if he had missed the dog and whether he would make any search for him.
There were sober moments, too, when he thought of his mother and Mr.
Kirby and wished he had told them the truth. But then the long-drawn bay
of the hound would come from the bottoms ahead, and he would hurry to
the summons, his face flushed and eager. The music of the dog running,
the sound of the shots, and his own triumphant yells started many an
echo among the silent, frosted hills that day. He came home with enough
meat to last a week--six rabbits. As he hurried into the yard he held
them up for the inspection of his mother, who was feeding the chickens.
"He's the finest rabbit dog ever was, Ma! Oh, golly, he can follow a
trail! I never see anything like it, Ma. I never did! I'll skin 'em an'
clean 'em after supper. You ought to have saw him, Ma! Golly!"
And while he chopped the wood, and milked the cow, and fed the mule, and
skinned the rabbits, he saw other days ahead like this, and whistled and
sang and talked to the hound, who followed close at his heels every step
he took.
Then one afternoon, while he was patching the lot fence, with Buck
sunning himself near the woodpile, came Old Man Thornycroft. Davy
recognized his buggy as it turned the bend in the road. He quickly
dropped his tools, called Buck to him, and got behind the house where he
could see without being seen. The buggy stopped in the road, and the old
man, his hard, pinched face working, his buggy whip in his hand, came
down the walk and called Mrs. Allen out on the porch.
"I just come to tell you," he cried, "that your boy Davy run off with my
dog las' Friday evenin'! There ain't no use to deny it. I know all about
it. I seen him when he passed in front of the house. I found the block I
had chained to the dog beside the road. I heered Squire Jim Kirby
talkin' to some men in Tom Belcher's sto' this very mornin'; just
happened to overhear him as I come in. 'A boy an' a dog,' he says, 'is
the happiest combination in nater.' Then he went on to tell about your
boy an' a tan dog. He had met 'em in the road. Met 'em when? Last Friday
evenin'. Oh, there ain't no use to deny it, Mrs. Allen! Your boy
Davy--he _stole_ my dog!"
"Mr. Thornycroft"--Davy could not see his mother, but he could hear her
voice tremble--"he did _not_ know whose dog it was!"
"He didn't? He didn't?" yelled the old man. "An' him a boy that knows
ever' dog for ten miles around! Right in front of my house, I tell
you--that's where he picked him up--that's where he tolled him off!
Didn't I tell you, woman, I seen him pass? Didn't I tell you I found the
block down the road? Didn't know whose dog it was? Ridiculous,
ridiculous! Call him, ask him, face him with it. Likely he'll lie--but
you'll see his face. Call him, that's all I ask. Call him!"
"Davy!" called Mrs. Allen. "Davy!"
Just a moment the boy hesitated. Then he went around the house. The
hound stuck very close to him, eyes full of terror, tail tucked as he
looked at the old man.
"There he is--_with my dog_!" cried the old man. "You didn't know whose
dog it was, did you, son? Eh? You didn't know, now, did you?"
"Yes!" cried the boy. "I knowed!"
"Hear that, Mrs. Allen? Did he know? What do you say now? He stole my
dog, didn't he? That's what he done, didn't he? Answer me, woman! You
come here!" he yelled, his face livid, and started, whip raised, toward
boy and dog.
There were some smooth white stones the size of hen eggs arranged
around a flower bed in the yard, and Davy stood near these stones--and
now, quick as a flash, he stooped down and picked one up.
"You stop!" he panted, his face very white.
His mother cried out and came running toward him, but Thornycroft had
stopped. No man in his right mind wants to advance on a country boy with
a rock. Goliath tried it once.
"All right!" screamed the old man. "You steal first--then you try to
assault an old man! I didn't come here to raise no row. I just come here
to warn you, Mrs. Allen. I'll have the law on that boy--I'll have the
law on him before another sun sets!"
He turned and hurried toward the buggy. Davy dropped the rock. Mrs.
Allen stood looking at the old miser, who was clambering into his buggy,
with a sort of horror. Then she ran toward the boy.
"Oh, Davy! run after him. Take the dog to him. He's terrible, Davy,
terrible! Run after him--anything--anything!"
But the boy looked up at her with grim mouth and hard eyes.
"I ain't a-goin' to do it, Ma!" he said.
It was after supper that very night that the summons came. Bob Kelley,
rural policeman, brought it.
"Me an' Squire Kirby went to Greenville this mornin'," he said, "to
look up some things about court in the mornin'. This evenin' we run into
Old Man Thornycroft on the street, lookin' for us. He was awful excited.
