Читать книгу: «Bruno», страница 2

Thus we talked ourselves into a reasonable frame of mind.

CHAPTER IV

I knew, without anything being said about it, that Julius would lose no time the next day in finding out if Bruno had consented to eat his supper. When he started down town a whole hour earlier than usual, I knew, as well as if he had said so, that it was in order to have time to hunt up Mr. Nimrod before office hours.

"It's no use," began Mr. Nimrod, as soon as Julius appeared; "wouldn't touch a thing. Never saw such a dog. I believe he's trying to starve himself."

"Don't you think," ventured Julius, "it would be well to bring him out to our house for a little visit, to cheer him up?"

"Not much!" answered Mr. Nimrod, promptly. "I never could break him in then. He has run away twice already, and both times I followed him and found him hanging around the house you moved from. Lucky the trail was cold. If he once finds out where you are, the jig's up."

When Julius came home at noon, we sat at the table listless and dejected, now and then making fitful attempts to converse. The dainty noon meal had suddenly lost flavor after we had exchanged a few sentences about "Poor, hungry Bruno!"

Were we to eat, drink, and be merry, while our faithful friend starved for love of us!

After Julius had returned to the office, there was such a tugging at my heart-strings that I – well, yes, I did, I cried! How I regretted that I had never cultivated an intimacy with Mrs. Nimrod, so that I might have "run in" to call, and thus have an opportunity to comfort the poor homesick fellow!

Julius saw the tear-traces when he returned towards evening, and proposed a stroll down town; thinking, I suppose, that if we sat at home we should be sure to talk of Bruno and be melancholy.

We walked through all the principal streets of the town, meeting and greeting friends and acquaintances, stopping to glance at new goods in several of the shops; bringing up at last in the town's largest bookstore.

We were just starting for home, when on the sidewalk there was a sudden flurry and dash, and Bruno, stomach to earth, was crawling about us, uttering yelps and whines that voiced a joy so great it could not be told from mortal agony.

Regardless of the fact that we were on the most public thoroughfare of the town, I fell on my knees to hug him, and could not keep back tears of mingled joy and pain. His poor thin sides! His gasps of rapture! Oh, Boonie, Boonie!

The first excitement over, we looked about us for Mr. Nimrod. He was nowhere to be seen. Bruno had evidently escaped, and was running away to look for us when he had chanced to strike our trail and so had found us.

We were glad he was alone. We both felt that if he had been torn from us at that supreme moment he would have died; he was so faint with fasting and grief, and then the overwhelming joy at finding those he had thought to be forever lost to him! He squeezed himself in between us, and kept step as we went homeward in the gathering twilight.

As soon as we reached home, we hurried him to the kitchen to enjoy the sight of the poor fellow at his trencher. How we fed him! I ransacked the pantry for the things he liked best, till his sides began to swell visibly. He paused between mouthfuls to feast his loving eyes on first one, then the other of us, and his tail never once stopped wagging. Rebecca came purring in to rub against his legs, and even submitted with shut eyes to a kiss from his big wet tongue. He must have felt that such an hour repaid him for all his sufferings.

After he had eaten until he evidently could not take another morsel, we drew him in front of us as we sat side by side, for a three-cornered talk. He sat on end, waving his tail to and fro on the floor, wrinkling his forehead and cocking up his ears, while we explained the situation to him.

We told him how kind Mr. Nimrod meant to be to him, how he would train him to hunt and take him on long daily runs. Then we reminded him how impossible it was for Julius to go on such excursions with him, and of how many scrapes he had got into by going alone, – he seeming to take it all in and to turn it over in his mind.

Then we told him that since he had found our new home he could come often to see us, and he would always find us glad to see him, – yes, more than glad!

Then Julius got his hat and said, —

"Come on, Boonie; now we're going home."

He seemed quite willing to go. I told him good-by with a heart so light I could scarcely believe it the same one I had felt to be such a burden when I had set off for our walk two hours earlier. I busied myself then preparing a little supper against Julius's return; for we had not been able to eat since breakfast, and I knew by my own feelings that Julius would welcome the sight of a well-spread smoking table; and he said on his return that I "guessed just right."

He and Bruno had found the Nimrods very much disturbed over their dog's disappearance. Mr. Nimrod had just returned from an unsuccessful search, and they were wondering what to do next. They welcomed the wanderer, but were concerned, too, that he had discovered our dwelling-place.

"I'm afraid we'll have to keep him tied up now," said Mr. Nimrod.

Julius thought not, and said, —

"Now that he knows where we are, and can come for a glimpse of us now and then, I believe he'll be better contented than he was when he thought we'd left the country."

Better contented he certainly was, but he positively refused to stay at home. It soon came to be a regular thing for Julius to escort him back every evening.

The Nimrods lived nearly a mile from us, so Julius did not lack for exercise.

Mr. Nimrod finally came to remonstrate with us.

"You ought to shut him out," he cried, "then he'd have to come back home."

