a coward, expelled from college, not for some youthful prank, but
because he was--yellow. And he knew he was disgraced. He saw it in the
face of the big man, Devant, who looked at him in the yard where he
had spent his happy puppyhood, then turned away. He knew it because of
what he saw in the face of Jim Thompson.
In the house was a long and plausible letter, explaining how it
happened:
I did everything I could. I never was as surprised in my life. The
dog's hopeless.
As for the other inhabitants of the big house, their minds were full
of the events of the season: de luxe hunting parties, more society
events than hunts; lunches in the woods served by uniformed butlers;
launch rides up the river; arriving and departing guests. Only one of
them, except Devant himself, gave the gun-shy dog a thought. Marian
Devant came out to visit him in his disgrace. She stooped before him
as she had done on that other and happier day, and again caught his
head between her hands. But his eyes did not meet hers, for in his dim
way he knew he was not now what he had been.
"I don't believe he's yellow--inside!" she declared, looking up at
Thompson, her cheeks flushed.
Thompson shook his head.
"I tried him with a gun, Miss Marian," he declared. "I just showed it
to him, and he ran into his kennel."
"I'll go get mine. He won't run from me."
But at sight of her small gun it all came back. Again he seemed to
hear the explosion that had shattered his nerves. The Terror had
entered his very soul. In spite of her pleading, he made for his
kennel. Even the girl turned away from him now. And as he lay panting
in the shelter of his kennel he knew that never again would men look
at him as they had looked, or life be sweet to him as it had been.
Then there came to Oak Knob an old man to see Thompson. He had been on
many seas, he had fought in a dozen wars, and had settled at last on a
little truck farm near by. Somewhere, in his life full of adventure
and odd jobs, he had trained dogs and horses. His face was lined and
seamed, his hair was white, his eyes piercing, blue and kind. Wade
Swygert was his name.
"There's been dirty work," he said, when he looked at the dog. "I'll
take him if you're goin' to give him away."
Give him away--who had been Championship hope!
Marian Devant came out and looked into the face of the old man,
shrewdly, understandingly.
"Can you cure him?" she demanded.
"I doubt it, miss," was the sturdy answer.
"You will try?"
The blue eyes lighted up. "Yes, I'll try."
"Then you can have him. And--if there's any expense----"
"Come, Comet," said the old man.
That night, in a neat, humble house, Comet ate supper placed before
him by a stout old woman, who had followed this old man to the ends of
the world. That night he slept before their fire. Next day he followed
the old man all about the place. Several days and nights passed this
way, then, while he lay before the fire, old Swygert came in with a
gun. At sight of it Comet sprang to his feet. He tried to rush out of
the room, but the doors were closed. Finally, he crawled under the
bed.
Every night after that Swygert got out the gun, until he crawled under
the bed no more. Finally, one day the man fastened the dog to a tree
in the yard, then came out with a gun. A sparrow lit in a tree, and he
shot it. Comet tried to break the rope. All his panic had returned;
but the report had not shattered him as that other did, for the gun
was loaded light.
After that, frequently the old man shot a bird in his sight, loading
the gun more and more heavily, and each time after the shot coming to
him, showing him the bird, and speaking to him kindly, gently. But for
all that the Terror remained in his heart.
One afternoon the girl, accompanied by a young man, rode over on
horseback, dismounted, and came in. She always stopped when she was
riding by.
"It's mighty slow business," old Swygert reported; "I don't know
whether I'm makin' any headway or not."
That night old Mrs. Swygert told him she thought he had better give it
up. It wasn't worth the time and worry. The dog was just yellow.
Swygert pondered a long time. "When I was a kid," he said at last,
"there came up a terrible thunderstorm. It was in South America. I was
water boy for a railroad gang, and the storm drove us in a shack.
While lightnin' was hittin' all around, one of the grown men told me
it always picked out boys with red hair. My hair was red, an' I was
little and ignorant. For years I was skeered of lightnin'. I never
have quite got over it. But no man ever said I was yellow."
Again he was silent for a while. Then he went on: "I don't seem to be
makin' much headway, I admit that. I'm lettin' him run away as far as
he can. Now I've got to shoot an' make him come toward the gun
himself, right while I'm shootin' it."
