The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel | Page 3

some one coming out of the hotel office. It was the
Major.
"Oh, I beg your pahdon!" she cried, blushing still more. From the
twinkle in his eye she was sure that he had witnessed her mortifying
encounter with the musical chair. But his first words made her forget
her embarrassment. He spoke in the best of English, but with a slight
accent that Lloyd thought very odd and charming.
"Ah, it is Mr. Sherman's little daughter. He told me last night that you
had come to Switzerland because it was a land of heroes, and he was
sure that you would be especially interested in mine. So come, Hero,
my brave fellow, and be presented to the little American lady. Give her
your paw, sir!"

He stepped aside to let the great creature past him, and Lloyd uttered an
exclamation of delight, he was so unusually large and beautiful. His
curly coat of tawny yellow was as soft as silk, and a great ruff of white
circled his neck like a collar. His breast was white, too, and his paws,
and his eyes had a wistful, human look that went straight to Lloyd's
heart. She shook the offered paw, and then impulsively threw her arms
around his neck, exclaiming, "Oh, you deah old fellow! I can't help
lovin' you. You're the beautifulest dog I evah saw!"
[Illustration: "HE STEPPED ASIDE TO LET THE GREAT
CREATURE PAST HIM"]
He understood the caress, if not the words, for he reached up to touch
her cheek with his tongue, and wagged his tail as if he were welcoming
a long-lost friend. Just then Mrs. Sherman stepped out of the elevator.
"Good-bye, Hero," said the Little Colonel. "I must go now, but I hope
I'll see you when I come back." Nodding good-bye to the Major, she
followed her mother out to the street, where her father stood waiting
beside an open carriage.
Lloyd enjoyed the drive that morning as they spun along beside the
river, up and down the strange streets with the queer foreign signs over
the shop doors. Once, as they drove along the quay, they met the Major
and the dog, and in response to a courtly bow, the Little Colonel waved
her hand and smiled. The empty sleeve recalled her grandfather, and
gave her a friendly feeling for the old soldier. She looked back at Hero
as long as she could see a glimpse of his white and yellow curls.
It was nearly noon when they stopped at a place where Mrs. Sherman
wanted to leave an enamelled belt-buckle to be repaired. Lloyd was not
interested in the show-cases, and could not understand the conversation
her father and mother were having with the shopkeeper about
enamelling. So, saying that she would go out and sit in the carriage
until they were ready to come, she slipped away.
She liked to watch the stir of the streets. It was interesting to guess
what the foreign signs meant, and to listen to the strange speech around
her. Besides, there was a band playing somewhere down the street, and

children were tugging at their nurses' hands to hurry them along. Some
carried dolls dressed in the quaint costumes of Swiss peasants, and
some had balloons. A man with a bunch of them like a cluster of great
red bubbles had just sold out on the corner.
So she sat in the sunshine, looking around her with eager, interested
eyes. The coachman, high up on his box, seemed as interested as
herself; at least, he sat up very straight and stiff. But it was only his
back that Lloyd saw. He had been at a fête the night before. There
seems to be always a holiday in Geneva. He had stayed long at the
merrymaking and had taken many mugs of beer. They made him
drowsy and stupid. The American gentleman and his wife stayed long
in the enameller's shop. He could scarcely keep his eyes open.
Presently, although he never moved a muscle of his back and sat up
stiff and straight as a poker, he was sound asleep, and the reins in his
grasp slipped lower and lower and lower.
The horse was an old one, stiffened and jaded by much hard travel, but
it had been a mettlesome one in its younger days, with the recollection
of many exciting adventures. Now, although it seemed half asleep,
dreaming, maybe, of the many jaunts it had taken with other American
tourists, or wondering if it were not time for it to have its noonday
nosebag, it was really keeping one eye open, nervously watching some
painters on the sidewalk. They were putting up a scaffold against a
building, in order that they might paint the cornice.
Presently the very thing happened that the