough again.
This time he came out nice and clean, for the soft sand had acted as a scrubbing brush and his coat was all shiny and glossy and clean when he jumped out, and this time he managed to keep it so until the next day.
CHAPTER VI
ZIP AND PETER-KINS
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Several days after this Zip was asleep on the seat of the buggy in front of the house of one of the doctor"s patients who was so very ill that he had been visiting there each day for a week. Consequently Zip, as usual, had called on every dog and cat in this neighborhood. To-day he thought he would sleep instead of running around to visit and making the doctor wait and whistle for him to come back. But presently he was awakened by hearing the doctor"s whistle across the street. He was up in a moment looking in all directions, for though he heard him, he could not see his master. He leaped out of the buggy and ran across the street, from where the sound seemed to come. As he ran the whistle was repeated loud and shrill, but no doctor could Zip see.
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"He must be hiding behind that thick bush in the yard," decided Zip. So he crawled under the fence and went nosing around the shrubbery, but the doctor was not there. He sniffed here and there, but could not get so much as a tiny whiff of the doctor"s scent. He stood still at last, with ears standing up straight and one foot held off the ground, as he did when listening intently.
Again he heard the doctor whistle right over his head. He looked up to see if the doctor was in an aeroplane, but all he discovered was the clear, blue sky. Then a laugh sounded behind him and, turning quickly, he saw Miss Belinda Simpkin"s pet Poll-parrot swinging on the limb of a tree, laughing at him.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
This was too much for Zip"s dignity. To have a Poll-parrot make a fool of him! So he ran to the tree where she sat and barked furiously up at her.
But to make Zip still more angry, Polly kept on whistling and laughing at him. She had heard the doctor whistle for Zip every day and had learned to imitate him perfectly. She really was a very smart bird, and everyone in the village knew of Miss Belinda"s parrot and monkey, for they were always doing exceedingly smart, mischievous things, some of which I will tell you about, but now I must finish relating what happened to Zip.
He was still looking angrily at Polly when he heard a queer chattering and squeaking noise up in a tree behind him and, turning to look, he saw a gray object drop from one of the limbs. He looked down at the ground, expecting to see whatever it was drop under the tree, but nothing landed.
Still he knew he had seen something start to fall. What could it be that could stop in mid-air, for there was no other branch under the one from which it had dropped on which it could catch. But when he glanced up, what should he discover but Miss Belinda"s pet monkey swinging by its tail from the branch on which it had been sitting!
Now Zip hated monkeys as a cat does rats. How as nice a little old maiden lady as Miss Belinda could stand it to live all alone in a house with only a parrot and a monkey for companions was more than he could understand.
Zip ignored the monkey and began barking again at the parrot, telling her just to wait until another day, that he would come back and get even with her yet, and that the next time he left it would be with a mouthful of her tail feathers.
"Help! Help!" screeched Polly. And her voice was so nearly like that of a human that the doctor, hearing it, hurried across the street to see who was calling for aid. As he opened the gate to go into the yard, something tore past him. Looking around to see what it was, he beheld Zip running for all he was worth, with a little gray monkey perched on his back, clinging to his silver collar which the Judge had given to him.
The doctor was about to go to his rescue when Zip dove under the fence, which knocked off the monkey, and he rolled over and over on the ground, dazed for several seconds. He had hit his head on the fence so hard that it had stunned him. The doctor took a step forward to pick him up when again he heard that piercing scream, "Help! Help! Help!" that seemed to come from the upper window of Miss Belinda"s cottage.
"Gracious!" exclaimed the doctor. "Someone must be trying to kill Miss Belinda!" and he started for the cottage, intending to break down the door if it should be locked. Before he had gone two steps, the voice he heard before called once more, "Help! Help! Beat it! Beat it!" and then, looking up, he saw Polly.
"You rascal!" said the doctor, shaking his finger in a playful manner at her. "You surely did fool me! But I must go and see if Zip has killed your playfellow."
