Albert Payson Terhune

“ Glure was always dressed for the Occasion.
“Hello, people!” repeated the Wall Street Farmer, alternately pump-handling the totally unresponsive Mistress and Master. “I see you’ve been admiring the Maury Trophy. Magnificent, eh? Oh, Maury’s a prince, I tell you! A prince! A bit eccentric, perhaps—as you’ll have guessed by the conditions he’s put up for the cup. But a prince. A prince! We think everything of him on the Street. Have you seen my new dog? Oh, you must go and take a look at Lochinvar! I’m entering him for the Maury Trophy, you know.” ”

“ But a child who had never been taught could not play ‘Puss-in-the-Corner.’ I was talking to the English trainer that Glure bought along with the dog. The trainer tells me Lochinvar can go through those maneuvers and a hundred harder ones without a word being spoken. He works entirely by gestures. He watches the trainer’s hand. Where the hand points he goes. A snap of the fingers halts him. Then he looks back for the next gesture. The trainer says it’s a delight to watch him.”
“The delight is all his,” grumbled the Master. “Poor, poor Lad! He’ll get bewildered and unhappy. ”

“ Glure is unsportsmanlike, but that’s no reason we should be. You’ve told me, again and again, that no true sportsman will back out of a contest just because he finds he has no chance of winning it.”
“She’s right,” chimed in the Superintendent. “You’ve entered the dog for the contest, and by all the rules he’ll have to stay in it. Lad doesn’t know the first thing about ‘working.’ Neither does the only other local entrant that the first two rules have left in the competition. And Lochinvar is perfect at every detail of sheep-work. Lad and the other can’t do anything but swell his victory. ”

“ Half the world is starving or sick or wounded. The other half is working its fingers off to help the Red Cross make Europe a little less like hell; and, when every cent counts in the work, this—this Wall Street Farmer spends sixteen hundred precious dollars to buy himself a Gold Hat; and he does it under the auspices of the Red Cross, in the holy name of charity. The unsportsmanlikeness of it is nothing to that. It’s—it’s an Unpardonable Sin, and I don’t want to endorse it by staying here. Let’s get Lad and go home.”
“I wish to heaven we could!” flamed the Mistress, as angry as he. ”

“ McGillicuddy—the sheep came ambling back to Glure Towers Farm bearing no worthier guerdon than a single third-prize yellow silk rosette and a “Commended” ribbon. First and second prizes, as well as the challenge cup had gone to flocks owned by vastly inferior folk—small farmers who had no money wherewith to import the pick of the Scottish moors—farmers who had bred and developed their own sheep, with no better aid than personal care and personal judgment. ”

“ I must compliment you on Lad! A really intelligent dog. I was surprised. I didn’t think any dog could make the round unless he’d been trained to it. Quite a dog! But, of course, you had to call to him a good many times. And you were signaling pretty steadily every second. Those things count heavily against you, you know. In fact, they goose-egg your chances if another entrant can go the round without so much coaching. Now my dog Lochinvar never needs the voice at all and he needs only one slight gesture for each manœuver. Still, Lad did very nicely. ”

“ Now, even before the car entered the fearsome feudal gateway of Glure Towers, the collie’s ears and nose told him the hour of ordeal was at hand.
His zest in the ride vanished. He looked reproachfully at the Mistress and tried to bury his head under her circling arm. Lad loathed dog shows; as does every dog of high-strung nerves and higher intelligence. The Mistress, after one experience, had refrained from breaking his heart by taking him to those horrors known as “two-or-more-day Shows.” ”

“ Naturally, Lad isn’t a ‘working’ sheepdog. There probably haven’t been three ‘working’ sheepdogs born within a hundred miles of here, and it’s a mighty safe bet that no ‘working’ sheepdog has ever taken a ‘Blue’ at an A. K. C. Show. A ‘working’ dog is almost never a show dog. I know of only one either here or in England; and he’s a freak—a miracle. So much so, that he’s famous all over the dog-world.”
“Do you mean Champion Lochinvar III?” asked the Mistress. “The dog the Duke of Hereford used to own?”
“That’s the dog. The only—”
“We read about him in the Collie Folio,” said the Mistress. ”

“ There actually seemed to be a vulgar conspiracy among the down-at-heel rural judges—a conspiracy to boost second-rate stock and to turn a blind eye to the virtues of overpriced transatlantic importations.
It was the same in the poultry shows and in hog exhibits. It was the same at the County Fair horse-trots. At one of these trots the Wall Street Farmer, in person, drove his $9000 English colt. And a rangy Hackensack gelding won all three heats. In none of the three did Glure’s colt get within hailing distance of the wire before at least two other trotters had clattered under it. ”

“ I’ll enter Lad for it, of course. But so will every other collie-owner who reads that. Besides, even if Lad should win it, we’d have to buy a microscope to see the thing. It will probably be about half the size of a thimble. Gold cups cost gold money, you know. And I don’t suppose this ‘Hon. Hugh Lester Maury of New York City’ is squandering more than ten or fifteen dollars at most on a country dog show. Even for the Red Cross. I suppose he’s some Wall Street chum that Glure has wheedled into giving a Specialty. He’s a novelty to me. ”

“ The Maury contest, naturally, could not be decided in the regular show-ring. Mr. Glure had thoughtfully set aside a quadrangle of greensward for the Event—a quadrangle bounded by four white and numbered posts, and bearing a larger white post in its center.
A throng of people was already banked deep on all four sides of the enclosure when the Mistress arrived. The collie judge standing by the central post declaimed loudly the conditions of the contest. Then he asked for the first entrant. ”

“ This Beautifier of the Wilderness was a financial giantlet, who had lately chosen to amuse himself, after work-hours, by what he called “farming.” Hence the purchase and renovation of the five hundred-acre tract, the building of model farms, the acquisition of priceless livestock, and the hiring of a battalion of skilled employees. ”

“ Of course, in a Specialty Show, anything goes. But—”
“I don’t care what the conditions are,” interrupted the Mistress, refusing to be disheartened. “Lad can come up to them. Why, there isn’t a greater dog in America than Lad. ”

“ Glure, you have forfeited the match by moving more than three feet from the central post. But your dog had already lost it by refusing to ‘work’ at your command. Lad wins the Maury Trophy.”
•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•
So it was that the Gold Hat, as well as the modest little silver “Best Collie” cup, went to The Place that night. Setting the golden monstrosity on the trophy shelf, the Master surveyed it for a moment; then said:
“That Gold Hat is even bigger than it looks. It is big enough to hold a thousand yards of surgical dressings; and gallons of medicine and broth, besides. ”