LLOYD MEETS HERO
It was July when they reached Switzerland. After three weeks of constant
travel, it seemed good to leave boats and railroads for awhile, and stop
to rest in the clean old town of Geneva. The windows of the big hotel
dining-room looked out on the lake, and the Little Colonel, sitting at
breakfast the morning after their arrival, could scarcely eat for watching
the scene outside.
Gay little pleasure boats flashed back and forth on the sparkling water.
The quay and bridge were thronged with people. From open windows down the
street came the tinkle of pianos, and out on the pier, where a party of
tourists were crowding on to one of the excursion steamers, a band was
playing its merriest holiday music.
Far away in the distance she could see the shining snow crown of Mont
Blanc, and it gave her an odd feeling, as if she were living in a
geography lesson, to know that she was bounded on one side by the famous
Alpine mountain, and on the other by the River Rhône, whose source she had
often traced on the map. The sunshine, the music, and the gay crowds made
it seem to Lloyd as if the whole world were out for a holiday, and she ate
her melon and listened to the plans for the day with the sensation that
something very delightful was about to happen.
"We'll go shopping this morning," said Mrs. Sherman. "I want Lloyd to see
some of those wonderful music boxes they make here; the dancing bears, and
the musical hand-mirrors; the chairs that play when you sit down in them,
and the beer-mugs that begin a tune when you lift them up."
Lloyd's face dimpled with pleasure, and she began to ask eager questions.
"Couldn't we take one to Mom Beck, mothah? A lookin'-glass that would play
'Kingdom Comin', when she picked it up? It would surprise her so she would
think it was bewitched, and she'd shriek the way she does when a
cattapillah gets on her."
Lloyd laughed so heartily at the recollection, that an old gentleman
sitting at an opposite table smiled in sympathy. He had been watching the
child ever since she came into the dining-room, interested in every look
and gesture. He was a dignified old French soldier, tall and
broad-shouldered, with gray hair and a fierce-looking gray moustache
drooping heavily over his mouth. But the eyes under his shaggy brows were
so kind and gentle that the shyest child or the sorriest waif of a stray
dog would claim him for a friend at first glance.
The Little Colonel was so busy watching the scene from the window that she
did not see him until he had finished his breakfast and rose from the
table. As he came toward them on his way to the door, she whispered,
"Look, mothah! He has only one arm, like grandfathah. I wondah if he was a
soldiah, too. Why is he bowing to Papa Jack?"
"I met him last night in the office," explained her father, when the old
gentleman had passed out of hearing. "We got into conversation over the
dog he had with him--a magnificent St. Bernard, that had been trained as a
war dog, to go out with the ambulances to hunt for dead and wounded
soldiers. Major Pierre de Vaux is the old man's name. He served many years
in the French army, but was retired after the siege of Strasburg. The
clerk told me that it was there that the Major lost his arm, and received
his country's medal for some act of bravery. He is well known here in
Geneva, where he comes every summer for a few weeks."
"Oh, I hope I'll see the war dog!" cried the Little Colonel. "What do you
suppose his name is?"
The waiter, who was changing their plates, could not resist this
temptation to show off the little English he knew. "Hes name is _Hero_,
mademoiselle," he answered. "He vair smart dog. He know _evair_ sing
somebody say to him, same as a person."
"You'll probably see him as we go out to the carriage," said Mr. Sherman.
"He follows the Major constantly."
As soon as breakfast was over, Mrs. Sherman went up to her room for her
hat. Lloyd, who had worn hers down to breakfast, wandered out into the
hall to wait for her. There was a tall, carved chair standing near the
elevator, and Lloyd climbed into it. To her great confusion, something
inside of it gave a loud click as she seated herself, and began to play.
It played so loudly that Lloyd was both startled and embarrassed. It
seemed to her that every one in the hotel must hear the noise, and know
that she had started it.
"Silly old thing!" she muttered, as with a very red face she slipped down
and walked hurriedly away. She intended to go into the reading-room, but
in her confusion turned to the left instead of the right, and ran against
some one coming out of the hotel office. It was the Major.
"Oh, I beg your pahdon!" she cried, blushing still more. From the twinkle
in his eye she was sure that he had witnessed her mortifying encounter
with the musical chair. But his first words made her forget her
embarrassment. He spoke in the best of English, but with a slight accent
that Lloyd thought very odd and charming.
"Ah, it is Mr. Sherman's little daughter. He told me last night that you
had come to Switzerland because it was a land of heroes, and he was sure
that you would be especially interested in mine. So come, Hero, my brave
fellow, and be presented to the little American lady. Give her your paw,
sir!"
