Chapter 2

That was at five minutes to twelve in the night on August the twenty-fifth. Lady had belonged to Jim Dear and Darling for a year and a half, during which she loved only them and the baby and- well, Jock and Trusty a little bit. At midnight, Lady's world changed; she loved a strange dog from the streets, a mutt, perhaps even more than she loved them all.

The mornings that would come had seen some changes as well. Most of them were welcomed. They put another dish in the kitchen where Lady had hers near the foot of the table. It was the Tramp's. Lady wasn't having her meals by herself anymore. On those infrequent occasions when Jim Dear would pour her coffee, he'd pour him a little too. The table scraps were also evenly shared. To the Tramp, having come from a life that's been lived by the mercy of the trashcan most of the time, those were first-rate luxuries.

Next to Lady's little bed was another bed, though hardly a bed in appearance, being more of a pile of clothes than anything resembling a bed after the Tramp had finished making it "home-like." He once called Lady's bed "silly-lookin'", looking more like one that a smaller human would sleep in rather than a dog. And saying that Lady appreciated his remark would be a lie as true as the friendship between cats n' rats.

"Well, you're rather "silly-lookin'" yourself! And if you think that way, you better not set paw in it then."

True love, wouldn't you say? But teasin' n' razzin', though things Lady was too prim to do, were things she found in the Tramp to be often likable.

Now, there were those other changes in her house that simply made Lady, you could say, hot under the collar. They turned her world topsy-turvy without so much as a warning.

Whenever the kettle in the kitchen would coo, it meant it was time for breakfast. Lady learned that fairly easy. But now when the voice that was supposed to call her over would call, seldom she'd heard her name being spoken first or even at all. When she expected to hear "Lady! Lady dear!", instead she heard "Boy! Come on, boy!" Only after that, the voice called for Lady, and that was when and if the voice remembered to do so.

The same was true of the afternoons when Jim Dear came home.

It was his matter of course to whistle as soon as he turned the corner. Scarcely was the whistle necessary, for Lady, who was as good at telling the time as the clock itself, would have been waiting with her paws on the window stool since long before five. But the whistle was important, it was a bond, a sort of merry code, between her and Jim Dear only. Away would Lady sprint; the latch clicked - "Hello there, Lady!" - she was all over him in a twinkling.

The whistle was present on this afternoon too. Of course, the latch clicked and Lady rushed away. But the moment her paws pushed the door aside, in great shock she discovered that the whistle had betrayed her. It was meant for someone else.

"Hello, boy!"

It was meant for the Tramp. But he didn't run to Jim, nor did he leap of joy. The worst part was that he did not even notice the whistle! He was sleeping a log's sleep on the doormat, only barking an uncertain bark and rolling over when he'd noticed Jim Dear passing by. Though, Jim laughed.

Then, as if that wasn't pain enough for Lady, another thing happened right after that.

Inside the house where Jim would take off his coat and change his shoes, Lady would wait under the hanger for him to pat her and she'd lick his hand.

Not today.

Perhaps she was too late, maybe he hasn't noticed her coming. Jim Dear did hang his coat and did change his shoes, but when he patted, as he entered the house, he only patted the Tramp, forgetting to pat her too.

Forlorn Lady would freeze halfway through the doggie door. When she ran away for him, she ran whining, and she scratched at his trousers soon as she caught up with his steps. Jim Dear looked down at Lady and she looked up at Jim Dear with her weeping heart.

He remembered to pat and he did so with a smile. But the smile was dull and the pat was rushed. They lacked the only important thing. Lady slipped her nose between his fingers and she began to sniff it, and she tried to taste it when she licked. Like a bloodhound on duty Lady searched all over, yet it wasn't anywhere. Over the pocket of his trousers, Lady brushed her muzzle. Perhaps he'd left it there.

What Lady was missing was the love of her humans and she simply couldn't figure where it must have vanished all of a sudden. When yesterday love was in every corner, in Jim Dear, in Darling, in herself, today it seemed as if it had faded like leaves into the autumn haze, or Darling must have broomed it under the rug - Lady looked, it wasn't there either.

But Lady did figure where it went soon enough. It went to the Tramp, hiding in his tousled fur like fleas. Yet, why did all the love went to the Tramp and not one bit to her? Why did Darling bathe the Tramp for longer earlier that morning when it was clear he was not enjoying it as much as she was? And why was it that, after they chased Aunt Sarah's cats around the yard, she got spanked and the Tramp only got scolded? Even during the scolding, there was love! Lady had sensed the note of love under the rough tongue all too easily.

Not even the Tramp himself paid her much interest. When she sat alone on the kitchen floor and brooded, when she would hear or see him pass by through the unclosed door, she hoped that in his venture he might at length push the door wide open with his devil-may-care smile and come love her.

Perhaps too high of a demand for the genie that had long dwindled into the depths of her imagination.

Instead, the Tramp would run to yet another room, staring at yet another odd thing or bark adrift, thinking he might have heard a strange sound. And the funny thing is that she was the one who tempted him into it when she showed him the house. After all, she promised.

