Chapter 2

Tommy looked at the dog with fear and with mute apology. In his heart was hatred of that baggageman, and vain, vain regret that he had ever come to Breton Junction to see the train. All the way home the dog trotted under the axle of the buggy. In the days that followed a far less sagacious dog than he would have sensed the anxiety that disturbed the homestead on the hill to which his destiny had led him.

There was nothing particularly extraordinary about a buggy turning in from the main road and coming up the long hill toward the house. Frank, basking in the morning sun, kept his eyes on it merely out of curiosity. But as it drew closer he rose slowly to his feet, his ears erect. Unreasoning antipathy to the couple in it raised his hair in a long tuft down his back. He withdrew toward the barn, his head over his shoulder, the sun glistening on his coat of silk.

"There he is!" cried Lancaster.

"Dan--Dan!" shrilled the woman.

The man jumped out of the buggy, lifted her to the ground, and both hurried toward him, smiling like old friends eager to be recognized. The woman extended her hand.

"Dan!" she coaxed.

He drew away toward the barn, his tail wagging sheepishly, mollified by their friendliness, wishing he could extend to them the welcome of the hill--but afraid of them and of what they represented. Steve Earle hurried out of the house, followed by Marian and Tommy, who held his mother's hand. They all shook hands--all but Tommy, who withdrew from the group with a frightened glance at the dog. Then Earle and Lancaster came toward him, Lancaster talking.

"We received notice from the railroad," he was saying, "and as Mrs. Lancaster and I were on our way to Florida, we thought we would stop over and make sure. The railroad has never met our claim." He laughed. "You know how a railroad is."

"Is that the dog?" demanded Earle.

"Oh, yes--undoubtedly."

Earle stopped. "Come, Frank," he ordered.

Frank hesitated, still wagging his tail. Smiling, Lancaster took a step toward him. A wolfish gleam came into the dog's eyes. He threw his head up like a wild horse. Lancaster took another step forward. He turned and bounded across the field, down the hill to the woods.

All day long he remained in the woods, gold with autumn, brilliant with many coloured leaves that sifted slowly to the ground and flashed for a moment transparent as they crossed the shafts of sunlight. The bell at the house tolled. The gun shot again and again. But not until late at night did he venture cautiously back, stopping in shadows like a big red fox come to rob the chicken roost.

He trailed the buggy off to the main road and toward Breton Junction. He returned to find his supper waiting on the back steps. Profoundly grateful, he crawled into his box. But at daybreak Earle came out, fastened a collar round his neck, led him by a chain to the corner of the front porch, and there fastened him. The cook brought him his breakfast.

It was his last meal there, she declared bluntly. That rich man and his wife were going to take him. They had spent the night at Breton Junction. They would be back directly. He had too much sense for a dog, anyhow. He made her feel spooky. She laughed. She was a big, bluff black woman. To her a dog was a dog.

Frank ran his nose over the food, but his stomach revolted. He shivered with cold and fear. Down the hill he watched the morning mists lift from the maplike demarcation of field and wood, revealing the rich pageantry of an autumn morning. He knew every spot that birds frequented in all that gorgeous country.

In the living room above him he could hear Earle poking the fire. He could hear the low mumble of his voice, the soft treble of Marian's. They avoided him now as if he were a plague. He did not try to make it out. His master was providence. He could not question the decrees of providence, but he would circumvent them if he could. Once he had broken a collar. He began to plunge, but was jerked back, coughing and choking. He lay down, and with his paws tried to pull the collar over his head. Worn out at last, he crawled underneath the house.

Then came a guarded tap-rap down the front steps. From under the porch he saw blue overalls and stubby shoes. They hugged the porch, they made their way toward him. Then Tommy squatted down and peered with solemn face into the shadow.

"F'ank," he whispered fearfully.

The dog went to him and licked the chubby hands and the soft cheek, as he had licked them that first day. With a secret look all about, Tommy began to work with the fastening of the chain, his tongue poking through his lips and wiggling. The spring was strong, the thumb that pressed feeble, numb with cold. Once it clicked, and Tommy bit down on his tongue, and the dog sprang forward. The fastening caught, the boy gasped--then frantically began to press.

