Leading from the Middle

Now and then, in my reading of fiction from the late 1800s and the early 1900s I come across some fine writing.
At the moment I am reading a silly mystery story, The Amateur Inn, from the roaring 20s set in the Berskshire Mountains in which Boston brahmins match wits with local yokels.
Much of Albert Payson Terhune?s* writing - in this novel - is stilted and forgettable until we run into this delightful patch during a courting couple's stroll along a country road:
"Rousing herself embarrassedly from one of these sweet silences, Doris nodded toward the big brown collie (Macduff), who had come to a standstill in front of a puffy and warty old toad, fly-catching at the edge of a rock shelf.
The dog, strolling along in bored majesty in front of his human escorts, had caught the acrid scent of the toad and was crouching truculently in front of it, making little slapping gestures at the phlegmatic creature with his white forepaws and then bounding back, as if he feared it might turn and rend him.
It was quite evident that Macduff regarded his encounter with that somnolent toad as one of the High Dramatic Moments of his career.
Defiantly, yet with elaborate caution, he proceeded to harry it from a safe distance.
"What on earth makes him so silly?? asked Doris as she and Vail (her would-be-lover) paused to watch the scene?the dog?s furry and fast-moving body taking up the entire narrow width of the path. ?He must have seen a million toads, in his time.?"
(But, according to Vail) "Mac knows that toad is as harmless as they make them. Yet he is fighting a spectacular duel with it.? He's entering into the spirit of a perilous jungle adventure."
"Why doesn't he bring the sterling drama to a climax by annihilating the toad so we can get past?" she demanded, adding, "Not that I'd let him.
That's why I?m waiting here, while he blocks the path, instead of going around him."
"No rescue will be needed. Mac will never touch the toad."
"Does Mac know he won't, though?"
"He does," returned Vail, with finality.
"Every normal outdoors dog, in early puppyhood, undertakes to bite or pick up a toad. And no dog ever tried it a second time.
A zoology sharp told me why.
He said toads' skins are covered with some sort of chemical that would make alum taste like sugar, by contrast.
It?s horrible stuff, and it's the toad's only weapon.
No dog ever takes a second chance of torturing his tongue with it. That?s why Mac keeps his mouth shut, every time he noses at the ugly thing."
Mac knows it.
And the toad knows it."

Another excerpt from near the end of the book,, Mac reunites with Clive, his very first owner, home from the war at long last. Terhune's description of Mac's exuberant welcome reminds me of how Bridger, daughter Mara's black lab, sensed she was home after a year's absence in the military. She - Bridger - too went into a frenzy not dissimilar to Terhune's depiction:
"With a scream of agonized rapture; a scream
all but human in its stark intensity, the collie
hurled himself upon his long-absent master.
Leaping high, he sought to lick the haggard
face. His white forepaws beat an ecstatic tattoo
on Clive's chest.
Dropping to earth, he swirled
around (Clive) in whirlwind circles stomach to
the ground, wakening the hot echoes with frantic
yelps and shrieks of delight."
"Then, sinking down at Clive's feet, he licked
the man's dusty boots and gazed up into his
face in blissful adoration. The dog was shaking
as with ague.
After two years' absence his god had come
back to him."
*Mr. Terhune (1872-1942) had major literary success with books on dogs; he realized and capitalized on this remarkable aptitude. He wrote some 26 books about dogs or featuring dogs, and on the side he bred and showed prize collies.
Excerpted from The Amateur Inn by Albert Payson Terhune, NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN, 1923.

 

Your comment: Name: Website: E-mail: Remember Me