mother!”
The boy was an orphan, and loved the widow so much that he had come at last to call her mother.
Before another word could be uttered, Dick Varley was in the room. Marston immediately stepped out, and softly shut the door. Reader, we shall not open it!
Having shut the door, as we have said, Marston ran down to the edge of the lake, and yelled with delight—usually terminating each paroxysm with the Indian war-whoop, with which he was well acquainted. Then he danced, and then he sat down on a rock, and became suddenly aware that there were other hearts there, close beside him, as glad as his own. Another mother of the Mustang Valley was rejoicing over a long-lost son.
Crusoe and his mother Fan were scampering round each other in a manner that evinced powerfully the strength of their mutual affection.
Talk of holding converse! Every hair on Crusoe’s body, every motion of his limbs, was eloquent with silent language. He gazed into his mother’s mild eyes as if he would read her inmost soul (supposing that she had one). He turned his head to every possible angle, and cocked his ears to every conceivable elevation, and rubbed his nose against Fan’s, and barked softly, in every imaginable degree of modulation, and varied these proceedings by bounding away at full speed over the rocks of the beach, and in among the bushes and out again, but always circling round and round Fan, and keeping her in view!
It was a sight worth seeing, and young Marston sat down on a rock, deliberately and enthusiastically, to gloat over it. But perhaps the most remarkable part of it has not yet been referred to. There was yet another heart there that was glad—exceeding glad—that day. It was a little one too, but it was big for the body that held it. Grumps was there, and all that Grumps did was to sit on his haunches and stare at Fan and Crusoe, and wag his tail as well as he could in so awkward a position! Grumps was evidently bewildered with delight, and had lost nearly all power to express it. Crusoe’s conduct towards him, too, was not calculated to clear his faculties. Every time he chanced to pass near Grumps in his elephantine gambols, he gave him a passing touch with his nose, which always knocked him head over heels; whereat Grumps invariably got up quickly and wagged his tail with additional energy. Before the feelings of those canine friends were calmed, they were all three ruffled into a state of comparative exhaustion.
Then young Marston called Crusoe to him, and Crusoe, obedient to the voice of friendship, went.
“Are you happy, my dog?”
“You’re a stupid fellow to ask such a question; however, it’s an amiable one. Yes, I am.”
“What do you want, ye small bundle o’ hair?”
This was addressed to Grumps, who came forward innocently, and sat down to listen to the conversation.
On being thus sternly questioned, the little dog put down its ears flat, and hung its head, looking up at the same time with a deprecatory look as if to say, “Oh, dear! I beg pardon; I—I only want to sit near Crusoe, please, but if you wish it I’ll go away, sad and lonely, with my tail very much between my legs—indeed I will, only say the word, but—but I’d rather stay if I might.”
“Poor bundle!” said Marston, patting its head, “you can stay then. Hooray! Crusoe, are you happy, I say? Does your heart bound in you like a cannon ball that wants to find its way out and can’t—eh?”
Crusoe put his snout against Marston’s cheek, and, in the excess of his joy, the lad threw his arms round the dog’s neck and hugged it vigorously, a piece of impulsive affection which that noble animal bore with characteristic meekness, and which Grumps regarded with idiotic satisfaction.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
Rejoicings—The feast at the block-house—Grumps and Crusoe come out strong—The closing scene.
The day of Dick’s arrival with his companions was a great day in the annals of the Mustang Valley, and Major Hope resolved to celebrate it by an impromptu festival at the old block-house; for many hearts in the valley had been made glad that day, and he knew full well that, under such circumstances, some safety-valve must be devised for the escape of overflowing excitement.
A messenger was sent round to invite the population to assemble without delay in front of the block-house. With backwoods-like celerity the summons was obeyed; men, women, and children hurried towards the central point wondering, yet more than half suspecting, what was the major’s object in calling them together.
They were not long in doubt. The first sight that presented itself as they came trooping up the slope in front of the log hut, was an ox roasting whole before a gigantic bonfire. Tables were being extemporised on the broad level plot in front of the gate. Other fires there were, of smaller dimensions, on which sundry steaming pots were placed, and various joints of wild horse, bear, and venison roasted, and sent forth a savoury odour as well as a pleasant hissing noise. The inhabitants of the block-house were self-taught brewers, and the result of their recent labours now stood displayed in a row of goodly casks of beer—the only beverage with which the dwellers in these far-off regions were wont to regale themselves.
The whole scene—as the cooks moved actively about upon the lawn, and children romped round the fires, and settlers came flocking through the forests—might have recalled the revelry of merry England in the olden time, though the costumes of the far west were, perhaps, somewhat different from those of old England.
No one of all the band assembled there on that day of rejoicing required to ask what it was all about. Had any one been in doubt for a moment, a glance at the centre of the crowd assembled round the gate of the western fortress would have quickly enlightened him; for there stood Dick Varley, and his mild-looking mother, and his loving dog, Crusoe. There, too, stood Joe Blunt, like a bronzed warrior returned from the fight, turning from one to another as question poured in upon question almost too rapidly to permit of a reply. There, too, stood Henri, making enthusiastic speeches to whoever chose to listen to him,—now glaring at the crowd, with clenched fists and growling voice, as he told of how Joe and he had been tied hand and foot, and lashed to poles and buried in leaves, and threatened with a slow death by torture,—at other times bursting into a hilarious laugh as he held forth on the predicament of Mahtawa when that wily chief was treed by Crusoe in the prairie.
Young Marston was there too, hanging about Dick, whom he loved as a brother and regarded as a perfect hero. Grumps, too, was there, and Fan. Do you think, reader, that Grumps looked at any one but Crusoe? If you do you are mistaken. Grumps on that day became a regular, an incorrigible, utter, and perfect nuisance to everybody—not excepting himself, poor beast! Grumps was a dog of one idea, and that idea was Crusoe. Out of that great idea there grew one little secondary idea, and that idea was, that the only joy on earth worth mentioning was to sit on his haunches, exactly six inches from Crusoe’s nose, and gaze steadfastly into his face. Wherever Crusoe went Grumps went. If Crusoe stopped Grumps was down before him in an instant. If Crusoe bounded away, which, in the exuberance of his spirits, he often did, Grumps was after him like a bundle of mad hair. He was in everybody’s way—in Crusoe’s way, and being, so to speak, “beside himself,” was also in his own way. If people trod upon him accidentally, which they often did, Grumps uttered a solitary heart-rending yell, proportioned in intensity to the excruciating nature of the torture he endured, then instantly resumed his position and his fascinated stare. Crusoe generally held his head up, and gazed over his little friend at what was going on around him, but if for a moment he permitted his eye to rest on the countenance of Grumps, that creature’s