Next day Comet was tied up and fasted, and next, until he was gaunt
and famished. Then, on the afternoon of the third day, Mrs. Swygert,
at her husband's direction, placed before him, within reach of his
chain, some raw beefsteak. As he started for it, Swygert shot. He drew
back, panting, then, hunger getting the better of him, started again.
Again Swygert shot.
After that for days Comet "Ate to music," as Swygert expressed it.
"Now," he said, "he's got to come toward the gun when he's not even
tied up."
Not far from Swygert's house is a small pond, and on one side the
banks are perpendicular. Toward this pond the old man, with the gun
under his arm and the dog following, went. Here in the silence of the
woods, with just the two of them together, was to be a final test.
On the shelving bank Swygert picked up a stick and tossed it into the
middle of the pond with the command to "fetch." Comet sprang eagerly
in and retrieved it. Twice this was repeated. But the third time, as
the dog approached the shore, Swygert picked up the gun and fired.
Quickly the dog dropped the stick, then turned and swam toward the
other shore. Here, so precipitous were the banks, he could not get a
foothold. He turned once more and struck out diagonally across the
pond. Swygert met him and fired.
Over and over it happened. Each time, after he fired, the old man
stooped down with extended hand and begged him to come on. His face
was grim now, and, though the day was cool, sweat stood out on his
brow. "You'll face the music," he said, "or you'll drown. Better be
dead than called yellow."
The dog was growing weary now. His head was barely above water. His
efforts to clamber up the opposite bank were feeble, frantic. Yet,
each time as he drew near the shore Swygert fired.
He was not using light loads now. He was using the regular load of the
bird hunter. Time had passed for temporizing. The sweat was standing
out all over his face. The sternness in his eyes was terrible to see,
for it was the sternness of a man who is suffering.
A dog can swim a long time. The sun dropped over the trees. Still the
firing went on, regularly, like a minute gun.
Just before the sun set an exhausted dog staggered toward an old man
almost as exhausted as he. The dog had been too near death and was too
faint to care now for the gun that was being fired over his head. On
and on he came, toward the man, disregarding the noise of the gun. It
would not hurt him, that he knew at last. He might have many enemies,
but the gun, in the hands of this man, was not one of them. Suddenly
old Swygert sank down and took the dripping dog in his arms.
"Old boy," he said, "old boy."
That night Comet lay before the fire, and looked straight into the
eyes of a man, as he used to look in the old days.
Next season Larsen, glancing over his sporting papers, was astonished
to see that among promising Derbys the fall trials had called forth
was a pointer named Comet. He would have thought it some other dog
than the one who had disappointed him so by turning out gun-shy, in
spite of all his efforts to prevent, had it not been for the fact that
the entry was booked as: "Comet; owner, Miss Marian Devant; handler,
Wade Swygert."
Next year he was still more astonished to see in the same paper that
Comet, handled by Swygert, had won first place in a Western trial, and
was prominently spoken of as a National Championship possibility. As
for him, he had no young entries to offer, but was staking everything
on the National Championship, where he was to enter Larsen's Peerless
II.
It was strange how things fell out--but things have a habit of turning
out strangely in field trials, as well as elsewhere. When Larsen
reached the town where the National Championship was to be run, there
on the street, straining at the leash held by old Swygert, whom he
used to know, was a seasoned young pointer, with a white body, a brown
head, and a brown saddle spot--the same pointer he had seen two years
before turn tail and run in that terror a dog never quite overcomes.
But the strangest thing of all happened that night at the drawing,
when, according to the slips taken at random from a hat, it was
declared that on the following Wednesday Comet, the pointer, was to
run with Peerless II.
It gave Larsen a strange thrill, this announcement. He left the
meeting and went straightway to his room. There for a long time he sat
pondering. Next day at a hardware store he bought some black powder
and some shells.
The race was to be run next day, and that night in his room he loaded
half-a-dozen shells. It would have been a study in faces to watch him
as he bent over his work, on his lips a smile. Into the shells he
packed all the powder they could stand, all the powder his trusted gun
could stand, without bursting. It was a load big enough to kill a
bear, to bring down a buffalo. It was a load that would echo and
reecho in the hills.
