The monkey was trying to hit him with the empty dipper 68

ZIP

or

The Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH ZIP IS INTRODUCED TO THE READER

[Illustration]

Zip belongs to Dr. Elsworth, who lives in the big, white house with the
green blinds on the edge of the village of Maplewood. And at the present
minute he is asleep on the front porch on a soft cushion in an
old-fashioned rocking-chair that is swaying gently to and fro, dreaming of
the days when he was a puppy chasing the white spot on the end of his
tail, thinking it was something following him. And how he would bark at it
and run around and around after it until he was so dizzy he would fall
over! Then when the ground stopped spinning round, he would get up and go
after it again, barking all the time for it to stop following him. Silly
little puppy that he was, not to know it was his own tail he was chasing!
Often he would bark so loudly in his sleep that it would awaken him, but
he would soon fall asleep again and go on dreaming. Sometimes he would be
chasing cows, holding on to their long tails; at others, squawking,
cackling chickens or anything else that happened to be in the road.

One day when thus dreaming, he was just about to pull a mouthful of tail
feathers out of Parson Higgins' pet rooster when the latch on the front
gate clicked. Zip was awake in a minute, sitting up on the cushion with
ears sticking straight up and every nerve alert to see who was coming in
the doctor's yard.

[Illustration]

The first look showed him a ragged tramp with battered hat, unshaven face
and a bundle of clothes tied up in a dirty, faded red handkerchief strung
on a cane over his shoulder. That one look was enough, for if there was
one thing Zip despised and detested more than any other, it was a tramp.
And for this one to dare to try to come in the front gate--the gate he
never allowed anyone to enter unless they were well dressed--was more than
he could stand, and he flew at the fellow as if he were the size of a lion
and was going to devour him on the spot.

As for the tramp, he hated dogs as much as they hated him. It had been his
experience that little dogs had just as sharp teeth as big ones and were
much harder to drive off, as they were so quick they could get around and
snap a piece out of one's shins before one could help himself. So when he
saw Zip bound off the chair and come running toward him with bristl