"What're you doing there?"

He dropped the chain; both conspirators looked up with a jerk. Earle's face was poked over the banisters above them.

"Nuffin!" The lie was shiveringly spoken.

"Come in the house, sir."

The mother came out and caught the boy by the hand. Her face was distressed. She cast a pitying look at the dog; then she pulled his would-be rescuer away.

"Ain't he our dog?" pleaded Tommy.

"No, dearest, he belongs to Mrs. Lancaster."

"Well, I can take him a jink of water, can't I?"

"He doesn't want any water."

The dog heard the little shoes hit each step twice. Of all the depressing signs of that depressing morning, the last protesting wail as the front door smothered it was the most ominous. Defeated, humbled, the dog slunk back underneath the porch.

But at sight of the hated buggy, he plunged and charged, frothing like a mad dog, running backward, trying to jerk the collar over his head, rolling over and over in his frantic struggles. Not until people were grouped above him did he grow quiet. Then when his former mistress stooped down and petted him, he begged her with his eyes as he had begged her in that other life, and knew, as he had known then, that she did not understand.

"I wonder what's the matter with him?" she said.

"It's plain enough what's the matter," replied Lancaster.

"Would you sell him?" asked Earle eagerly.

She straightened up. "No, indeed; we would not think of that."

"Then," said Earle wearily, "suppose we go in to the fire. You have a couple of hours to wait."

But he and Lancaster lingered near the porch while the women went into the house.

"I've just learned," Lancaster was saying, "that this is the plantation where the field trials are run. Have you thought of entering Dan?"

"No," said Earle. "Frank's an old-fashioned shooting dog. The greatest one I ever saw. He doesn't seem to have had field trial training."

Lancaster laughed. "Between you and me, until he came out here, most of his training was designed to fit him for a lap dog."

They went into the house, still talking.

The dog heard chairs dragged across the living-room floor. He slunk again underneath the porch. Then he heard a scraping sound behind him, and turned quickly about with pricked ears. Under the house, from the direction of the kitchen, Tommy Earle was crawling toward him on hands and knees.

The boy lost no time. He sat up straddle-legged like a tailor, and pulled the dog's head on his knee. Frank's eyes were green with excitement, foam rose from his bruised throat, his tail beat a tattoo on the dried dust.

First the boy attempted to unfasten the collar, but the leather was stiff, the buckle rusty. Then he tried to press the spring in. Once, like a dumpy animal, he crawled away. But he came back with a brickbat and hammered like a blacksmith at the spring. Then he bent over, caught the fastening savagely in his teeth, and gritted down. A sobbing intake of breath announced failure.

Time, precious time, was passing. People somewhere in the house were growing restless. The dog felt his self-control slipping in a mad desire to plunge at the chain. He started to rise, but the boy caught him angrily by the ear and jerked his head back into place. Chairs were pushed back in the living room. Down the back steps came a rapid, clumsy, heavy tread. Then the loud, coarse voice of the cook.

"Tommee--Tommee! I wonder whar dat chile gone to!"

The front door opened with a burst of voices. Enemies of freedom were closing in from every side. Freedom and slavery hung in the crimson pressing thumb. The cook's voice burst raucously--she was peering with rolling eyes underneath the house.

"Lawsy, Mr. Steve! Dat chile turnin' dat dawg loose!"

The fastening clicked. The boy gasped, the dog sprang up. No chain jerked him back. He leaped past the cook, who held her wide skirts out as if to catch him in a net. He heard Earle call. He heard Lancaster laugh. The field flew under him, the woods drew near. Long after he had reached them he galloped on and on.

In the afternoon he returned to the edge of the woods. He saw Earle come down the back steps, peer into the box, and shake his head at Marian, who stood on the back porch. Then Earle walked round to the old south chimney in the sun and knocked out his pipe, straightened up, and called. A fine figure of a man--his call carried command in every tone! To resist the overwhelming impulse toward obedience, the dog sank to the ground, his tail shaking the leaves, his eyes bright with worship of yonder man--and with a glint of humour in them, too. Did they think he would twice walk into the same trap!