On the morning that Larsen walked out in front of the judges and the
field, Peerless II at the leash, old Swygert, with Comet at his side,
he glanced around at the "field," or spectators. Among them was a
handsome young woman, and with her, to his amazement, George Devant.
He could not help chuckling inside himself as he thought of what would
happen that day, for once a gun-shy dog, always a gun-shy dog--that
was _his_ experience.
As for Comet, he faced the straw fields eagerly, confidently, already
a veteran. Long ago fear of the gun had left him, for the most part.
There were times when at a report above his head he still trembled,
and the shocked nerves in his ear gave a twinge like that of a bad
tooth. But always at the quiet voice of the old man, his god, he grew
steady, and remained staunch.
Some disturbing memory did start within him to-day as he glanced at
the man with the other dog. It seemed to him as if in another and an
evil world he had seen that face. His heart began to pound fast, and
his tail drooped for a moment. Within an hour it was all to come back
to him--the terror, the panic, the agony of that far-away time.
He looked up at old Swygert, who was his god, and to whom his soul
belonged, though he was booked as the property of Miss Marian Devant.
Of the arrangements he could know nothing, being a dog. Old Swygert,
having cured him, could not meet the expenses of taking him to field
trials. The girl had come to the old man's assistance, an assistance
which he had accepted only under condition that the dog should be
entered as hers, with himself as handler.
"Are you ready, gentlemen?" the judges asked.
"Ready," said Larsen and old Swygert.
And Comet and Peerless II were speeding away across that field, and
behind them came handlers, and judges and spectators, all mounted.
It was a race people still talk about, and for a reason, for strange
things happened that day. At first there was nothing unusual. It was
like any other field trial. Comet found birds, and Swygert, his
handler, flushed them and shot. Comet remained steady. Then Peerless
II found a covey, and Larsen flushed them and shot. And so for an hour
it went.
Then Comet disappeared, and old Swygert, riding hard and looking for
him, went out of sight over a hill. But Comet had not gone far. As a
matter of fact, he was near by, hidden in some high straw, pointing a
covey of birds. One of the spectators spied him, and called the
judges' attention to him. Everybody, including Larsen, rode up to him,
but still Swygert had not come back.
They called him, but the old man was a little deaf. Some of the men
rode to the top of the hill but could not see him. In his zeal he had
got a considerable distance away. Meanwhile, here was his dog,
pointed.
If any one had looked at Larsen's face he would have seen the
exultation there, for now his chance had come--the very chance he had
been looking for. It's a courtesy one handler sometimes extends
another who is absent from the spot, to go in and flush his dog's
birds.
"I'll handle this covey for Mr. Swygert," said Larsen to the judges,
his voice smooth and plausible, on his face a smile.
And thus it happened that Comet faced his supreme ordeal without the
steadying voice of his god.
He only knew that ahead of him were birds, and that behind him a man
was coming through the straw, and that behind the man a crowd of
people on horseback were watching him. He had become used to that, but
when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the face of the advancing
man, his soul began to tremble.
"Call your dog in, Mr. Larsen," directed the judge. "Make him
back stand."
Only a moment was lost, while Peerless, a young dog himself, came
running in and at a command from Larsen stopped in his tracks behind
Comet, and pointed. Larsen's dogs always obeyed, quickly,
mechanically. Without ever gaining their confidence, Larsen had a way
of turning them into finished field-trial dogs. They obeyed, because
they were afraid not to.
According to the rules the man handling the dog has to shoot as the
birds rise. This is done in order to test the dog's steadiness when a
gun is fired over him. No specification is made as to the size of the
shotgun to be used. Usually, however, small-gauge guns are carried.
The one in Larsen's hands was a twelve gauge, and consequently large.
All morning he had been using it over his own dog. Nobody had paid any
attention to it, because he shot smokeless powder. But now, as he
advanced, he reached into the left-hand pocket of his hunting coat,
where six shells rattled as he hurried along. Two of these he took out
and rammed into the barrels.
As for Comet, still standing rigid, statuesque, he heard, as has been
said, the brush of steps through the straw, glimpsed a face, and
trembled. But only for a moment. Then he steadied, head high, tail
straight out. The birds rose with a whir--and then was repeated that
horror of his youth. Above his ears, ears that would always be tender,
broke a great roar. Either because of his excitement, or because of a
sudden wave of revenge, or of a determination to make sure of the
dog's flight, Larsen had pulled both triggers at once. The combined
report shattered through the dog's eardrums, it shivered through his
nerves, he sank in agony into the straw.
