Note: This article was published in the
Breckenridge News, Wednesday, September 20th, 1882.
Please take the time to read this newspaper article about the dog -- Bill Probert. I would loved to have had the chance to meet this author. He kept me laughing throughout. Enjoy.
Last night a very interesting reading of a paper on dogs in
an English magazine brought vividly to our mind recollections of an old canine
acquaintance of ours, who some years ago, was about as noted a character as the
town of Mt. Sterling could boast.
Indeed, it was hard to tell if the Mt. Sterlinger of the days we write
was prouder of his town having been the birthplace of Senator Garrett Davis,
Chief Justice Marshall of California, or “Bill Probert,” even though the latter
was only a dog. But such a dog!
If gentility is an attribute of caninity, then Bill was a
gentleman among dogs. There was nothing mean or low or currish about him. He was high-toned in his conduct, and
high-headed and high-stepping in his bearing. Courageous he was, as were all
true-born Kentuckians, be they men or dogs. He had no more idea of fear than
the late Live Forever Jones had of short hair. Had occasion presented itself,
he would have tackled a lion without thought of or care of the consequences.
Ostensibly the property of Tom Probert, he was his own master, and roamed about
the town withersoever he listed, sure of a cordial welcome at every house he
condescended to visit.
Bill was not popular among his fellow dogs. Had there been
such things as a congress and popular elections among dogs, he would never have
been chosen to represent his dogstrict. As became a dog gentleman, he was an
ardent admirer of the pretty and sleek Blanches and Sweethearts of his tribe,
but he held his nose high above the common Trays and Bones and Tigers and Lions
that stooped to sentengery about the dirty alleys and backyards of the town.
There was but one dog in that place that, in family and blood, anyways near
approached the aristocratic plane, and that was Phil Reece’s Dick. They were
rivals and, of course, inveterate enemies. They never met but to fight. Bill
was low and broad and heavy little English bull terrier of a brindle brown
color. Dick was taller and of the Scottish terrier persuasion. Both were game from the tip of their nose to
the end of the tail, and when they engaged in battle the conflict only when
they both became too exhausted to stand on their feet.
Bill was eminently a friend to man, and hence was a great
favorite with his two-legged
acquaintances. But he was wary of forming
intimacies, and never grew confidential. We do not remember but of one
gentleman towards whom Billy exhibited aversion, and that was the late Judge
Zeke Garrett. Judge Garrett at his prettiest would never have been accepted as
a model for Apollo or Antinous by any sculptor of taste, and when he “made a
face” his countenance was no mean representation of a masque of Hideous. It was
Bill’s misfortune one day to display empathic aversion to one of Zeke’s faces,
and from that time on, he never saw peace in the judge’s presence.
Such were Bill’s qualities of head and heart that Marion
Botts, on the mornings after being overtaken in a bottled fault – a much too
common experience, poor fellow – used to declare that “Bill Probert was the
whitest man in town.” But then Marion, as with all persons who become headachy
after exhilaration, was at such times given to cynicism.
But the time came when
poor Bill lost the countenance lost the favor of that warm friend and staunch
admirer. The breach came about in this manner. Marion had been over-stimulating
himself and grown aweary. Sitting down on the stone sill under the show window
of Wells & Thompson’s store to rest, he naturally dropped to sleep in the
summer sunlight. Bill came promenading along, lost in thought, and got a casual
glimpse of Marion’s legs. Had he not been wool-gathering, Bill would have known
better, but imagining they were posts he sidled up and performed the usual
canine libation in token of his appreciation of the uprightness symbolized by
posts and pillars and trees. Marion, too wroth to accept the delicate attention
as a compliment, looked upon it as an insult, and Bill’s name nevermore passed
his lips coupled with commendatory phrases, but quite the reverse.
Bill was an ardent democrat, and attended all the meetings
of that party at the courthouse. No man living can say that he ever saw him at
a meeting of the opposition. He hated the negro as the devil is said to hate
holy water. He was a staunch union dog during the war, and when Morgan invaded
Mt. Sterling fought the Johnnies as any soldier of the blue. And his loyalty to
the old flag did not cease when the war ended. When the long lines of
confederates filed into the town to be paroled and wend their various ways
homeward, being received with open arms by their recent foemen, Bill scorned to
recognize the terms of the capitulation and continued the war against the
conquered confederates on his own responsibility.
A strong tie of friendship existed between Bill and Hon.
Richard Reid, now a judge of the superior court, a friendship that was severed
only by Bill’s death. And Mr. Reid, as a token of regard and esteem, honored
his memory and extolled his virtues in a brief biographical sketch couched in
singularly beautiful and pathetic language.
He died decorously as he had lived an orderly life – except when
battling with Dick Reese.
The
Breckenridge News, Wednesday,
September 20, 1882
