[adapted]

by
Stephen Crane

A child was standing on a street-corner. He leaned with one shoulder against a high wooden fence and moved the other shoulder back and forth, while kicking carelessly at the small stones.

Sunshine shone on the stone street, and a lazy summer wind raised yellow dust which moved in clouds down the street. Noisy trucks moved, hard to see, through it. The child stood dreamily looking.

After a while, a little dark-brown dog came running slowly with a serious look down the sidewalk. A short rope was dragging from his neck. Sometimes he stepped on the end of it and tripped.

He stopped in front of the child, and the two looked at each other. The dog paused for a moment, but soon he wagged his tail a little. The child held out his hand and called him. The dog came close as if he was sorry, and the two shared friendly pats and wags. The dog got more excited with each moment of the meeting, until with his happy jumps he almost knocked the child over. Then the child lifted his hand and hit the dog on the head.

This thing seemed to be too much for the little dark-brown dog and to surprise him, and hurt him deeply. He sank down in great sadness at the child’s feet. When the hit came again, together with a warning in childish words, he turned over on his back, and held his paws in a strange way. At the same time, with his ears and his eyes, he made a small prayer to the child.

He looked so funny on his back, and holding his paws in a strange way, that the child was very amused and gave him little taps again and again, to keep him so. But the little dark-brown dog took this punishment in a very serious way and surely thought that he had done some terrible crime, for he wriggled sadly and showed he was sorry in every way he could. He begged the child and asked him, and offered more prayers.

At last the child got tired of this game and turned toward home. The dog was praying at the time. He lay on his back and looked at the child going away.

Soon he stood up with trouble and started to follow the child. The child walked without much interest toward his home, stopping sometimes to look at different things. During one of these stops he noticed the little dark-brown dog who was following him like a thief.

The child hit the dog that chased him with a small stick he had found. The dog lay down and prayed until the child had finished, and started his journey again. Then he stood up and started chasing again.

On the way to his home the child turned many times and beat the dog, saying with childish hand movements that he thought the dog was unimportant, with no value except for a moment. For being this kind of animal the dog apologized and clearly showed he was sorry, but he continued quietly to follow the child. His way of acting grew so very guilty that he crept like a killer.

When the child reached his doorstep, the dog was walking slowly a few yards behind. He became so upset with shame when he faced the child again that he forgot the rope that was dragging. He tripped on it and fell forward.

The child sat down on the step and the two had another talk. During it the dog tried very hard to please the child. He did a few playful jumps with such excitement that the child suddenly saw that he was a valuable thing. He made a fast, greedy rush and grabbed the rope.

He pulled the dog he had caught into a hall and up many long stairs in a dark apartment building. The dog tried hard, but he could not walk very well up the stairs because he was very small and soft, and at last the speed of the excited child became so fast that the dog became very scared. In his mind he was being pulled toward a dark unknown. His eyes grew wild with the fear of it. He began to shake his head wildly and to hold his legs stiff.

The child tried even harder. They had a battle on the stairs. The child won because he was only thinking about what he wanted to do, and because the dog was very small. He dragged the thing he had got to the door of his home, and finally, with joy, over the doorstep.

No one was in. The child sat down on the floor and tried to make friends with the dog. The dog accepted these at once. He smiled with love at his new friend. In a short time they were strong and lasting friends.

When the child’s family came, they made a lot of noise. The dog was looked at and talked about and called names. Everyone looked at him with dislike, so that he became very embarrassed and drooped like a burned plant. But the child went bravely to the center of the floor, and, very loudly, spoke up for the dog. It happened that he was shouting protests, with his arms around the dog’s neck, when the father of the family came in from work.

The parent asked angrily why they were making the kid cry loudly. It was explained with many words that the naughty kid wanted to bring a bad dog into the family.

A family meeting was held. The dog’s future depended on this, but he did not notice at all, because he was busy chewing the end of the child’s dress.

The matter was quickly ended. The father of the family, it seems, was in a very bad temper that evening, and when he saw that it would surprise and make everybody angry if such a dog was allowed to stay, he decided to let the dog stay. The child, crying softly, took his friend away to a quiet part of the room to talk with him, while the father stopped a strong argument from his wife. So it happened that the dog was a member of the family.

He and the child were together all the time except when the child slept. The child became a protector and a friend. If the grown-ups kicked the dog and threw things at him, the child shouted loudly in protest. Once when the child had run, crying out loudly, with tears running down his face and his arms stretched out, to protect his friend, he had been hit on the head with a very large saucepan by his father, very angry at what seemed like rudeness by the dog.

