On the opposing sides of the prospect from the windows of the four walls
of the pest-house were trees. Eucalyptus they were, but not the royal
monarchs that their brothers are in native habitats. Poorly planted, by
politics, illy attended, by politics, decimated and many times repeatedly
decimated by the hostile forces of their environment, a straggling
corporal's guard of survivors, they thrust their branches, twisted and
distorted, as if writhing in agony, into the air. Scrub of growth they
were, expending the major portion of their meagre nourishment in their
roots that crawled seaward through the insufficient sand for anchorage
against the prevailing gales.
Not even so far as the sentry-boxes were Daughtry and Kwaque permitted to
stroll. A hundred yards inside was the dead-line. Here, the guards came
hastily to deposit food-supplies, medicines, and written doctors'
instructions, retreating as hastily as they came. Here, also, was a
blackboard upon which Daughtry was instructed to chalk up his needs and
requests in letters of such size that they could be read from a distance.
And on this board, for many days, he wrote, not demands for beer,
although the six-quart daily custom had been broken sharply off, but
demands like:
WHERE IS MY DOG?
HE IS AN IRISH TERRIER.
HE IS ROUGH-COATED.
HIS NAME IS KILLENY BOY.
I WANT MY DOG.
I WANT TO TALK TO DOC. EMORY.
TELL DOC. EMORY TO WRITE TO ME ABOUT MY DOG.
One day, Dag Daughtry wrote:
IF I DON'T GET MY DOG I WILL KILL DOC. EMORY.
Whereupon the newspapers informed the public that the sad case of the two
lepers at the pest-house had become tragic, because the white one had
gone insane. Public-spirited citizens wrote to the papers, declaiming
against the maintenance of such a danger to the community, and demanding
that the United States government build a national leprosarium on some
remote island or isolated mountain peak. But this tiny ripple of
interest faded out in seventy-two hours, and the reporter-cubs proceeded
variously to interest the public in the Alaskan husky dog that was half a
bear, in the question whether or not Crispi Angelotti was guilty of
having cut the carcass of Giuseppe Bartholdi into small portions and
thrown it into the bay in a grain-sack off Fisherman's Wharf, and in the
overt designs of Japan upon Hawaii, the Philippines, and the Pacific
Coast of North America.
And, outside of imprisonment, nothing happened of interest to Dag
Daughtry and Kwaque at the pest-house until one night in the late fall. A
gale was not merely brewing. It was coming on to blow. Because, in a
basket of fruit, stated to have been sent by the young ladies of Miss
Foote's Seminary, Daughtry had read a note artfully concealed in the
heart of an apple, telling him on the forthcoming Friday night to keep a
light burning in his window. Daughtry received a visitor at five in the
morning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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