He had been to Mr. Kirby's house, an' found out Mr. Kirby was in town,
an' followed us. He wanted a warrant swore out right there. Mr. Kirby
tried to argue with him, but it warn't no use. So at last Mr. Kirby
turned to me. 'You go on back, Bob,' he said. 'This'll give me some more
lookin' up to do. Tell my wife I'll just spend the night with Judge
Fowler, an' git back in time for court in Belcher's sto' in the mornin'.
An', Bob, you just stop by Mrs. Allen's--she's guardian of the boy--an'
tell her I say to bring him to Belcher's sto' to-morrow mornin' at nine.
You be there, too, Mr. Thornycroft--an', by the way, bring that block of
wood you been talkin' about.'"
That was all the squire had said, declared the rural policeman. No, he
hadn't sent any other message--just said he would read up on the case.
The rural policeman went out and closed the door behind him. It had been
informal, haphazard, like the life of the community in which they lived.
But, for all that, the law had knocked at the door of the Widow Allen
and left a white-faced mother and a bewildered boy behind.
They tried to resume their usual employments. Mrs. Allen sat down beside
the table, picked up her sewing and put her glasses on, but her hands
trembled when she tried to thread the needle. Davy sat on a
split-bottom chair in the corner, his feet up on the rungs, and tried to
be still; but his heart was pounding fast and there was a lump in his
throat. Presently he got up and went out of doors, to get in some
kindling on the back porch before it snowed, he told his mother. But he
went because he couldn't sit there any longer, because he was about to
explode with rage and grief and fear and bitterness.
He did not go toward the woodpile--what difference did dry kindling make
now? At the side of the house he stooped down and softly called Buck.
The hound came to him, wriggling along under the beams, and he leaned
against the house and lovingly pulled the briar-torn ears. A long time
he stayed there, feeling on his face already the fine mist of snow.
To-morrow the ground would be white; it didn't snow often in that
country; day after to-morrow everybody would hunt rabbits--everybody but
him and Buck.
It was snowing hard when at last he went back into the warm room, so
warm that he pulled off his coat. Once more he tried to sit still in the
split-bottom chair. But there is no rage that consumes like the rage of
a boy. In its presence he is so helpless! If he were a man, thought
Davy, he would go to Old Man Thornycroft's house this night, call him
out, and thrash him in the road. If he were a man, he would curse, he
would do something. He looked wildly about the room, the hopelessness of
it all coming over him in a wave. Then suddenly, because he wasn't a
man, because he couldn't do what he wanted to do, he began to cry, not
as a boy cries, but more as a man cries, in shame and bitterness, his
shoulders shaken by great convulsive sobs, his head buried in his hands,
his fingers running through his tangled mop of hair.
"Davy, Davy!" The sewing and the scissors slipped to the floor. His
mother was down on her knees beside him, one arm about his shoulders,
trying to look into his eyes. "You're my man, Davy! You're the only man,
the only help I've got. You're my life, Davy. Poor boy! Poor child!"
He caught hold of her convulsively, and she pressed his head against her
breast. Then he saw that she was crying, and he grew quiet, and wiped
his eyes with his ragged sleeve.
"I'm all right now, Ma," he said; but he looked at her wildly.
She did not follow him into his little unceiled bedroom. She must have
known that he had reached that age where no woman could help him. It
must be a man now to whom he could pin his faith. And while he lay
awake, tumbling and tossing, along with bitter thoughts of Old Man
Thornycroft came other bitter thoughts of Mr. Kirby, whom, deep down in
his boy's heart, he had worshipped--Mr. Kirby, who had sided with Old
Man Thornycroft and sent a summons with--no message for him. "God!" he
said. "God!" And pulled his hair, down there under the covers; and he
hated the law that would take a dog from him and give it back to that
old man--the law that Mr. Kirby represented.
It was still snowing when next morning he and his mother drove out of
the yard and he turned the head of the reluctant old mule in the
direction of Belcher's store. A bitter wind cut their faces, but it was
not as bitter as the heart of the boy. Only twice on that five-mile ride
did he speak. The first time was when he looked back to find Buck, whom
they had left at home, thinking he would stay under the house on such a
day, following very close behind the buggy.
"Might as well let him come on," said the boy.
The second time was when they came in sight of Belcher's store, dim
yonder through the swirling snow. Then he looked up into his mother's
face.
"Ma," he said grimly, "I ain't no thief!"
She smiled as bravely as she could with her stiffened face and with the
tears so near the surface. She told him that she knew it, and that
everybody knew it. But there was no answering smile on the boy's set
face.