After that, the family were careful how they threw things at the dog. Also, the dog grew very good at avoiding things thrown at him and feet. In a small room with a stove, a table, a dresser and some chairs, he would show great skill, dodging, pretending, and running around among the furniture. He could make three or four people holding brooms, sticks and handfuls of coal use all their tricks to hit him. And even when they did, it was not often that they could hurt him badly or leave any mark.

But when the child was present these scenes did not happen. It came to be understood that if the dog was bothered, the child would start crying hard, and as the child, when started, was very wild and very hard to stop, the dog had in this a protection.

But the child could not always be near. At night, when he was asleep, his dark-brown friend would let out a wild, sad cry from some black corner, a song of endless loneliness and sadness, that would go shaking and crying among the buildings of the block and make people say bad words. At these times the singer would often be chased all over the kitchen and hit with many different things.

Sometimes, too, the child himself used to hit the dog, although no one knows that he ever had what really could be called a fair reason. The dog always took these beatings with a look that showed he knew he was guilty. He was too much of a dog to try to look like a martyr or to plan to get even. He took the hits very humbly, and also he forgave his friend the moment the child had finished, and was ready to lick the child’s hand with his little red tongue.

When bad luck came to the child, and his troubles were too much for him, he would often crawl under the table and put his small, upset head on the dog’s back. The dog was always kind. We should not think that at such times he took the chance to talk about the unfair beatings his friend, when made angry, had given him.

He did not become close with the other members of the family. He did not trust them, and the fear he showed when they came near often made them very angry. They used to feel some pleasure in not feeding him enough, but in the end his friend, the child, began to watch this carefully, and when he forgot it, the dog often got food in secret for himself.

So the dog did well. He got a loud bark, which came surprisingly from such a small little dog. He stopped howling at night all the time. Sometimes, in fact, in his sleep, he would make little yells, as if from pain, but that happened, probably, when in his dreams he met huge burning dogs who scared him very much.

His love for the child grew until it was something very great. He wagged his tail when he came near; he sank down in deep sadness when he went away. He could hear the sound of the child’s footsteps among all the noises in the area. It was like a voice calling to him.

The place of their friendship was a kingdom ruled by this terrible ruler, the child; but neither complaint nor any wish to fight back was ever there, even for a moment, in the heart of the one subject. Down in the secret, hidden fields of his little dog soul grew flowers of love and loyalty and perfect trust.

The child was in the habit of going on many trips to look at strange things nearby. At these times his friend usually jogged with purpose along behind. Perhaps, though, he went ahead. This made him turn around every fifteen seconds to make sure the child was coming. He was filled with a big idea of the importance of these trips. He would act in such a way! He was proud to be the servant of so great a king.

One day, though, the father of the family got very, very drunk. He came home and was rough with the pots and pans, the furniture, and his wife. He was in the middle of this rough play when the child, followed by the dark-brown dog, came into the room. They were coming back from their trips.

The child quickly saw how his father was. He dived under the table, because he had learned it was a safe place. The dog, not good at such things, was, of course, not aware of what was really going on. He looked with interested eyes at his friend’s sudden dive. He thought it meant: Happy play. He started to run across the floor to join him. He looked like a little dark-brown dog on the way to a friend.

The head of the family saw him at this moment. He gave a huge shout of joy, and knocked the dog down with a heavy coffee-pot. The dog, yelling in great surprise and fear, got to his feet and ran for cover. The man kicked out with a heavy foot. It made the dog move aside as if caught in a tide. A second blow of the coffee-pot knocked him onto the floor.

Here the child, crying loudly, came out bravely like a knight. The father did not pay attention to the child’s cries, but moved toward the dog with joy. After being knocked down twice quickly, the dog seemed to give up all hope of getting away. He rolled over on his back and held his paws in a strange way. At the same time, with his eyes and his ears, he said a small prayer.

But the father wanted to have fun, and he thought that it would be a good thing to throw the dog out of the window. So he reached down and, grabbing the animal by a leg, lifted him, wiggling, up. He swung him two or three times around his head, laughing, and then threw him very exactly through the window.

The flying dog was a surprise in the block. A woman watering plants in an opposite window shouted without meaning to and dropped a flower-pot. A man in another window leaned dangerously out to watch the dog flying. A woman who had been hanging out clothes in a yard began to jump around wildly. Her mouth was full of clothes-pins, but her arms let out a kind of shout. She looked like a prisoner with her mouth tied. Children ran shouting.

The dark-brown body fell hard in a pile on the roof of a shed five floors below. From there it rolled to the ground in a narrow alley.

The child in the room far above suddenly started a long, very sad cry, and walked quickly with short steps out of the room. It took him a long time to reach the narrow street, because his size made him go downstairs backward, one step at a time, and holding the step above with both hands.

When they came to get him later, they found him sitting by the body of his dark-brown friend.