Master Frisky/Chapter 2
I suppose a puppy must live in much such a strange and wonderful world as children do. Certainly Master Frisky's world was full of wonders; many of them he inquired into, and quite frequently to his sorrow.
But I must first tell you about naming him; for a long time we could not find a name that fitted him. All of the ordinary dog names that we tried were either too large, too small, or too dignified for him. So for a long time he was Jack one day, and Ned the next, and still something else the third, until at last he got so that he would answer to almost any name. "This will never do," I said; "we must have a name for him at once."
The next morning I was sitting in my study, not reading, but watching the pranks of my puppy who was chasing a grasshopper. "How he does frisk about!" said a friend, watching the fun over my shoulder. "Why not call him Frisky?" he asked; and the name stuck. Finally, when he got older and more dignified, a master was added when he was uncommonly clever.
Master Frisky's first adventure, which was not a serious one, came the morning after I arrived home with him; and from that day on I was never quite certain what he would do next. He had gone with me to the barn, and while I was watering the horses, he was lying on the floor trying to catch a sunbeam; of a sudden I heard a few sharp barks, and then a most pitiful yelping.
I rushed to the scene of the disturbance, and found poor Frisky up in one corner of the barn, and our old white gander, Ginger, before him, pounding him fiercely with his wings. I drove Ginger away, and Master Frisky ran between my legs for protection. This was but one of many similar plights from which I rescued this curious pup.
He would get his nose pecked for poking into the hencoop to see the chickens; the cat would scratch him when he got too free with her kittens; and often he would come scurrying into the yard with his tail between his legs, and a large dog in hot pursuit.
For recreation he worried the cat, chased the kittens when the mother was not around, barked at the rooster, hunted grasshoppers, dug holes in the flower-beds, and hid bones under the lounge. Things that a well-behaved dog should do were never thought of by him, but his capers and tricks would fill a large book.
One morning, about a week after my first acquaintance with Master Frisky, I heard a great commotion in the front yard; and on going to the door, I found one of my neighbors, Mrs. Maloney by name, gesturing wildly with the poker, while my small dog was standing at a respectful distance, barking.
"The little haythen," said Mrs. Maloney, as soon as she saw me, "he stole me beefsteak, grabbed the entire lot from the oven when me back was turned."
"Where is it now?" I asked.
"The little baste has hid it, and I can't find it at all, at all."
Master Frisky stood with drooping head and tail, looking every inch a culprit. "Bad dog," I said in my sternest tones. He at once lay down upon the ground, and turning upon his back held up his front paws in such a beseeching manner, that I laughed in spite of myself, at which he immediately got up and began crawling toward me in a humble and sorrowful attitude.
"It ain't the first time that the little scamp has been thaving. It was only yisterday that he stole a piece of mince-pie out of me oven, took it out so slick that I thought it was me bye, Patsy, and a good slap I gave him; and I never would have known to this day, had I not seen the crumbs on his sassy little mug, and himself a-lying behint the stove a-making belave slape," said Mrs. Maloney. I paid for the meat, and promised to keep a sharp eye on my naughty dog.
One of Master Frisky's most harmless and amusing puppy pranks was to tease the cat. He never was rough with her, or I would have interfered. At first he would merely stand perfectly still in front of the cat and look at her. For two minutes at a time he would stand so, not moving a muscle, but just grinning.
After a while she would move to another part of the room; but Frisky would follow, and take up his position as before. When this sport got tame he would open his mouth very wide, and make believe swallow the cat's head, but never did he offer to bite.
Then, of a sudden, he would rear upon his hind legs and come down astride the cat with his mouth wide open, and almost shut his jaws upon her. It was lucky for him in those puppy days that the cat was long-suffering, or he would have had many a severe lesson.