The squire's gray mare, standing huddled up in the midst of other horses
and of buggies under the shed near the store, told that court had
probably already convened. Hands numb, the boy hitched the old mule to
the only rack left under the shed, then made Buck lie down under the
buggy. Heart pounding, he went up on the store porch with his mother and
pushed the door open.
There was a commotion when they entered. The men, standing about the
pot-bellied stove, their overcoats steaming, made way for them. Old Man
Thornycroft looked quickly and triumphantly around. In the rear of the
store the squire rose from a table, in front of which was a cleared
space.
"Pull up a chair nigh the stove for Mrs. Allen, Tom Belcher," he said.
"I'm busy tryin' this chicken-stealin' nigger. When I get through, Mrs.
Allen, if you're ready, I'll call your case."
Davy stood beside his mother while the trial of the Negro proceeded.
Some of the fight had left him now, crowded down here among all these
grown men, and especially in the presence of Mr. Kirby, for it is hard
for a boy to be bitter long. But with growing anxiety he heard the sharp
questions the magistrate asked the Negro; he saw the frown of justice;
he heard the sentence--"sixty days on the gang." And the Negro had
stolen only a chicken--and he had run off with another man's dog.
"The old man's rough this mornin'," Jim Taylor whispered to another man
above him; and he saw the furtive grin on the face of Old Man
Thornycroft, who leaned against the counter, waiting.
His heart jumped into his mouth when after a silence the magistrate
spoke: "Mr. Thornycroft, step forward, sir. Put your hand on the book
here. Now tell us about that dog of yours that was stole."
Looking first at the magistrate, then at the crowd as if to impress them
also, the old man told in a high-pitched, excited voice all the
details--his seeing Davy Allen pass in front of his house last Friday
afternoon, his missing the dog, his finding the block of wood down the
road beside the pasture fence, his overhearing the squire's talk right
here in the store, his calling on Mrs. Allen, the boy's threatening him.
"I tell you," he cried, "that's a dangerous character--that boy!"
"Is that all you've got to say?" asked the squire.
"It's enough, ain't it?" demanded Thornycroft angrily.
The squire nodded and spat into the cuspidor between his feet. "I think
so," he said quietly. "Stand aside. Davy Allen, step forward. Put your
hand on the book here, son. Davy, how old are you?"
The boy gulped. "Thirteen year old, goin' on fo'teen."
"You're old enough, son, to know the nater of the oath you're about to
take. For over two years you've been the main-stay an' support of your
mother. You've had to carry the burdens and responsibilities of a man,
Davy. The testimony you give in this case will be the truth, the whole
truth, an' nothin' but the truth, so help you God. What about it?"
Davy nodded, his face very white.
"All right now. Tell us about it. Talk loud so we can hear--all of us."
The boy's eyes never left Mr. Kirby's while he talked. Something in them
held him, fascinated him, overawed him. Very large and imposing he
looked there behind his little table, with his faded old overcoat on,
and there was no sound in the room but the boy's clear voice.
"An' you come off an' left the dog at first?"
"Yes, sir."
"An' you didn't unfasten the chain from the block till the dog got
caught in the fence?"
"No, sir, I didn't."
"Did you try to get him to follow you then?"
"No, sir, he wanted to."
"Ask him, Mr. Kirby," broke in Thornycroft angrily, "if he tried to
drive him home!"
"I'll ask him whatever seems fit an' right to me, sir," said Mr. Kirby.
"What did you tell your ma, Davy, when you got home?"
"I told her he followed me."
"Did you tell her whose dog he was?"
"No, sir."
"Ain't that what you ought to have done? Ain't it?"
Davy hesitated. "Yes, sir."
There was a slight shuffling movement among the men crowded about.
Somebody cleared his throat. Mr. Kirby resumed:
"This block you been tellin' about--how was it fastened to the dog?"
"There was a chain fastened to the block by a staple. The other end was
fastened to the collar."
"How heavy do you think that block was?"
"About ten pound, I reckon."
"Five," broke in Old Man Thornycroft with a sneer.
Mr. Kirby turned to him. "You fetched it with you, didn't you? I told
you to. It's evidence. Bob Kelley, go out to Mr. Thornycroft's buggy an'
bring that block of wood into court."
The room was silent while the rural policeman was gone. Davy still stood
in the cleared space before Mr. Kirby, his ragged overcoat on, his
tattered hat in his hand, breathing fast, afraid to look at his mother.
Everybody turned when Kelley came in with the block of wood. Everybody
craned their necks to watch while, at the magistrate's order, Kelley
weighed the block of wood on the store scales, which he put on the
magistrate's table.
"Fo'teen punds," said Mr. Kirby. "Take the scales away."
