Our vow is a jolly serious affair. We bind ourselves to be loyal to the Gang "by hoof and claw, by beak and tooth, in air, on earth, and in water." Each member pledges himself or herself to "sink all private feud the instant any other member is threatened by an external enemy, whether with two, three, or four legs." We also promise to be loyal to our leader Minkie, and to protect and help all inmates of Holly Lodge, and, in token of fealty and allegiance, each of us has to hold up a foot or claw.
Dan, naturally, tried to be clever, and suggested that the words "or itself" should be inserted after the word "herself," on the ground that no one knew the sex of a zygodactyl; he could not meet my eye, and pretended to snigger, but Minkie told him not to be rude. It may surprise some people to hear that we made common cause against three-legged adversaries, but that is easily explained. One day last summer, while Jim was washing Bob in the yard, and Dan was routing among some plant pots for a rat, a travelling menagerie passed our house, and a kangaroo leaped over the garden wall and landed in the midst of us. My cage was slung to the walnut tree, and I was so scared that I fell from my perch. Dan, with all his faults, is certainly a courageous beast, because he sprang at the stranger, and received a kick that knocked him clean over the cucumber frame. Jim fell into the pail, but Bob whisked round and gave the kangaroo a postman's double tap on the ribs that sent him flying back to his caravan. Dan, who was furious, alleged that the beast used his tail as a leg, and never touched the ground with his fore-legs at all. Jim bore out his statement, so the vow brought in the three-legged variety, to make sure.
I asked if Evangeline were included in the word "inmates," and Minkie said it was a frivolous question. I quite agree with her. Holly Lodge isn't a lunatic asylum.
Yet any outsider might be pardoned the mistake if he heard our light-headed housemaid telling Cookie the things she saw when she went to the post, just before she beat me with a cane. _I_ know that post. It is a gate-post, and it has a young man leaning against it.
"Fust one nigger kem past, an' his eyes rolled something 'orrible," she said. "Then two kem from the hoppo-site direction, an' their eyes rolled wuss nor the other's. 'Tell you wot, Lena,' Bill said to me, 'I don't like this. I'm for 'ome,' and he left me standin' there, with all those orful blacks prowlin' round like lions. Did you ever 'ear of such a thing? I'm finished with Bill; I wouldn't look at him again not if he had twenty milk-walks. I ran for my life, an' found Jim. He whistled Dan, an' it did me good to see the way that dorg began to clear the road, but Jim called him orf, 'cause he says a nigger has as much right to live as any other sort of man, and those fellows were a-behavin' of themselves. That's as may be; if there's much more of these goin's on 'ere I give my month's notice."