For answer, Julius showed him certain long, deep scratches on our handsome new doors, adding, —

"Don't you see? It's as much as our doors are worth to shut him out, and he leaps that four-foot fence as if it were but four inches."

There was obviously no possible reply to such logic as this; so he continued to come, – dragging sometimes a rope or strap, or some other variety of tether, triumphantly proving that love laughs at locksmiths!

The Nimrods at last lost heart. Bruno never would eat there, and he never stayed when he could manage to escape. One night it was raining hard when the time came for him to be taken "home," so they did not go; and that seemed to settle it.

He was our dog.

We had given him away without his consent, and he refused to be given; so the trade was off. He stayed closely at home now, seeming to think we might disappear again if he did not watch us.

CHAPTER V

Unless there were guests in the house, we usually slept with all the inner doors wide open for better circulation of air.

One night we were awakened by tremendous barkings and growlings from Bruno. Julius spoke to him, and he answered with a whine. Then we could hear his feet pad-padding on the carpet as he went from our room, tap-tapping on the oil-cloth in the hall, pad-padding again through the sitting-room and the dining-room, then tap-tapping on the painted kitchen floor, with more loud barks and deep growls.

Julius tried again to quiet him, but he refused to be quieted.

"Something disturbs him," I said. "Maybe we'd better let him out."

"No," said Julius, "it is probably that wretched Leo lurking around, trying to toll him off. He's better inside."

I did not think he would seem so fierce if it were Leo, but I was too sleepy to argue; so we dozed off, leaving him still on the alert.

Deep was our surprise next morning to find that a band of thieves had raided the town during the night, and that the houses on both sides of us had been entered! How we petted and praised Bruno, our defender! He was quite unconcerned, though, and seemed as if he would say to us, —

"Oh, that was nothing. I only barked and made a racket!"

Truly, it was only necessary for him to bark and make a racket. There was never any occasion for him to go further. His voice was so loud and deep it always conveyed the impression of a dog as big as a house, – one that could swallow a man at one mouthful without winking.

People were always ready to take the hint when he gave voice to his emotions. They never undertook to argue with him.

After that night we never slept with such comfortable feelings of perfect security as we felt at those times when we were half aroused by Bruno's barks and growls.

For a while the days passed uneventfully in our little home. Julius and I were interested in beautifying and improving our grounds, so time never dragged with us. Rebecca rejoiced in several successive sets of kittens. They and Bruno frolicked through the days, with exciting interruptions in the shape of the milkman's calls, Julius's returns from the office, and occasional visits from the neighbors' children.

For greater convenience we always spoke collectively of Bruno, Rebecca and her kits, as "the cattle."

The milkman's daily calls never grew stale to them. They generally heard his bell before Julius or I suspected he was near, and would all go to the sidewalk to meet him. Bruno would leap the fence; Rebecca and her kits would creep through. As soon as the milk was poured out, they all raced to the back piazza to wait for their share of it. When the dish was filled and placed before them on the floor, Bruno stood back with drooping ears, watching them drink. He seemed to feel that it would not be fair to pit his great flap of a tongue against their tiny rose-leaves. They always left some for him, which he devoured in two or three laps, while they all sat about washing their faces. I don't think he cared for the milk; he took it to be sociable, and seemed to be as well satisfied with a swallow or two as he was after drinking the dishful I sometimes offered him. He often tried to chew the grain on which the chickens were fed, and would eat anything he saw us taking, including all kinds of fruit, nuts, candies, and ices. Of course the chief of his diet was the various preparations of cereals and meats, but he seemed to want a taste of all that was going.

Once, much to his own ultimate disgust, he coaxed me to give him a sniff of a smelling-bottle he thought I seemed to be enjoying. After that, he regarded all bottles with the deepest suspicion and aversion.

CHAPTER VI

It is hard to remember just when we first began to talk Florida. Then a neighbor went down there on a prospecting tour, and returned bringing enthusiastic accounts of the climate and opportunities. We were greatly interested, and at once sent off for various Florida papers, pamphlets, and books.

Julius had always dreaded the bleak northern winters, having some chronic troubles, – a legacy of the Civil War. It is only in literature that a delicate man is interesting; practically, it subjects him to endless trials and humiliations, so we never gave his state of health as a reason for the proposed change. Instead, we flourished my tender throat. A woman may be an invalid without loss of prestige, so not one of our friends suspected that our proposed change of climate was not solely on my account.

We decided that as soon as our northern property could be disposed of, we would turn our faces southward and try pioneering.

Some children in a neighboring family had formed an enthusiastic friendship with Bruno, and as soon as our plans were announced, their parents asked us to give him to them when we were ready to start South. In spite of our former experience in giving him away, this seemed entirely feasible to us.

In the first place, we thought it would be utterly impossible to take him with us to Florida. Then he was really and truly attached to the children who wanted him; so we readily consented; and we encouraged them to monopolize him as much as possible, so that we might see him comfortably settled before we started. They lived next door to us, and Bruno was always ready to join them in a game of romps. He even ate from their hands. It seemed a perfect arrangement.