It stands to reason that Lady was as down-hearted as a child holding a balloon that another had popped. It was too much. She needed to tell, to whine, to bewail, and to cry. The next evening, Lady went directly to her faithful best friends. Who was there better at listening an aching heart than them? She told them everything.

"And that isn't all-!" would conclude Lady. "When we went to see the baby together, Darling invited him inside her room, but she wouldn't invite me too."

"She wouldn't?" said Trusty. A crease must have formed on his forehead owing to this unfortunate surprise.

"And earlier when we were supposed to serve dinner, they had all but forgotten about me." she would add with her brittle voice, almost crying.

"Forgotten about you?" and Jock almost not believing it.

"Oh, boys, I just don't know-! Why, but where did I go wrong?" her eyes trickled like the faucet that you did not turn off all the way. "I'm glad that Jim Dear and Darling care about him, I am! It is just that- well, I wish they cared about me too is all."

Jock and Trusty listened with solemn interest, for both were well aware of Lady's place in her household and how unusual was the state of affairs she described. Though it was unusual indeed, it wasn't unheard of. If anything, it sounded very similar to a situation she went through not that long ago and it puzzled them both how she did not realize it too.

"You poor dear." Trusty pitied her heart nonetheless. "But uhh- did those cats really upset you that much?"

"Oh, those confounded cats!" Lady faced away and scowled, then she laid her troubled head on the pillows that were her paws.

"Well, cats be cats," Jock crawled between them and took over, "but, lassie, I think you might have a-taken it the wrong way." his chuckle meant to lull her sadness.

"Why, yes, miss Lady," and Trusty meant the same with his low bass, "you see, it is always like that when a family welcomes a new member in. Your boy here, for example."

"Aye." agreed Jock. "Sure you must already know about that, don't you, lassie? This-a spring perhaps?"

This spring? What happened this spring? Lady got to thinking. She stared vacantly but with fierce intensity at the carpet Trusty was resting his wounded leg on as if she stared at herself. Did they know something she didn't? When did she feel this alone before?

Then it hit her like a club from the night sky. A glimmer of light sparked like fire in her eyes and a fit of shame then crept into her heart.

How could I be this uneducated, Lady reproached herself. This wasn't any different from the time when Darling brought the baby in her family. Yes, they have pushed her aside for a time, but that was because the baby needed love, too.

And now she has been so crestfallen because they haven't given her their all that she has failed to notice that the Tramp, the dog from the streets and with no family, needed it the most, not her. And she regretted deeply, for she had preferred to stay hidden under the staircase and ignore him earlier when he barked her his invitation to come out and play.

"Oh, dear!" Lady sighed, she was embarrassed. "I really turned a deaf ear, haven't I?"

Trusty encouraged her. "But we all do mistakes."

"And without question," Jock regarded her kindly, "your lady a-punished ya only because- well, you're a lady, too. You must serve as an example for him, lassie. In the sense that," he rose a paw and added quickly, "you must be well-behaved, I mean."

Lady listened. She glanced shyly at Trusty who nodded approvingly next to Jock and she grew even more abashed. How could she let herself be badly behaved and not a lady?

"And, miss Lady, don't trouble yourself that hard about that bath matter. I'm sure your mistress knows how fond you are of water. You're a spaniel after all. It is just that uhh- that uhh-" Trusty broke off to scout his surroundings for any unwanted listeners, then he leaned forward so only she could hear, "have you noticed how rough and unkept his coat was? A shame, if I may say myself."

Lady vaguely smiled. That must be why Darling bathed him for longer.

Jock nudged a Trusty rib and whispered. "Hush, man!" His gaze pointed through the bushes and the iron bars, inside Lady's yard. He saw the one they've been skindering about come out the little door.

Lady veered her head as at a sharp command. She heard "Pigeon" being called.

"I'll wager that-a must be you." Jock coughed and remarked rather indifferently.

It was her. She thanked them both and hurried away.

Until Lady showed herself, the Tramp didn't stop his barking, not then and neither when another dog from a nearby home told him to "pipe down." And it was only natural that, after she did return, the Tramp was all over her with questions. Yet Lady did appreciate the concern, she couldn't tell whether it actually was concern or he simply was curious or bored, nor could she reveal where she truly went.

"Tramp, please quiet down!" said Lady in hushed tones. "You'll wake the whole town!"

"Eh, not my circus, not my monkeys." said the Tramp nonchalantly. "Where did you fly earlier, Pidge? I've been searching the whole place."

"You have?" the discovery cheered Lady a little. "I took a short walk by myself."

"A walk by yourself, you say?" the Tramp crashed to the ground in an odd, stilted way. "What about me? I'd have given a hind leg for a night stroll." he pretended to be disappointed. He rather was just bored.

Lady stepped a paw back. "Well-" she stuttered, but her properness excused her diffidence. "Well, you couldn't have come with me, Tramp."

"Why's that?" he rose his head.

Lady cleared her throat quietly. "Because you needn't know where I take care of my needs." and her gaze cut deep through him because he'd been too curious when he shouldn't have.

"Oh!" the Tramp sat down, laughed, and scratched, and his gaze sidestepped hers, eying a nearby bush instead. "Why din'chu say so?"

