I knew, without anything being said about it, that Julius would lose no
time the next day in finding out if Bruno had consented to eat his
supper. When he started down town a whole hour earlier than usual, I
knew, as well as if he had said so, that it was in order to have time to
hunt up Mr. Nimrod before office hours.
"It's no use," began Mr. Nimrod, as soon as Julius appeared; "wouldn't
touch a thing. Never saw such a dog. I believe he's trying to starve
himself."
"Don't you think," ventured Julius, "it would be well to bring him out
to our house for a little visit, to cheer him up?"
"Not much!" answered Mr. Nimrod, promptly. "I never could break him in
then. He has run away twice already, and both times I followed him and
found him hanging around the house you moved from. Lucky the trail was
cold. If he once finds out where you are, the jig's up."
When Julius came home at noon, we sat at the table listless and
dejected, now and then making fitful attempts to converse. The dainty
noon meal had suddenly lost flavor after we had exchanged a few
sentences about "Poor, hungry Bruno!"
Were we to eat, drink, and be merry, while our faithful friend starved
for love of us!
After Julius had returned to the office, there was such a tugging at my
heart-strings that I--well, yes, I did, I cried! How I regretted that I
had never cultivated an intimacy with Mrs. Nimrod, so that I might have
"run in" to call, and thus have an opportunity to comfort the poor
homesick fellow!
Julius saw the tear-traces when he returned towards evening, and
proposed a stroll down town; thinking, I suppose, that if we sat at home
we should be sure to talk of Bruno and be melancholy.
We walked through all the principal streets of the town, meeting and
greeting friends and acquaintances, stopping to glance at new goods in
several of the shops; bringing up at last in the town's largest
bookstore.
[Illustration: "I fell on my knees to hug him."--PAGE 25.]
We were just starting for home, when on the sidewalk there was a sudden
flurry and dash, and Bruno, stomach to earth, was crawling about us,
uttering yelps and whines that voiced a joy so great it could not be
told from mortal agony.
Regardless of the fact that we were on the most public thoroughfare of
the town, I fell on my knees to hug him, and could not keep back tears
of mingled joy and pain. His poor thin sides! His gasps of rapture! Oh,
Boonie, Boonie!
The first excitement over, we looked about us for Mr. Nimrod. He was
nowhere to be seen. Bruno had evidently escaped, and was running away to
look for us when he had chanced to strike our trail and so had found us.
We were glad he was alone. We both felt that if he had been torn from us
at that supreme moment he would have died; he was so faint with fasting
and grief, and then the overwhelming joy at finding those he had thought
to be forever lost to him! He squeezed himself in between us, and kept
step as we went homeward in the gathering twilight.
As soon as we reached home, we hurried him to the kitchen to enjoy the
sight of the poor fellow at his trencher. How we fed him! I ransacked
the pantry for the things he liked best, till his sides began to swell
visibly. He paused between mouthfuls to feast his loving eyes on first
one, then the other of us, and his tail never once stopped wagging.
Rebecca came purring in to rub against his legs, and even submitted with
shut eyes to a kiss from his big wet tongue. He must have felt that such
an hour repaid him for all his sufferings.
After he had eaten until he evidently could not take another morsel, we
drew him in front of us as we sat side by side, for a three-cornered
talk. He sat on end, waving his tail to and fro on the floor, wrinkling
his forehead and cocking up his ears, while we explained the situation
to him.
We told him how kind Mr. Nimrod meant to be to him, how he would train
him to hunt and take him on long daily runs. Then we reminded him how
impossible it was for Julius to go on such excursions with him, and of
how many scrapes he had got into by going alone,--he seeming to take it
all in and to turn it over in his mind.
Then we told him that since he had found our new home he could come
often to see us, and he would always find us glad to see him,--yes, more
than glad!
Then Julius got his hat and said,--
"Come on, Boonie; now we're going home."
He seemed quite willing to go. I told him good-by with a heart so light
I could scarcely believe it the same one I had felt to be such a burden
when I had set off for our walk two hours earlier. I busied myself then
preparing a little supper against Julius's return; for we had not been
able to eat since breakfast, and I knew by my own feelings that Julius
would welcome the sight of a well-spread smoking table; and he said on
his return that I "guessed just right."
He and Bruno had found the Nimrods very much disturbed over their dog's
disappearance. Mr. Nimrod had just returned from an unsuccessful search,
and they were wondering what to do next. They welcomed the wanderer, but
were concerned, too, that he had discovered our dwelling-place.
"I'm afraid we'll have to keep him tied up now," said Mr. Nimrod.
Julius thought not, and said,--
"Now that he knows where we are, and can come for a glimpse of us now
and then, I believe he'll be better contented than he was when he
thought we'd left the country."
Better contented he certainly was, but he positively refused to stay at
home. It soon came to be a regular thing for Julius to escort him back
every evening.
The Nimrods lived nearly a mile from us, so Julius did not lack for
exercise.
Mr. Nimrod finally came to remonstrate with us.
"You ought to shut him out," he cried, "then he'd have to come back
home."
For answer, Julius showed him certain long, deep scratches on our
handsome new doors, adding,--
"Don't you see? It's as much as our doors are worth to shut him out, and
he leaps that four-foot fence as if it were but four inches."
There was obviously no possible reply to such logic as this; so he
continued to come,--dragging sometimes a rope or strap, or some other
variety of tether, triumphantly proving that love laughs at locksmiths!
The Nimrods at last lost heart. Bruno never would eat there, and he
never stayed when he could manage to escape. One night it was raining
hard when the time came for him to be taken "home," so they did not go;
and that seemed to settle it.
He was our dog.
We had given him away without his consent, and he refused to be given;
so the trade was off. He stayed closely at home now, seeming to think we
might disappear again if he did not watch us.