A MYSTERIOUS LAMB
Of course Guardie and I made up our little difference. Before he took
his pigs back on Deer Trail the next morning he came bounding toward me
and apologised handsomely.
"I've thought the matter over," he said. "Selfishness doesn't pay in dog
or man--I'll keep an ear open at night, and Girlie will, too, and we'll
be on the lookout for strange scents. Of course we dogs don't depend
much on our eyes."
"I was disagreeable, too," I said frankly. "Ponies have nerves, and I
was tired."
"Barklo ought to come home" said Guardie.
"Who is Barklo?" I asked curiously.
"Children's dog--I haven't time to tell--ask someone else--pigs are
wandering from trail," and off he dashed.
"Who is Barklo?" I repeated.
It was very early in the morning, and away up on the hillside where I
was standing there wasn't a creature in sight, but Lammie-noo, who was
lying down and eating grass in a sideways fashion. His leg was better,
but he still put on great airs, for he liked the children to wait on him
and pity him.
"Ba, ba," he said in his silly way, "Barklo's a dog--a Hairdale."
"Not Hairdale," I said, "Airedale."
"Just as you like," he replied amiably; "he's very hairy. He's visiting
now."
"Was he the watch-dog?" I asked.
"Yes, Pony Prince. Barklo lay on the children's beds, and if a stranger
didn't went, he barked high."
"Not 'went,'" I corrected; "'Go,' Lammie-noo."
"All right, but what difference does it make?" he asked languidly. "You
know what I mean."
"Even a lamb should talk properly," I replied.
"You're a snob," responded Lammie sweetly. "Every animal about the place
says so."
I was stung to the quick, for I pride myself on my brotherhood to all
creatures.
"My grandfather was a prize ram and mingled in the best society,"
babbled Lammie.
"Now who's the snob?" I asked.
"And I always go in the woodshed when it rains," pursued Lammie-noo. "I
can't help it. The sheep say I'm stuck up, but I'm not. I was brought up
that way. My mamma never cared to wet her fleece--and I can't associate
with that whole flock all the time. I have favourites--I don't deny it.
I admire to eat beside Roxy and Woxy and Daffy-Down-Dilly. Persimmon and
Emma and Maximilian I detest, but they're always crowding up to me. Are
you troubled with bores?"
"Very much," I said, glaring at him. "I see one before me at this
present moment. You don't impress me at all. I think you're silly,
eating in that nibbling way, and sticking your far from beautiful head
on one side. Also your ideas are as crude as your mode of expressing
yourself."
"Don't go, my Prince," he said anxiously. "I really am pining for your
acquaintance, but you have never noticed me since that day on Deer Trail
when your darling young master looked so sweet. What eyes! What a
manner--quite a young prince!"
I began to laugh. "Oh! Lammie-noo, what a goose was spoiled in you, but
really I'm quite flattered that you wish to make my acquaintance. Have I
snubbed you?"
"Very much," bleated Lammie touchingly, "and you know you are the leader
in animal society on this farm."
"Am I?" I exclaimed. "I didn't know it."
"Quite easily _Princeps_," he said in a languishing way.
"_Princeps!_ What's that?" I asked.
"I don't know, sir. It's foreign. I heard Mr. Devering use it--'Silly
Princeps,' he said. I would guess that it is some elegance."
I tossed my head, then I said, "Lammie-noo, you remind me of young Pony
Pale-Face I knew in years gone by. He used to stand leaning against
walls and looking up at the sky. We never could make out whether he was
a fool pony or a wise one--Now please tell me about Barklo."
"Well! Barklo's a nice kind dog, and he's lent to a nice kind widow
woman."
"Lent," I repeated. "What do you mean?"
"Just loaned for a season, not guv away."
"Given," I said, "but why send a good dog from home?"
"Widow's lonely
Son's away
Barklo goes there
Just to play."
"Oh! is he with that nice old widow who lives beyond the Talkers?"
"Yes--that's her."
