"Times ain"t hard," denied Link tersely. "And Chum ain"t for sale.
That"s all there is to it."
If one of her father"s sleek cart horses had suddenly walked out of its stall with a shouted demand that it be allowed to do the driving, henceforth, and that its owners do the hauling, Dorcas Chatham could not have been much more surprised than at this unlooked-for speech from her humble suitor.
Up to now, Link Ferris had treated the girl as though he were unworthy to breathe the same air as herself. He had been pathetically eager to concede any and every mooted point to her, with a servile abas.e.m.e.nt which had roused her contempt, even while it had gratified her sense of power.
She had approached with tact the subject of Chum"s disposal. But she had done so with a view to the saving of Link"s feelings, not with the faintest idea that her love-bemused slave could venture to oppose her.
She knew his fondness for the dog and she had not wished to bring matters to an issue, if tact would serve as well.
To punish her serf and to crush rebellion once and for all, as well as to be avenged for her wasted diplomacy, Dorcas cast aside her kindlier intent and drove straight to the point. Her calm temper was ruffled, and she spoke with a new heat:
"There is something you and I may as well settle, here and now, Link,"
she said. "It will save bickerings and misunderstandings, later on.
I"ve told you how I hate dogs. They are savage and treacherous and--"
"Chum ain"t!" declared Link stoutly.
"Why, that dog--"
"I hate dogs," she went on, "and I"m horribly afraid of them. I won"t live in the same house with one. I don"t want to hurt your feelings, Link, but you"ll have to get rid of that great brown brute before you marry me. That is positive. So please let"s say no more about it."
The man was staring at her with under jaw ajar. Her sharp air of finality grated on his every nerve. Her ultimatum concerning Chum left him dumfounded. But he forced himself to rally to the defense.
This glorious sweetheart of his did not understand dogs. He had hoped to teach her later to like and appreciate them. But apparently she must be taught at once that Chum could not be sold and that the collie must remain an honored member of the Ferris household. Marshaling his facts and his words, he said:
"I never told you about the time I was coming back home one night from the tavern here at Hampton, after I"d just cashed my pay check from the Pat"son market. I"ve never blabbed much about it, because I was drunk.
Yes, it was back in them days. Just after I"d got Chum. A couple of fellers had got me drunk. And they set on me in a lonesome patch of the road by the lake; and they had me down and was taking the money away from me, when Chum sailed into them and druv them off. He had follered me, without me knowing. In the scrimmage I got tumbled headfirst into the lake. I was too drunk to get out, and my head was stuck in the mud, "way under water. I"d "a" drowned if Chum hadn"t of pulled me out with his teeth in the shoulder of my coat. And that"s the dog you"re wanting me to sell?"
"You aren"t likely to need such help again, I hope," countered the girl loftily, "now that you have stopped drinking and made a man of yourself. So Chum won"t be needed for--"
"I stopped drinking," answered Link, "because I got to seeing how much more of a beast I was than the fine clean dog that was living with me.
He made me feel "shamed of myself. And he was such good comp"ny round the house that I didn"t get lonesome enough to sneak down to the tavern all the time. It wasn"t me that "made a man of myself." It was Chum made a man of me. Maybe that sounds foolish to you. But--"
"It does," said Dorcas serenely. "Very foolish indeed. You don"t seem to realize that a dog is only an animal. If you can get a nice home for the collie--such as John Iglehart will give him--"
"Iglehart!" raged Link, momentarily losing hold over himself. "If that mangy, wall-eyed slob comes slinking round my farm again, making friends with Chum, I"ll sick the dog onto him; and have him run Iglehart all the way to his own shack! He"s--! There! I didn"t mean to cut loose like that!" he broke off at Dorcas"s shudder of dismay. "Only it riles me something terrible to have him trying to get Chum away from me."