"It had rubbed all the skin off'n the dog's neck," broke in Davy
impulsively. "It was all raw an' bleedin'."
"Aw, that ain't so!" cried Thornycroft.
"Is the dog out there?" asked Mr. Kirby.
"Yes, sir, under the buggy."
"Bob Kelley, you go out an' bring that dog into court."
The rural policeman went out, and came back with the hound, who looked
eagerly up from one face to the other, then, seeing Davy, came to him
and stood against him, still looking around with that expression of
melancholy on his face that a hound dog always wears except when he is
in action.
"Bring the dog here, son!" commanded Mr. Kirby. He examined the raw
place on the neck. "Any of you gentlemen care to take a look?" he asked.
"It was worse'n that," declared Davy, "till I rubbed vase-leen on it."
Old Man Thornycroft pushed forward, face quivering. "What's all this got
to do with that boy stealin' that dog?" he demanded. "That's what I want
to know--what's it got to do?"
"Mr. Thornycroft," said Kirby, "at nine o'clock this mornin' this place
ceased to be Tom Belcher's sto', an' become a court of justice. Some
things are seemly in a court, some not. You stand back there!"
The old man stepped back to the counter, and stood pulling his chin,
his eyes running over the crowd of faces.
"Davy Allen," spoke Mr. Kirby, "you stand back there with your ma. Tom
Belcher, make way for him. And, Tom, s'pose you put another stick of
wood in that stove an' poke up the fire." He took off his glasses, blew
on them, polished them with his handkerchief and readjusted them. Then,
leaning back in his chair, he spoke.
"Gentlemen, from the beginnin' of time, as fur back as records go, a
dog's been the friend, companion, an' protector of man. Folks say he
come from the wolf, but that ain't no reflection on him, seein' that we
come from monkeys ourselves; an' I believe, takin' all things into
account, I'd as soon have a wolf for a ancestor as a monkey, an' a
little ruther.
"Last night in the liberry of my old friend Judge Fowler in Greenville,
I looked up some things about this dog question. I find that there have
been some queer decisions handed down by the courts, showin' that the
law does recognize the fact that a dog is different from other
four-footed critters. For instance, it has been held that a dog has a
right to protect not only his life but his dignity; that where a man
worries a dog beyond what would be reasonable to expect any
self-respectin' critter to stand, that dog has a right to bite that man,
an' that man can't collect any damages--provided the bitin' is done at
the time of the worryin' an' in sudden heat an' passion. That has been
held in the courts, gentlemen. The law that holds for man holds for
dogs.
"Another thing: If the engineer of a railroad train sees a cow or a
horse or a sheep on the track, or a hog, he must stop the train or the
road is liable for any damage done 'em. But if he sees a man walkin'
along the track, he has a right to presume that the man, bein' a critter
of more or less intelligence, will git off, an' he is not called on to
stop under ordinary circumstances. The same thing holds true of a dog.
The engineer has a right to presume that the dog, bein' a critter of
intelligence, will get off the track. Here again the law is the same for
dog an' man.
"_But_--if the engineer has reason to believe that the man's mind is
took up with some object of an engrossin' nater, he is supposed to stop
the train till the man comes to himself an' looks around. The same thing
holds true of a dog. If the engineer has reason to suspect that the
dog's mind is occupied with some engrossin' topic, he must stop the
train. That case has been tested in this very state, where a dog was on
the track settin' a covey of birds in the adjoinin' field. The railroad
was held responsible for the death of that dog, because the engineer
ought to have known by the action of the dog that his mind was on
somethin' else beside railroad trains an' locomotives."
Again the magistrate spat into the cuspidor between his feet. Davy,
still watching him, felt his mother's grip on his arm. Everyone was
listening so closely that the whispered sneering comment of Old Man
Thornycroft to the man next to him was audible, "What's all this got to
do with the case?"
"The p'int I'm gettin' to is this," went on Mr. Kirby, not paying
attention to him: "a dog is not like a cow or a horse or any four-footed
critter. He's a individual, an' so the courts have held him in spirit if
not in actual words. Now this court of mine here in Tom Belcher's sto'
ain't like other courts. I have to do the decidin' myself; I have to
interpret the true spirit of the law without technicalities an' quibbles
such as becloud it in other an' higher courts. An' I hold that since a
dog is _de facto_ an' _de jury_ an individual, he has a right to life,
liberty, an' the pursuit of happiness.
