Walter A. Dyer

“ Hartshorn drove up in his car.
"What have we here?" he cried. "An orphan asylum or a dog show?"
He got out of his car and ascended the steps, demanding his share of the luncheon. Those of the boys who had not already met him were introduced. Then he asked to be made acquainted with the dogs.
"What do you think of them?" asked Herbie Pierson, who was very proud of his imposing Great Dane.
"I'll tell you after I've partaken of a little nourishment," said Mr. Hartshorn. "You can't expect a man to talk learnedly on an empty stomach, can you?" ”

“ Pierrot stopped in a panic of bewilderment. The tile-roofed house was gone and only blackened timbers remained. He sniffed about among the ruins for a time, greatly troubled, and then circled around toward the outbuildings. They, too, were gone, but nearby was a little shack that he did not remember.
Night was coming on again, and Pierrot was feeling very weary and forlorn and hopeless. Was this, then, the empty end of his long, painful quest? Where was the pretty little home and the comfortable cow barn and the people he used to love? Had all vanished into thin air? ”

“ Mère Marie and Henri and Lisa all wept, Lisa the loudest, and Gran’père and Père Jean were both very quiet and sober. It is not fitting that a man should mourn a dog as he mourns a brother or even a cross old uncle, but sometimes a dying dog leaves just as deep a feeling of loss. ”

“ April came again to Boytown, and with it the bluebirds and robins, the pussy willows and red maple blossoms, and the green buds of the dogwoods that watched over the resting-place of Rags on the hill. With it, too, came strength to the graceful limbs of Remus. There were warm, sunny days, when it was good for dogs and boys to be out of doors, and there were crisp, cool evenings, when a crackling fire on the hearth was pleasant. ”

“ That was Pierrot.
“He has the big feet and the large bones,” said Auguste. “That means he will grow large and strong and live for many years, like my Jacques,” and he pointed to the superb sire that headed his kennels.
So Père Jean took the fuzzy, awkward little puppy back to the little tile-roofed cottage he had built for his bride ten years before, and where Henri and wee Lisa had been born. ”

“ The boys did not know it, but Sam Bumpus was a lonely man and craved human companionship. He lived like a hermit in his little shack in the woods and his peculiarities had set him somewhat apart from the world of men. He had no living relatives, and apart from the old lady in the woods road, the inmates of the Poor Farm, and a few other out-of-the-way people with whom he had been able to win his way through his natural generosity and kindness, he had practically no friends but his dogs. He understood dogs better than he understood men, and, to tell the truth, he esteemed them more highly ”

“ For they were still all alive and well; even Père Jean had not yet been reported among the dead or missing; while all Belgium was lying prostrate beneath a load of want and sorrow and horrible dread. For war is cruel and winter is cruel, and the poor folk of Flanders and Brabant were without hope.
Late in October there came a banging of rifle-butts on the door and again a group of soldiers in green-blue overcoats invaded the little tile-roofed cottage on the Waterloo Road. ”

“ If you have never been a boy, you do not know how quickly a mood of hilarious jollity can be followed by one of deep depression. The plan had been to continue in camp for four or five days more, and some of the boys had been begging for a longer extension of the time, but now no one seriously objected when Alfred and Horace proposed breaking camp and going home. Every boy in camp had loved Rags next to his own dog, and even Moses went about in an atmosphere of melancholy. ”

“ Some of the peasants used dogs to harrow and cultivate their vegetable gardens, but Père Jean owned a big black horse named Medard, so that Luppe’s only duty was to draw the milk-cart and to bark at night if strangers approached. When Pierrot grew old enough Luppe taught him to wake up and bark at strange noises and to keep quiet at other times, for a good watchdog does not waste his breath on the moon. ”

“ As the sun rose higher Pierrot found it very pleasant standing in the shade of the big lime trees and chestnuts of the Avenue Louise while Mère Marie took her bright cans to the houses. Carriages and automobiles rolled by constantly, and pleasant people passed along the sidewalk, forming a fascinating [Pg 29] pageant for Pierrot’s entertainment. When he became restless and felt an impulse to go on without Mère Marie, Luppe, who lost no opportunity to lie down and rest, firmly restrained him. On the whole, Pierrot behaved very well for his first lesson. ”

“ The rough woods road was difficult enough to drive in at best, and the boys and dogs crowded about the car, shouting and barking their farewells. In spite of all Alfred and Horace could do, some of the more venturesome jumped upon the running boards and rode a little way, while the dogs, catching the spirit of excitement, dashed about in front and everywhere. Alfred and Horace rushed in to quiet the confusion, but before they could get the boys and dogs in hand a sharp yelp of pain sounded and poor old Rags lay, a helpless, pathetic figure, in the wheel rut behind the car. ”

“ A great longing filled him for his cozy bed in Medard’s stable, for the home where there was always plenty to eat, for the kind hands that knew how to cure a dog’s hurts, for the human love that had drifted so far into the past that it was like a dream of heaven. ”

“ In Scotland there are more dogs to the square mile than there are in the United States, yet the Scotch don't try to legislate the dog out of existence. The Scotch shepherd never thinks of taking out his flock without his trained collie, and the result is that few sheep are killed either by stray dogs or wild animals. When the American sheep growers learn their lesson from the shepherds of other countries, overcome their prejudice against the dog, and adopt the method that has been successfully employed for centuries in other countries, they will solve this problem, and not until then. ”

