Lion Ben of Elm Island

by Elijah Kellogg

  CHAPTER III.

  TIGE RHINES.

  There was another member of the family whose qualities deserve especialmention--the great Newfoundland dog.

  We have already alluded to the captain’s fondness for the race: therewas always a dog in his father’s family. Often had old Lion furnishedthem with a meal, or detected the ambush of the lurking Indian. Asthough to round and complete the sum of kindly associations clusteringaround this pleasant household, even Tiger partook of the goodqualities of the family. Captain Rhines said that he wouldn’t have adog that would make the neighbors dislike to come to the house; but asfor Tiger, he was both a gentleman and a Christian.

  The breed of dogs to which he belonged are both by nature andinclination fitted for the water, and as insensible to the cold as awhite bear. Their skin is greasy; there is a fine wool under their longhair which turns water; when they come ashore they give themselves ashake or two and are nearly dry. They are also partially web-footed;they do not swim like common dogs, thrusting their paws out before themlike a hog, but spread out their great feet and strike out sidewiselike a boy.

  The way in which the captain made the acquaintance of Tige was on thiswise: One of his last voyages was to Trieste; he met in the street afine-looking dog carrying a basket full of eggs; greatly pleased withthe appearance of the animal, he turned to look after him, when, as hepassed a stable door, a dog as large as himself attacked him in therear. He bore it patiently till he came to a house, when, putting downhis eggs, he turned upon his persecutor, and gave him such a maulingthat he was glad to escape on three legs, and covered with blood. Thecaptain followed the dog to a menagerie, where he ascertained that itwas the dog’s daily duty to bring eggs to feed the monkeys; that he hadflogged the other a day or two before, who thought to avenge himself byattacking him at a disadvantage.

  The captain succeeded in buying the animal, though he never dared totell what he gave for him.

  “Were I not pushed for money,” said the showman, after the bargain wasconcluded, “I never would have parted with him; he will protect yourperson and your property; you never will be sorry that you bought him,though I shall often regret that I was obliged to sell him.”

  Captain Rhines soon found that the showman had spoken the truth. Hecould leave the most valuable articles on the wharf, and trust them tohis keeping.

  So well was his disposition known, that not a child in the neighborhoodfeared to come to the house by night or day. He would permit any personto inspect the premises, but not to touch the least thing.

  They might, in the night time, knock at the door as long as theypleased; but if they put their hand on the latch, he would knock itoff with his paw, and show his teeth in a way that discouraged furtherattempts. When the little children came who could not knock loud enoughto be heard, he would bark for them till he brought somebody to thedoor.

  There was nothing so attractive to Tige as a baby on the floor, noranything in which he so much delighted as to follow them around, andwith his great tongue lick meat and gingerbread out of their fists. Nowonder his master said he was a gentleman and a Christian; for thoughhe would tear a thief in a moment, these little tots would get on himas he lay in the grass, stuff his mouth and nose full of clover headsto hear him sneeze, and, when tired of that, lie down on him and go tosleep.

  Next to playing with babies, his favorite employment was fishing. In acalm day, when the water was clear, he would swim off to a dry ledge,called Seal Rock, in the cove before the house, dive down, and bring upa fish every time.

  The fish always worked off on the ebb tide, and came up on the flood.Tige knew as well when it was flood tide, and time to go floundering,as did John Rhines, his bosom friend and constant companion. Tigealways went to meeting, and slept _on_ the horse-block in fair weather,and _under_ it in foul.

  The good women said, they did wish Tige Rhines would stay at home, forwhen they had fixed the children all up nice to go to meeting, theywere sure to be hugging him, and he would slobber them all over, licktheir hair down about their eyes, and chew their bonnet “ribbins” intostrings.

  Captain Rhines hired Sam Hadlock to help him hoe. When he went homeSaturday night, he hung up his hoe in the shed, as he expected to workthere the next week, but, finding his mother’s corn was suffering tobe hoed, went back to get it. The family had gone to bed, and Tigewouldn’t let him touch it, though they were great friends, and he wasthe next neighbor. He was going into the house without knocking, forthey didn’t fasten doors in those days; but the instant he put his handon the latch, the dog knocked it off with his paw, and he was obligedto knock till Ben came and got the hoe for him.

  A more singular proof of his sagacity occurred soon after. They had afuss in the district with the schoolmaster, and a lawsuit grew out ofit. Captain Rhines’s daughter was summoned as a witness by the master.He came one evening to see her about it, when the rest of the familywere from home. Tiger thought, as she was alone, all was not right; sohe waits upon the master to the door, and when she opened it, stoodup on his hind legs, and put his fore paws on the master’s shoulders,and without offering to harm him, kept him there. They had to do theirtalking over Tiger’s shoulder; but when it was finished, he made noobjection to his departure.

  In the cove before the house was a beach of fine white sand, withouta stone in it, which when wet was as hard as a floor. The childrenwere never tired of playing on this spot. The upper portion, which wasonly occasionally wet by the tide, was dry and the sand loose, whilethe lower part, which the water had recently left, was hard and smoothto run on, thus affording them a variety of amusements. Some would runraces on the beach, chase the retreating waves, and then scamper back,screaming with delight, as the wave broke around their heels.

