His Dog | Page 6

how bleakly lonesome had been his home life, since the death
of his father had left him solitary.
There was a mysteriously comforting companionship in the dog's
presence. Link found himself talking to him from time to time as to a
fellow human. And the words did not echo back in eerie hollowness
from the walls, as when he had sometimes sought to ease his desolation
by talking aloud to himself.
He was embarrassed by his general ignorance of dogs, and by his
ignorance of this particular dog's name. He sought to learn what the
collie had been called; by trying one familiar dog name after another.
But, to such stand-by cognomens as Rover, Tige, Fido, Ponto, Shep and
the rest, the patient gave no further sign of recognition than a friendly
wagging of his plumed tail. And he wagged it no more interestedly for
one name than for another.
So Ferris ceased from the effort, and decided to give his pet a
brand-new name for such brief space as they should be housemates.
After long deliberation he hit upon the name "Chum," as typical of the
odd friendship that was springing to life between the dog and himself.
And he planned to devote much time to teaching the collie this name.
But, to his surprise, no such tedious period of instruction was necessary.
In less than a single day Chum knew his name,--knew it past all doubt.
Link was amazed at such cleverness. For three solid months, at one
time, he had striven to teach his horse and his cows and a few of his
sheep to respond to given names. And at the end of the course of
patient tutelage he had been morbidly certain that not one of his
solemn-eyed pupils had grasped the lessons.
It was surprisingly pleasant to drop in at the kitchen door nowadays, in
intervals between chores or at the day's end, and be greeted by that glad
glint of the eye and the ecstatic pounding of the wavy tail against the
floor. It was still pleasanter to see the gaze of wistful adoration that
strengthened daily as Chum and his new master grew better and better
acquainted.
Pleasantest of all was it to sit and talk to the collie in the once-tedious
evenings, and to know that his every word was appreciated and listened

to with eager interest, even if the full gist of the talk itself did not
penetrate to the listener's understanding.
Link Ferris, for the first time in his life, had a dog. Incidentally, for the
first time in his life, he had an intimate friend--something of whose
love and loyalty he waxed increasingly sure. And he was happy.
His brighter spirits manifested themselves in his farm work,
transforming drudgery into contentment. And the farm began, in small
ways, to show the effects of its owner's new attitude toward labor.
The day after he found Chum, Link had trudged to Hampton; and, there,
had affixed to the clapboards of the general store a bit of paper whereon
he had scrawled:
"Found-One white and brown bird dog with leg broken. Owner can
have same by paying a reward."
On his next huckster trip to Craigswold he pinned a similar sign to the
bulletin board of that rarefied resort's post-office. And he waited for
results.
He did more. He bought two successive copies of the county's daily
paper and scanned it for word of a missing dog. But in neither copy did
he find what he sought.
True, both editions carried display advertisements which offered a
seventy-five dollar reward for information leading to the return of a
"dark-sable-and-white collie lost somewhere between Hohokus and
Suffern."
The first time he saw this notice Link was vaguely troubled lest it
might refer to Chum. He told himself he hoped it did. For seventy-five
dollars just now would be a godsend. And in self-disgust he choked
back a most annoying twinge of grief at thought of parting with the
dog.
Two things in the advertisement puzzled him. In the first place, as
Chum was longhaired and graceful, Link had mentally classified him as
belonging to the same breed as did the setters which accompanied
hunters on mountain rambles past his farm in the autumns. Being
wholly unversed in canine lore, he had, therefore, classified Chum as a
"bird dog". The word "collie", if ever he had chanced to hear it before,
carried no meaning to him.
Moreover, he did not know what "sable" meant. He asked Dominie
Jansen, whom he met on the way home. And the dominie told him

"sable" was another name for "black." Jansen went on to amplify the
theme, dictionary-fashion, by quoting a piece of sacred poetry about
"the sable wings of night."
A great load was off Link's heart. Chum, most