“ The children clung to his rough neck and wept until Mère Marie dragged them into the house, but Gran’père stood very straight and still and put his hand to his forehead when the soldier and Pierrot marched away. The last thing Pierrot saw as he turned back at the bend in the road was the stiff, brave figure of the old man standing before the little farmhouse, and the last thing he heard was the wild wailing of wee Lisa who could not understand and would not be comforted. ”

“ One day he told the boys that he had just received a letter from a cousin of his in the West who was a sheep man.
"He hates dogs," said Mr. Hartshorn, "worse than coyotes. He always makes fun of my sentimentality, as he calls it, and can't say too much against an animal that can furnish neither eggs, milk, wool, nor meat. He calls the dog a useless creature. I sat down and wrote him what Remus did on Hulse's Pond, and asked him if he had ever heard of a sheep that had saved a human life. ”

“ Ernest asked presently. "Some dogs, eh?"
57 "Oh, they'll prob'ly be all right when they grow up," said Harry, unwilling to concede too much. "They'll have to grow a lot, though, before they know as much as Mike."
"But a bulldog can't hunt like a setter," said Ernest, flying to the defense of his breed.
"Who wants to hunt?" demanded Harry. "Hunting isn't all a dog's for, is it? A bulldog's a better watchdog than a setter." ”

“ Pierrot and Jef stood waiting, the impulse to flee not having come to them. Men scrambled past them, but they stood dazed and terrified. Then a big brute of a fellow, his face distorted with the battle madness which sometimes turns a man into a fiend, came grunting and cursing up the bank, and finding the dogs in his path, thrust his bayonet wantonly through poor Jef’s heart. ”

“ It is tiring to walk around a dog show and one becomes more weary than one realizes. The boys stretched themselves out on the grass and listened to Mr. Hartshorn's words mingled with the barking of the dogs in all keys.
"It won't take very long to tell about these northern breeds," he began. "Their natural habitat is in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Asia, Europe, Greenland, and North America. They are probably related to the Arctic wolf and they are generally used in those countries as sledge dogs. ”

“ Up the road a cloud of dust appeared and through it the legs of many men all moving together and the glint of sun on steel. Presently the soldiers came, hundreds and hundreds of them, marching past the little dairy farm toward Brussels. Henri wanted to cheer, but Gran’père seemed so stern that he refrained. ”

“ For one thing, he noticed that many of the other dogs wore muzzles, and he asked his mother about it.
“That is because they are ugly,” said Mère Marie. “They snap at people who disturb them and they try to fight other dogs.”
“But Pierrot wears no muzzle,” said Henri.
“That is because he is gentle,” said Mère Marie. “If you make a friend of your dog, and never beat him except when he is very bad, and talk to him a great deal, he becomes very like a person and does not want to bite any one.” ”

“ I raised her from a puppy, broke her to birds, and lived with her summer and winter, and I tell you I never seen a man or a woman that knows any more than what she does or one that I could trust so far. That's the thing about a dog; you can trust 'em. There's bad dogs and good dogs, and no two is just alike, but if you once get a good one, hang onto him, for you'll never find another friend that'll stick to you like him. ”

“ They are both very old types of dogs.
"We will begin with the bloodhound because he's the biggest. There are a lot of people who have got their ideas about the bloodhound from 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and there are places where you aren't allowed to keep a bloodhound because the breed is supposed to be so dangerous and ferocious. But that is a great injustice. The true English bloodhound is not the mongrel beast that was used in slavery days, but is a finely developed and reliable dog. Contrary to the general belief, the modern bloodhound is not ferocious, but gentle and affectionate, almost shy. ”

“ So one Sunday morning Père Jean had bade Henri dress himself in his best clothes, for they were to drive into Brussels to the dog market, and half the world would be there. The Belgians do not think it strange to go to market on Sunday, for it is an entirely different kind of market from those conducted on week days, and they put on their gay clothes and make a holiday of it. ”

“ There is nothing more pitiful to look at than a sick dog, and there was something very sad in the way these two rollicking, healthy puppies were so suddenly stricken down. The boys, not finding them in the yard, had gone at once to Rome. There lay Remus on the bed, breathing with difficulty, and recognizing their approach only by a raising of his brows and a pathetic little effort to wag his tail. 87 Romulus came to greet them a little weakly, but he, too, looked very forlorn and somehow very thin and little. ”

“ But he and Jef soon learned to obey Conrad even when he did not hold the reins, pulling the little cannon with a will across creeks and up and down steep banks, and dashing with it through thickets where neither horses nor automobiles could have gone. The dogs soon discovered each other’s ways and learned to save their strength for the hard places and to pull well together. And in spite of Jef’s taciturnity, Pierrot found him to be an honest fellow, always ready to do his share of the work, and he came to like him. ”

“ As they were engaged in this pleasant occupation, Ernest suddenly rose to his feet and peered out through the saplings.
"What is it?" demanded Jack.
"Sh!" cautioned the older boy. "It's a man. He's coming down the hill. He's got a gun and a dog with him."
Jack arose and stood on tiptoe beside his brother. Together they watched the approach of a strange figure—a tall, lanky, raw-boned individual wearing a rusty old felt hat and with an old corduroy hunting 8 coat flapping about him. ”