He stepped aside to let the great creature past him, and Lloyd uttered an
exclamation of delight, he was so unusually large and beautiful. His curly
coat of tawny yellow was as soft as silk, and a great ruff of white
circled his neck like a collar. His breast was white, too, and his paws,
and his eyes had a wistful, human look that went straight to Lloyd's
heart. She shook the offered paw, and then impulsively threw her arms
around his neck, exclaiming, "Oh, you deah old fellow! I can't help
lovin' you. You're the beautifulest dog I evah saw!"
He understood the caress, if not the words, for he reached up to touch her
cheek with his tongue, and wagged his tail as if he were welcoming a
long-lost friend. Just then Mrs. Sherman stepped out of the elevator.
"Good-bye, Hero," said the Little Colonel. "I must go now, but I hope I'll
see you when I come back." Nodding good-bye to the Major, she followed her
mother out to the street, where her father stood waiting beside an open
carriage.
Lloyd enjoyed the drive that morning as they spun along beside the river,
up and down the strange streets with the queer foreign signs over the shop
doors. Once, as they drove along the quay, they met the Major and the dog,
and in response to a courtly bow, the Little Colonel waved her hand and
smiled. The empty sleeve recalled her grandfather, and gave her a friendly
feeling for the old soldier. She looked back at Hero as long as she could
see a glimpse of his white and yellow curls.
It was nearly noon when they stopped at a place where Mrs. Sherman wanted
to leave an enamelled belt-buckle to be repaired. Lloyd was not interested
in the show-cases, and could not understand the conversation her father
and mother were having with the shopkeeper about enamelling. So, saying
that she would go out and sit in the carriage until they were ready to
come, she slipped away.
She liked to watch the stir of the streets. It was interesting to guess
what the foreign signs meant, and to listen to the strange speech around
her. Besides, there was a band playing somewhere down the street, and
children were tugging at their nurses' hands to hurry them along. Some
carried dolls dressed in the quaint costumes of Swiss peasants, and some
had balloons. A man with a bunch of them like a cluster of great red
bubbles, had just sold out on the corner.
So she sat in the sunshine, looking around her with eager, interested
eyes. The coachman, high up on his box, seemed as interested as herself;
at least, he sat up very straight and stiff. But it was only his back that
Lloyd saw. He had been at a fête the night before. There seems to be
always a holiday in Geneva. He had stayed long at the merrymaking and had
taken many mugs of beer. They made him drowsy and stupid. The American
gentleman and his wife stayed long in the enameller's shop. He could
scarcely keep his eyes open. Presently, although he never moved a muscle
of his back and sat up stiff and straight as a poker, he was sound
asleep, and the reins in his grasp slipped lower and lower and lower.
The horse was an old one, stiffened and jaded by much hard travel, but it
had been a mettlesome one in its younger days, with the recollection of
many exciting adventures. Now, although it seemed half asleep, dreaming,
maybe, of the many jaunts it had taken with other American tourists, or
wondering if it were not time for it to have its noonday nose-bag, it was
really keeping one eye open, nervously watching some painters on the
sidewalk. They were putting up a scaffold against a building, in order
that they might paint the cornice.
Presently the very thing happened that the old horse had been expecting. A
heavy board fell from the scaffold with a crash, knocking over a ladder,
which fell into the street in front of the frightened animal. Now the old
horse had been in several runaways. Once it had been hurt by a falling
ladder, and it had never recovered from its fear of one. As this one fell
just under it's nose, all the old fright and pain that caused its first
runaway seemed to come back to its memory. In a frenzy of terror it
reared, plunged forward, then suddenly turned and dashed down the street.
The plunge and sudden turn threw the sleeping coachman from the box to
the street. With the lines dragging at its heels, the frightened horse
sped on. The Little Colonel, clutching frantically at the seat in front of
her, screamed at the horse to stop. She had been used to driving ever
since she was big enough to grasp the reins, and she felt that if she
could only reach the dragging lines, she could control the horse. But that
was impossible. All she could do was to cling to the seat as the carriage
whirled dizzily around corners, and wonder how many more frightful turns
it would make before she should be thrown out.
The white houses on either side seemed racing past them. Nurses ran,
screaming, to the pavements, dragging the baby-carriages out of the way.
Dogs barked and teams were jerked hastily aside. Some one dashed out of a
shop and threw his arms up in front of the horse to stop it, but, veering
to one side, it only plunged on the faster.