"You should say, 'That's she,' Lammie-noo."
"Very well--that's she. I'd like to talk real elegant like you, Prince."
"Are you an American lamb?" I asked quickly.
"It's hard to say what I am," he replied mysteriously. "They call me the
Wandering Lamb."
"Why 'Wandering'?"
"'Cause I wander, wander. Legs wander, mind wanders, and sometimes I
feel so old. The ancient ram," and he nodded toward the crown of the
hill where Silver Hoof, King of Muskoka, stood calmly contemplating the
landscape, "first called me that."
"Perhaps," I said, "you have lived before."
"I think I have," he replied in a dreamy voice, "'cause sometimes I get
up on my hind legs and try to walk. Perhaps I was a boy of some
kind--maybe a prince."
"What do you dream about?" I asked.
"Oh! fighting, always fighting. I give dreadful whacks, but not with my
noble brow."
"Then you don't fight the sheep way?"
"No, sir--I don't like the forehead way. It gives me a headache. Now
just see those two foolish ewes."
We both looked up the hill where two sheep having a difference about
something were standing off from each other, then running and banging
their heads together.
"So you dream about fighting," I went on.
"Oh! yes--horrible battles. The dead are piled high around me."
"What kind of dead?"
"Wolves mostly--sometimes bears and foxes."
"I wonder whether that will be your heaven?" I said musingly. "No--it
couldn't be, for in a future life, you will lie down with the bears and
wolves."
"I shall never sleep with a wolf," said Lammie-noo, decidedly. "Never!"
"Don't say you'll never do a thing," I replied. "I've heard many an
animal say that, and the thing he'll never do is the thing he does do.
You just have to give in sometime during your life."
"I shall never sleep with a wolf," said Lammie-noo, "never, never," and
he said this so many times, and in such an imbecile fashion that I left
him, and ran up to speak to the ram who was now cropping short grass
most industriously.
Silver-Hoof was a beauty--calm, sure of himself, no fighter, yet able to
cope with any difficulty among the ewes, or to meet any other ram who
tried to impose on him.
"Good morning," I said. "I often see you at a distance, but we don't
seem to have much to say to each other."
"Ba-a-a-a!" he replied in his deep voice. "You are busy with your young
master. I am occupied with my ewes and lambs. To each his duty, ram or
pony."
"I've been talking to that pet down below," I said with a toss of my
head toward the languishing Lammie-noo. "What do you make of him?"
The ram looked thoughtful. "I don't just know," he said. "Sometimes he
acts like a foolish creature, sometimes like a wise one. He is a lamb
with a past, but he can't recall it. Now my great-grandfather told my
great-aunt's mother that----" and he went on with such a long story
about old sheep who used to see things in the heaven and on the earth,
and who acted strangely and waggled their heads, that I became most
extremely bored. I backed and backed, and he kept on talking and staring
out at the lake and not looking at me, until I finally got behind a
clump of alders. Then I went discreetly toward the house, and he
wandered on till he put himself to sleep and sank on the ground.
My young master had just waked up. I watched him running down to the
lake with the other children. He did not seem to mind the cool air now.
He was getting hardened. How much better this was for him than the great
heat of some summer places I had been in.
Bingi was up in the kitchen garden pulling carrots, so I trotted up
beside him and stepping carefully between the rows of vegetables took
little carrots by the top, shook the earth off and dropped them in his
basket.
This pleased him so much that I ventured to draw one between my teeth
instead of putting it in the basket.
This pleased him still more, and he laughed so heartily that Chippie
Sore-Feet came hobbling over the ground, and sitting on his hind legs
begged for one, too.
"Of need of it, thou hast not," said Bingi. "Merely jealous art thou."
"What a pretty picture!" called someone. "Bingi and Chippie and Bonnie
Prince Fetlar bathing in this glorious August sunlight, and all looking
so happy."
We all turned round, and there was Mrs. Devering with a pile of white
linen that she was going to hang out to dry.
