MYSTERY. 



Hamilton Vreeland, M. D. 



Seven little liver and white puppies 

 came to town one cold, February 

 morning. Their eyes were sealed, 

 but they were endowed with good appe- 

 tites and good noses for locating the 

 refreshments. In the course of a month 

 they grew boisterous, and Mine Herr 

 enclosed a space with wire netting, 

 where they could run and play. One 

 fat little toddler, the "no account pup," 

 always managed to escape by crawling 

 over or under. She would caper about 

 while the others sat inside and gazed 

 at her. Mine Herr, replacing her a 

 score of times, said, " It's a mystery 

 how that pup gets out," and an hour 

 later, madam, looking up from her knit- 

 ting, sees through the open window a 

 piece of linen bobbing about the yard, 

 exclaims, " There's that Mystery at the 

 clothes again." 



At intervals during the summer, pur- 

 chasers came and took away the brothers 

 and sisters, for these were dogs of high de- 

 gree, of a noted field trial family, and they 

 moved about with the grace and dignity 



born of conscious superiority. But poor 

 Mystery was a Bohemian among nobles. 

 She divided her time between hobnob- 

 ing with street curs and ransacking 

 garbage barrels in search of stray bones. 



Occasionally a whisp of jack snipe 

 drops into our meadows, during the fall 

 flight, and Mine Herr, saying, "Better 

 start on the hardest birds first and she 

 will never know but they are the 

 easiest," would take her out for an hour 

 each morning. After a few lessons she 

 began to show what a marvellous nose 

 she had, and the local sportsmen 

 whispered among themselves, " Its a 

 mystery how that pup gets all the 

 points ; " and Mystery she has been 

 called to this day. 



Mystery has a great notion for music, 

 especially the kind furnished by the 

 little German band — perhaps because 

 her sire was bred in the kennels of a 

 prince of the Hohenzollern blood. She 

 will squat in the centre of the circle of 

 mud-gutter performers and howl in har- 

 mony with the trombone. Patti could 



"an' her tail is a stickin' out stiff.' 

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