Stories of Childhood | Page 4

for him, this lonely old man
and the little happy child. He had a corner of the hut, with a heap of dry
grass for his bed; and they had learned to listen eagerly for his
breathing in the dark night, to tell them that he lived; and when he first
was well enough to essay a loud, hollow, broken bay, they laughed
aloud, and almost wept together for joy at such a sign of his sure
restoration; and little Nello, in delighted glee, hung round his rugged
neck with chains of marguerites, and kissed him with fresh and ruddy
lips.
So then, when Patrasche arose, himself again, strong, big, gaunt,
powerful, his great wistful eyes had a gentle astonishment in them that
there were no curses to rouse him and no blows to drive him; and his
heart awakened to a mighty love, which never wavered once in its
fidelity whilst life abode with him.
But Patrasche, being a dog, was grateful. Patrasche lay pondering long
with grave, tender, musing brown eyes, watching the movements of his
friends.
Now, the old soldier, Jehan Daas, could do nothing for his living but
limp about a little with a small cart, with which he carried daily the
milk-cans of those happier neighbors who owned cattle away into the
town of Antwerp. The villagers gave him the employment a little out of
charity,--more because it suited them well to send their milk into the
town by so honest a carrier, and bide at home themselves to look after
their gardens, their cows, their poultry, or their little fields. But it was
becoming hard work for the old man. He was eighty-three, and
Antwerp was a good league off, or more.
Patrasche watched the milk-cans come and go that one day when he
had got well and was lying in the sun with the wreath of marguerites
round his tawny neck.
The next morning, Patrasche, before the old man had touched the cart,
arose and walked to it and placed himself betwixt its handles, and
testified as plainly as dumb show could do his desire and his ability to
work in return for the bread of charity that he had eaten. Jehan Daas
resisted long, for the old man was one of those who thought it a foul
shame to bind dogs to labor for which Nature never formed them. But
Patrasche would not be gainsayed: finding they did not harness him, he

tried to draw the cart onward with his teeth.
At length Jehan Daas gave way, vanquished by the persistence and the
gratitude of this creature whom he had succored. He fashioned his cart
so that Patrasche could run in it, and this he did every morning of his
life thenceforward.
When the winter came, Jehan Daas thanked the blessed fortune that had
brought him to the dying dog in the ditch that fair-day of Louvain; for
he was very old, and he grew feebler with each year, and he would ill
have known how to pull his load of milk-cans over the snows and
through the deep ruts in the mud if it had not been for the strength and
the industry of the animal he had befriended. As for Patrasche, it
seemed heaven to him. After the frightful burdens that his old master
had compelled him to strain under, at the call of the whip at every step,
it seemed nothing to him but amusement to step out with this little light
green cart, with its bright brass cans, by the side of the gentle old man
who always paid him with a tender caress and with a kindly word.
Besides, his work was over by three or four in the day, and after that
time he was free to do as he would,--to stretch himself, to sleep in the
sun, to wander in the fields, to romp with the young child, or to play
with his fellow-dogs. Patrasche was very happy.
Fortunately for his peace, his former owner was killed in a drunken
brawl at the Kermesse of Mechlin, and so sought not after him nor
disturbed him in his new and well-loved home.
A few years later, old Jehan Daas, who had always been a cripple,
became so paralyzed with rheumatism that it was impossible for him to
go out with the cart any more. Then little Nello, being now grown to
his sixth year of age, and knowing the town well from having
accompanied his grandfather so many times, took his place beside the
cart, and sold the milk and received the coins in exchange, and brought
them back to their respective owners with a pretty grace and
seriousness which charmed all who beheld him.
The little Ardennois was a beautiful child, with dark, grave, tender eyes,