"His years were full; his years were joyous; why
Must love be sorrow, when his gracious name
Recalls his lovely life of limb and eye?"
--Swinburne's _At a Dog's Grave_.
Now that we realized not only that we had adopted Sigurd but that
Sigurd had adopted us, we entered into an ever deepening enjoyment of
our dog. Be it understood that we were teachers, writers, servants of
causes, boards, committees, mere professional women, with too little
leisure for the home we loved. Had our hurried days given opportunity
for the fine art of mothering we would have cherished a child instead
of a collie, but Sigurd throve on neglect and saved us from turning
into plaster images by making light of all our serious concerns. No
academic dignities impressed his happy irreverence.
"What is Sigurd slinging about there on the lawn?" I asked on his first
Commencement morning. "It looks as if he had a muskrat by the tail."
Joy-of-Life glanced apprehensively from the window to the bed, on which
she had carefully laid out a dean's glistening regalia.
"My cap!" she ejaculated and dashed downstairs and out of the door and
away over the grass after a frolicsome bandit who knew of no better use
for a mortar-board--perhaps there is none--than to spin it around by
its gilt tassel.
He had no regard for manuscript, after a thorough investigation had
convinced him that it was not good to eat, and made no scruple of
breaking in on our most absorbed moments with an insistent demand for
play. Whatever the game might be, he infused it with dramatic quality,
turning every romp into a thrilling adventure. He liked to pretend that
he was Jack the Giant-Killer and would crouch and growl and bristle and
finally hurl himself upon some ogre of a wastepaper basket,
overthrowing it in the first onslaught and then worrying its scattered
contents with mimic fury. For punishment, we would clap the basket
tight over his head, and he would back into a corner, indulging in all
sorts of profane remarks while he pawed and shook that insulting helmet
off, but carefully, for he clearly understood that, though what it held
was subject to his teeth, the basket itself must not be harmed. He
pretended to be bitterly outraged by this treatment, but no sooner was
the basket in position beside the desk again than he would caper up and
gleefully knock it over, promptly presenting his ruffled head to have
his punishment repeated.
Apart from our enjoyment of his crimes, it was difficult to punish him,
because his sunny spirit turned every fresh experience into fun. He
reminded me of a family tradition of an incorrigible baby uncle, whose
clerical father, in despair at the child's ability to find amusement
under all penal circumstances, stripped him naked and shut him into an
empty room to repent of his sins. But when the parental eye
condescended to the keyhole, it beheld a rosy cherub with puffed-out
cheeks dancing merrily about and blowing a bewildered fly from one end
of the chamber to the other.
Sigurd loved nothing better than make-believe discipline,--to be
whacked with the feather-duster, "blown away" with the bellows, rolled
up in the Sunday newspaper, anything that gave him an excuse for
frisking, barking, dodging, scampering, kicking, rolling, tumbling, and
rushing in at the last for a hug of assured understanding. We could
keep him quiet for hours at a time by putting a cooky or any bit of
sweet into a small pasteboard box, tying it up and fitting it into as
many more, of increasing sizes, as time and material allowed. Sigurd
would watch the process with sparkling eyes and then, taking the packet
between his forepaws, settle down to the long task of getting at that
cooky. Sometimes he would sigh with weariness or sink his yellow head
to the floor in momentary despair. But he never gave up, though he
often paused long enough to restore his energies by a nap. Taking the
ragged bundle to another part of the room, as if his labors might be
assisted by some special quality in a different rug, he would fall upon
his puzzle again and not desist until the goal of all that patient
endeavor, one morsel of sweetness, gave its brief delight to his
triumphant tongue. This device of the boxes was a great resource when
rough weather kept us in, for the youngster, who did not yet venture
far without us, was incessant in his search for occupation. When this
led him into genuine mischief and brought upon him actual rebuke, he
took it so to heart that no member of the household, in kitchen or
study, could get on with her work for the next half-day, for Sigurd
would trot from one to another, with imploring eyes, insisting on
shaking paws and being forgiven over and over again.
A most affectionate little fellow he was, and would sit still at my
knee by the hour so long as he was occasionally patted and addressed by
what he instantly recognized as a pet name,--Opals, or Blessed
Buttercup, or Honey of Hybla, or Sulphur of my Soul. Epithets failing,
he would touch my foot at intervals with a reminding paw. Then,
absorbed in my work, I would absent-mindedly, on the edges of my
consciousness, conjure up more titles for him,--Yellowboy, Crocus,
Sunflower, Topaz, Mustard, Nugget, Starshine, his appreciative tail
thumping the floor at every one. He wanted to be good and was aided by
a happy disposition that, when one line of activity was cut off, found
prompt solace in another. After a few trials had convinced him that
bones, though polished in his most masterly manner and disposed behind
doors and under sofa pillows with engaging modesty, were not acceptable
ornaments of the house, he so rejoiced in the new-found art of burying
them in the earth that, for a time, all his dainties went the same way,
and the gardener's hoe would turn up petrified pieces of sponge cake
and gingerbread at which Sigurd would sniff in embarrassed
reminiscence.
