Album of Dogs Read online

  MANY PUREBREDS MAKE THE MONGREL

  AT THE EDGE OF A swamp touching the waters of Green Bay, Wisconsin, there is a warm and cozy dog pound where pups without pedigrees are welcome as jonquils in spring.

  It was not always so. Once, the old gray building was a shambles. Snow and wind and rain blew in through the cracks. Once, it housed but a handful of orphaned pups and bedraggled strays. Night and day they howled their misery. It was as if they knew that just across the road a great black furnace stood waiting to eat them up; that is, if they were not adopted.

  The boy, Larry, who lived nearby, hated the furnace. On his way to fish in the marsh he hurried past it, scarce breathing, scarce looking. To him it was an evil monster, licking its chops, awaiting its prey.

  But some days, without his willing it, Larry’s eye was drawn to the wide, jawlike door and to the red licks of fire showing through the airholes. On those days his fishing spree was only half fun, for as he fished he watched the wild birds flying free, and he heard the prisoners crying in the pound. Then he gathered up his own dog, hugging him close.

  The black furnace worried Larry, and at night he dreamed about the caged-up dogs. Always in his dream he strode into the pound in seven-league boots. Quickly pulling one off, he filled it to overflowing with dogs, dogs, dogs. Then he spirited them away to Never-Never Land, where eager children claimed them all.

  One bleak November day Larry’s dream practically came true. His father was appointed master of the pound! Suddenly a whole new world opened out for Larry. He was no longer a boy who just fished and played in the swamp. He became man-grown overnight.

  There was so much to do! The dogs needed help quickly. One had a rasping cough; one, a mere pup, wheezed like some old man. And the others were so poor and starved that Larry’s father shook his fist at the owners who had deserted them. “Heartless idiots!” he spoke in a rage. “They be the curs, not these helpless ones!”

  The boy, listening, felt a surge of pride in his father. “Pa,” he said, “even if no one claims them, we don’t have to put them to death; do we, Pa?”

  The father set his lips in a line. “That we don’t! To my way, every dog is entitled to a home. We’ll cure their ills and fatten ’em up. Then you’ll see! Somebody will want them.”

  With a fierce crusading spirit, man and boy went to work. They scrubbed and scoured the cages. They stuffed gunny sacks around the window frames. They built a fire in the old pot-bellied stove and put kettles of water on top to boil. The steam filled every corner of the room, and the pup with the wheeze began to breathe quietly. As for the dog with the cough, he made a furry ball of himself and soon dropped off to sleep.

  Every morning now Larry was up before daylight—stirring a big batch of gruel, filling the water pans, feeding the dogs, and then letting them out of their cages to romp in the big room. This play period was his own idea. “If children need a recess,” he argued with himself, “why don’t animals?”

  But one little moppet was a problem dog. She refused to come out and play. She refused even to eat. Whenever food was offered, her lip curled up over her fangs and the growl in her throat was deep and menacing.

  Larry did not laugh at the big noise coming from so small a creature. He felt a kind of hurt that anyone could mistrust him. He named the unfriendly pup “Muggs” and determined to win her for a pet.

  For days he brought her choice morsels from his own plate. For days he talked softly to her whenever he went by her cage. “Oh, you’re the ugly one,” he would say, his voice gentle with reproof. “But we’re going to change that. You’ve got Terrier blood, which shows you’re smart. And you’ve got a Bulldog jaw for spunk. Why, you’ve got lots of purebred blood. Anyone can see that!”

  One evening after school Larry brought Muggs a pair of toy mice, and for a long time she held them in her mouth, with only the tails sticking out. Who could growl with a mouthful of mice? Not Muggs.

  It was months, though, before she ventured out of her cage at recess. When at last she did, she found it such fun that she didn’t want to go back. Cunningly, she figured a way to make the time last longer. When the hour of play was up, she ran to the pan of drinking water. But her tongue barely touched it. She wasn’t drinking at all, just pretending so that Larry would swoop her up and carry her to the cage like some helpless child. Shyly at first, she dabbed at his check with her tongue; then her tail did a little tattoo against his ribs.

  “You rascal!” he laughed at her. “You were just stalling.”

  There was a kind of magic in the way Muggs blossomed. She soon became a “trusty” with all manner of special privileges.

  Now when Larry makes his rounds of the restaurants to collect scraps, Muggs leaps onto his bicycle and goes along. Balancing herself on the handlebars, she likes to let the wind stream past her face. It tickles her nose with the scent of the huge joints of beef in the basket. But never will she touch one until Larry gives the signal.

  Today Muggs is the pet of the pound, smart and obedient as any circus dog. She climbs ladders. She dances like a ballerina. She jumps through hoops. And she will perch for long minutes on the rooftree of her house until told to come down.

  But the magic does not end with Muggs. The whole pound has been transformed! Now when the wind howls around the gray building, the big room is a friendly place—the teakettles singing, the father’s pencil scratching at his reports, the boy building new kennels, and the dogs snoozing or just listening to the radio.

  To Larry’s great delight the cages are filling up. Instead of just a handful of dogs, there are dozens. Some days the phone rings again and again:

  “Come get a mangy mutt running loose on Shawano Avenue.”

  “Come get a slinking cur hanging around my meat market.”

  “Come get a mother dog and her assorted pups from under our porch.”