"There is no occasion to go losing your temper and shouting," reproved the girl. "Nothing is to be gained that way. Besides, that isn"t the point. The point is this, since you force me to say it: You must get rid of that dog. And you must do it before you marry me. I won"t set foot in your house until your dog is gone--and gone for good. I am sorry to speak so, but it had to be said."
She paused to give her slave a chance to wilt. But Link only sat, blank-faced, staring at her. His mind was in a muddle. All his narrow world was upside down. He couldn"t make his brain grasp in full the situation.
All he could visualize for the instant was a shadowy mental image of Chum"s expectant face; the tulip ears p.r.i.c.ked forward, expectant; the jaws "laughing"; the deepset brown eyes abrim with gay affection and deathless loyalty for the man who was now asked to get rid of him. It didn"t make sense. Half under his breath Link Ferris began to talk--or rather to ramble.
"There was one of the books over to the lib"ry," he heard himself meandering on, "with a queer story in it. I got to reading it through, one night last winter. It was about a feller named "Fed"rigo." A wop of some kind, I guess. He got so hard up he didn"t have anything left but a pet falcon. Whatever a falcon may be. Whatever it was, it must"a been good to eat. But he set a heap of store by it. Him and it was chums. Same as me and Chum are. Then along come a lady he was in love with. And she stopped to his house for dinner. There wasn"t anything in the house fit for her to eat. So he fed her the falcon. Killed the pet that was his chum, so"s he could feed the dame he was stuck on. I thought, when I read it, that that feller was more kinds of a swine than I"d have time to tell you. But he wasn"t any worse"n I"d be if I was to--"
"I"m sorry you care so little for me," intervened Dorcas, her voice very sweet and very cold, and her slender nose whitening a little at the corners of the nostrils. "Of course if you prefer a miserable dog to me, there"s nothing more to be said. I--"
"No!" almost yelled the miserable man. "You"ve got me all wrong, dearie. Honest, you have. Can"t you understand? Your little finger means a heap more to me than ev"rything else there is--except the rest of you--"
"And your dog," she supplemented.
"No!" he denied fiercely. "You got no right to say that! But Chum"s served me faithful. And I can"t kick him out like he was a--"
"Now you are getting angry again!" she accused, pale and furious. "I don"t care to be howled at. The case stands like this: You must choose whether to get rid of that dog or to lose me. Take your choice. If--"
"I read in a story book about a feller that had a thing like that put up to him," said poor Link, unable to believe she was in earnest. "His girl said: "You gotta choose between me and tobacco." And he said: "I"ll choose tobacco. Not that I value tobacco so all-fired much," he says, "but because a girl, who"d make a man take such a choice, ain"t worth giving up tobacco for." You see, dearie, it"s this way--"
"You"ll have that dog out of your house and out of your possession, inside of twenty-four hours," she decreed, the white anger of a grave-eyed woman making her cold voice vibrate, "or you will drop my acquaintance. That is final. And it"s definite. The engagement is over--until I hear that your dog is killed or given away or sold. Good night!"
She left the room in vindictive haste. So overwhelmingly angry was she that she closed the door softly behind her, instead of slamming it.
Through all his swirl of misery Link had sense enough to note this final symptom and wonder bitterly at it.
On his way out of the house he was hailed by a highpitched baby voice from somewhere above him. Olive had crawled out of bed, and in her white flannel pajamas she was leaning over the upper bal.u.s.trade.
"Link!" she called down to the wretched man at the front door. "When you and Dorcas gets married together, I"m comin" to live wiv you! Then I can play wiv Chummie all I want to!"
Link bolted out to the street in the midst of her announcement. And, so occupied was he in trying to swallow a lump in his own throat, he failed to hear the sound of stifled sobbing from behind a locked door somewhere in the upper reaches of the house.
As the night wore on, the sleepless girl sought to comfort herself in the thought that Link had not definitely refused her terms. A night"s reflection and an att.i.tude of unbending aloofness on her own part might well bring him to a surrender.