"Therefore, gentlemen, I hold that that hound dog, Buck, had a perfect
right to follow that boy, Davy Allen, there; an' I hold that Davy Allen
was not called on to drive that dog back, or interfere in any way with
that dog followin' him if the dog so chose. You've heard the evidence of
the boy. You know, an' I know, he has spoke the truth this day, an'
there ain't no evidence to the contrary. The boy did not entice the dog.
He even went down the road, leavin' him behind. He run back only when
the dog was in dire need an' chokin' to death. He wasn't called on to
put that block an' chain back on the dog. He couldn't help it if the dog
followed him. He no more stole that dog than I stole him. He's no more
of a thief than I am. I dismiss this case, Mr. Thornycroft, this case
you've brought against Davy Allen. I declare him innocent of the charge
of theft. I set it down right here on the records of this court."
"Davy!" gasped Mrs. Allen. "Davy!"
But, face working, eyes blazing, Old Man Thornycroft started forward,
and the dog, panting, shrank between boy and mother. "Jim Kirby!" cried
the old man, stopping for a moment in the cleared space. "You're
magistrate. What you say goes. But that dog thar--he's mine! He's my
property--mine by law!" He jerked a piece of rope out of his overcoat
pocket and came on toward the cowering dog. "Tom Belcher, Bob Kelley!
Stop that dog! He's mine!"
"Davy!" Mrs. Allen was holding the boy. "Don't--don't say anything.
You're free to go home. Your record's clear. The dog's his!"
"Hold on!" Mr. Kirby had risen from his chair. "You come back here, Mr.
Thornycroft. This court's not adjourned yet. If you don't get back, I'll
stick a fine to you for contempt you'll remember the rest of your days.
You stand where you are, sir! Right there! Don't move till I'm through!"
Quivering, the old man stood where he was. Mr. Kirby sat down, face
flushed, eyes blazing. "Punch up that fire, Tom Belcher," he said. "I
ain't through yet."
The hound came tremblingly back to Davy, looked up in his face, licked
his hand, then sat down at his side opposite his former master, looking
around now and then at the old man, terror in his eyes. In the midst of
a deathly silence the magistrate resumed.
"What I was goin' to say, gentlemen, is this: I'm not only magistrate,
I'm an officer in an organization that you country fellers likely don't
know of, an organization known as the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals. As such an officer it's my duty to report an' bring
to trial any man who treats a dumb brute in a cruel an' inhuman way. Mr.
Thornycroft, judgin' by the looks of that houn', you ain't give him
enough to eat to keep a cat alive--an' a cat, we all know, don't eat
much, just messes over her vittles. You condemned that po' beast, for no
fault of his own, to the life of a felon. A houn' ain't happy at best,
he's melancholy; an' a houn' that ain't allowed to run free is of all
critters the wretchedest. This houn's neck is rubbed raw. God only knows
what he's suffered in mind an' body. A man that would treat a dog that
way ain't fitten to own one. An' I hereby notify you that, on the
evidence of this boy, an' the evidence before our eyes, I will indict
you for breakin' the law regardin' the treatment of animals; an' I
notify you, furthermore, that as magistrate I'll put the law on you for
that same thing. An' it might be interestin' to you to know, sir, that I
can fine you as much as five hundred dollars, or send you to jail for
one year, or both, if I see fit--an' there ain't no tellin' but what I
will see fit, sir."
He looked sternly at Thornycroft.
"Now I'm goin' to make a proposition that I advise you to jump at like
you never jumped at anything before. If you will give up that houn'
Buck--to me, say, or to anybody I decide will be kind to him--I will let
the matter drop. If you will go home like a peaceable citizen, you won't
hear no more about it from me; but if you don't----"
"Git out of my way!" cried Old Man Thornycroft. "All of you! I'm
goin'--I'm goin'!"
"Hold on!" said Mr. Kirby, when he had got almost to the door. "Do you,
in the presence of these witnesses, turn over this dog to me,
relinquishin' all claims to him, on the conditions named? Answer. Yes or
No?"
There was a moment's silence; then the old man cried out:
"Take the old hound! He ain't wuth the salt in his vittles!"
He jerked the door open.
"Yes, or no?" called Mr. Kirby inexorably.
"Yes!" yelled the old man, and slammed the door behind him.
"One minute, gentlemen," said Mr. Kirby, rising from the table and
gathering his papers and records together. "Just one more thing: If
anybody here has any evidence, or knows of any, tendin' to show that
this boy Davy Allen is not the proper person to turn over a houn' dog
to, I hope he will speak up." He waited a moment. "In the absence of any
objections, an' considerin' the evidence that's been given here this
mornin', I think I'll just let that dog go back the way he come. Thank
you, gentlemen. Court's adjourned!"
IX
THE PURSUIT