The Boojum in Europe

I

SOME dogs are christened in jest, some in earnest, and some with malice aforethought, but the Boojum was christened by inspiration. One evening, after I had contemplated her charms for some minutes, ‘That dog,’ I said, ‘looks like a Boojum.’ ‘What does a Boojum look like?’ asked my daughter, ‘It looks,’ I replied, ‘like that dog.’

Long before this the Boojum had had a temporary name, but it was immediately obvious to everybody that the new name was the right one. Softened into ‘Boojy,’ it permeated the neighborhood in a week; and this is the more curious in that very few of those who adopted it had ever heard of the historic Boojum which was also a Snark. They simply recognized the appropriateness of the name instantly, because, as someone said, she is always ‘ boojing about.’ To ‘ booje,’ as I understand it, is another word of inspirational etymology, meaning ‘to move suddenly, to dart and land with all four feet.’

Abstractly or even practically considered, there is no good reason for taking a dog to Europe. The fact is, however, that love of dogs appears to be neither abstract nor practical; it is poetic, or, if you please, sentimental. Abstractly there was no reason for taking any dog, and practically there were several reasons for not taking a Boojum. I must admit all this freely, for if she had been a perfectly wellbehaved little dog, like some cocker spaniels I have known and an occasional poodle, — the kind that come when you say ‘Come’ and go when you say ‘Go’ and stay put when you say ‘Stay put,’ — while she would still have been a problem, she would not have been a Problem. Even if she had been a loving little dog, gentle, sensitive, never so happy as when she had won your approval, and always seeking to caress or be caressed, she might have rewarded us for our trouble by showing that she appreciated it. I cannot, however, pretend that either of these descriptions applies to her. Indeed I can hardly write them without a smile.

I do not mean to do her an injustice. She obeys pretty well, if her mind is not otherwise occupied, and she is loving enough (and by ‘enough’ I mean as loving as I can stand, for I prefer a dog not to be too mushy) — I say, she is loving enough when the family have been absent from home for several hours. But she is much more likely to show her joy by standing on her head in a corner of the sofa and pushing violently with her hind legs than by trying to lick our chins. The truth about Boojy, I have decided after carefully studying her for five years, is that she really is fond of us, but is as a rule too busy to tell us so.

There probably never was a busier dog than she. I believe that she was born with a conviction that it was her destiny to run the universe, and that she has never discovered that running a universe is a large order for a twelvepound dog. I cannot help admiring the optimism with which she takes up her task with each new day, never permanently discouraged, never more than momentarily even downcast. Between whiles she spends her time inventing new games to play when we have callers. For there can be no doubt that she has a good deal of what nowadays is called exhibitionism, or what was called in the old days, before modern psychology had blessed us with long words, showing-off.

Her first impulse being to let no one enter the house, she slides to the front door on the hall rug, which she rolls up against the wall, emitting ear-splitting shrieks of rage; but, the visitors once in, her second impulse is to entertain them, by bringing out her rubber dolls and balls, shaking or tossing them, assuming postures which she knows to be effective — in short, posing, in order to be admired. In a child such doings would be insupportable, but in a dog, especially a little white dog, with a tail that points straight toward the ceiling and white whiskers that surround a black button of a nose like a halo and flare off truculently, they never fail to win applause. I have tried conscientiously for five years to discipline her; I hope I shall have five more in which to try; but all the while I have a sneaking admiration for her indomitable soul. ‘She’s a steamy little cuss, ain’t she?’ said an amiable Irishman in Paris. ‘It’s a grand breed, only ye have to kill ’em to train ’em.’ I forgot to say that the Boojum is a wire-haired fox terrier.

II

Now our friends knew all these things. They did not dislike Boojy. No one could do that. Only they maintained that with her peculiar disposition it would be a grave error to take her to Europe. They declared that she would complicate the routine of travel, complicated enough at best; she would hamper our movements; she would increase our expenses; she would cause our exclusion from hotels; she would prevent our entrance to churches, palaces, galleries. Having, moreover, often seen her flying about in the car, trying to look out of all the windows at once and roaring defiance at every living thing that dared cross the road, they felt that ten months of her on a motor tour of Europe would be, to say the least, excessive.

Everything they said sounded reasonable. We had no doubt that Boojy would do all they foreboded, and perhaps some things they had not thought of. Besides, we knew quite well that no one would offer to keep her for us. We had no illusions about her. The fact was, nevertheless, that, as we told them, either she would go or we should stay at home. Then they gave us up, washed their hands of us, abandoned us to our fate.

I am afraid it is impossible to explain why anyone should stay home from Europe on account of a dog, especially a dog weighing only twelve pounds; but then — the few who understand will need no explanation and the many who do not will accept none. I shall not try to explain, but will merely state as a fact that there are silly people like that — people who feel that to make an animal love them and then to abandon it just ought n’t to be done. That is the way we felt about it, and if it is sentimental, why, then we are sentimental, but unashamed.