Perhaps it was something in Link Ferris"s dejected gait, as he turned into his own lane that night, perhaps it was the instinct which tells a collie when a loved human is unhappy--but Chum was at once aware of his master"s woe. The dog, at first sound of Link"s approaching steps, bounded from his vigil place on the porch and frisked joyously through the darkness to meet him. He sent forth a trumpeting bark of welcome as he ran.
Then--fifty feet from the oncoming man--the big collie halted and stood for an instant with ears c.o.c.ked and eyes troubled. After which he resumed his advance; but at a solemn trot and with downcast mien. As he reached Link, the collie whined softly under his breath, gazing wistfully up into Ferris"s face and then thrusting his cold nose lovingly into one of the man"s loose-hanging hands.
Link had winced visibly at sound of the jubilantly welcoming bark. Now, noting the sudden change in the collie"s demeanor, he stooped and caught the silken head between his hands. The gesture was rough, almost painful. Yet Chum knew it was a caress. And his drooping plume of a tail began to wag in response.
"Oh, CHUM!" exclaimed the man with something akin to a groan. "You know all about it, don"t you, old friend? You know I"m the miser"blest man in North Jersey. You know it without me having to say a word. And you"re doing your level best to comfort me. Just like you always do.
You never get cranky; and you never say I gotta choose betwixt this and that; and you never get sore at me. You"re just my chum. And you"re fool enough to think I"m all right. Yet she says I gotta get rid of you!"
The dog pressed closer to him, still whining softly and licking the roughly caressing hands.
"What"m I going to do, Chummie?" demanded Link brokenly. "What"m I going to do about it? I s"pose any other feller"d call me a fool--like she thinks I am and tell me to sell you. If you was some dogs, that"d be all right. But not with YOU, Chum. Not with you. You"d mope and grieve for me, and you"d be wond"ring why I"d deserted you after all these years. And you"d get to pining and maybe go sick. And the feller that bought you wouldn"t understand. And most likely he"d whale you for not being more chipper-like. And you haven"t ever been hit. I"d--I"d a blame" sight sooner shoot you, than to let anyone else have you, to abuse you and let you be unhappy for me, Chum. A blame" sight rather."
Side by side they moved on into the darkened house. There, with the dog curled at his feet, Link Ferris lay broad awake until sunrise.
Early the next afternoon Dorcas decided she stood in need of brisk, outdoor exercise. Olive came running down the path after her, eagerly demanding to be taken along. Dorcas with much sternness bade her go back. She wanted to be alone, unless--But she refused to admit to herself that there was any "unless."
Olive, grievously disappointed, stood on the steps, watching her big sister set off up the road. She saw Dorcas take the righthand turn at the fork. The baby"s face cleared. Now she knew in which direction Dorcas was going. That fork led to the Glen. And the Glen was a favorite Sunday afternoon ramble for Link and Chum. Olive knew that, because she and Dorcas more than once had walked thither to meet them.
Olive was pleasantly forgetful of her parents" positive command that she refrain from walking alone on the motor-infested Sunday roads. She set off at a fast jog trot over the nearby hill, on whose other side ran the Glen road.
Link Ferris, with Chum at his heels, was tramping moodily toward the Glen. As he turned into the road he paused in his sullen walk. There, strolling unconcernedly, some yards in front of him, was a tall girl in white. Her back was toward him. Yet he would have recognized her at a hundred times the distance. Chum knew her, too, for he wagged his tail and started at a faster trot to overtake her.
"Back!" called Link.
Purposely he spoke as low as possible. But the dog heard and obeyed.
The girl, too, started a little, and made as if to turn. Just then ensued a wild crackling in the thick roadside bushes which lined the hillside from highway to crest. And a white-clad little bunch of humanity came galloping jubilantly out into the road, midway between Dorcas and Link.
At the road edge Olive"s stubby toe caught in a noose of blackberry vine. As the youngster was running full tilt, her own impetus sent her rolling over and over into the center of the dusty turnpike.