The Dog with the Wooden Leg

Chapter I. Blind Man’s Scheme.

The dog lay stretched out on the dingy tenement floor, muzzle between paws, ears sensitively erect, watching the girl move about. Its fine intelligent eyes followed each turn she made with mute devotion. One paw, the left front one, seemed to be tucked under its body; it was hidden from the joint down.

Celia Campbell spoke to it as she busied herself about the cramped, stuffy little room, moving back and forth between the gas range and the table. She was about twenty years old, golden-haired and blue-eyed, neatly but poorly dressed.

“Hungry, Dick? Go in and fetch gramp; breakfast is ready.”

The dog, a fine specimen of German shepherd, immediately got up, but with a slight awkwardness in gaining its balance that was noticeable in so fine an animal. It was only when it was clear of the floor that the reason for it could be seen. The left front paw ended at the joint, evidently amputated just like a human being’s. Attached to the stump was a leather cup and below this there was a miniature wooden leg.

The dog turned and went into the adjoining room at her command, the light tap-tap of the little artificial limb mingling oddly with the soft patter of the three normal paws. It had no difficulty moving about, had evidently grown used to the appliance long since. It came back in a moment guiding a man of about sixty with its muzzle, nudging him in the calf of the leg as they advanced to help him in avoiding obstacles.

Marty Campbell was blind. His eyes, blue like his granddaughter’s, betrayed their sightlessness only by the fixity of their stare. His face had the serene, expressionless look of the unseeing.

The dog nudged him to a chair at the table, then crouched down beside him on the floor once more. The girl brought food to the table, set a pan down on the floor for the third member of the little group. The three of them began to eat.

“It’s a beautiful day out,” Celia said, turning to glance through the window at the sunlight creeping down the dingy air shaft. “Why don’t you let Dick take you to the park?”

“I can feel it.” Marty smiled. “I can feel the balmy sunshine even in here.”

She glanced at the cheap alarm clock on the shelf. “I’ll have to hurry or I’ll be late at the factory and spoil my record.” She jumped up, put on a shabby hat, thrust a worn pocketbook under her arm. Then she stopped short, looked wistfully over at old Marty, impulsively opened her purse and took out a quarter. “Here,” she said, pressing his hand tight around it, “buy yourself a chocolate bar and an orangeade.” It meant she would have to do without her own lunch, but she didn’t mind that.

She carefully tried the gas-jet cocks on the stove to make sure they were tightly closed, bent over and kissed Marty lightly on the part of his silvery hair. He was very proud of that part; he got it straight every day, unaided, just by the wonderful sensitivity of his fingertips alone.

“Don’t stay out past dark, now. Ask some stranger the time when you feel it getting late.” She knew he could sense that too, could feel it when the sun went down and darkness set in. He wasn’t so handicapped as people would have believed. And then with a parting pat for the dog, she admonished:

“Be good boys, the two of you. Don’t get into any trouble,”

What trouble could a harmless, blind old man, watched over by a loyal dog, get into? And yet stranger things have happened.

Marty Campbell heard the door close after his granddaughter and listened to her quick tread go hurrying down the rickety tenement stairs outside. He shook his head and sighed to his canine pal.

“So young and pretty to be slavin’ in a garment sweatshop just to support us. She oughter be out in the sunshine herself, gallivantin’ with some nice young feller. I’m a millstone round her neck, Dick. But pretty soon now I’ll be able to do something for her instead; I’ll have a surprise for her.”

He stood up from the table. Dick instantly got up also, eyes watchfully on his master’s face.

Marty felt his way over to the cupboard, opened it, felt along the top shelf until he had located a battered pewter humidor. He brought it back with him, sat down, took the lid off. It was one receptacle Celia was sure of never looking into; she knew it had his tobacco in it. And he was always careful to have enough additional by him in a little sack, when she was in the flat, in order not to have to open it before her. Once or twice when he’d been caught short, he’d manfully done without his beloved pipe rather than have her fetch him the container. The reason soon became apparent. It was three quarters filled with cheap smoking tobacco, but his fingers dug under this and brought forth a packet of bills, fastened by a rubber hand. He told their corners off between his thumb and forefinger. There were ten of them, ten twenties — two hundred dollars.