  All these are made welcome at the pound. Even the runtiest. Somebody will want him, Larry and his father insist. And somebody always does. Half-pint, an undersized pup, lived a whole year at the pound before someone recognized the goodness in his homely little face and tucked him into a child’s Christmas stocking. In his adopted home Half-pint soon lost his sad-eyed look and became an active partner in raising a small child.

  Larry’s father is very firm in this matter of adoption. Always he follows up to see that the dog is happy. And if the dog is mistreated, he is promptly brought back. Then there is such a tail-wagging of joy that the returning fellow is apt to become another of Larry’s personal pets. “We need some old-timers, don’t we, Pa, to help train the new and frightened ones?”

  And the father smiles, secretly happy because the boy understands. “You’re right, Larry. Each life—man or dog—has a purpose in this big old world. Here we’ve got herders and hunters, burrowers and retrievers, and just plain foot warmers.”

  “Yes, Pa. Everything but pedigreed dogs.”

  The father’s eye fondles the dogs in the nearest cages. “Remember, son, it takes many purebreds to make a mongrel. And each mongrel is the only one of its kind. That’s why I like ’em.”

  “Me, too, Pa.”

  “Does the Red Cross worry about the ancestry of its dogs? Does the Army Medical Corps? Do circus trainers? . . . No!” the father barks, sounding for all the world like one of his own dogs. Then his voice quiets. “After all, mongrels with their mixed-up backgrounds are good Americans. Loyal, that’s what they are, and anxious to please. You know that!”

  “Sure!” agrees Larry.

  And there, in happy proof, is Muggs looking up at him with love and with asking eyes: “Shall I climb the ladder? Jump through the hoop? What will it be? Just you name it, Larry.”

  FOR THEIR HELP THE AUTHOR AND ARTIST ARE GRATEFUL TO:

  A. D. ALEXANDER, secretary

  Collie Club of America, Inc.

  MRS. NATHAN R. ALLEN, president

  Poodle Club of America

  MISS EMMELINE ANDRUSKEVICZ, adviser

  MRS. L. W. BON
NEY, secretary

  Dalmatian Club of America

  WILLIAM F. BROWN, editor

  The American Field

  HOWES BURTON, secretary

  Labrador Retriever Club, Inc.

  MRS. L. E. CAFFALL, chairman of Information and Publicity

  Poodle Club of America

  I. W. CARREL, editor

  Hounds and Hunting

  MISS FRANCES J. CARTER

  Pomeranian and Pekingese fancier

  MRS. WALTER P. CHRYSLER

  Chihuahua fancier

  MISS BARBARA CORY

  Pomeranian fancier

  MRS. JOHN W. CROSS, JR., secretary

  Dachshund Club of America

  MRS. NICHOLAS A. DEMIDOFF

  Husky breeder and racer

  Monadnock Kennels

  MAJOR CLARK DENNY

  United States Air Force

  RUDY DOCKY, clown

  Pollack Brothers Shrine Circus

  RALPH B. HENRY, mentor

  GEORGE M. HOWARD, president

  American Boxer Club, Inc.

  C. K. HUNTER, secretary

  English Springer Spaniel Club of the Central States

  ROBERT CAPRON HUNTER, JR.

  Springer Spaniel fancier

  MRS. DOROTHY E. HUSTED, secretary

  American Pomeranian Club, Inc.

  REV. RUSSELL E. KAUFFMAN, first vice-president

  The Chihuahua Club of America

  MISS MILDRED G. LATHROP, reference librarian

  E. PERKINS MCGUIRE, secretary

  American Boxer Club, Inc.

  EUGENE J. RIORDAN, secretary

  Boston Terrier Club of America, Inc.

  MRS. EDNA R. SECOR, secretary

  Bulldog Club of America

  CURTICE W. SLOAN, president

  Doberman Pinscher Club of America

  WILLIAM I. SHEARER III, secretary

  Siberian Husky Club of America

  MISS MAUREEN SMITH Maur-Ray

  German Shepherd Kennels

  MRS. GRANT L. SUTTON, adviser

  CLARENCE and LARRY VERHEYDEN

  Mongrel fanciers

  MRS. EARL VOGT

  Scotch Terrier fancier

  LESTER E. WALLACK

  American Spaniel Club

  ANTHONY WELLING

  Cleveland Mounted Police

  MISS IDA G. WILSON, librarian

  For the “Naughty Chair” incident we are indebted to Miss Violet Stefanich and to the publication, Our Dumb Animals.

  MARGUERITE HENRY was the beloved author of such classic horse stories as King of the Wind, Misty of Chincoteague, and Justin Morgan Had a Horse. By the time she died in 1997, she had written fifty-eight books about animals, especially horses.

  WESLEY DENNIS was best known for his illustrations in collaboration with author Marguerite Henry. They published fifteen books together.

  ALADDIN

  SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK

  Visit us at

  KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Marguerite-Henry

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Wesley-Dennis

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  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  This Aladdin hardcover edition November 2015

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1955 by Rand McNally & Company

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Jacket designed by Laura Lyn DiSiena

  Jacket illustrations by Wesley Dennis

  Jacket illustrations copyright © 1955 by Rand McNally & Company

  Interior designed by Jacquelynne Hudson

  The text of this book was set in Adobe Garamond Pro.

  Library of Congress Control Number 55-8890

  ISBN 978-1-4814-4257-2 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-4300-5 (eBook)