"Yaller Dogs."

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 45, 21 September 1870, Page 6

"Yaller Dogs."

Mark Twain's History of the Founder of the Family and his Decendents. When Noah disembarked at Ararat he had scarcely touched the pier when he proceeded to tally his passengers. He had just checked his last item to the list—a Mr and Mrs Bedbug—when the cringeing figure of a quadruped came sneaking down the gangplank with his tail between his logs. “ Drat it, if there ain’t that yallor dog !” says Noah, aiming a vicious kick with his brogan at the brute. But, with a facility born of long and bitter experience, the brute dodged the projectile, ejaculating “ ki-vi,” which is Svriac for “ declined with thanks,” or “ not for Joe,” he disappeared, while Noah, who had his sea-legs on. was unable to recover his equilibrium, and sat down with emphasis on the back of his head. Noah arose, and, in accordance with the style prevalent among the patriarchs, he proceeded to soothe his affronted dignity, bv pronouncing a variegated anathema unon the valler dog, which had characteristically sneaked unobserved on board, in the confusion of putting to sea, and capsized the captain at the first port. He cursed that dog in bodv, limb, bark, hide, hair, tail, and wag, and all his generations, relations, and kindred, bv consanguinity or affinity, and his heirs and assigns. He cursed him with endless hunger, with perpetual fear, with perennial laziness, with hopeless mange, with incessant fleas, and with his tail between his legs. He closed his stock of maledictions by a sparkling disnlay of pyrotechnics, from the demoralising effect of which the ‘‘yaller dog" has never recovered, with this curse sticking to him like a revenue stamp, the yaller dog can’t help being “cussed.” He don’t try to help it. He follows Noah’s programme with sneaking fidelity. He is an Tshmaelite among clogs. He receives the most oppressive courtesies in the form of brick-bats, boots, and hot water, which make his life an animated target excursion. He boards around like a district school teacher, and it is meal time with him twentv-four hours in the dav. The rest of the time he hankers after something to eat. He is tooomniverous for an epicure. Cram him at Delmonico’s, and he would hunger for dessert from an Albany boarding-house. He can’t be utilised. He is too tired. A.s a swill-cart locomotive, a hunter, or a sentinel, he is an ignominious failure. The dog-churn was a strategic attempt to employ his waste energies, but bo hadn’t any waste energies, and butter had too much self-respect to “ come” at his persuasion. So the dog-churn was dropped. No sausage-maker dare foreclose his lien on the yaller dog, lest his customers—no longer “ soothed and sustained by an unfaltering trust”— transfer their patronage to someless audacious dealer. The savages, who admire baked dog, and who can even attack tripe and explore the mysteries of hash, without dismay, acknowledged the yaller dog to be too much for their gastric intrepidity. He always manages to belong to a ragged, tobacco - chewing, whisky - drinking master, whose business is swapping dogs and evading the’ dog-tax. Tiie yaller dog is acquainted with himself, and he eujovs the intimacy with edifying contempt. He slinks along through life, on a diagonal dog-trot, as in doubt as to which end of him is entitled to the precedence. Ho is always pervaded by a hang dog sense of guilt, and when retributive tinware is fastened to his tail, he “ flies from the wrath to come ” with a horrified celerity which ought to be very suggestive to two legged sinners of a similar ordeal in store for them. The yallor dog is—well, to speak in italics, be is a s'ouch.