Then the advertisement came out in the Daily Enterprise. “For sale, a dog. Apply Roddy Crawford, Harbour Head.” Nothing more. Jem could not have told why the advertisement stuck in his mind or why he felt there was a sadness in its very brevity. He found out from Craig Russell who Roddy Crawford was.
“Roddy’s father died a month ago and he has to go to live with his aunt in town. His mother died years ago. And Jake Millison has bought the farm. But the house is going to be torn down. Maybe his aunt won’t let him keep his dog. It’s no great shakes of a dog but Roddy has always had an awful notion of it.”
“I wonder how much he wants for it. I’ve only got a dollar,” said Jem.
“I guess what he wants most is a good home for it,” said Craig. “But your dad would give you the money for it, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes. But I want to buy a dog with my own money,” said Jem. “It would feel more like my dog then.”
Craig shrugged. Those Ingleside kids were funny. What did it matter who put up the cash for an old dog?
That evening Dad drove Jem down to the old, thin, rundown Crawford farm, where they found Roddy Crawford and his dog. Roddy was a boy of about Jem’s age . . . a pale lad, with straight, reddish-brown hair and a crop of freckles; his dog had silky brown ears, a brown nose and tail and the most beautiful soft brown eyes ever seen in a dog’s head. The moment Jem saw that darling dog, with the white stripe down his forehead that parted in two between his eyes and framed his nose, he knew he must have him.
“You want to sell your dog?” he asked eagerly.
“I don’t want to sell him,” said Roddy dully. “But Jake says I’ll have to or he’ll drown him. He says Aunt Vinnie won’t have a dog about.”
“What do you want for him?” asked Jem, scared that some prohibitive price would be named.
Roddy gave a great gulp. He held out his dog.
“Here, take him,” he said hoarsely. “I ain’t going to sell him . . . I ain’t. Money would never pay for Bruno. If you’ll give him a good home . . . and be kind to him . . .”
“Oh, I’ll be kind to him,” said Jem eagerly. “But you must take my dollar. I wouldn’t feel he was my dog if you didn’t. I won’t take him if you don’t.”
He forced the dollar into Roddy’s reluctant hand . . . he took Bruno and held him close to his breast. The little dog looked back at his master. Jem could not see his eyes but he could see Roddy’s.
“If you want him so much . . .”
“I want him but I can’t have him,” snapped Roddy. “There’s been five people here after him and I wouldn’t let one of them have him . . . Jake was awful mad but I don’t care. They weren’t right. But you . . . I want you to have him since I can’t . . . and take him out of my sight quick!”
Jem obeyed. The little dog was trembling in his arms but he made no protest. Jem held him lovingly all the way back to Ingleside.
“Dad, how did Adam know that a dog was a dog?”
“Because a dog couldn’t be anything but a dog,” grinned Dad. “Could he now?”
Jem was too excited to sleep for ever so long that night. He had never seen a dog he liked so much as Bruno. No wonder Roddy hated parting with him. But Bruno would soon forget Roddy and love him. They would be pals. He must remember to ask Mother to make sure the butcher sent up the bones.
“I love everybody and everything in the world,” said Jem. “Dear God, bless every cat and dog in the world but specially Bruno.”
Jem fell asleep at last. Perhaps a little dog lying at the foot of the bed with his chin upon his outstretched paws slept, too: and perhaps he did not.
Chapter 24
Cock Robin had ceased to subsist solely on worms and ate rice, corn, lettuce and nasturtium seeds. He had grown to be a huge size . . . the “big robin” at Ingleside was becoming locally famous . . . and his breast had turned to a beautiful red. He would perch on Susan’s shoulder and watch her knit. He would fly to meet Anne when she returned after an absence and hop before her into the house: he came to Walter’s windowsill every morning for crumbs. He took his daily bath in a basin in the back yard, in the corner of the sweet-briar hedge, and would raise the most unholy fuss if he found no water in it. The doctor complained that his pens and matches were always strewn all over the library, but found nobody to sympathize with him, and even he surrendered when Cock Robin lit fearlessly on his hand one day to pick up a flower seed. Everybody was bewitched by Cock Robin . . . except perhaps Jem, who had set his heart on Bruno and was slowly but all too surely learning a bitter lesson . . . that you can buy a dog’s body but you cannot buy his love.