One thing our friends did not realize about Boojy, and this is that, although she has a lion heart, she has also a pigeon liver. They did not know, as we did, that though she might roar defiance from the car, she was extremely discreet on the sidewalk or in a restaurant or a hotel. Her courage, I mean, has quite definite limits, exhibiting itself only when she knows she is entirely safe. She never roars except when she is quite sure that her enemy cannot get at her, the consequence being that she is very quiet in strange places, like a hotel room, and preserves a perfect decorum in cafés, where there is, moreover, food in the offing.

I have a theory that her heart and liver, situated, as they are, somewhere near her middle, must produce a complex; for often, when her front end is growling malevolently, her tail is wagging in propitiation. It is as if she said: ‘I have a reputation to sustain of being fierce, but, as you will see if you observe my tail, I really don’t mean this.’ The trouble is that strangers are uncertain which end of her to believe. To understand both ends of a dog at once, it is necessary to live with her for a long time, and our friends have been spared that experience, no doubt thankfully.

Have I made clear why I am fond of Boojy? I am afraid not. Evidently ours is one of those inexplicable affections which seem to be founded on unreason. I have often told myself that I admire her daintiness, her hatred of dirt, her agility, the whole-souled unction with which she confronts life. Besides, she harbors no grudges, takes her medicine without whimpering, is brave enough when she has to be, and in her harum-scarum way is loyal to the family. All this is true. But I think that as potent as anything else is my pleasure in watching her, for she is a decidedly decorative little dog. When she lies asleep with her head on a mulberry plush cushion, — which she has been forbidden to lie on, of course, — she looks so innocent and infantile that it is impossible not to believe that she has an angelic soul; and her white side with its vivid contrast of a black shoulder and ear, against the tapestry background of the sofa, is exceedingly pleasing; but so also is the spectacle she presents when she stands firmly on her columnar front legs and hind legs thrust tensely backward, with her straight back, erect tail, and black-andwhite phiz, in which two dancing brown eyes sparkle with deviltry. She may be ready at the moment to fly from profound sleep for a slide to the front door; she may be contemplating an attack with loud growls upon the cuffs of my trousers — it is all one. Whatever anger I may be harboring melts under her charms. I laugh. So it is in human society: beauty, as the saying is, can get away with anything.

III

But I must not keep you in suspense any longer. Boojy did go to Europe with us. When we got to France, all the Gallic population who heard her name received it with empressement, not to say réjouissance. The reason was that they thought that ‘Boojy’ was our naïve American way of pronouncing bougie, and bougie nowadays means a ‘spark plug.’ How they raised their hands and eyes at that name so droll! Little girls on the street immediately went into transports. ‘Bougie! Bougie!’ they cried, knelt on the sidewalk, murmuring, ’Oh, mon p’tit chou, chou, chou’ and tried to hug her, in spite of her growls; for if there is one thing in this world that Boojy hates more than another, it is to be hugged.

I think I may say in all modesty that in France Boojy made a hit. I was never able to be sure just what it was about her that affected the French temperament so warmly. I think it was probably her whiskers. When she sat with us in a restaurant, gentlemen rose from the other side of the room and tripped across, holding a morsel of meat on their fork, to ask us politely if they might have the pleasure of offering it to her. When they returned to their table, they continued to eat with the same fork. Boojy accepted all offerings as a matter of course, preserving her native expression, which I can perhaps best describe as a combination of baby and bandit. In Italy, there can be no doubt it was her whiskers mainly that caused a sensation, for on all sides we overheard murmurs of ‘O, bella barbarina!’ There was hardly a tea shop in Florence or Rome that she did not know, and when we were out for a walk she paused with decision, like a milkman’s horse, and sat down solidly on a doorstep. Someone inside had formerly given her an almond-paste cake, with cluckings and cooings over her ability to walk on her hind legs.

It was of course gratifying to us all that Europe received her so cordially. We had sailed from Hoboken with qualms about her and we approached Rotterdam with positive tremors. On the voyage between, she had been by far the most popular passenger on board, and the sailors and stewards had varied the monotony of the trip by hiding behind smokestacks and coils of rope and barking at her. She never failed to respond with enthusiasm. It was comforting to find her a social success on shipboard — so far so good, we said; but as we sailed up Rotterdam River and she saw her first European cows and defied them to come on, we sighed to think how many cows there were in Holland. ‘More cows than people,’ an affable steward told us. And as we approached the dock we asked one another what we should do if, as our friends in America had warned us, the hotels all refused to receive her. We had visions of sleeping in our car every night for ten months. Still, I am proud to say that the idea of abandoning Boojy never entered our heads.

