Seventeen: A Tale of Youth and Summer Time and the Baxter Family, Especially WilliamTarkington, Booth
General
Seventeen: A Tale of Youth and Summer Time and the Baxter Family, Especially William
Tarkington, Booth
Families -- Fiction; First loves -- Fiction; Teenage boys -- Fiction
And Genesis's dog, scratching himself at his master's feet, was the true
complement of Genesis, for although he was a youngish dog, and had not
long been the property of Genesis, he was a dog that would have been
recognized anywhere in the world as a colored person's dog. He was not a
special breed of dog--though there was something rather houndlike about
him--he was just a dog. His expression was grateful but anxious, and he
was unusually bald upon the bosom, but otherwise whitish and brownish,
with a gaunt, haunting face and no power to look anybody in the eye.
He rose apprehensively as the fuming William came out of the kitchen,
but he was prepared to follow his master faithfully, and when William
and Genesis reached the street the dog was discovered at their heels,
whereupon William came to a decisive halt.
“Send that dog back,” he said, resolutely. “I'm not going through the
streets with a dog like that, anyhow!”
Genesis chuckled. “He ain' goin' back,” he said. “'Ain' nobody kin
make 'at dog go back. I 'ain' had him mo'n two weeks, but I don' b'lieve
Pres'dent United States kin make 'at dog go back! I show you.” And,
wheeling suddenly, he made ferocious gestures, shouting. “G'on back,
dog!”
The dog turned, ran back a few paces, halted, and then began to follow
again, whereupon Genesis pretended to hurl stones at him; but the animal
only repeated his manoeuver--and he repeated it once more when William
aided Genesis by using actual missiles, which were dodged with almost
careless adeptness.
“I'll show him!” said William, hotly. “I'll show him he can't follow
ME!” He charged upon the dog, shouting fiercely, and this seemed to do
the work, for the hunted animal, abandoning his partial flights, turned
a tucked-under tail, ran all the way back to the alley, and disappeared
from sight. “There!” said William. “I guess that 'll show him!”
“I ain' bettin' on it!” said Genesis, as they went on. “He nev' did
stop foll'in' me yet. I reckon he the foll'indest dog in the worl'! Name
Clem.”
“Well, he can't follow ME!” said the surging William, in whose mind's
eye lingered the vision of an exquisite doglet, with pink-ribboned
throat and a cottony head bobbing gently over a filmy sleeve. “He
doesn't come within a mile of ME, no matter what his name is!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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