And they both trotted on their paws inside the house soon afterward, for Jim Dear called them over. Worry must have eaten through him perhaps. And of course that, when he called, it was "Boy!" and then was "Lady!" But Lady didn't hurt as much anymore. She understood that love now had to be evenly shared, sort of like candy between brothers.

The days passed and so did her doubts. Everything was all right again between Lady, the Tramp, and the humans. Except now it was Jim Dear and Darling who were given the so-called cold shoulder as if Lady wanted to take revenge on them.

Now Lady spent most of the time with the Tramp. With each passing day, her absence in Jim Dear and Darling's routine had left them somewhat yearning. It was uncommon now for her to sit by the door to their bedroom before they woke up. It was as uncommon for her to bark them "good morning" as they walked down the stairs. And the newspaper, even the paperboy felt her absence. When he rang his horn, only once or twice a week he saw the brown dog with floppy ears run to him. Most of the time it was that man with funny mustache and he wouldn't catch the newspaper between his teeth. Needless to say, the paperboy would pedal away unimpressed.

The Tramp, in turn, now has learned what rules are and what happens if you don't follow them. For example, Lady, once when she was little, was given tiny slippers to wear when they walked her during winter. Lady downright hated them, so they put them away. Yesterday, Darling gifted them to the Tramp and told him he can chew them up. Of course, as for any dog, the Tramp thought it was great fun. But a few hours later, when he chewed on Darling's silver slippers, he got spanked. It taught him a lesson: don't chew things that belong to somebody else. A strange rule, he thought. But he would be careful, he resolved, until he was given silver slippers of his own. But he never was.

And the house, he had memorized most of it already. Only seldom he had lost to Lady when they played catch. Yet there were paths and rooms in particular that he had spent considerably more effort remembering. Those paths that only the dust walks on, those rooms that Darling only visits when it is time to spring clean, and those crevices that not even the sun bothers to peek into. In his cleverly laid out plan, the Tramp hoped that he could lure Lady into one during their happy game, that Jim Dear won't call her over for a treat, and that she will show him how much of a lady she wasn't when nobody looked.

"Hello there, old boy!"

Only that, that "boy" business. That was the only thing that stayed true to the Tramp ever since his coming in Lady's family. It didn't matter much to the Tramp what they called him, on the flip side, Lady was plainly confused. Why do Jim Dear and Darling call him "boy"? Dogs are dogs, they can't be boys. Only children and babies can be boys. You could put your paw on boys - they are either good boys or bad boys. Why don't they give him a name as they did to her?

Coincidentally, Darling asked Jim Dear the same later that night during dinner.

"A name?" he looked at his supper then down at the Tramp. "I don't know. What do you suppose we should call him?"

Darling thought for a moment. "My late mother owned a grey dog like him. She called him Prince."

The Tramp and Lady exchanged looks. Both shook their heads.

Jim rubbed his chin. "Well, when I was a boy," - Lady pricked her ears - "my old man had this mutt and we called him Copper. A bloodhound."

"A bloodhound?" Darling peeked under the table.

The Tramp watched her with his tongue out and panting.

"Oh, I don't know," she resumed, "we'll think of something later. Eat your supper, dear, it's getting cold."

So for a while the Tramp was "boy" and nothing else. Good boy, bad boy, you name it.

But several days later the Tramp had done something so terrible and so forbidden that Darling screamed and called him a naughty dog. She almost pounced on him. He played with her knitting, something Lady had done before, too. That taught him another lesson: a little sock is more precious than her slippers. She will let him chew a sock when he will get his own pair perhaps. But he never will.

Though be him "boy" or naughty dog, to Lady and the dogs' whole kingdom, the Tramp was always the Tramp

Until one day, when the Tramp had suddenly become the Tramp for everybody.

Darling was in the parlor reading a book and Lady snoozed near by. At the same time, Jim Dear was outside playing with the Tramp. Hardly was it anything else than a game, for the Tramp had stolen Jim's newspaper and what was Jim to do except pretend to be the dog catcher?

"Boy! You come back here!"

Half a clock later, when Jim returned all spent and tousled, unlike his four-legged companion who was only tousled but little was he spent, he had made some remark addressed to "the Tramp." That's when the change occurred.

When Darling asked why he is referring to their pet in such boorish way, he explained to her about this Uncle Dan person, an old friend that just visited them outside earlier, and how he used to feed the dog whenever he would see him by the trainyard.

"I used to see the darn dog all over tha town." Uncle Dan went. "Nobody would tell 'im off. They all tossed 'im some bap or a bone at least once. I tell ye, he'd pick 'em all by the weekdays. He'd come to me only on Fridays. Not Thursdays, not Saturdays. Only Fridays. As if he knew that me ol' dutch packs me bacon only on Fridays. Crafty mutt this one. A real tramp."

The Tramp, who was very fond of the man, told Lady the same. He said that Uncle Dan was his first family, hence why he had stuck with the name. Other dogs might have said it's because of how often he used to swap between his arm candies.

And since then, the Tramp was the Tramp and the second dog of the white and red house, though Darling did not really approve of the name. She complained that it was silly. He will always remain a "boy" for her.