Lloyd's hat blew off. Her face turned white with a sickening dread, and
her breath began to come in frightened sobs. On and on they went, and, as
the scenes of a lifetime will be crowded into a moment in the memory of a
drowning man, so a thousand things came flashing into Lloyd's mind. She
saw the locust avenue all white and sweet in blossom time, and thought,
with a strange thrill of self-pity, that she would never ride under its
white arch again. Then she saw Betty's face on the pillow, as she had lain
with bandaged eyes, telling in her tremulous little voice the story of the
Road of the Loving Heart. Queerly enough, with that came the thought of
Howl and Henny, and she had time to be glad that she had amused them on
the voyage, and made them happy. Then came her mother's face, and Papa
Jack's. In a few moments, she told herself, they would be picking up her
poor, broken, lifeless little body from the street. How horribly they
would feel. And then--she screamed and shut her eyes. The carriage had
dashed into something that tore off a wheel. There was a crash--a sound as
of splintering wood. But it did not stop their mad flight. With a horrible
bumping motion that nearly threw her from the carriage at every jolt, they
still kept on.
They were on the quay now. The noon sun on the water flashed into her eyes
like the blinding light thrown back from a looking-glass. Then something
white and yellow darted from the crowd on the pavement, and catching the
horse by the bit, swung on heavily. The horse dragged along for a few
paces, and came to a halt, trembling like a leaf.
A wild hurrah went up from both sides of the street, and the Little
Colonel, as she was lifted out white and trembling, saw that it was a huge
St. Bernard that the crowd was cheering.
"Oh, it's H-Hero!" she cried, with chattering teeth. "How did he get
here?" But no one understood her question. The faces she looked into,
while beaming with friendly interest, were all foreign. The eager
exclamations on all sides were uttered in a foreign tongue. There was no
one to take her home, and in her fright she could not remember the name of
their hotel. But in the midst of her confusion a hearty sentence in
English sounded in her ear, and a strong arm caught her up in a fatherly
embrace. It was the Major who came pushing through the crowd to reach her.
Her grandfather himself could not have been more welcome just at that
time, and her tears came fast when she found herself in his friendly
shelter. The shock had been a terrible one.
"Come, dear child!" he exclaimed, gently, patting her shoulder. "Courage!
We are almost at the hotel. See, it is on the corner, there. The father
and mother will soon be here."
Wiping her eyes, he led her across the street, explaining as he went how
it happened that he and the dog were on the street when she passed. They
had been in the gardens all morning and were going home to lunch, when
they heard the clatter of the runaway far down the street. The Major could
not see who was in the carriage, only that it appeared to be a child. He
was too old a man, and with his one arm too helpless to attempt to stop
it, but he remembered that Hero had once shared the training of some
collies for police service, before it had been decided to use him as an
ambulance dog. They were taught to spring at the bridles of escaping
horses.
"I was doubtful if Hero remembered those early lessons," said the Major,
"but I called out to him sharply, for the love of heaven to stop it if he
could, and that instant he was at the horse's head, hanging on with all
his might. Bravo, old fellow!" he continued, turning to the dog as he
spoke. "We are proud of you this day!"
They were in the corridor of the hotel now, and the Little Colonel,
kneeling beside Hero and putting her arms around his neck, finished her
sobbing with her fair little face laid fondly against his silky coat.
"Oh, you deah, deah old Hero," she said. "You saved me, and I'll love you
fo' evah and evah!"
The crowd was still in front of the hotel, and the corridor full of
excited servants and guests, when Mr. and Mrs. Sherman hurried in. They
had taken the first carriage they could hail and driven as fast as
possible in the wake of the runaway. Mrs. Sherman was trembling so
violently that she could scarcely stand, when they reached the hotel. The
clerk who ran out to assure them of the Little Colonel's safety was loud
in his praises of the faithful St. Bernard.
Hero had known many masters. Any one in the uniform of the army had once
had authority over him. He had been taught to obey many voices. Many hands
had fed and fondled him, but no hand had ever lain quite so tenderly on
his head, as the Little Colonel's. No one had ever looked into his eyes so
gratefully as she, and no voice had ever thrilled him with as loving tones
as hers, as she knelt there beside him, calling him all the fond endearing
names she knew. He understood far better than if he had been human, that
she loved him. Eagerly licking her hands and wagging his tail, he told her
as plainly as a dog can talk that henceforth he would be one of her best
and most faithful of friends.
If petting and praise and devoted attention could spoil a dog, Hero's head
would certainly have been turned that day, for friends and strangers alike
made much of him. A photographer came to take his picture for the leading
daily paper. Before nightfall his story was repeated in every home in
Geneva. No servant in the hotel but took a personal pride in him or
watched his chance to give him a sly sweetmeat or a caress. But being a
dog instead of a human, the attention only made him the more lovable, for
it made him feel that it was a kind world he lived in and everybody was
his friend.
It was after lunch that the Little Colonel came up-stairs carrying the
diary, now half-filled with the record of their journeying.
"Put it all down in the book, Papa Jack," she demanded. "I'll nevah forget
to my dyin' day, but I want it written down heah in black and white that
Hero saved me!"