  Others sailed boats, waded in the water after shells, and if theycould get Tige, they would spit on a stick and fling it as far as theycould into the water, and send him in to fetch it out, while thosewho were learning to swim would catch hold of his tail and be towedashore. While all this was going on at the water’s edge, another partyon the upper portion would be rolling over on the hot, clean sand, andbuilding forts, and digging wells with clam shells; others still, underthe clay bank, were making mud puddings and pies, and roasting clams ata great fire made of drift-wood.

  Parents did not like very well to have the children, especially thelittle ones, play there so much, for fear of their getting drowned; andthe larger ones could not well be spared from work to go with them;but they could not find it in their hearts to forbid them, they hadsuch a good time of it. So, once or twice every week during the summer,a group of little folks would come to the captain’s, and one of them,making her best “courtesy,” would say,--

  “Captain Rhines, me, and Eliza Ann Hadlock, and Caroline Griffin, andthe Warren girls, are going down to the cove to play, and my marm wantsto know if Tige can go and take care of us.”

  Tige, who knew what the children wanted as well as they did themselves,would stand looking his master in the face, wagging his tail, andsaying, as plain as a dog could say, “Do let me go, sir.”

  Captain Rhines, one afternoon, set a herring net in the mouth of thecove. These nets are very long, and are set by fastening the upperedge to a rope, called the _cork-rope_. On this rope are strung corks,or wooden buoys made of cedar, which keep it on top of the water. Itis then stretched out, and the two ends fastened to the bottom by“grapplings.” To each end larger buoys are fastened; weights are thenattached to the lower edge, so that it hangs perpendicular in thewater. The fish run against it in the dark, and are caught by theirgills.

  It is the nature of Newfoundland dogs to bring ashore whatever theysee floating. Tige went down to the Seal Rock floundering, and saw thebuoys bobbing up and down in the water; away he swims to bring themashore. Finding them fast to the bottom, what does he do, but with hissharp teeth gnaws off the cork-rope and set them adrift? till therewere not enough left to float the net, and it sank to the bottom. Hethen carried all the floats to th
e Seal Rock and piled them up, andthinking he had done a meritorious act, lay down to rest himself afterhis labors.

  The next morning Captain Rhines and Ben went to take up their net. Theythought some vessel must either have run over it and carried it off onher keel or rudder, or else that so many fish were meshed as to sinkit. They grappled and brought it up, when, to their astonishment, therewas not a fish in it, the cork-rope cut to pieces, the two large buoysand about two thirds of the net-buoys gone.

  But as they pulled home by the Seal Rock there was every one of themissing floats, with the marks of Tiger’s teeth in the soft wood.Captain Rhines was in a towering passion, because it was not only agreat deal of work to grapple for the net, but the cork-rope, whichwas valuable in those days, was all cut to pieces.

  He sent John up to the house after Tige, and got a big stick to beathim. The beach was covered with children of all ages. They left theirsports and ran to the spot. John Rhines begged his father not tolick the dog, while the children began to cry; but the captain wasdetermined. “Father,” said Ben, “I wouldn’t beat him; if you beat himfor bringing these floats ashore, he won’t go after birds when youshoot them.” Upon this, the captain, who was an inveterate gunner,flung away the stick; and the children, drying up their tears, tookTige off to frolic with them.

  The miller’s daughter, three years and a half old, had a speckledkitten; a brutal boy drowned it in the mill-pond. The little creaturewent down to look for her kitten, and fell in. Just then Captain Rhinesand Tige came to the mill with a grist. The child had gone down for thethird time. He jumped from the horse, and threw in a stone where he sawthe bubbles come up. Tige instantly followed the stone, and brought upthe child with just the breath of life in it.

  The overjoyed mother hugged the child, and then hugged Tige. The millergave him a brass collar, with an account of this brave act engravedupon it.

  Ever after this he had a warm place in the affections of the wholecommunity, and was almost as much beloved and respected as his master.

  The sentiments of the young folks, in respect to Tige, were put tothe test the next summer. A boy came there in a fishing vessel, whowas full of pranks, had never received any culture, knew nothing ofthe history of Tige, and perhaps, if he had, would not have cared; togratify a malicious disposition, he put some spirits of turpentine onhim, causing him great agony. The enraged children enticed the boy tothe beach, and while he was in swimming, carried off his clothes, and,having prepared themselves with sticks, fell upon him as he came out ofthe water, and beat him to a jelly.

  A few days after the event just narrated, Captain Rhines was sitting inthe door after dinner, when he saw little Fannie Williams, the miller’sdaughter, coming into the yard. She was evidently bent on business ofimportance, for, though passionately fond of flowers, she never lookedat the lilies, hollyhocks, and morning glories, on each side of her,but walking directly up to him, and putting both hands on his knees,said, with the tears glistening in her little eyes, “You won’t whipTige, will you, if he does do naughty things?”

  “God bless the child!” said the captain, taking her in his lap andkissing her, “have you come way down here to ask me that?”

  “Nobody knowed it, and nobody telled me to come; I comed my own self,’cause he shan’t be whipped. Fannie loves Tige.”

  “You’ve good reason to love him, for if it had not been for him you’dbeen a dead baby now. I never will whip him, nor let anybody else.”

  The captain then took her by the hand, and led her into the orchard,where he picked up some pears, and put in a basket; he then culled abunch of flowers as large as she could carry, and putting the handle ofthe basket in Tige’s mouth, sent him home with her. The little girl,with her fears quieted, trudged along, putting her flowers to Tige’snose for him to smell of, telling him he shouldn’t be licked, ’causeCaptain Rhines said so.