BONAPARTE’S WATERLOO

Bonaparte lay on the little front porch the loafing place which opened into Billy Buch’s bar-room. Apparently, he was asleep and basking in the warm Autumn sunshine. In reality he was doing his star trick and one which could have originated only in the brains of a born genius. Feigning sleep, he thus enticed within striking distance all the timid country dogs visiting Cottontown for the first time, and viewing its wonders with a palpitating heart. Then, like a bolt from the sky, he would fall on them, appalled and paralyzed a demon with flashing teeth and abbreviated tail.

When finally released, with lacerated hides and wounded feelings, they went rapidly homeward, and they told it in dog language, from Dan to Beersheba, that Cottontown was full of the terrible and the unexpected.

And a great morning he had had of it for already three humble and unsuspecting curs, following three humble and unsuspecting countrymen who had walked in to get their morning’s dram, had fallen victims to his guile.

Each successful raid of Bonaparte brought forth shouts of laughter from within, in which Billy Buch, the Dutch proprietor, joined. It always ended in Bonaparte being invited in and treated to a cuspidor of beer the drinking, with the cuspidor as his drinking horn, being part of his repertoire. After each one Billy Buch would proudly exclaim:

“Mine Gott, but dat Ponyparte ees one greet dog!”

Then Bonaparte would reel around in a half drunken swagger and go back to watch for other dogs.

“I tell you, Billy,” said Jud Carpenter “Jes’ watch that dog. They ain’t no dog on earth his e’kal when it comes to brains. Them country dogs aflyin’ up the road reminds me of old Uncle Billy Alexander who paid for his shoes in bacon, and paid every spring in advance for the shoes he was to get in the fall. But one fall when he rid over after his shoes, the neighbors said the shoemaker had gone gone for good to Texas to live gone an’ left his creditors behin’. Uncle Billy looked long an’ earnestly t’wards the settin’ sun, raised his han’s to heaven an’ said: ‘Good-bye, my bacon!’”

Billy Buch laughed loudly.

“Dat ees goot goot goot-bye, mine bac’n! I dûs remember dat.”

Bonaparte had partaken of his fourth cuspidor of beer and was in a delightful state of swagger and fight when he saw an unusual commotion up the street. What was it, thought Bonaparte a crowd of boys and men surrounding another man with an organ and leading a little devil of a hairy thing, dressed up like a man.

His hair bristled with indignation. That little thing dividing honors with him in Cottontown? It was not to be endured for a moment!

Bonaparte stood gazing in indignant wonder. He slowly arose and shambled along half drunkenly to see what it all meant. A crowd had gathered around the thing the insignificant thing which was attracting more attention in Cottontown than himself, the champion dog. Among them were some school boys, and one of them, a red-headed lad, was telling his brother all about it.

“Now, Ozzie B., this is a monkey the furst you’ve ever seed. He looks jes’ like I told you sorter like a man an’ sorter like a nigger an’ sorter like a groun’ hog.”

“The pretties’ thing I ever seed,” said Ozzie B., walking around and staring delightedly.

The crowd grew larger. It was a show Cottontown had never seen before.

Then two men came out of the bar-room one, the bar-keeper, fat and jolly, and the other lank and with malicious eyes.

This gave Bonaparte his cue and he bristled and growled.

“Look out, mister,” said the tender-hearted Ozzie B. to the Italian, “watch this here dog, Bonaparte; he’s terrible ‘bout fightin’. He’ll eat yo’ monkey if he gets a chance.”

“Monk he noo ’fear’d ze dog,” grinned the Italian. “Monk he whup ze dog.”

“Vot’s dat?” exclaimed Billy Buch “Vot’s dat, man, you say? Mine Gott, I bet ten to one dat Ponyparte eats him oop!”

To prove it Bonaparte ran at the monkey savagely. But the monkey ran up on the Italian’s shoulder, where he grinned at the dog.

The Italian smiled. Then he ran his hand into a dirty leathern belt which he carried around his waist and slowly counted out some gold coins. With a smile fresh as the skies of Italy, full of all sweetness, gentleness and suavity:

“Cover zées, den, py Gar!”

Billy gasped and grasped Jud around the neck where he clung, with his Dutch smile frozen on his lips. Jud, with collapsed under jaw, looked sheepishly around. Bonaparte tried to stand, but he, too, sat down in a heap.

The crowd cheered the Italian.

“We will do it, suh,” said Jud, who was the first to recover, and who knew he would get his part of it from Billy.

“Ve vill cover eet,” said Billy, with ashen face.

“We will!” barked Bonaparte, recovering his equilibrium and snarling at the monkey.

