Part 32

"Come on, Frank!"

He raised his eyes beseechingly to his master's face, then dropped his head between his paws, his bushy tail dragging underneath the bed.

"Come on, old man!"

He got slowly to his feet; he looked regretfully at the sturdy little figure on the bed; he tried to catch the mother's eye--sometimes she interposed in his behalf. A little sullenly he followed the two men out of the house.

"That's my advice, Earle," the spectacled man said as he climbed into his car. "They can take better care of him there. The roads are good--you can drive slowly. I wouldn't put it off; I would go right away."

Earle went into the house and the dog strolled through the back yard, past the cabin of Aunt Cindy the cook to the shaded side of the garage. Here under the eaves was a ditch the boy had been digging to take off water. He had worked on it all one rainy morning shortly before, a cool, gusty morning, the last gasp of spring before the present first hot spell of summer. Aunt Cindy had discovered him wet to the skin and made a great fuss about it.

Now the shovel was stuck up where the boy had been forced to leave off and the little wagon, partly filled with dirt, stood near by, its idle tongue on the ground. Tail wagging, the dog whiffed the shovel, the ditch, the wagon. Then he lay down beside the wagon, and looked off over the hills and bottoms of the plantation quivering in the morning heat.

At the hum of the car out of the garage he sprang up and followed it to the side of the porch. Earle ran up the steps into the house. When he presently returned Marian and Aunt Cindy were with him and he carried the boy in his arms. He laid him gently on the back seat of the car with his mother. They were going to Greenville, the father said. When they came back he could sit on the front seat like a man. Aunt Cindy handed in the valise; just a glimpse the dog got of the little upturned sandals on the back seat, and Earle had closed the door. The car drove slowly off down the avenue, the sunlight that pierced the foliage flashing at intervals on its top. The dog looked up into Aunt Cindy's ample black face. She shook her head and went back into the house.

He sat down on his haunches, panting, then swallowing, then panting again. He had never been allowed to follow the car. He watched it turn into the road; the woods hid it from sight. He got to his feet and looked round. A curtain upstairs was waving out in the slight breeze, but from all the windows came no sound. He trotted down the avenue and stopped, nose pointed in the direction in which the car had gone. He galloped to the shining road. Up the hill beyond the creek bottoms he made out the car, crawling slowly. He pricked his ears toward it; his eyes grew stern; where were they taking that boy? A moment he stood hesitating, then bounded off after the car.

Miles away he caught up and galloped softly behind, trying to take advantage of the slight shade it offered. His tongue was hanging out, dust was caked in his eyes, the sun baked down on his heavy red coat, the road flew dizzily underneath. He could not stand this pace much longer on such a day--he could not stand it at all if Earle took a notion to drive as he usually drove. When the car slowed up at a hill he ran round it, looking up into his master's face. The car stopped and Earle leaned over the door, his eyes stern.

"Go back home, sir!"

The dog stood his ground, panting like an engine.

The command was repeated.

Dizzy with heat, he sat down, eyes half closed, fangs showing with the contraction of his panting, frothing chops, saliva dripping in the road.

Earle turned round, smiling grimly. "What had we best do, Marian?"

"Mama"--it was the boy's voice--"is it F'ank?"

"Yes, dear; you must lie still now."

"Let him go, Mama."

She spoke quickly: "Take him in, Steve."

It was midday when they reached the city. Sitting upright on the seat beside his master, the dog forgot everything else in the procession of crowding wagons and cars and people--strange sights to his country eyes. He lost all sense of direction when, honking, feeling his way, Earle turned down this street and that, the crowd, the noise, the life ever increasing. Eyes aglow, the dog looked behind at the boy. Tommy was trying to sit up. Everything was all right now.

But excitement quickly gave place to apprehension. In front of a long building set up on a terrace, with white porches running across the front, Earle lifted the boy out of the car and Marian got out with the valise. Earle turned half around and under his broad panama hat looked at the dog with masterful eyes.

"You stay there!"

Head hanging over the door of the car, eyes a little resentful, the dog watched Earle bear the helpless boy up those steps shining in the sun, saw a woman in white meet them, take Earle's hat off his head and shade the boy's face, saw the three disappear through the wide door. People were passing, wagons clattering, cars honking; but he kept his eyes fastened on the door. A breath of air brought to his nose from the building a smell unlike any that rises from woods or fields. Nose quivering, he noted it carefully, catalogued in it that strange variety of things his nose told him. He would never forget that smell or its associations.

Earle came out at last--came out alone. They drove home together. Aunt Cindy cooked supper for them. Afterward the dog stayed on the front porch, where Earle smoked one silent pipe after another, then knocked the ashes out on the banisters and went into the house. The dog heard him telephoning; heard the names Marian and Tommy; listened till it was over, then came down the steps and strolled round the house. A thin wisp of new moon, before it set that night, looked mildly down on him curled up in a bundle at the foot of a little wagon out by the garage.

Next afternoon before he left Earle chained him to his kennel.

"Guess I better," he apologized.

Aunt Cindy, who had watched the performance, shook her head.

"Dat dawg knows," she declared; "he shorely knows!"