Banjo.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 31 August 1929, Page 18

Banjo.

A CANADIAN DOG STORY. i I It was on a cold November day that j I set out with my friend Venner to drive to Okanagan Falls —six miles : away—where we were to find a brown pup (writes H. S. Parham in Blackwood's Magazine 3. The pup was only a cross-bred, half retriever and half English setter, and his career almost ended at its threshold, for we had barely left “The Falls” when he suddenly jumped from the sulky as I held him lightly between my feet under the rug. The wheel passed right over his little body, and for the rest of the long six miles l I was nursing in my arms an. almost, unconscious puppy.

On arriving at our shack, I laid him by a warm fire, but for some hours he did not move, and I feared the worst. At length, however, he began to revive, and after he had been given a little condensed milk I went to bed quite hopeful.

His recovery was rapid, and the very next evening he seemed little the worse for the trying experience. He realised at once that he was my dog. Banjo’s first undertaking was to fetch my slippers from the bedroom when the day’s work was over, and we came in for supper: he took the greatest pride in this accomplishment, and we were highly entertained by .his baby efforts. Then he found that firewood was constantly being brought in from outside, and might he not help in this work as well? This was a much heavier task than carrying slippers, but he was getting bigger and stronger each day, and. until he was able to carry them, he dragged in such billets as he could manage, saving us many journeys. Following the example of Yenner’s dog. Riot, he became very busy burying meat all over the ranch, for some cattle had died in the big meadow opposite I do not think that they dug up any of their caches again, although. from the pains they took to corneal their treasures from each other, they' evidently anticipated a future use for them. Fortunately, the rainy day' they were preparing for never came. From the same hunting ground Banjo often brought huge marrow-bones to my feet, with an apneal which was easily interpreted as “Please crack these for me.”

HIS SPECIAL WORK. He was barely six months old when he took over .what was always thereafter his special work and 1 trust. A two-horse stage in those • days passed our gate three times each way every week. This stage brought my mail from tlie> north, leaving it in a box on a post, unless I happened to be -working near the road. Banjo began by taking the bag from me as I carried it to the shack. Soon lie was asking the driver to give it to him instead of putting it into the box or handing it to; me. He soon understood everytllillff T Sflifl t.n llini n.hnnt, + Vn<a imrwvv+_

ant matter. On the morning that the stage would be coming from Penticton I used, when at my work, to say to him, “Mail day to-day, Banjo.” “Yes,” he would reply, with his speaking eyes and wagging tail, “but it isn’t time yet.” Towards 11 o’clock i© would Iregin to be on the alert, and before the stage arrived at. the gate he was awaiting it, and. ready to 7'oach up and take the bag from the driver when the horses stopped. He did notbring it to me where 1 was working,

but always carried' it lo the shack door and lay there guarding it boj tween his paws until I came to lunch. People who travelled by the stage began to know the ranch as “The place where the dog takes the mail.” When he was 10 months old. a day T came that made it- necessary for me to test severely his character and loyalty'. I wanted a Jersey cow. and could not get one nearer than about 75 miles away. Starting off one morning on my saddle-horse, with Banjo accompanying us, we. travelled the 20 miles to Penticton. Here I had to take the Canadian Pacific Railway Company’s steamer early the next morning. Leaving mv horse at a livery stable, T showed Banjo where I was putting my saddle in the barn, and told l him he must look after it whilst I was away. Late in fho evening Banjo accompanied me to the wharf and saw me aboard, and he must have slept that night on the wharf, for at five o’clock the next morning, when the whistle blew and the boat started, I ueered cautiously out of my cabin window to see a very disconsolate-looking pup gazing wistfully at the departing steamer. I dared not show myself or

speak to him for fear that he might jump into the lake to swim after; me. It was not until the second evening after saying good-bye to Banjo on the wharf that I found myself nearing Penticton again, with the Jersey cow on board. It was quite dark when the boat reached Penticton; the gangplan k was thrown on to the wharf, and with a number of others I was hall' way ashore when, to my delight, i found. 1 Banjo jumping all over me. The liveryman, who had been away when I left my horsF at his stable, remarked, “Oh, is that your dog? He has been around the barn all the last two days,' except when the Aberdeen came in last night and the freightboat this afternoon; he went to the wharf with me to meet them.” Doglover as he was, I doubt whether he quite realised how much these glad tidings meant to me. Banjo*had been tried, and would, I knew now, always be faithful. HIS OWN PLATE.

i' rom the days of his early puppyhood Uanjo always had his own particular plate—a tin one, which be could carry without damage to his teeth. This lie generally Kept, under a peaehtree in tire , orchard, and on out- saying to him, “Eetch your plate, Banjo,” - he, would race out- and bring it back in his mouth. His- only real meal each clay was his supper, and when the time for this arrived he would bring his plate l to me or to my ■sister—of his own accord if we. kept . him waiting too long. If anyone was going up the range, where the horses ana cattle grazed, and Banjo was not to be one of the party, the word “range” was not mentioned in discussing the matter, for he had so often caught the drift of the talk from this word and had immediately run some way up the mountainside to await our coming. He liked a little milk poured over his supper, and if there was to be none for him the word was not used near his mealtime, for it always brought his tongue out as he gave us a lcnowling look, which said: “Yes, please.” He even got to know the word when we spelt xt out “M-I-L-K,” He must have longed to talk to us in the language he could so often understand. In one way that he found it possible he did mimic me, much to. the amusement or my companion Venner—-for it was in Banjo’s very early days. I was guilty at that time of very loud and long yawns, and when I found Banjo copying me I greatly exaggerated these, running up and down the scale in an absurd manner, with Banjo still continuing to imitate me so ridiculously and accurately that Venner dubbed him “The Weird Pup.” When we wished to show Banjo off to a visitor, Edward and I would sometimes both throw our heavy leather Moves .by the roadside, as we walked from the orchard to our lakeside home for lunch. Banjo was then called, shown our bare hands, and off he would run to find the missiifg gloves. Owing to his eagerness to accomplish his tasks in the least possible time, this was quite his most difficult and trying stunt. He longed to pick them all up without a pause, and to race to us with them in his mouth, but though he became expert enough to do this with two gloves, it wass, of course out of the question with four; and so, after leai-ning from experience that it could be done in no other way, he would carefully gather all the gloves together, stack them : one above the other, then open his < mouth very , wide, and secure the whole pile. It tried his patience sorely when : as sometimes happened, one of the number evaded his grip after he had j stacked them, and all had to be. start- • eel afresh , . To-day when the biological facts of evolution are so* much more generally j known than they were fifty years ago, • surely most of those who have thought ( deeply on the subject must have satis- f tied themselves tat if man is endowed <- with an imperishable soul, so too, e must the germ of this eternal spirit j Ire implanted in all living things. Only j in the degree of its perfection can one j man’s soul differ from those of his i fellow men or from those of all other ,-] creatures who owe their origin to the 0 same God. With these cheering f thoughts I will end my little story of Banjo, not on a note of sadness, but an one of hope. ’ %