“Don’t you tell her, now,” he warned the dog, cocking a finger at it, “where we been getting this from. She’d lace it into me sure enough. She told me once she’d walk out and leave me if she ever caught me doin’ that.”

Dick showed his teeth in what could easily have passed for a canine grin of conspiracy.

Marty reburied the money under the tobacco mound, put the humidor back where he had found it.

“The more it mounts up,” he admitted, “the harder it gets to think up an explanation of how I come by it so’s she’ll believe it. I could tell her a rich banker in his car come near running me down on the drive way in the park, and felt sorry for me and gave it to me. Think she’ll believe that?” He didn’t seem to himself, shook his head dissatisfiedly. “I’ll think of something by and by,” he temporized.

It wasn’t, he would have insisted, as though he actually solicited alms, went around panhandling with a sign on his chest: “I am blind.” He just sat there on the park bench minding his business, and if people felt like dropping coins as they went by, was that his fault? They had no business jumping at conclusions. That tin cup that he always kept next to him was to give Dick a drink of water out of, and for no other purpose. How could he give all that money he always found in it back, when he couldn’t even see the people who had dropped it in?

He always took care to change the coins into a bill before he returned home; they would have jangled too much and given him away. The clerk at a certain cigar store was an unwitting accomplice of Marty’s in this, without being at all aware of the source of the change he brought in nearly every day. Then when he had ten single bills accumulated, he would change them into a ten-spot. In the latter case he always checked on the clerk’s honesty immediately after the transaction; he had to, because he couldn’t tell by his fingertips as he could with the dimes and nickels. He would show the bill to the first person he met outside the store and ask, “Is this a tenner?” From which it will be seen that old Marty Campbell was shrewd in spite of his innocent, childlike face.

“Get me my hat, Dick,” he ordered.

The dog instantly trotted into the other room, came back with a battered old felt hat gripped in its teeth, presented it to Marty by rearing two front paws up against him, so that he wouldn’t have to stoop down and feel for it.

Marty stuffed the tin cup — whose magic earning power his granddaughter never dreamed or she would have promptly thrown it out — into his pocket, put on a pair of dark glasses. These were strictly legitimate; he had her permission to wear them when he was out on the streets. They helped by warning people of his handicap, made Dick’s task easier. The dog was competent to guide him through the thickest traffic or most crowded sidewalks, but motorists and pedestrians would understand more quickly at sight of the glasses, be less likely to graze or jostle him. He also took a stick with him.

He carefully stowed the quarter his granddaughter had given him into his pocket, took along a small sack of tobacco and his pipe, locked up the flat, and started down the stairs with his companion. At every turn Dick carefully closed in, nudged him around in the direction they were to follow, although he had the banister rail to guide him. But once they were out on the open street, he was totally dependent on the dog.

He felt for each of the three steps going down to sidewalk level, and a friendly feminine voice beside him said:

“Good morning, Mr. Campbell. Off to the park?”

“Good morning, Mrs. Schultz.” He smiled, recognized it as the jaintress’ voice without trouble.

They advanced over cement sidewalk for about thirty or forty yards. Then Dick halted him by pressing his muzzle like a brake before Marty’s kneecap. The traffic was louder just ahead of them, and his stick went down lower than his feet when he tested it, so he knew they’d come to the brink of a crossing.

A traffic whistle blew shrilly, and Dick nudged him on again. He stepped down and they started over. Brakes screamed, coming around at them on a right turn, and the dog quickly prodded him diagonally out of the way, but he had such confidence in it he wasn’t even frightened. It was really safer than walking with your eyes open, because by not seeing the vehicles all around him, there was no chance for him to lose his presence of mind and step the wrong way, which is a cause of most mishaps.

The dog thrust its shoulder before him again like a brake, so he knew they had reached the opposite curb line, and stepped up. They repeated this three or four times. But meanwhile, as they left their own immediate neighborhood, where both were a familiar sight, and entered a more congested business district, the dog’s wooden leg began to attract more and more attention. Marty could hear a hum of voices all around him. “Look at that! D’je ever see anything like it before?” He could tell by the scuffle of feet that everyone was stopping a moment to stand and stare as he and Dick went by. He was used to that by now; it happened nearly every time he went out.