Our fears proved entirely groundless. We stayed at over fifty hotels in Holland, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy, and never once was the Boojum excluded from our rooms and required to sleep in a stable or under the kitchen sink. No. I am mistaken. There was one genial proprietor in Antibes who was compelled to decline our patronage because of Boojy, although, as he assured us, he was passionately devoted to dogs. His sufferings as he reached this decision were really pathetic. He assigned as his reason the fact that he already possessed seven cats, a trained magpie, and a pet tortoise, and we agreed freely that he had reason on his side, especially since one of the cats was about to become a mother. He was a pleasant man. He almost wept to see us ride away. He gave us a sprig of mimosa, pale gold and smelling of heaven.

The other hotel keepers thought no more of taking in a little dog than of taking in a little handbag. I formed the habit of opening negotiations for rooms by saying, ‘I have a little dog, about so long,’ holding my hands some eighteen inches apart and assuming a placatory expression. But they only shrugged and murmured, ‘N’importe’ or ‘Macht nichts aus,’ and proceeded to discuss terms. I always went on to assure them, nevertheless, that it was a good little dog that did n’t eat much and would cause no trouble. They shrugged again, obviously not interested. Sometimes, apparently to please me, they announced that they would charge five cents a day for her keep. One man in Paris charged twenty-five cents, and we thought him a brigand. But in general it was evident that traveling dogs were a matter of course or a necessary evil — nothing to worry about. And yet, so deeply had the dire prognostications of our friends entered our souls, we could never conquer the foreboding that, though Germany might not mind Boojy, France would, or, if not France, then Italy, and so on at each new border. When at each new border nobody even bothered to look at her, we felt chagrined despite our relief.

Meanwhile Boojy was enjoying herself as usual. I have told friends since that she went through five countries and saw nothing but cats. As some people go to see cathedrals, she went to see cats. She got her face slapped in Lucerne by one, and by another in Rome, and by a third in Cannes, and by a fourth in Paris. Those were her high spots, and to see a cat on the horizon gave her something of the same thrill that our first sight of the Mediterranean gave us. Hers were simple pleasures, but at least they were genuine, and she never pretended to be impressed, as I am afraid we sometimes did.

Nothing could be more admirable than the gusto with which she greeted each new day. She might be so tired at night that she could hardly crawl to her cushion, but with the sun she was ready, whiskers bristling, tail aquiver, to set out on her quest. Mile after mile she peered ahead, breathing hard or whimpering with eagerness. What was it she was looking for? I cannot be sure, but I suspect it was more cats or a bigger cat than she had ever seen before. One day, when she saw seventy-five cats all at once in Trajan’s Forum . . . but I have no space to narrate that epic incident. On the road not a cat or a cow or a dog or a duck or a goose or a chicken could appear without being greeted with shrill defiance, as she spun about like a thing demented. I must admit that there were times when we discussed boarding kennels. There were even times when we mentioned chloroform. But she always ended by making us laugh; and on a ten-thousand-mile tour it is important to be made to laugh often.

IV

Nevertheless, I shall never advise anyone to take a dog to Europe. Almost any good dog will travel very nicely and will be welcomed almost anywhere. It is not the dog I hesitate about, but the people taking him. In general, of course, people who care enough for a dog to take him at all will be the kind of people for whom his company will outweigh whatever inconvenience he may cause; and yet I must admit that mere traveling, and traveling with a dog, are two different things. When I observed the general fuss and flurry of travelers who had no one but themselves to worry about, I realized that only a certain kind of people should travel at all, let alone complicate their cares with a dog. There are people who could take not only a dog but three dogs and six children through Europe in a motor car and have a good time, but they are not many. There are others who, even with a well-lined purse and no cares in the world, could not travel at all without being miserable.

To travel happily, with a dog or without one, demands an artless philosophy of living from day to day, without too much planning, without addiction to itineraries and guidebooks, without preconceived notions of convenience and comfort. The conscientious traveler is an anomaly, foredoomed to disappointment. Expect nothing in particular, but be ready with a hospitable soul for anything. Assume (what is the truth) that people are much the same everywhere, chilling under a scowl, warming under a smile; and play up for all you are worth the one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. It is easy enough to be happy on the road if you demand nothing, but assume that, however much may be lacking of your accustomed comforts, much that is more important than comfort will reward you. A friendly stranger is more important than a comfortable bed, and a human contact than hot water.

Now the Boojum was our one touch of nature. She might be a burden, a nuisance, a pest, at times; but she was also a symbol of zest, adventure, joy. Above all, she was an infallible passport to acquaintance and even to friendship. It is not generally realized that a dog is a perfect solvent of social stiffness and awkwardness. His insinuating nose and ingratiating tail will melt the ice, even of a shy Englishman. ‘I think it’s so sportin’ of you to bring your dog all the way from America,’ said an English lady, who was reputed to be somewhat frigid; and she was soon a good friend. Nothing is easier than to make acquaintances in Europe. All one needs to do is to take a walk with one’s dog.

P.S. Satirical friends maintain that we took the automobile to carry Boojy. Whether we did or not is a question upon which I refuse to commit myself.