But as the shadows climbed the hill toward the house his gaunt stomach, no less than his heart, longed to cross that intervening field. The west windows flamed with the sunset, as if the whole interior were a mass of silent fire. Smoke rose from the kitchen chimney, and on the cold air came the whiff of frying bacon. The cook waddled down the back steps, a tin bucket flashing under her arm, and the chickens flocked round her like fringes to her skirt. But still the dog remained in the woods, with the hunger in his stomach and the longing in his heart.

Then, when the cook had gone back, chickens vanished, the glow grown dim in the windows, and life seemed to have ceased in the yard, a little figure darted across it, disappeared in the lot, reappeared in the back door of the barn, and with a backward glance made for the woods where he lay. He had run away, plainly, for he had on neither overcoat nor hat. He was frightened, for he stopped a hundred feet away from the woods and his voice quavered.

"F'ank?"

He listened painfully, his mouth open, his chest heaving. When next he called there were tears in his voice. Finally, he looked all up and down the border of the woods. A third time he called, shriller, more tremulously. Then slowly he turned his back and started toward the house. Something must have blinded him, for he stumbled and fell. He got to his feet and looked at the hands he must have cut on the sharp stones of the field. Again he faced about and looked up and down the woods, and again he turned away.

Something tragic in this last turning about, something final, as if he had left hope behind him buried in the woods, swelled the tender heart of the watching dog. He could stand it no longer. Lightly he leaped the fringe of bushes, silently he galloped after the disconsolate little figure. Not until his warm breath on the nape of the white neck caused Tommy to turn, did he realize the depth of woe through which Tommy had passed. The frightened gasp, the look of terrible reproach, the tear-soiled face, the tragic eyes, told the story. It was fully a minute before Tommy controlled his sobs and hugged him round the neck. Then, ashamed to have been seen in this hour of weakness, the boy began to pound the dog with his fists. Finally he cried out--and in the shrill exultation of his voice, Frank knew that his own troubles and Tommy's troubles had all passed away.

"They gone--they gone on the chain!" Then, with wistful wonderment, "Where you been, F'ank?"

There were lights in the living-room and kitchen windows when they started toward the house, the boy's hand tightly clutching the mane of the dog.

"Mr. Lancaster," Tommy was explaining in a breathless voice that caught, "he says--he says you b'long to us! He says he come down an' hunt wif me an' you an' Popper! He says he give--give me a dun!"

In his ecstasy he grabbed the dog round the neck.

"Ol' F'ank! Ol' F'ank! I love ol' F'ank!"

Then in a voice he was training for future fox hunts Tommy Earle yelled, and the woods and the house and the barn between them tossed back and forth the thin echoes.

II

PARADISE REGAINED

Little Tommy Earle stood on tiptoe in the rear of the capacious hall of his father's barn, and glanced excitedly along the nickel-plated barrel of his air rifle, which he had poked through a knot hole. Out there on the ground between the barn and the corn field he had sprinkled some crumbs of bread. When sparrows came to pick up those crumbs--well, thought Tommy, it would be hard on the sparrows.

Behind him in the straw that carpeted the barn lay old Frank, Irish setter, taking his ease. Except during hunting season, wherever you found the boy you found old Frank. Now and then, at some slight movement of the boy, he pricked his ears in the direction of this miniature stalker of game. The rest of the time he either dozed off, or, suddenly aroused, snapped at a fly with that fierce look in his eyes with which dogs and fly-swatting women view these buzzing pests.

Cathedral-high above them towered the overflowing hay loft. Through the wide-open doors behind them the barn lot blazed in the afternoon sun. The somnolence of a farmyard mid-afternoon brooded over the scene. Only the boy, peering through the knothole, was tense and vibrant.

For him this was a serious occasion. He had owned the air gun two weeks now, and he hadn't killed a thing. True, he had hit an upstairs window pane, but he hadn't intended to do that. He had merely shot at a raucous jaybird in a tree, and the upstairs window pane, the innocent bystander, as it were, had fallen inward with a sharp tinkle of broken glass. The mishap had brought down on him the warning from his father that if it, or any similar exploit, were repeated, the air gun would be confiscated.

"But I didn't mean to, Papa!" he had cried.