There was a sob and a wail on the outskirts of the crowd.

“Oh, don’t let him kill the monkey oh, don’t!”

It was Ozzie B.

Archie B. ran hastily around to him, made a cross mark in the road with his toe and spat in it.

“You’re a fool as usual, Ozzie B.,” he said, shaking his brother. “Can’t you see that Italian knows what he’s about? If he’d risk that twenty, much as he loves money, he’d risk his soul. Venture pee-wee under the bridge bam bam bam!”

Ozzie B. grew quieter. Somehow, what Archie B. said always made things look differently. Then Archie B. came up and whispered in his ear: “I’m fur the monkey the Lord is on his side.”

Ozzie B. thought this was grand.

Then Archie B. hunted for his Barlow pocket knife. Around his neck, tied with a string, was a small greasy, dirty bag, containing a piece of gum asafoetida and a ten-dollar gold piece. The asafoetida was worn to keep off contagious diseases, and the gold piece, which represented all his earthly possessions, had been given him by his grandmother the year she died.

Archie B. was always ready to “swap sight under seen.” He played marbles for keeps, checkers for apples, ran foot-races for stakes, and even learned his Sunday School lessons for prizes.

The Italian still stood, smiling, when a small red-headed boy came up and touched him on the arm. He put a ten-dollar gold piece into the Italian’s hand.

“Put this in for me, mister an’ make ’em put up a hundred mo’. I want some of that lucre.”

The Italian was touched. He patted Archie B.’s head:

“Breens,” he said, “breens uppa da.”

Again he shook the gold in the face of Jud and Bill.

“Now bring on ze ten to one, py Gar!”

The cheers of the crowd nettled Billy and Jud.

“Jes’ wait till we come back,” said Jud. “‘He laughs bes’ who laughs las’.’”

They retired for consultation.

Bonaparte followed.

Within the bar-room they wiped the cold perspiration from their faces and looked speechlessly into each other’s eyes. Billy spoke first.

“Mine Gott, but we peek it oop in de road, Jud?”

“It seems that way to me a dead cinch.”

Bonaparte was positive only let him get to the monkey, he said with his wicked eyes.

Billy looked at Bonaparte, big, swarthy, sinewy and savage. He thought of the little monkey.

“Dees is greet! dees is too goot! Jud, we peek it oop in de road, heh?”

“I’m kinder afraid we’ll wake an’ find it a dream, Billy hurry up. Get the cash.”

Billy was thoughtful: “Tree hun’d’d dollars Jud eef eef ” he shook his head.

“Now, Billy,” said Jud patronizingly “that’s nonsense. Bonaparte will eat him alive in two minutes. Now, he bein’ my dorg, jes’ you put up the coin an’ let me in on the ground floor. I’ll pay it back if we lose ” he laughed. “If we lose it’s sorter like sayin’ if the sun don’t rise.”

“Dat ees so, Jud, we peek eet oop in de road. But eef we don’t peek eet oop, Billy ees pusted!”

“Oh,” said Jud, “it’s all like takin’ candy from your own child.”

The news had spread and a crowd had gathered to see the champion dog of the Tennessee Valley eat up a monkey. All the loafers and ne’er-do-wells of Cottontown were there. The village had known no such excitement since the big mill had been built.

They came up and looked sorrowfully at the monkey, as they would look in the face of the dead. But, considering that he had so short a time to live, he returned the grin with a reverence which was sacrilegious.

“So han’sum so han’sum,” said Uncle Billy Caldwell, the squire. “So bright an’ han’sum an’ to die so young!”

“It’s nothin’ but murder,” said another.

This proved too much for Ozzie B.

“Don’t d-o-n-’t let him kill the monkey,” he cried.

There was an electric flash of red as Archie B. ran around the tree and kicked the sobs back into his brother.

“Just wait, Ozzie B., you fool.”

“For what?” sobbed Ozzie.

“For what the monkey does to Bonaparte,” he shouted triumphantly.

The crowd yelled derisively: “What the monkey does to
Bonaparte that’s too good?”

“Boy,” said Uncle Billy kindly “don’t you know it’s ag’in nachur why, the dorg’ll eat him up!”

“That’s rot,” said Archie B. disdainfully. Then hotly: “Yes, it wus ag’in nachur when David killed Goliath when Sampson slew the lion, and when we licked the British. Oh, it wus ag’in nachur then, but it looks mighty nach’ul now, don’t it? Jes’ you wait an’ see what the monkey does to Bonaparte. I tell you, Uncle Billy, the Lord’s on the monkey’s side can’t you see it?”