Then the old impulse to flee was upon him, and he sprang to his feet,
and looked about wildly. But from somewhere in that crowd behind him
came to his tingling ears a voice--clear, ringing, deep, the voice of
a woman--a woman he knew--pleading as his master used to plead,
calling on him not to run, but to stand.
"Steady," it said. "Steady, Comet!"
It called him to himself, it soothed him, it calmed him, and he turned
and looked toward the crowd. With the roar of the shotgun the usual
order observed in field trials was broken up. All rules seemed to have
been suspended. Ordinarily, no one belonging to "the field" is allowed
to speak to a dog. Yet the girl had spoken to him. Ordinarily, the
spectators must remain in the rear of the judges. Yet one of the
judges had himself wheeled his horse about and was galloping off, and
Marian Devant had pushed through the crowd and was riding toward the
bewildered dog.
He stood staunch where he was, though in his ears was still a
throbbing pain, and though all about him was this growing confusion he
could not understand. The man he feared was running across the field
yonder, in the direction taken by the judge. He was blowing his
whistle as he ran. Through the crowd, his face terrible to see, his
own master was coming. Both the old man and the girl had dismounted
now, and were running toward him.
"I heard," old Swygert was saying to her. "I heard it! I might 'a'
known! I might 'a' known!"
"He stood," she panted, "like a rock--oh, the brave, beautiful thing!"
"Where is that----" Swygert suddenly checked himself and looked
around.
A man in the crowd (they had all gathered about now), laughed.
"He's gone after his dog," he said. "Peerless has run away!"
FIFTY-TWO WEEKS FOR FLORETTE
By ELIZABETH ALEXANDER HEERMANN [ELIZABETH ALEXANDER in _Saturday
Evening Post_, August 13,1921.]
It had been over two months since Freddy Le Fay's bill had been paid,
and Miss Nellie Blair was worried. She had written to Freddy's mother
repeatedly, but there had been no answer.
"It's all your own fault, sister. You should never have taken Freddy,"
Miss Eva said sharply. "I told you so at the time, when I saw his
mother's hair. And of course Le Fay is not her real name. It looks to
me like a clear case of desertion."
"I can't believe it. She seemed so devoted," faltered Miss Nellie.
"Oh, a girl like that!" Miss Eva sniffed. "You should never have
consented."
"Well, the poor thing was so worried, and if it meant saving a child
from a dreadful life----"
"There are other schools more suitable."
"But, sister, she seemed to have her heart set on ours. She begged me
to make a little gentleman out of him."
"As if you could ever do that!"
"Why not?" asked Mary, their niece.
"That dreadful child!"
"Freddy isn't dreadful!" cried Mary hotly.
"With that atrocious slang! Won't eat his oatmeal! And he's such a
queer child--queer! So pale, never laughs, doesn't like any one. Why
should you take up for him? He doesn't even like you. Hates me, I
suppose."
"It's because we are so different from the women he has known," said
Mary.
"I should hope so! Well, sister, what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know what to do," sighed Miss Nellie. "He hasn't any other
relatives as far as I know. And the summer coming on, what shall we
do?"
"Nothing for it but to send him to an orphanage if she doesn't write
soon," said Miss Eva.
"Oh, auntie, you wouldn't!"
"Why not? How can we afford to give children free board and
education?"
"It's only one child."
"It would be a dozen, if we once started it."
"I'll wait another month," said Miss Nellie, "and then, really,
something will have to be done."
The girl looked out of the window.
"There he is now," she said, "sitting on the stone wall at the end of
the garden. It's his favourite spot."
"What on earth he wants to sit there for--away from all the other
children! He never plays. Look at him! Just sitting there--not moving.
How stupid!" exclaimed Miss Eva impatiently.
"I do declare, I believe he's fallen asleep," said Miss Nellie.