At first Jem never suspected this. Of course Bruno would be a bit homesick and lonesome for a time, but that would soon wear off. Jem found it did not. Bruno was the most obedient little dog in the world; he did exactly what he was told and even Susan admitted that a better-behaved animal couldn’t be found. But there was no life in him. When Jem took him out Bruno’s eyes would gleam alertly at first, his tail would wag and he would start off cockily. But after a little while the glow would leave his eyes and he would trot meekly beside Jem with drooping crest. Kindness was showered upon him by all . . . the juciest and meatiest of bones were at his disposal . . . not the slightest objection was made to his sleeping at the foot of Jem’s bed every night. But Bruno remained remote . . . inaccessible . . . a stranger. Sometimes in the night Jem woke and reached down to pat the sturdy little body; but there was never any answering lick of tongue or thump of tail. Bruno permitted caresses but he would not respond to them.
Jem set his teeth. There was a good bit of determination in James Matthew Blythe and he was not going to be beaten by a dog . . . His dog whom he had bought fairly and squarely with money hardly saved from his allowance. Bruno would just have to get over being homesick for Roddy . . . have to give up looking at you with the pathetic eyes of a lost creature . . . have to learn to love him.
Jem had to stand up for Bruno, for the other boys in school, suspecting how he loved the dog, were always trying to “pick on” him.
“Your dog has fleas . . . Great Big fleas,” taunted Perry Reese. Jem had to trounce him before Perry would take it back and say Bruno hadn’t a single flea . . . not one.
“My pup takes fits once a week,” boasted Rob Russell. “I’ll bet your old pup never had a fit in his life. If I had a dog like that I’d run him through the meat-grinder.”
“We had a dog like that once,” said Mike Drew, “but we drowned him.”
“My dog’s an awful dog,” said Sam Warren proudly. “He kills the chickens and chews up all the clothes on wash-day. Bet your old dog hasn’t spunk enough for that.”
Jem sorrowfully admitted to himself, if not to Sam, that Bruno hadn’t. He almost wished he had. And it stung when Watty Flagg shouted, “Your dog’s a good dog . . . he never barks on Sunday,” because Bruno didn’t bark any day.
But with it all he was such a dear, adorable little dog.
“Bruno, why won’t you love me?” almost sobbed Jem. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you . . . we could have such fun together.” But he would not admit defeat to anyone.
Jem hurried home one evening from a mussel-bake at the Harbour Mouth because he knew a storm was coming. The sea moaned so. Things had a sinister, lonely look. There was a long rip and tear of thunder as Jem dashed into Ingleside.
“Where’s Bruno?” he shouted.
It was the first time he had gone anywhere without Bruno. He had thought the long walk to the Harbour Mouth would be too much for a little dog. Jem would not admit to himself that such a long walk with a dog whose heart was not in it would be a little too much for him as well.
It developed that nobody knew where Bruno was. He had not been seen since Jem left after supper. Jem hunted everywhere but he was not to be found. The rain was coming down in floods, the world was drowned in lightning. Was Bruno out in that black night . . . lost? Bruno was afraid of thunderstorms. The only times he had ever seemed to come
near Jem in spirit was when he crept close to him while the sky was riven asunder.
Jem worried so that when the storm was spent Gilbert said:
“I ought to go up to the Head anyway to see how Roy Westcott is getting on. You can come, too, Jem, and we’ll drive round by the old Crawford place on our way home. I’ve an idea Bruno has gone back there.”
“Six miles? He’d never!” said Jem.
But he had. When they got to the old, deserted, lightless Crawford house a shivering bedraggled little creature was huddled forlornly on the wet doorstep, looking at them with tired, unsatisfied eyes. He made no objection when Jem gathered him up in his arms and carried him out to the buggy through the knee-high, tangled grass.
Jem was happy. How the moon was rushing through the sky as the clouds tore past her! How delicious were the smells of the rain-wet woods as they drove along! What a world it was!
“I guess Bruno will be contented at Ingleside after this, Dad.”
“Perhaps,” was all Dad said. He hated to throw cold water but he suspected that a little dog’s heart, losing its last home, was finally broken.