"That doesn't make any difference, old man," Steve Earle had said; "the window is broken all the same."

The boy had walked away from the interview, sobered. Sprung from the loins of generations of hunters, the love of a gun was in his blood, and this air rifle was his first love. Since the warning he had used the horizon as a backstop for all his shots. Old Frank, who had followed him around at first, pricking his ears at every shot, ready to bring in the game, had concluded that there would be no game to bring in, and had lost interest at last.

Then, just an hour ago, the boy had hit upon this scheme of baiting sparrows to their doom. And now with the patience of the born hunter, tireless like the patience of the cat watching at the mouse hole, he waited for sparrows to come. His face was flushed, his eyes were shining, the smooth muscles of his bare, sturdy legs were knotted as he stood a-tiptoe, peering.

Now, Steve Earle, the father, was not only a mighty hunter, a bigger edition merely of the boy--he was also a modern, successful planter. His corn and tobacco and cotton crops were the talk of the county; his horses were pedigreed; his mules sleek; his chickens the finest. Among these latter was a prize-winning Indian Game super-rooster named Pete. He was big, boisterous, stubborn, and swollen with pride and vainglory.

It was Pete who now appeared through the aisles of the tall corn, within range of Tommy's periscopic vision, chortling and boasting to the sober harem that followed him. Suddenly he raised his head; his beady eyes glittered; he hurried greedily toward the crumbs, squawking hoarsely, clucking wildly, like a crude fellow who aspires to be a gallant and overdoes the part.

"Shoo!" cried Tommy through the porthole.

Pete raised his head high and cackled in amazed indignation that anybody should say such a thing to him. Then, dismissing this temporary annoyance of a small boy yelling at him through a knothole, he hurried into the very midst of the crumbs. He picked one up; he turned round to the hens; he dropped it to demonstrate what he had found. The hens cackled in admiration of the splendid performance.

At this Pete went crazy; his clucking increased prodigiously; he pawed crumbs into the ground, just to show how grandly careless he could be in the midst of such profusion. And here came all the hens to him, half flying like a covey of quail about to alight.

"Shoo!" yelled the boy a second time.

Again Pete cried out indignantly, as if he really didn't know what to make of such impertinence. Crimson of face, Tommy left his lookout. Frank following, he ran round the barn and burst into the midst of the feasters. A wild scattering ensued. Cackling and squawking, the valiant Pete led the retreat through the corn. Face still flushed, Tommy came back to his post and poked his gun through the knothole. And once more, after a very brief interval, here came Pete.

To analyze the motives that led to his return would require a knowledge of rooster psychology, if any such thing exists. Maybe Pete actually forgot what had just happened--his head was very small, his face very narrow, and he had a receding forehead. More likely, though, his enormous vanity lay at the bottom of it. He would show these wives of his, in whose admiration he basked all the day long, whether or not he was to be thwarted in his purpose of eating crumbs by a meddling boy with some kind of shiny instrument in his hand.

Yet once more, when Tommy burst upon him and into the midst of his admirers, he threw all semblance of dignity aside. He ran ingloriously away, jumping high into the air when clods of dirt like exploding bombs struck near him, and hitting the ground again on the run, with loud cackles of indignation and wild excitement.

"Sick him, F'ank!" screamed the boy. "Sick him!"

But old Frank sat down on his haunches panting, which is a dog's way of shaking his head. To injure his master's property, even at an order from his master's offspring, was something which he, as a dog of honour, could never think of doing. He did look with a touch of regretful longing at the fleeing rooster; he pricked his ears, his eyes grew fierce, he licked his chops. There had been a time, perhaps--but that was long ago, in the dim past of his irresponsible puppyhood.

"You ain't no 'count!" said the boy.

The long silken ears flattened; the brown eyes looked indulgently into the angry blue ones. He could stand such an accusation very well; his character was thoroughly established, his life an open book. Just now the boy was beside himself with anger, and a friend passes over things said in anger. Only a small spirit without magnanimity is touchy on such points.

Tail waving gently, therefore, he followed the outraged boy back to the barn. The crumbs were all gone. The nimble bills of the hens, the greedy, overbearing beak of the rooster, had gobbled them all up. Resentfully, Tommy picked up his shiny air rifle and went to the house after more.