Uncle Billy smiled and shook his head. He was interrupted by low laughter and cheers. A villager had drawn a crude picture on a white paste-board and was showing it around. A huge dog was shaking a lifeless monkey and under it was written:

“What Bonaparte Done To The Monkey!”

Archie B. seized it and spat on it derisively: “Oh, well, that’s the way of the worl’,” he said. “God makes one wise man to see befo’, an’ a million fools to see afterwards.”

The depths of life’s mysteries have never yet been sounded, and one of the wonders of it all is that one small voice praying for flowers in a wilderness of thorns may live to see them blossom at his feet.

“I’ve seed stranger things than that,” remarked Uncle Billy thoughtfully. “The boy moût be right.”

And now Jud and Billy were seen coming out of the store, with their hands full of gold.

“Eet’s robbery eet’s stealin’” winked Billy at the crowd “eet’s like takin’ it from a babe ”

With one accord the crowd surged toward the back lot, where Bonaparte, disgusted with the long delay, had lain down on a pile of newly-blown leaves and slept. Around the lot was a solid plank fence, with one gate open, and here in the lot, sound asleep in the sunshine, lay the champion.

The Italian brought along the monkey in his arms. Archie B. calmly and confidently acting as his bodyguard. Jud walked behind to see that the monkey did not get away, and behind him came Ozzie B. sobbing in his hiccoughy way:

“Don’t let him kill the po’ little thing!”

He could go no farther than the gate. There he stood weeping and looking at the merciless crowd.

Bonaparte was still asleep on his pile of leaves. Jud would have called and wakened him, but Archie B. said: “Oh, the monkey will waken him quick enough let him alone.”

In the laugh which followed, Jud yielded and Archie B. won the first blood in the battle of brains.

The crowd now stood silent and breathless in one corner of the lot. Only Ozzie B.’s sobs were heard. In the far corner lay Bonaparte.

The Italian stooped, and unlinking the chain of the monkey’s collar, sat him on the ground and, pointing to the sleeping dog, whispered something in Italian into his pet’s ear.

The crowd scarcely drew its breath as it saw the little animal slipping across the yard to its death.

Within three feet of the dog he stopped, then springing quickly on Bonaparte, with a screeching, bloodcurdling yell, grabbed his stump of a tail in both hands, and as the crowd rushed up, they heard its sharp teeth close on Bonaparte’s most sensitive member with the deadly click of a steel trap.

The effect was instantaneous. A battery could not have brought the champion to his feet quicker. With him came the monkey glued there a continuation of the dog’s tail.

Around and around went Bonaparte, snarling and howling and making maddening efforts to reach the monkey. But owing to the shortness of Bonaparte’s tail, the monkey kept just out of reach, its hind legs braced against the dog, its teeth and nails glued to the two inches of tail.

Around and around whirled Bonaparte, trying to throw off the things which had dropped on him, seemingly, from the skies. His growls of defiance turned to barks, then to bowls of pain and finally, as he ran near to Archie B., he was heard to break into yelps of fright as he broke away dashing around the lot in a whirlwind of leaves and dust.

The champion dog was running!

“Sick him, Bonaparte, grab him turn round an’ grab him!” shouted Jud pale to his eyes, and shaking with shame.

“Seek heem, Ponyparte O mine Gott, seek him,” shouted Billy.

Jud rushed and tried to head the dog, but the champion seemed to have only one idea in his head to get away from the misery which brought up his rear.

Around he went once more, then seeing the gate open, he rushed out, knocking Ozzie B. over into the dust, and when the crowd rushed out, nothing could be seen except a cloud of dust going down the village street, in the hind most cloud of it a pair of little red coat tails flapping in the breeze.

Then the little red coat tails suddenly dropped out of the cloud of dust and came running back up the road to meet its master.

Jud watched the vanishing cloud of dust going toward the distant mountains.

“My God not Bonaparte not the champion,” he said.

Billy stood also looking with big Dutch tears in his eyes. He watched the cloud of dust go over the distant hills. Then he waved his hand sadly

“Goot-pye, mine bac’n!”

The monkey came up grinning triumphantly.

Thinking he had done something worthy of a penny, he added to Billy Buch’s woe by taking off his comical cap and passing it around for a collection.

He was honest in it, but the crowd took it as irony, and amid their laughter Jud and Billy slipped away.

Uncle Billy, the stake-holder, in handing the money over to the Italian, remarked:

“Wal, it don’t look so much ag’in nachur now, after all.”

“Breens uppa dar” smiled the Italian as he put ten eagles into Archie B.’s hand. All of which made Archie B. vain, for the crowd now cheered him as they had jeered before.

“Come, let’s go, Ozzie B.,” he said. “They ain’t no man livin’ can stand too much heroism.”