Tárogató, 1948-1949 (11. évfolyam, 1-8. szám)
1949-02-01 / 8. szám
\ TÁROGATÓ 15 Nevertheless, his master was somewhere beyond the far side of the river; so was his home. Into the flood leaped Ballerat, and struck out gallantly for the opposite bank. Big as he was and strong as he was, he could make no progress. Again and again the current sucked him under and then flung him against the bank. Half-drowned and wholly exhausted, Ballerat realized at length that the river was impassable for even the gamest and strongest swimmer. Panting and weary, he crawled up the bank to dry land, and lay down to rest. But it was his tired body and not his alert brain that did the resting. His brain was working swiftly and wisely over the problem of getting home. As soon as he was strong enough to get his feet again he went into action. Downstream he trotted to the ferry. There, he waited patiently until the boat came into the slip. The ferryman had had a tough crossing, by reason of the flood, and he was not in the best of tempers. Thus, when a hulking big sheepdog, dripping wet, tried to board the boat, the man thrust him back. Three times Ballerat ran aboard the ferry-boat, slipping past passengers and trying to dodge behind them so that the ferryman might not see him. But every time he was discovered and dragged ashore. There he waited while the boat made its regular trip. On its return to the slip, he made still another frantic effort to boárd it, but again he met the same rebuff from the ferryman. Then it was that he did the thing which makes this story different from most animal yarns. He stood despondently for a few minutes, then wheeled about and cantered back to the town. There the dog cast about until he found a dear friend of Hardin’s, a tradesman who was on his way home from business when Ballerat dashed excitedly up to him. The dog tugged at the man’s coat and then ran forward a little way and back again. Over and over he did this, enacting in pantomime the well-known canine strategy for inducing a human to follow him. The tradesman was alarmed lest some misfortune had befallen his friend, Hardin, and became certain the faithful dog was trying to lead him to the rancher. So he followed. Still running back at every few hundred feet and tugging at the man’s coat, Ballerat led him out of the town and along the road to the ferry. There he led the mystified tradesman straight up to the ferry-pilot and stood between them, wagging his tail appealingly and glancing from one to the other of the two men. It was the ferryman who first caught the idea which Ballerat was trying so hard to convey. He recognized the dog as the same one that had tried so often to “crash the gate” and get aboard the boat. He told of these efforts. The tradesman knew where Hardin lived and guessed that Ballerat was not only seeking frantically to get back home to him but that he had brought along this friend of his master’s to pay the fare. Winking at the ferryman, he drew a penny from his pocket. Ballerat went wild with delight at the action. There could be no possible doubt in either onlooker’s mind that this was what he had been striving for. He knew a penny must be had before passengers could get on to the boat. Humans had pennies. So he had sought out a human of his acquaintance and had brought him hither to make that payment. The ferryman accepted the coin. As he did so Ballerat ran eagerly aboard the boat. There was none of his former furtiveness or unhappiness as he boarded the craft. He went with a proud certainty that he would be ferried across and with a keen happiness at the knowledge that he had broken down the last barrier which separated him from his anxiously waiting master. IN CHINA Hen the people in Britain were savages living in caves and wearing skins of wild animals, the Chinese lived in beautiful buildings, wore satins and silks, made beautiful pottery, painted pictures, wrote poetry and did exquisite