He was used to people asking him about it, too; stooping to examine it and pet the dog. So was Dick; he bore it with an air of patient indifference. Someone did right now, as usual. A voice edged up beside him.

“Does he bite if you touch him?”

“No, he won’t bite you,” Marty answered gently, as he had many times before.

The voice dropped down lower; the man was evidently squatting down to pat Dick and — Marty could tell by the slight hitch in their progress — lift the wooden leg up to inspect it at closer range. He would have answered the next question before it was asked, so sure was he what it would be.

“What happened to him, mister? Is it a real amputation or is the paw just folded over double inside that leather pouch?”

“It’s real,” Marty answered patiently. “He was run over by a truck when he was just a little pup, before he’d been trained.” And then as a gentle hint that they’d been delayed long enough. “Go ahead, Dick.”

“Well, I’ll be darned!” the voice gasped.

Dick went on again, so Marty knew the interference had ended, for this time at least.

Marty could smell trees and grass before him after the next crossing, so he knew they were at the park entrance. The traffic noises subsided behind them, and the twittering of birds took their place.

“Our usual bench, Dick,” he told the dog.

Their progress was now curved and serpentine instead of being in a straight line, as they followed the winding park pathway. An occasional perambulator guided by a nursemaid was the only danger they had to run now. Somebody’s Pekingese out for an airing yapped uncivilly at Dick, but the latter just ignored it disdainfully. He was trained not to fight with other dogs while he had someone in his charge, no matter what the provocation.

Once there was a whiff of water to one side of them as they skirted a little lake. The dog edged him to one side of the path finally, and they’d reached their familiar bench. Marty sat down, patted Dick’s head, and let the pleasant warmth of the sun soak into him. He didn’t neglect, however, to put the “drinking cup” on the bench beside him. There was a soft thud as Dick sank to rest on the pathway before him.

It was the most peaceful spot imaginable. He smiled when the thought of Celia’s parting admonition: “Don’t get into any trouble.” Wasn’t that just like a woman, to fret when there was no reason? He filled his pipe, lighted it, and began peacefully puffing away. Dick yawned comfortably. Marty could tell by the almost human sound his expanding jaws made.

A half hour went by. Steps came along the path toward them, stopped short at sight of the dog’s wooden leg. Marty had known they would. He waited for the inevitable question to come. The man took a minute or two to get up courage to address him. Or maybe he was staring at the leg, unable to believe his eyes. Marty smiled a little toward the place where the steps had stopped, simply to get the thing over with as quickly as possible. That brought it on.

“What happened to him, dad?”

“He was run over when he was a pup.”

“I’ll be hanged. What’ll they think of next?”

It was all right so long as he didn’t plank himself down on the bench next to Marty and make a pest of himself. Dick was company enough for Marty’s liking. The man didn’t. He stared his fill, and then his steps went on again.

“Fold it under you so they won’t pester us so much, Dick,” Marty said in a low voice. He reached down, felt for the leg, and patted it to help the dog understand. Dick got his meaning; the little wooden pivot scraped the cement as he bedded it under him.

Presently more footsteps came, from the same direction as the last. They, too, stopped short, so some of the leg must have been showing after all, in spite of their precaution. Marty sighed, then smiled again encouragingly, to get it over with. Otherwise it was liable to drag on ten minutes or more.

“What’s he got there, gramp, a wooden leg?”

“Yep. Run over by a truck when he was a pup.”

This was one of the real nosey kind, the from-Missouri kind. They averaged about one to ten of the others. “Is it all right if I look at it? Will he bite?”

“He won’t bite so long as you don’t try to touch me.”

There was the soft thump of Dick’s coat being patted propitiatingly. Then the man coaxed: “Let’s see it, old boy. Tha-at’s it.” Dick must have submitted resignedly. The next sound was of the man slapping his own thigh in amazement. “Can you beat it! I thought I’d seen everything, but this is a new one on me.”

The footsteps went on their way again. They seemed to go at a little quicker gait than they had approached, but then maybe the man had some place to go and wanted to make up for the time he had lost by stopping and rubbernecking. Or else maybe it was just Marty’s imagination that his pace was faster now, and it really wasn’t. It was such a little thing after all.