FIRST ADVENTURE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

FIRST ADVENTURE

DETER, -the fox terrier who was the especial pet of John and Mary, was locked in the kitchen. It was pitch dark, except for a narrow golden strip of light beneath the living-room doors, where the children were doing their homework. John, with elbows spread upon the table, was thinking of Peter. He hated to lock him in a dark room and so did Mary. Perhaps that was because they had had him for only three weeks, and he was only two months old. But father, who did not like dogs, insisted. Besides, they must concentrate, he said, on their lessons and not on Peter.

"I wonder if Peter is all right," Marv said.

"Of course," said her father, who was reading the paper by the fire. "He's quite safe. And remember that you muet be in bed in half an hour."

Peter, in the kitchen, shuffled and scraped about restlessly on the linoleum. If you had switched on the light you would have seen that he was rather dumpy, with a short stump of a tail that was never still, bright eyes and a shiny black and white coat. There was a wicker basket with a warm rug in it in the corner, but he did not settle into it. He began to whine softly. Then he

gave a short yelp. He cringed a little as he heard a muffled grunting from the living room.

He liked John and Mary, but was a little afraid of their father, who had given him a beating for lying on the counterpanes. He always fawned around their mother, for she was soft-hearted and gave him titbits he would not have tasted otherwise. To-night she was out, but she had left something in & bowl on the broad windowledge above the flat-topped electric range. Peter felt hungry. Indeed, he wae always hungry, which by puppy standards is saying a good deal. There was a chair nearby and by jumping on this he landed on top of the stove, his nose sniffing around the bowl. Too bad! Only «. jelly left to eet. The window va« open to let the cool air on it. There wa« a moon, big and whrte and luminous, and the air was mild. Just then Peter felt the invitation to adventure, such as every young puppy feels even if he is fed on milk and titbite, and has a basket to sleep in. Across the field, beyond the houee, a group of pines clustered on a knoll. A morepork called dolefully from among them. The moon shone just above their topmost branches.

The Doings Of A Playful Puppy

By Walter Hood

With a scarcely perceptible plop Peter landed on the lawn outride. His short legs twinkled under him as he set out on his adventure.

The gra*«s waa wet and soaked his body. Soon he was among the pines. It was darker here. The moon filtered down fitfully. Pine needles crackled under his paws and there "as a seent of pinewood.

Up above him, so close that he thought it wae on the branches near him, a morepork hooted. He jumped and yelped at it. There wa« silence, but through the darkness came a darker shape in the air. It sailed silently through the tree® and as it swooped low resolved itself into a bird. He could hear the rustle of wind in its wings. He dodged as it plunged and a hard beak missed him by inches.

He felt a tremble of fear go through him and he paused, frightened, before he went on. Now" all wm quiet, except the faint sigh of the breeze.

He felt hungrier now than ever and his hunting instinct was aroused. When something waddled slowly across his path and sneezed he eat back on his hind legs readv for a spring. Then he barked, which shows how inexperienced a hunter he really was. But the strange creature gave only a brief grunt and another sneeze and went on its way toward a clump of blackberry.

Peter sprang suddenly and alighted on a hedgehog's spiny back. He felt the quick raising of the spines, to inflict the utmost possible pain. He twisted backward on to the ground and lay there crying. The spines, beside pricking, left a throbbing itch all over him.

There was a house beyond the trees, a rather lonely house belonging to Mrs. Smith, who kept the sweetshop in the village. Peter made his way cautiously towards it. The rooms were unlit. Where a clay path emerged among the trees he stopped, sniffing, on the edge of a shrubberyclustered glade.

His moist black nose told him of another dog somewhere near. The breeze <lrift«l the scent down to him. He pawed, half afraid, but curious.

The moonlight revealed, beside a bush a huge Airedale dog, its coat all caked with mud, gnawing sideways at a joint of meat, unaware of a luminous pair of eyes peering at him from the shadow. He had a smaller companion, who stood apart looking wistfully at the meal. But he lay possessively before it, growling every time the other tried to come a little closer.

Peter crept on his fat stomach towards the meat, while the owner regarded him with reddened eyea. He whined, hie nose in the air, and snuffled, and there was no hostile response. Doubtless the giant thought seven pounds of puppy too small to consider.

It was a long joint, raw and with a leg still on. Peter crept up beeidt it. The eyes still watched him, but the dog made no move. He dug his needle-like teeth into the meat and tore off a little lump. It was the first raw meat he had tasted. After hie diet of milk it wat the most delicious thing he had evei known. He bit a little more, ther fell to dogged chewing. The smaller Airedale made a shuffling etep toward the feast and the red eyes shifted to him. Even a dog can stand only eo much tantalising and the hungry one made a brief swift rush at the joint, while Peter fled in terror to the undergrowth. The big dog whirled about with an activity not to be expected from hi 9 size and the other leaped for safety. He was too slow and a bite on the tail sent him howling away with hie tormentor at his heels. The sounds racked the peace of the night. Peter crawled back and resumed hie attack on the joint. Presently he grew tired of raw meat. The window of the house wag open, like that of his master's, and it was low to the •rround. He clawed himself up on the eill.

There was a table laid for eupper when Mrs. Smith should return—a pie, a jug of milk and bread. Peter fell to with energy.

It happened the next day that John noticed the extraordinary lethargy of Peter. He lay in his basket, breathing slowly and heavily. His eyes were (lull and he looked fatter than ever. John put him on the scales.

"Nine pounds, four ounces," he said, and wondered how any puppy could gain more than two pounds in a single night.

He did not know that within Peter was a sizeable portion of raw mutton, a part of the steak pie, and such milk as had not been soaked away when he overturned the jug on the tablecloth. Mrs Smith met John at the door as he was going to school. "I want to see your father about the dreadful dog that rune wild about here," she Mid. "Do you know what the animal did last night? Broke into my house through an open window and stole a joint of mutton aid ruined a supper on the table. A pie was absolutely devoured. There's milk everywhere. Someone must lie in wait for it with a gun." She caught sight of Peter, lying torpid in his basket. "What a darling!" she said. Peter lay and watched her. His tongue hung out, he wagged his stump of a tail feebly. He would have gone to her and fawned, but he could not. And he was thinking about his first night of adventure, and the red-eyed dog, the hedgehog and the feast. "How nice." Mrs. Smith said, "to have a harmless little dog who never runs away from home." And no one ever knew.