From The Rise and Fall of the Mustache, and other “Hawk-eyetems,” by Robert J. Burdette, illustrated by R. W. Wallis; Burlington Publishing Company, Burlington, Iowa; 1877; pp. 82-85.
MR. GEROLMAN stood on the front porch of his comfortable home on West Hill, one morning looking out at the drizzling rain in any thing but a comfortable frame of mind. He looked up and down the yard, and then he raised his umbrella and went to the gate and looked up and down the street. Then he whistled in a very shrill manner three or four times, and listened as though he was expecting a response. If he was, he was disappointed, for there was no response save the pattering of the rain on his umbrella, and he frowned heavily as he returned to the porch, from which sheltered post of observation he gloomily surveyed the dispiriting weather.
“Dag gone the dag gone brute,” he muttered savagely, “if ever I keep another dog again, I hope it will eat me up.”
And then he whistled again. And again there was no response. It was evident that Mr. Gerolman had lost his dog, a beautiful ashes of roses hound with seal brown spots, and soft satin-finish ears. He was a valuable dog, and this was the third time he had been lost, and Mr. 83 Gerolman was rapidly losing his temper as completely as he had lost his dog. He lifted his voce and called aloud:
“H’yuh-h-h Ponto! h’yuh Ponto! h’yuhp onto! h’yup onto, h’yup onto h’yuponto, h’yuponto! h’yup, h’yup, h’yup!”
As he ceased calling, and looked anxiously about for some indications of a dog, the front door opened and a woman’s face, shaded with a tinge of womanly anxiety and fastened to Mrs. Gerolman’s head, looked out.
“The children call him Hector,” a low sweet voice said for the wistful, pretty face; but the bereaved master of the absent dog was in no humor to be charmed by a beautiful face and a flute-like voice.
“By George,” he said, striding out into the rain and purposely leaving his umbrella on the porch to make his wife feel bad, “it’s no wonder the dog gets lost, when he has so dod binged many names that he don’t know himself. By Jacks, when I give eleven dollars for a dog, I want the privilege of naming him, and the next person about this house that tries to fasten an old pagan, Indian, blasphemous name on a dog of mine, will hear from me about it; now that’s all.”
And then he inflated his lungs and yelled like a scalp hunter.
“Here, Hector! here, Hector! here rector, hyur, rector, hyur rec, h’yurrec, k’yurrec, k’yurrec! Godfrey’s cordial, where’s that dog gone to? H’yuponto, h’yupont! h’yuh, h’yuh, h’yuh! I hope he’s poisoned — h’yurrector! By George I do; h’yuh Ponto, good dog, Ponty, Ponty, Ponty, h’yuh Pont! I’d give fifty dollars if some one had strychnined the nasty, worthless, lop-eared cur; hyurrec, k’yurrec! By granny, I’ll kill him when he comes home, if I don’t I hope to die; h’yuh Ponto, h’yuh Ponto, h’yuh HEC !!”
84And as he turned back to the porch the door again opened and the tremulous voice sweetly asked:
“Can’t you find him?”
”NAW !!!” roared the exasperated dog-hunter, and the door closed very precipitately and was opened no more during the session.
“Here, Ponto!” roared Mr. Gerolman, from his position on the porch, “Here, Hector!” And then he whistled until his head swam and his throat was so dry you could light a match with it. “Here, Ponto! Blast the dog. I suppose he’s twenty-five miles from here. Hector! What are you lookin’ at, you gimlet-eyed old Bedlamite?” he savagely growled, apostrophizing a sweet-faced old lady with silky white hair, who had just looked out of her window to see where the fire was, or who was being murdered. “Here, Ponto! here Ponto! Good doggie, nice old Pontie, nice old Heckie dog — Oh-h-h,” he snarled, dancing up and down on the porch in an ecstasy of rage and impatience, “I’d like to tramp the ribs out of the long-legged worthless old garbage-eater; here, Ponto, here !”
To his amazement he heard a canine yawn, a long-drawn, weary kind of a whine, as of a dog who was bored to death with the dismal weather; then there was a scraping sound, and the dog, creeping out from under the porch, from under his very feet, looked vacantly around as though he wasn’t quite sure but what he had heard some one calling him, and then catching sight of his master, sat down and thumped on the ground with his tail, smiled pleasantly, and asked as plainly as ever dog asked in the world,
“Were you wanting me?”
Mr. Gerolman, for one brief instant, gasped for breath. Then he pulled his hat down tight on his head, snatched 85 up his umbrella with a convulsive grasp and yelled “Come ’ere!” in such a terrific roar that the white-haired old lady across the way fell back in a fit, and the dog, surmising that all was not well, briefly remarked that he had an engagement to meet somebody fifty-eight feet under the house, and shot under the porch like a shooting dog-star. Mr. Gerolman made a dash to intercept him, but stumbled over a flower stand and plunged through a honey-suckle trellis, off the porch, and down into a raging volcano of moss-rose bush, straw, black, dirt, shattered umbrella ribs, and a ubiquitous hat, while far under the hose, deep in the cavernous darkness, came the mocking laugh of an ashes of roses dog with seal brown spots, accompanied by the taunting remark, as nearly as Mr. Gerolman could understand the dog.
“Who hit him! Which way did he go?”