that scar on his calf one of his best assets.
During the period of Sigurd's distemper and convalescence we took the utmost care, of course, to shut him away from Laddie, whose bonny brown head often appeared on the outside of one window or another, the shining eyes wistful for his playmate.
On one occasion the contagious element in the disease stood us in good stead. Sigurd was better, but still so weak that the least of walks tired him out. We kept him off the highways, lest any germs yet lingering about him might bring disaster on other puppies, but thought we were safe in the woods behind the house. On a certain Sunday afternoon I had coaxed Sigurd, by short stages, further than before. He had spent his little stock of strength and, with his usual eye for becoming effects, had disposed himself to sleep under a white-blossoming wild cherry, – that exquisite springtide delight which the campaign against browntail and gypsy moth is fast banishing from eastern Massachusetts. Suddenly a group of young roughs from a neighboring factory town burst through the brush, attended by a gaunt mastiff, and for the fun of the thing, jovially deaf to my remonstrances, proceeded to get up a dog fight, though the betting was monotonously one-sided. "Buster," obedient to command, approached growling and bristling, and Sigurd, who was never one to turn the other ear, trotted out with gallant readiness to meet an opponent who would have made an end of him with the first clinch.
"Very well!" I said, blazing at those boyish rowdies, who may, by this time, have bloomed out into heroes and won the croix de guerre. "If you want your dog to sicken and probably die of distemper, set him on. This collie is full of it and will infect him at the first touch."
Without staying to question my scientific accuracy, the hoodlums hastily called off their champion, threatened me in uncivil terms with the police and the jail for bringing a distempered dog abroad and took themselves off to look for safer holiday sport. Sigurd thought he had frightened them away and swaggered home with a marked revival of spirits.
When Dr. Vet at last pronounced all danger of contagion over, the Sisters, leaving Laddie behind, made a congratulatory call on our invalid, whose lyric cry, albeit hoarse and squeaky, shrilled to the Dogstar as he welcomed them, now climbing up to their shoulders in fervent embrace, now modulating his roundelay to the plaintive note as he tried his best to tell them what "Poor Sigurd" had suffered. They were sympathetic; they were intelligent; and tumbling into the forbidden easy chair, Sigurd made it clear to them, and they in turn made it clear to his dull mistresses, that his swollen throat could nowhere be so comfortable as here, where the chair-arm supported the chin. It was then that our last shred of arbitrary discipline gave way. Sigurd had won the throne of his ambition. In course of time, this became Sigurd's Chair, given over to his exclusive occupancy, scratched and rubbed and shabby, the most disreputable and, to his mind, the most enjoyable of our furnishings.
Laddie escaped the distemper, but of other mischances he had more than his share. He was scalded by his own dear Annie, against whom he had unluckily run when she was carrying a pitcher of boiling water; he was shot through the leg, as he was assisting in a midnight serenade given by the dogs of the neighborhood to a belle shut up in the house of her bad-tempered master; but the sorest pang of all was the departure of his mistresses for another year abroad. The Elder Cousin had gone on a longer journey; the corner by the hearth was lonely for the lack of that small gray figure, the hands so busy with their knitting, the face so shrewd and kindly; and all we village-folk called to express our sympathy and remained to burden theirs with long recitals of our various tribulations until the Sisters, utterly worn out, had again to seek solitude overseas.
What to do with Laddie? Gunnar, disgusted enough at having Flosi back again, flatly avowed that he would not put up with another brother on the premises. Ralph, in the fullness of years, and little Dora, prematurely, had slipped away to Shadowland, bequeathing the care of Cedar Hill to Gunnar, who was keenly alive to his responsibilities. From one of our recent visits Sigurd had come back with a bleeding ear and a red blotch on the top of his head. So the farmhouse of the estate opened its doors to Laddie, but he had other views and, running away the first afternoon, made a valiant effort to get back to the Sisters. He took one wrong turn and was lost for a night and a day, but his rare beauty and appealing charm won him a friend who allowed him to follow her home, fed him, read his collar and soon made telephone connection with his distressed mistresses, already resolved to let their steamer go without them rather than sail in ignorance of Laddie's fate. They were stout-hearted enough, however, when they knew that he was found, to ask the Cedar Hill farmer to go and reclaim the stray, denying themselves and Laddie another farewell.
We hoped that in the year's separation the two brothers would forget each other or, at least, outgrow their propensity to revert to the wild together. It seemed the more likely because Laddie, always fragile, had suffered a severe attack of pneumonia at the farmhouse, and came back to the Sisters looking more like a white spirit than ever. But he took time, on arrival, only to greet his household saints and indulge in a brief nap on the sofa before dashing off to find Sigurd. Away they went on an impassioned run, from which, seven hours later, Laddie came drooping home, and even Sigurd spent the next day curled up in his green easy chair, subdued and quiescent, looking like an illustration for "After the Ball."
Although we kept what guard we could upon them, they managed to elude us several times that autumn, but after the first wild spurt they would run more slowly, Sigurd slackening his natural speed in order to keep side by side with Laddie, whose hard panting could be heard above the rustling of the autumn leaves through which they raced. The worry cow hooked us badly on Christmas day. Laddie, who had coughed all night, had to be coaxed to come out for a little walk after breakfast and was dragging behind the Younger Sister when, turning the corner of a bright barberry hedge, they came upon Sigurd, gorgeous in his new, upstanding bow of holly ribbon. Hey, presto! Off they shot like young wolves on the trail. Under the starlight our truant returned, a damp wisp hanging from his collar. That white, wavy front of his, so carefully groomed for the festal day, was all red and green from the holly ribbon that he had been chewing up for his Christmas dinner. As for poor Laddie, he was ill for a week, but rallied again, and, despite our doubled and redoubled vigilance, the brothers had still two or three runs together before the end of February brought with it the end of Laddie's life.
Beautiful being that he was, he had gladdened earth for five and a half years. If it is hard to believe in immortality, it is harder to understand how his Maker could cast away a spirit of such pure sweetness as Laddie's. Perhaps he ranges the celestial meadows now and has found out what King Lear wanted to know, – "the cause of thunder." For thunder was Laddie's terror. He could be quieted only by the Younger Sister, who, going to the piano, would play her loudest, while the trembling collie crouched against her feet.
This second attack of pneumonia was relentless. Laddie was not allowed to suffer it to the end, but was tenderly put to sleep. Shortly after, Sigurd trotted over to The Orchard of his own impulse and, without any of the customary lurking and looking for Laddie, went straight in to the Sisters, licking their hands and pressing close against their knees.
That afternoon a few of Laddie's closest friends – though all the town loved Laddie – gathered about a little grave on The Orchard lawn, while the delicate Elder Sister, wrapped in a white shawl, with Sigurd, wearing a white ribbon, close beside her for comfort, looked down on the scene from an open chamber window. In the group below, one of us after another quietly spoke of Laddie's gentleness and gladness and affection, of the happiness he had given and received. The Younger Sister read a lyric good-bye that the Elder Sister had written and thanked God, as simply as if He were standing in our midst, for all the joy of Laddie. Then we lowered the box, dropping upon it the white rosebuds that the Dryad had sent and the white carnations that Jack's mistress had brought. When the earth went in, one voice said softly, "Dust to dust," but another responded clearly, "Love to love." All the while Sigurd's intent eyes and golden head peered from the window above and once he gave a short, troubled bark.
SIGURD'S MEDITATIONS IN THE CHURCH-PORCH
The gaze of a dog is blind
To
