Lad: A Dog - The Original Classic Edition. Terhune Albert

Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу Lad: A Dog - The Original Classic Edition - Terhune Albert страница 1

Lad: A Dog - The Original Classic Edition - Terhune Albert

Скачать книгу

section>

      LAD: A DOG [Pg iii]

       (From a photograph by Lacy Van Wagenen) [Pg iv]

       LAD: A DOG BY

       ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE

       NEW YORK

       E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

       681 FIFTH AVENUE [Pg v]

       Copyright 1919

       By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

       All Rights Reserved

       First Printing, April, 1919

       Second Printing, June, 1919

       Third Printing, July, 1919

       Fourth Printing, August, 1919

       Fifth Printing, August, 1919

       Sixth Printing, August, 1919

       Seventh Printing, August, 1919

       Eighth Printing, August, 1919

       Ninth Printing, August, 1919

       Tenth Printing, August, 1919

       Eleventh Printing, December, 1919

       Twelfth Printing, December, 1919

       Thirteenth Printing, December, 1919

       Fourteenth Printing, December, 1919

       Fifteenth Printing, December, 1919

       Sixteenth Printing, December, 1919

       Seventeenth Printing, December, 1919

       Eighteenth Printing, August, 1921

       Nineteenth Printing,March, 1922

       Twentieth Printing, August, 1922

       Twenty-first Printing, Sept., 1922

       Twenty-second Pr'ting, Feb., 1923

       Printed in the United States of America

       [Pg vi]

       my book is dedicated to the memory of

       Lad

       thoroughbred in body and soul

       [Pg viii]

       1

       CONTENTS

       chapter page

       I. His Mate 1

       II. "Quiet!" 26

       III. A Miracle of Two 49

       IV. His Little Son 74

       V. For a Bit of Ribbon 97

       VI. Lost! 126

       VII. The Throwback 156

       VIII. The Gold Hat 180

       IX. Speaking of Utility 218

       X. The Killer251

       XI. Wolf 297

       XII. In the Day of Battle 321

       Afterword 347 [Pg x]

       LAD: A DOG [Pg 1] CHAPTER I

       HIS MATE

       Lady was as much a part of Lad's everyday happiness as the sunshine itself. She seemed to him quite as perfect, and as gloriously indispensable. He could no more have imagined a Ladyless life than a sunless life. It had never occurred to him to suspect that Lady could be any less devoted than he--until Knave came to The Place.

       Lad was an eighty-pound collie, thoroughbred in spirit as well as in blood. He had the benign dignity that was a heritage from endless generations of high-strain ancestors. He had, too, the gay courage of a d'Artagnan, and an uncanny wisdom. Also--who could doubt it, after a look into his mournful brown eyes--he had a Soul.

       His shaggy coat, set off by the snowy ruff and chest, was like orange-flecked mahogany. His ab[Pg 2]surdly tiny forepaws--in which

       he took inordinate pride--were silver white.

       Three years earlier, when Lad was in his first prime (before the mighty chest and shoulders had filled out and the tawny coat had waxed so shaggy), Lady had been brought to The Place. She had been brought in the Master's overcoat pocket, rolled up into a fuzzy gold-gray ball of softness no bigger than a half-grown kitten.

       The Master had fished the month-old puppy out of the cavern of his pocket and set her down, asprawl and shivering and squealing, on the veranda floor. Lad had walked cautiously across the veranda, sniffed inquiry at the blinking pigmy who gallantly essayed to growl defiance up at the huge welcomer--and from that first moment he had taken her under his protection.

       First it had been the natural impulse of the thoroughbred--brute or human--to guard the helpless. Then, as the shapeless yellow baby grew into a slenderly graceful collie, his guardianship changed to stark adoration. He was Lady's life slave.

       And she bullied him unmercifully--bossed the gentle giant in a shameful manner, crowding him from the warmest spot by the fire, brazenly yet daintily snatching from between his jaws the choicest bone of their joint dinner, hectoring her dignified victim into lawn-romps in hot weather when he would far rather have drowsed under the lakeside trees.

       [Pg 3]

       Her vagaries, her teasing, her occasional little flurries of temper, were borne by Lad not meekly, but joyously. All she did was, in his eyes, perfect. And Lady graciously allowed herself to be idolized, for she was marvelously human in some ways. Lad, a thoroughbred descended from a hundred generations of thoroughbreds, was less human and more disinterested.

       2

       Life at The Place was wondrous pleasant for both the dogs. There were thick woods to roam in, side by side; there were squirrels to chase and rabbits to trail. (Yes, and if the squirrels had played fair and had not resorted to unsportsmanly tactics by climbing trees when close pressed, there would doubtless have been squirrels to catch as well as to chase. As for the rabbits, they were easier to overtake. And Lady got the lion's share of all such morsels.)

       There was the ice-cool lake to plunge into for a swim or a wallow, after a run in the dust and July heat. There was a deliciously comfortable old rug in front of the living-room's open fire whereon to lie, shoulder to shoulder, on the nights when the wind screamed through bare trees and the snow scratched hungrily at the panes.

       Best of all, to them both, there were the Master and the Mistress; especially the Mistress.

       Any man with money to make the purchase may become a dog's owner. But no man--spend he ever so much coin and food and tact in the effort[Pg 4]--may become a dog's Master without the consent of the dog. Do you get the difference? And he whom a dog once unreservedly accepts as Master is forever that dog's God.

       To both Lad and Lady, from the first, the man who bought them was not the mere owner

Скачать книгу