Freddy was not asleep. He had only to close his eyes and it would all
come back to him. Memories that he could not put into words,
sensations without definite thought, crowded in upon him. The
smell--the thick smell of grease paint, choking powder, dust, gas, old
walls, bodies, and breath, and sharp perfume; the sickening,
delicious, stale, enchanting, never-to-be-forgotten odour of the
theatre; the nerves' sudden tension at the cry of "Ov-a-chure"; their
tingling as the jaded music blares; the lift of the heart as the
curtain rises; the catch in the throat as Florette runs on to do her
turn.
Florette was a performer on the trapeze in vaudeville. Her figure was
perfect from the strenuous daily exercise. She was small, young, and a
shade too blonde. First she appeared in a sort of blue evening dress,
except that it was shorter even than a d butante's. She ran out
quickly from the wings, bowed excessively, smiled appealingly, and,
skipping over to the trapeze, seized the two iron rings that hung from
ropes. Lifting her own weight by the strength in her slender wrists,
she flung her legs upward and hooked her knees into the rings. Then
hanging head downward she swung back and forth; flung herself upright
again, sat and swung; climbed to the topmost bar of the trapeze and
hung down again. Her partner ran on and repeated her monkeylike
manoeuvres. Then Florette held his hands while he swung upside down,
he held Florette while she swung upside down. They turned head over
heels, over and over each other, up and down, catching and slipping,
and adjusting their balance, in time to gay tunes.
Sometimes the audience clapped. Sometimes they were too familiar with
their kind of flirtation with death to clap. Then Florette and her
partner would invent something a little more daring. They would learn
to balance themselves on chairs tilted on two legs on the trapeze, or
Florette would hang by only one hand, or she would support her partner
by a strap held in her teeth. Sometimes Florette's risks were great
enough to thrill the audience with the thought of death.
The thought of a slip, broken bones, delighted the safe people in
comfortable chairs. They laughed. Florette laughed, too, for Freddy
was waiting in the wings.
There were mothers in the audience who cooked and mended, swept and
dusted, ran up and down innumerable stairs, washed greasy dishes, wore
ugly house dresses, slaved and scolded and got chapped hands, all for
their children. Florette, always dainty and pretty, had nothing to do
but airily, gracefully swing, and smile. Other mothers spent their
lives for their little boys. Florette only risked hers twice a day.
While the partner played an accordion Florette ran out for her quick
change. Freddy was waiting, with her dress hung over a chair. He flew
to meet her. His eager, nimble fingers unfastened the blue frock. He
slipped the next costume over her head without mussing a single
beloved blonde hair. The second costume was a tight-fitting silver
bodice with a fluff of green skirt underneath. Freddy had it fastened
up in a twinkling. Florette ran out again and pulled herself up into
the trapeze.
While Florette went through the second part of her act Freddy folded
up the blue costume and trudged upstairs with it. Florette's dressing
room was usually up four flights. Freddy put the blue dress on a coat
hanger and wrapped a muslin cover about it. Then he trudged down the
four flights again, with the third costume over his arm. It was a
Chinese jacket and a pair of tight, short blue satin trousers, and
Freddy was very proud of this confection. He stood as a screen for
Florette while she put on the trousers, and there are not many little
boys who have a mamma who could look so pretty in them.
Florette skipped out lightly and finished her act by swinging far out
over the audience, back and forth, faster and faster, farther and
farther out, until it seemed as if she were going to fling herself
into the lap of some middle-aged gentleman in the third row. His wife
invariably murmured something about a hussy as Florette's pretty bare
legs flashed overhead. The music played louder, ended with a boom from
the drum. Florette flung herself upright, kissed her hands, the
curtain fell, and the barelegged hussy ran up to the dressing room
where her little son waited.
Freddy had already hung up and shrouded the silver-and-green costume,
and was waiting for the Chinese one. He pounced upon it, muttered
about some wrinkles, put it into place, and went to the dressing table
to hand Florette the cold cream. He found her make-up towel, all caked
with red and blue, which she had flung down on the floor. He patted
her highly glittering hair and adjusted a pin. He marshalled the jars
and little pans and sticks of grease paint on her shelf into an
orderly row and blew off the deep layers of powder she had scattered.
Then he took down her street dress from its hook and slipped it deftly
over her shoulders and had it buttoned up before Florette could yawn.
He handed her her saucy bright hat. He flung himself into his own
coat.
"Well, le's go, Florette!" cried Freddy gayly, with dancing eyes. He
had never called her mamma. She was too little and cute.