Bruno had never eaten very much but after that night he ate less and less. Came a day when he would not eat at all. The vet was sent for but could find nothing wrong.
“I knew one dog in my experience who died of grief and I think this is another,” he told the doctor aside.
He left a “tonic” which Bruno took obediently and then lay down again, his head on his paws, staring into vacancy. Jem stood looking at him for a long while, his hands in his pockets; then he went into the library to have a talk with Dad.
Gilbert went to town the next day, made some inquiries, and brought Roddy Crawford out to Ingleside. When Roddy came up the verandah steps Bruno, hearing his footfall from the living-room, lifted his head and cocked his ears. The next moment his emaciated little body hurled itself across the rug towards the pale, brown-eyed lad.
“Mrs. Dr. dear,” Susan said in an awed tone that night, “the dog was crying . . . he was. The tears actually rolled down his nose. I do not blame you if you do not believe it. Never would I have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes.”
Roddy held Bruno against his heart and looked half defiantly, half pleadingly at Jem.
“You bought him, I know . . . but he belongs to me. Jake told me a lie. Aunt Vinnie says she wouldn’t mind a dog a bit, but I thought I mustn’t ask for him back. Here’s your dollar . . . I never spent a cent of it . . . I couldn’t.”
For just a moment Jem hesitated. Then he saw Bruno’s eyes. “What a little pig I am!” he thought in disgust with himself. He took the dollar.
Roddy suddenly smiled. The smile changed his sulky face completely but all he could say was a gruff, “Thanks.”
Roddy slept with Jem that night, a replete Bruno stretched between them. But before he went to bed Roddy knelt to say his prayers and Bruno squatted on his haunches beside him, laying his forepaws on the bed. If ever a dog prayed Bruno prayed then . . . a prayer of thanksgiving and renewed joy in life.
When Roddy brought him food Bruno ate it eagerly, keeping an eye on Roddy all the time. He pranced friskily after Jem and Roddy when they went down to the Glen. “Such a perked-up dog you never saw,” declared Susan.
But the next evening, after Roddy and Bruno had gone back, Jem sat on the side-door steps in the owl light for a long time. He refused to go digging for pirate hoards in Rainbow Valley with Walter . . . Jem felt no longer splendidly bold and buccaneering. He wouldn’t even look at the Shrimp who was humped in the mint, lashing his tail like a fierce mountain lion crouching to spring. What business had cats to go on being happy at Ingleside when dogs broke their hearts!
He was even grumpy with Rilla when she brought him her blue velvet elephant. Velvet elephants when Bruno had gone! Nan got as short shrift when she came and suggested they should say what they thought of God in a whisper.
“You don’t s’pose I’m blaming God for THIS?” said Jem sternly. “You haven’t any sense of proportion, Nan Blythe.”
Nan went away quite crushed through she hadn’t the least glimmering what Jem meant, and Jem scowled at the embers of the smouldering sunset. Dogs were barking all over the Glen. The Jenkins down the road were out calling theirs . . . all of them took turns at it. Everyone, even the Jenkins tribe, could have a dog . . . everyone but him. Life stretched before him like a desert where there would be no dogs.
Anne came and sat down on a lower step, carefully not looking at him. Jem felt her sympathy.
“Motherest,” he said in a choked voice, “Why wouldn’t Bruno love me when I loved him so much? Am I . . . do you think I am the kind of boy dogs don’t like?”
“No, darling. Remember how Gyp loved you. It was just that Bruno had only so much love to give . . . and he had given it all. There are dogs like that . . . one-man dogs.”
“Anyhow, Bruno and Roddy are happy,” said Jem with grim satisfaction, as he bent over and kissed the top of Mother’s smooth ripply head. “But I’ll never have another dog.”
Anne thought this would pass; he had felt the same when Gyppy died. But it did not. The iron had bitten deeply into Jem’s soul. Dogs were to come and go at Ingleside . . . dogs that belonged just to the family and were nice dogs, whom Jem petted and played with as the others did. But there was to be no “Jem’s dog” until a certain “Little Dog Monday” was to take possession of his heart and love him with a devotion passing Bruno’s love . . . a devotion that was to make history in the Glen. But that was still many a long year away; and a very lonely boy climbed into Jem’s bed that night.
