One friend Michael made among the many animals he encountered in the Cedarwild School, and a strange, sad friendship it was. Sara she was called, a small, green monkey from South America, who seemed to have been born hysterical1 and indignant, and with no appreciation2 of humour. Sometimes, following Collins about the arena3, Michael would meet her while she waited to be tried out on some new turn. For, unable or unwilling4 to try, she was for ever being tried out on turns, or, with little herself to do, as a filler-in for more important performers.
But she always caused confusion, either chattering5 and squealing6 with fright or bickering7 at the other animals. Whenever they attempted to make her do anything, she protested indignantly; and if they tried force, her squalls and cries excited all the animals in the arena and set the work back.
“Never mind,” said Collins finally. “She’ll go into the next monkey band we make up.”
This was the last and most horrible fate that could befall a monkey on the stage, to be a helpless marionette8, compelled by unseen sticks and wires, poked9 and jerked by concealed10 men, to move and act throughout an entire turn.
But it was before this doom11 was passed upon her that Michael made her acquaintance. Their first meeting, she sprang suddenly at him, a screaming, chattering little demon12, threatening him with nails and teeth. And Michael, already deep-sunk in habitual13 moroseness14 merely looked at her calmly, not a ripple16 to his neck-hair nor a prick17 to his ears. The next moment, her fuss and fury quite ignored, she saw him turn his head away. This gave her pause. Had he sprung at her, or snarled18, or shown any anger or resentment19 such as did the other dogs when so treated by her, she would have screamed and screeched20 and raised a hubbub21 of expostulation, crying for help and calling all men to witness how she was being unwarrantably attacked.
As it was, Michael’s unusual behaviour seemed to fascinate her. She approached him tentatively, without further racket; and the boy who had her in charge slacked the thin chain that held her.
“Hope he breaks her back for her,” was his unholy wish; for he hated Sara intensely, desiring to be with the lions or elephants rather than dancing attendance on a cantankerous22 female monkey there was no reasoning with.
And because Michael took no notice of her, she made up to him. It was not long before she had her hands on him, and, quickly after that, an arm around his neck and her head snuggled against his. Then began her interminable tale. Day after day, catching23 him at odd times in the ring, she would cling closely to him and in a low voice, running on and on, never pausing for breath, tell him, for all he knew, the story of her life. At any rate, it sounded like the story of her woes24 and of all the indignities25 which had been wreaked26 upon her. It was one long complaint, and some of it might have been about her health, for she sniffed27 and coughed a great deal and her chest seemed always to hurt her from the way she had of continually and gingerly pressing the palm of her hand to it. Sometimes, however, she would cease her complaining, and love and mother him, uttering occasional series of gentle mellow28 sounds that were like croonings.
Hers was the only hand of affection that was laid on him at Cedarwild, and she was ever gentle, never pinching him, never pulling his ears. By the same token, he was the only friend she had; and he came to look forward to meeting her in the course of the morning work—and this, despite that every meeting always concluded in a scene, when she fought with her keeper against being taken away. Her cries and protests would give way to whimperings and wailings, while the men about laughed at the strangeness of the love-affair between her and the Irish terrier.
But Harris Collins tolerated, even encouraged, their friendship.
“The two sour-balls get along best together,” he said. “And it does them good. Gives them something to live for, and that way lies health. But some day, mark my words, she’ll turn on him and give him what for, and their friendship will get a terrible smash.”
And half of it he spoke29 with the voice of prophecy, and, though she never turned on Michael, the day in the world was written when their friendship would truly receive a terrible smash.
“Now seals are too wise,” Collins explained one day, in a sort of extempore lecture to several of his apprentice30 trainers. “You’ve just got to toss fish to them when they perform. If you don’t, they won’t, and there’s an end of it. But you can’t depend on feeding dainties to dogs, for instance, though you can make a young, untrained pig perform creditably by means of a nursing bottle hidden up your sleeve.”
“All you have to do is think it over. Do you think you can make those greyhounds extend themselves with the promise of a bite of meat? It’s the whip that makes them extend.—Look over there at Billy Green. There ain’t another way to teach that dog that trick. You can’t love her into doing it. You can’t pay her to do it. There’s only one way, and that’s make her.”
Billy Green, at the moment, was training a tiny, nondescript, frizzly-haired dog. Always, on the stage, he made a hit by drawing from his pocket a tiny dog that would do this particular trick. The last one had died from a wrenched31 back, and he was now breaking in a new one. He was catching the little mite32 by the hind33-legs and tossing it up in the air, where, making a half-flip and descending34 head first, it was supposed to alight with its forefeet on his hand and there balance itself, its hind feet and body above it in the air. Again and again he stooped, caught her hind-legs and flung her up into the half-turn. Almost frozen with fear, she vainly strove to effect the trick. Time after time, and every time, she failed to make the balance. Sometimes she fell crumpled35; several times she all but struck the ground: and once, she did strike, on her side and so hard as to knock the breath out of her. Her master, taking advantage of the moment to wipe the sweat from his streaming face, nudged her about with his toe till she staggered weakly to her feet.
“The dog was never born that’d learn that trick for the promise of a bit of meat,” Collins went on. “Any more than was the dog ever born that’d walk on its forelegs without having its hind-legs rapped up in the air with the stick a thousand times. Yet you take that trick there. It’s always a winner, especially with the women—so cunning, you know, so adorable cute, to be yanked out of its beloved master’s pocket and to have such trust and confidence in him as to allow herself to be tossed around that way. Trust and confidence hell! He’s put the fear of God into her, that’s what.”
“Just the same, to dig a dainty out of your pocket once in a while and give an animal a nibble36, always makes a hit with the audience. That’s about all it’s good for, yet it’s a good stunt37. Audiences like to believe that the animals enjoy doing their tricks, and that they are treated like pampered38 darlings, and that they just love their masters to death. But God help all of us and our meal tickets if the audiences could see behind the scenes. Every trained-animal turn would be taken off the stage instanter, and we’d be all hunting for a job.”
“Yes, and there’s rough stuff no end pulled off on the stage right before the audience’s eyes. ............