The Jap got up and bowed respectfully. "Good morning to Mistress of
mansion, stoutful and strongful as a man, and in no wise fearsome of
work."
Mrs. Devering smiled kindly, and turned to young Dovey, who had not gone
in to bathe because she had cut her foot.
"Dovey, dear, tell Bingi the nice surprise we have for him. I wish him
to hear it from you, because you were the first to suggest it."
Dear little Dovey, who was angelic when she was not naughty, came
limping up to Bingi.
"Once, long, long ago, about five months, I said 'Daddy, Bingi has no
little boy and no little girl, and I guess he's lonely.' Daddy said,
'Shouldn't wonder if he is,' and I said, 'He's got a little wifie in
Vancouver--I know 'cause he showed me her picture--Daddy, send for the
little wee wifie, please, to play with Bingi,' and Daddy he sent and
she's coming next week, and you won't be lonely any more--and you're to
live with her in that housie on the hill," and she pointed to a pretty
green cottage that some carpenters were working at every day.
The young Jap turned as pale as a ghost, and staring from her to her
mother sank on the ground on his heels between the carrot rows.
"It's true, Bingi," said Mrs. Devering. "Your young O-Mayo-San is really
coming."
The little man struggled to his feet, bowed and bowed again, tried to
make one of his pretty speeches, failed, and hiding his face in his
sleeve went trot, trotting in a funny way toward the kitchen, his
carrots toppling from the basket as he ran.
Mrs. Devering's face was bright and shining. "Girlie," she said, "when
you grow up to be a woman, you will never wear more beautiful jewels
than those tears glistening in that little man's eyes."
The merry-eyed Dovey was very matter-of-fact. "Bingi's a good cook," she
said. "I hope he's got something nice for breakfast--I'm starving. Can't
we have it, Mummy? The kids are coming up from the water."
I stepped along to my young master's window. He was brushing his hair
with his military brushes as if he would tear it all out, and singing as
he did so,
"Oh! the wild wild kiddies!
Oh! the wild wild kiddies!
They have made a wild boy of me!"
Then he danced along to the table on the veranda and set the electric
toaster going, as that was his task.
"When's Dad coming?" Champ asked his mother. "I hate Big Chief's
carving. He doesn't give me half enough."
So others saw this mean streak in the eldest boy, but no one had time to
say a word, for young Sojer, who had as keen ears as a dog, gave a
sudden shout, "The Fire-Bird."
They all looked up at the hydro-plane which had come over the mountain
and was whizzing and pounding above us.
"A message, a message," called Cassowary. "Captain Johnson has his blue
streamer out. Now watch sharp for it."
Sure enough, a white package came dropping down right over the house as
the plane flew by.
It danced along the roof, and fell in the garden.
Champ ran to pick it up, while young Sojer, who was a great pet of
Captain Johnson's--the returned soldier who was in the Fire-Bird--said
in a disappointed voice, "Not a single stunt--no nose dives, no spirals.
I think he's mean."
"Oh! no, no," exclaimed Mrs. Devering, who was reading a letter from
her husband. "Captain Johnson is taking a very sick man to a hospital in
Toronto. He says there was an accident in Algonquin Park--a young man
had his leg crushed and must be operated on immediately."
"Just like me," groaned poor Drunkard, who was reposing on a big cushion
on the veranda.
"What a delicious way to go to a hospital," said Cassowary. "No bumps,
no jolts."
"Where's the letter from?" asked Big Chief.
"Gull Lake." Then she turned to Dallas. "That is the air camp up north."
Big Chief looked disappointed. He wanted his father back, and I was glad
to see that the good feelings of the night before were still uppermost.
"Have they caught the poachers?" asked Cassowary.
"Yes, and have had them fined heavily. Your father says they are men who
have no respect for law, and the lesson will do them good. We have some
very heedless persons in Canada and----"
Her sentence was never finished for young Sojer gave another shout.
"By the pricking in my ears!
I know I hear our pony dears!"
All the children leaped up and sat down again.