“I wish I was a girl,” he thought fiercely, “so’s I could cry and cry!”
Chapter 25
Nan and Di were going to school. They started the last week in August.
“Will we know everything by night, Mummy?” asked Di solemnly the first morning.
Now, in early September, Anne and Susan had got used to it, and even took pleasure in seeing the two mites trip off every morning, so tiny and carefree and neat, thinking going to school quite an adventure. They always took an apple in their basket for teacher and they wore frocks of pink and blue ruffled gingham. Since they did not look in the least alike they were never dressed alike. Diana, with her red hair, could not wear pink, but it suited Nan, who was much the prettier of the Ingleside twins. She had brown eyes, brown hair and a lovely complexion, of which she was quite aware even at seven. A certain starriness had gone to the fashioning of her. She held her head proudly, with her little saucy chin a wee bit in evidence, and so was already thought rather “stuck-up.”
“She’ll imitate all her mother’s tricks and poses,” said Mrs. Alec Davies. “She has all her airs and graces already, if you ask me.”
The twins were dissimilar in more than looks. Di, in spite of her physical resemblance to her mother, was very much her father’s child, so far as disposition and qualities went. She had the beginnings of his practical bent, his plain common sense, his twinkling sense of humour. Nan had inherited in full her mother’s gift of imagination and was already making life interesting for herself in her own way. For example, she had had no end of excitement this summer making bargains with God, the gist of the matter being, “If you’ll do such-and-such a thing I’ll do such-and-such a thing.”
All the Ingleside children had been started in life with the old classic, “Now I lay me” . . . then promoted to “Our Father” . . . then encouraged to make their own small petitions also in whatever language they chose. What gave Nan the idea that God might be induced to grant her petitions by promises of good behaviour or displays of fortitude would be hard to say. Perhaps a certain rather young and pretty Sunday School teacher was indirectly responsible for it by her frequent admonitions that if they were not good girls God would not do this or that for them. It was easy to turn this idea inside out and come to the conclusion that if you were this or that, did this or that, you had a right to expect that God would do th
e things you wanted. Nan’s first “bargain” in the spring had been so successful that it outweighed some failures and she had gone on all summer. Nobody knew of it, not even Di. Nan hugged her secret and took to praying at sundry times and in divers places, instead of only at night. Di did not approve of this and said so.
“Don’t mix God up with everything,” she told Nan severely. “You make Him too common.”
Anne, overhearing this, rebuked her and said, “God is in everything, dear. He is the Friend who is always near us to give strength and courage. And Nan is quite right in praying to Him and where she wants to.” Though, if Anne had known the truth about her small daughter’s devotions, she would have been rather horrified.
Nan had said one night in May, “If you’ll make my tooth grow in before Amy Taylor’s party next week, dear God, I’ll take every dose of castor-oil Susan gives me without a bit of fuss.”
The very next day the tooth, whose absence had made such an unsightly and too prolonged gap in Nan’s pretty mouth, had appeared and by the day of the party was fully through. What more certain sign could you want than that? Nan kept her side of the compact faithfully and Susan was amazed and delighted whenever she administered castor-oil after that. Nan took it without a grimace or protest, though she sometimes wished she had set a time limit . . . say for three months.
God did not always respond. But when she asked Him to send her a special button for her button-string . . . collecting buttons had broken out everywhere among the Glen small girls like the measles . . . assuring Him that if He did she would never make a fuss when Susan set the chipped plate for her . . . the button came the very next day, Susan having found one on an old dress in the attic. A beautiful red button set with tiny diamonds, or what Nan believed to be diamonds. She was the envied of all because of that elegant button and when Di refused the chipped plate that night Nan said virtuously, “Give it to me, Susan. I’ll always take it after this.” Susan thought she was angelically unselfish and said so. Whereupon Nan both looked and felt smug. She got a fine day for the Sunday School picnic, when everyone predicted rain the night before, by promising to brush her teeth every morning without being told. Her lost ring was restored on the condition that she kept her fingernails scrupulously clean; and when Walter handed over his picture of a flying angel which Nan had long coveted she ate the fat with the lean uncomplainingly at dinner thereafter.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 146