It was a bleak morning in April, the country roads being muddy and heavy
and discouraging, and as the young man trudged along, his mind wandered
back to the day he started as a tramp. His parents had become suddenly
wealthy, through an oil strike on their mountain farm. They immediately
moved to the city and purchased a fine home. The boy was sent to college.
He was then eighteen years old. On the second year term Walter was
progressing in his studies rapidly, and the teachers were proud of their
bright pupil. They told him so. Their words of praise came back in memory
whispers as he trudged along, footsore, sick, weary and hungry.
It was a bitter recollection to recall the day when the news was brought
to him of his father’s and mother’s death. They had been killed in a
railroad wreck. After the funeral it was discovered that good fortune had
given Aaron Burfield the big head, and he started to gamble in stocks.
He knew as much about it as a cow knows about Latin. He was a lamb to
be easily fleeced. All the fortune had been lost and the big house was
mortgaged. Walter was a beggar when twenty years of age.
He realized that he had no rich relatives or friends to help him. His
foolish father had deserted all his old friends and many poor relatives
the hour he found himself wealthy. Walter’s pride barred him from going
back to these deserted friends and relatives. He went back to school,
but the news of his change of fortune reached the ears of the young
aristocratic friends with whom he had associated, and they cut him short.
His tuition was paid in full, but he could not remain at school and be
the outcast and beggar. News reached him that the big house was sold, and
did not satisfy the creditors. He had nothing left but his clothes and a
gold watch.
Now he regretted, as he walked along, that he had not remained at school
and graduated. The sting of becoming an outcast was painful. Had he to
do it all over again, he might do just as he had done—jumped a freight
train one night with ten dollars in his pocket and left the college town
forever. This was two years ago. He had harvested in the Dakotas, worked
on the lakes, tried packing-house drudgery and tried his hand at work
on a farm. He was now too sick and discouraged to beat his way by rail.
He had lost his old-time courage, and felt like a whipped child. He
must give up the careless, worthless life he was leading, and secure a
permanent job.
He came to a large farm-house and went around to the back door to ask
for a bite of breakfast. A tired woman told him to go away. He asked
permission to sit on the porch step and rest. The old farm dog came
up and licked his hand. His heart leaped in a glad response to even
the friendship of a dog. He put one arm around the dog’s neck and
unconsciously spoke aloud:
“Do you know how heart-sick and friendless I am, old doggie?”
“Do you like dogs?”
It was a girl’s voice. Walter Burfield looked up and saw it was a pretty
red-cheeked girl addressing him. My, but she looked pretty and wholesome.
A sinner standing outside of heaven and looking in through the open gate
and beholding an angel would feel as Walter felt on beholding that pretty
country girl.
“Do you like dogs,” she asked again, for the tramp sat dumb before her.
His eyes dropped. He had reached that point in the life of a vagabond
where the frank, honest eyes of some one in whom hope burns brightly,
makes the hopeless soul recoil and seek to hide away from questioning
eyes.
“I just feel like hugging the old dog,” he said, “because he offered to
be my friend, and I am so hungry for friendship. I would like to secure
a position, and find a home and settle down in the ways of peace once
more. I am without a friend in all the wide world. The touch of the dog’s
tongue on my hand is the first friendly touch I have felt for two years.
The woman inside allowed me to sit down and rest here, but she refused me
a bite to eat. I guess the old dog knows how hungry and friendless and
despondent I am, so he came up and gave me the kiss of loving friendship.”
“Wait,” said the girl, “I’ll bring you something to eat, poor man.”
She sat and talked to him while he ate. She had never found any one so
interesting, and he had never seen any one so beautiful. He could touch
her heart as never any one had touched it before. He knew so much of life
and was so discouraged and hopeless with it all. His talk opened up a
new world to her. Her life had been so tame and commonplace, and she had
longed for news from the outside world. He did not look like a tramp,
though he was ragged and dirty and unshaven. The girl went to her father
and persuaded him to give the poor tramp a job.
Walter Burfield stayed. He worked hard and faithfully. He resolved to
give up roaming forever and try to make a man of himself, though obliged
to begin down at the bottom. The old dog followed him through the fields
day after day, as though he felt that it was his influence that had
called Walter back to a life of usefulness. And Walter well knew that it
was old Hector’s warm kiss on his hand that brought out the heart talk
that morning with Adaline Blair.
Two years afterward, as he sat under a shade tree while resting his team
of horses, he hugged the old dog and said to him:
“Dear old Hector, that first kiss of yours opened the door to a brand new
world for me. God, but I must have been sick and lonely on that morning I
sat resting on the porch, and you and Adaline found me and took me into
your affections. Your kisses are still warm and affectionate, old doggie,
but I felt a warmer one last night on my lips. Do you know that your
little mistress has promised to be my wife? She says she was drawn toward
me when she saw me hugging her dog. It was your loving kiss, old Hector,
that has brought all this new love and hope and sunlight into my life.
She would never have caught me hugging you, were it not for your friendly
kiss.”