In the spacious kitchen, hung with pots and pans, old Aunt Cindy, big, fat, black, her head tied up in a red bandanna handkerchief, sat churning butter and singing a hymn:

"Dere was ninety an' nine dat safely lay In de shelter ob de fol', But one had wandered fur away, Fur from de streets ob gol'."

At sight of the boy's flushed face, and in the presence of his eager request, hymn and churning ceased together.

"What you gwine do wid mo' bread, honey?" she asked.

"I'm going to kill some birds," declared the boy with a burst of optimism, forgetting for the moment that Pete might have decreed otherwise.

The old woman rose chuckling from her churn and waddled across the floor to the cupboard, no bigger and broader than she.

"Whar you baitin' 'em, honey?" she asked next.

"Behind the barn!"

She sat down, bread in hand, pulled him to her, and patted his back. That was the price he had always to pay for bread or butter or jam. Finally, she gave him the bread and let him go. Down the back steps he came, running eagerly and calling Frank. Once more in the kitchen began the flop of the churn, once more rose the wail of the song.

"Away on de mountings he heered its cry, Sick an' helpless an' ready to die----"

Twice more did Tommy drive the intolerable rooster away. The first time he chased him deep into the corn, almost to the pasture. The second time he tried to corral him and the hens and drive the whole bunch into the chicken yard, running here and there with eager face and outstretched hands.

He almost succeeded, for Frank helped him at this like a collie dog herding sheep. Right to the gate of the chicken yard Pete went, followed by the excited hens. Then he seemed to suspect some sort of trap or hidden mine in there, and, with loud ejaculations, broke away and ran streaming toward the corn, followed by the hens.

Grim of face, the boy took his stand once more at the knothole. Boastful as ever, after an interval, came Pete. Not only to-day, but to-morrow and the next day and through all the days to come, he would have to give up shooting sparrows because Pete liked bread crumbs.

"Shoo!" he said for the last time, rather quietly now.

"Caw, caw!" retorted Pete, throwing up his head.

The shiny sight of the air rifle glistened against the beady, vicious, triumphant eye, cocked a little sideways. "Ping!" spoke the air rifle. In a stall a frisky young mule wheeled around and kicked the bars continuously like a rapid-fire gun. Old Frank, who had lain soberly down, sprang to his feet with pricked ears and eager eyes. From without came a hoarse, faint squawk and heavy flopping of wings. Out of breath, Tommy turned round. "I hit him, F'ank!" he gasped.

Pete, big and heavy as a turkey gobbler, was flopping round and round when they reached him, beating the ground with lusty wings, sliding his limp head along the dirt, acting crazy generally, as if Aunt Cindy had wrung his neck.

"Aw, get up!" said Tommy.

But Pete did not get up, and, sobered, the boy glanced around. The hens had fled the violent scene; the hulk of the barn hid what was going on from the yard. Only Frank had seen, and Frank never told anything. Tommy leaned his rifle against the barn, straddled the heavy rooster and, face flushed, lifted him, limp and dangling, to his feet.

"Stand up, Pete," he coaxed. "You ain't dead!"

But when he released him Pete collapsed like an empty sack, kicked frantically a time or two, and was still. Then the boy saw the blood that trickled from his head. Straight into his eye and into his brain, if he had any, the BB shot had gone. Pete would never eat any more crumbs. Breathing fast, the boy looked at Frank. Ears drooped, eyes worried, Frank looked at the boy. And while they looked, down the back steps came the solid tread of Aunt Cindy's broganned feet, and her regular afternoon summons broke the silence:

"Chick! Chick! Chick!"

Through the corn the silly hens went running toward the yard, their appetites nowise affected by the calamity. Again the old woman called. Then she spoke, and Tommy's heart jumped up into his mouth. His father had evidently sauntered round the house, as fathers have a way of sauntering, just at the wrong time.

"Mr. Steve--whar dat rooster?" asked the old woman.

Earle laughed. "I haven't got him, Aunt Cindy."

"It sho a funny thing," she declared. "He allis de fust to come when dey's anything to eat. Somethin' done happen to him. You stay here. I lay I kin fin' him!"