Our pretty little home was soon sold and dismantled, and we went to board in another part of town while preparing for the long journey, which then seemed almost as difficult as a trip to the moon. We locked up the empty house and slipped away to our boarding-place, while Bruno, all unconscious of what was going on, was barking and tearing about in a game of tag on the other side of our neighbor's large grounds.

Old Aunt Nancy, a colored woman who had belonged to one of my aunts before the war, and who had been our stand-by in domestic emergencies, had taken Rebecca and her family, promising them "Jes' as good a home as I can gib'm, Miss Judith." It was a sad breaking up, but we felt that our pets were well provided for, and that we should feel worse for leaving them than they would at being left.

Vain thought!

Two evenings after leaving our home, while I was busy in our room, making ready to begin packing, I heard Julius's step on the stairs, accompanied by a familiar clatter that made my heart stand still. The door burst open, and, before I could rise from my kneeling position, surrounded by piles of folded things, I was knocked over sideways by a rapturous onslaught from Bruno.

"What does this mean!" I exclaimed, as soon as I could speak.

"I don't know," answered Julius. "I found him waiting for me at the office door when I came out. He seemed half wild with delight at seeing me again. I rather think it is a repetition of the Nimrod experiment."

"Poor old fellow!" I cried. "See how his sides have fallen in just in these two days! He has been starving again, and we have nothing to give him!"

"That's so," said Julius. "I'd better go and get something for him, hadn't I?"

"Yes, indeed," I answered. "At once, poor old doggie!"

So they went clattering down the stairs again, and soon returned with some promising-looking paper bags.

We spread a newspaper on the hearth to receive his feast, then sat watching him and returning his glances of affection while he ate. When he had eaten to his satisfaction and dropped into a happy snooze, Julius said, —

"Well, I suppose I might as well try to find out if it would be possible to take him with us. I'll see the agent to-morrow. We must either take him, or have him killed; for I see plainly that it won't do at all to try to leave him."

"If we could just have him go along in the car with us, it would be all right," answered I. "He is such a knowing old fellow he would understand things perfectly."

"That's impossible, I know," cried Julius. "If he goes at all, he must ride in baggage-cars, and we'll be in a sleeper. I don't see how we can manage it."

I began to think that a way would open, and my heart felt lighter than it had at any time since we first began to talk Florida. If we could have Bruno with us, I no longer dreaded going to a land which, in my imaginings, had appeared to be teeming with unknown dangers.

The next morning Julius went promptly to interview the agent, and found that, after all, it would be possible to take Bruno with us to Florida. It would be some trouble and some expense. Besides his passage as baggage, the porters in each car must be feed; and while we in the sleeper should be in a through car, he would have a number of changes to make, – one of them at early dawn, and another in the night. It would be necessary for Julius to see to these changes in person, in case Bruno proved to be unruly, which was quite probable. We decided to undertake it, and Bruno's outfit for the journey was at once purchased. This consisted of a strong new collar and chain, with a big tin cup fastened to the chain for plenty of drinks, and a lunch-basket full of biscuit.

The memorable day came, and we were escorted to the train by kind neighbors and friends full of good-byes and good wishes for us all, Bruno receiving a full share of their attentions.

We knew well that they considered the whole affair to be a wild-goose chase, and that they expected to see us return, sadder and wiser, in a year at furthest.

As soon as the train was under way, Julius went forward to see how Bruno was taking it. He found him in a state of the utmost excitement, howling and dragging at his chain, probably remembering his other journey on the cars, when he had left his first home to come alone to us in his puppyhood. When he saw Julius and realized that we were with him, his joy and relief were touching. Julius stayed awhile with him, and got him some water, – he was always thirsty after "crying," – then came back to report to me.

I felt so relieved to know that we had really got off with Bruno in good shape, it almost made me forget a small ache in the corner of my heart for something that had happened a day or two before. I had gone up by the old home to say good-by to an invalid neighbor, and there, on the sidewalk, by the gate, sat Rebecca. Thin, scrawny, and alert, she sat watching for somebody, – easy to guess what "somebody." How glad she was to see me!

I sat down on the gate-step, and took her in my arms, wishing with all my heart that we could take her with us too. Still, I knew we couldn't. She, a sober, middle-aged cat, to be carried all those many miles! Then it might be weeks after we reached Florida before we decided where to settle. A dog, once there, could trot around after us, but what could we do with a cat? She had never learned to follow for any distance, and she was always nervous about being carried.

No, it wasn't to be thought of.

I stayed, petting her as long as I could; then, after urging her to go back and be contented with Aunt Nancy, I bade her a tearful good-by, and carried away an ache in my heart that I sometimes feel yet.

Dear old Rebecca!

Some day I hope to go across into cat-heaven and hunt her up. Then she can be made to understand why I was seemingly so hard-hearted as to go off and leave her looking mournfully after me on that sad day so long ago. Maybe she knows now; I hope she does.