When he reached the gate, he found the monkey sitting up rubbing his head with his forefoot and running slowly toward home on three legs. Seeing he was all right, the doctor whistled for Zip to come, but no Zip appeared.
So after calling him once or twice more, the doctor concluded he did not wish to come back for fear the monkey would get him again and try to take a free ride.
"He probably has trotted home across lots," thought the doctor, "or else he may be waiting for me part way home."
On hearing the doctor whistle, the monkey ran to the side of the road, jumped up on the fence and ran along its top until he reached Miss Belinda"s yard. Once there, he ran up a tall tree to a place of safety, where no dogs could reach him, and there the doctor left him, rubbing his head.
As Zip trotted home across lots, he made up his mind that he would go to Miss Belinda"s every day until he had a chance to get even not only with Polly, but with the monkey too. For I am sorry to say that Zip was a very revengeful dog, and he never forgot an injury, at least not until he had paid back in like coin anything he had suffered.
"You may rest a.s.sured," he said to himself, "that I shall take one at a time, however, and look around well before tackling either one, to see that the other is nowhere about."
Miss Belinda was out when all this happened, so was very much alarmed when she returned to see Peter-Kins hopping around on two legs, holding his head with his hands. And still more so when she took him in her arms and saw that there was a big b.u.mp on his forehead the size of a hen"s egg, which was still swelling and by this time threatening to close one eye.
"You poor darling little pet! Did you fall out of the tree and b.u.mp your head? I is _so_ sorry," and talking such baby talk to him, she carried him off into the house to put witch hazel and a bandage on his head.
All this time Polly kept screaming, "Help! Help! Help!"
"Someone must have thrown a stone and hurt Peter-Kins," decided Miss Belinda, "or Polly would not be calling for help. The next time I go out, I will shut them in the house so nothing can happen to them."
CHAPTER VII
ZIP, PETER-KINS AND THE TURKEY GOBBLER
Promptly at nine-thirty the next morning the doctor"s carriage appeared in front of his patient"s house opposite Miss Belinda"s cottage.
Zip lay quietly on the seat until the doctor had disappeared in the house, and then he quickly jumped out of the buggy, tiptoed across the street and quietly slipped under the fence. Once under, he stood stock-still and listened, eyes up and ears alert to catch any sound or see any movement of his old enemies, the monkey and the parrot. All was quiet in the front yard, and not even Polly"s cage was to be seen swinging on its accustomed hook beside the front door. Still Zip listened and looked in every tree and bush, to make sure the monkey was not hiding under the leaves, ready to pounce on him. He had just come to the conclusion that they had been shut in the house when he heard a terrible commotion and cackling going on in the chicken yard, and above it all Polly"s voice screaming, "Help!
Help! Naughty Peter-Kinks! (This was Polly"s name for Peter-Kins.) Spank!
Spank! Help! Help!"
Polly had heard Miss Belinda say this so many times that she had learned to imitate her perfectly.
"That monkey is up to some mischief," thought Zip. "I"ll run and see what he"s up to, and maybe I"ll have a chance to get even with him for running his claws into my back when he was taking that ride!"
Soon Zip was at the fence that divided the chicken yard from the lawn, and looking through the pales, this is what he saw:
Peter-Kins ran down the trunk of a big elm tree that shaded part of the chicken yard, then he grabbed up a tiny little fluffy yellow chicken right from under the old hen"s very bill, and made off with it up the tree. This made the old hen so angry and frightened that she cackled and carried on just like people do when terrified. Then just when all the rest of the chickens had quieted down a little and the old hen had gathered the rest of her brood under her wings, Peter-Kins threw the little peep at mother hen"s head, which killed the little chicken instantly and upset all the rest of the fowls in the barnyard once more.
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"I"ll just keep hidden, and wait until he comes down," planned Zip, "and then I will pounce out and grab him by the back of his neck and shake him as if he were a rat."