Day by day the puppy was learning not only the ways of the house, but
what he considered a proper demeanor toward our variety of callers. He
took up the domestic routine almost at once and developed such an exact
sense of time that we used to call him our four-o'clock. At this merry
hour we would drop pens, shut books and take Sigurd to walk,--a duty
that he by no means allowed us to forget. At the exact moment his
_Woof, Woof_ rang out like a bell into "the still air of delightful
studies" and upon his protesting playmates Sigurd would burst like a
thunderbolt, catching at our dresses and literally dragging us away
from our desks. At mealtimes, too, with inexorable punctuality he
herded the family to the dining room. But most of the day he was doing
sentry duty on the doorsteps, incidentally offering his comment on
every happening of the road and neighborhood. Tramps he abominated and,
not content with driving them from our own premises, roared them away
from every back door on the hill. His prejudice had to do, apparently,
less with their looks and even their smell than with something stealthy
and furtive in their approach. Skulking he abhorred. On one occasion he
brought pink confusion to the cheeks of a little seamstress who was
passing in a bundle at the door while her sheepish young escort hid in
the shrubbery. It did not take Sigurd thirty seconds to drive that gawk
from cover. To a recognized friend our collie would act as master of
ceremonies, bounding down the walk to give him welcome, barking sharply
to save him the trouble of ringing the bell, dashing in ahead with the
glorious news of the arrival and then scampering back to thrust into
the visitor's palm a cordial, clumsy paw, wagging that plumy tail
meanwhile with an impetuous swing that sometimes swept before it small
articles from cabinet or tea-table. Sometimes he would take a fancy to
an utter stranger and greet him as an angel from the blue, singing
love-at-first-sight to him at the top of his funny squeal, a
four-legged troubadour. College girls he regarded as his natural chums
and would frisk about them or leap upon them as the mood took him;
middle-aged folk, like his mistresses, were all very well in their
serviceable way; but the romance of life centered for Sigurd in old
ladies. The whiter the hair, the more beautiful. For them he would
spring up on his hind feet and rest his forepaws on their shoulders,
pressing his face against their cheeks with such ardor that once, when
such an encounter occurred on the street, a gentleman rushed from
across the road, with upraised cane, to the rescue.
"Kindly let us alone, sir," crisply rebuked the Lovely Object, her
bonnet askew but her face beaming. "This dog and I understand each
other and we want no interference."
When a company of callers were seated, Sigurd, in a rapture of
hospitality, would hurry again and again around the circle, shaking
paws with each in turn and uttering a continuous, soft quaver of
welcome, pleasure and pride. Then he would lie down contentedly in the
very center of the group, now and then rolling over on his back in the
hope that it would occur to somebody to slap his fluffy breast.
At first he often made mistakes in his office of sentinel. It was funny
to see him rush madly to the door at a suspicious step and then,
abashed by the jocular greeting of some household familiar, drop the
role of heroic defender and, waving his tail affably but with a certain
reserve, push by on the pretense that he was just coming out to take a
squint at the weather.
Of sensitive and generous nature, our golden collie was quick to feel
the difference between an intentional hurt and an accident. He had been
with us only a few weeks when a college colleague, then brightening our
table with her presence, started to play stick with him before dinner.
Sigurd's way of playing stick was to bring you anything from a
clothespin to a beanpole and coax you to throw it for him, holding it
up lightly between his teeth for you to take. This time he had a piece
of board with jagged ends, and our friend, whose own dog, a monstrously
ugly and therefore supremely choice Boston Bull, would hang on to a
stick with iron jaws while she tried in vain to wrench it from him,
mistook the game. Sigurd held up his stick by one end, deftly balancing
it in the air, and she, supposing that he would maintain his grip,
rammed it suddenly down his throat. But Sigurd, eager for his run, at
once let go, with the result that his throat was rather badly cut. He
was surprised into one scream of pain and then silently tore about in
circles, his tail low and rigid. His would-be playmate, grieved to the
heart, had hurried for his Japanese water-bowl, but Sigurd would touch
nothing that she brought. He went, instead, to a natural basin in the
rock, always his favorite drinking-cup, where he lapped away at a
prodigious rate, leaving a red stain on the water. After this he hid in
the bushes, and it was not until dinner was nearly over that Sigurd
came trotting in, ears and tail still depressed. Joy-of-Life, with the
voice that was healing in itself, called him to her, but he passed us
both by, going straight to the comparative stranger who had innocently
hurt him. Settling on his haunches beside her chair, Sigurd gazed up
mournfully but understandingly into her eyes and offered his
magnanimous paw.
"You know I didn't mean to, and you came in to say so and to forgive
me, you perfect little gentleman," she exclaimed, shaking the proffered
paw as deferentially as if it had been the hand of Socrates. And that
was the end of it. Sigurd coughed up a little blood and a few splinters
that night, but he always met this lady, on her frequent comings, with
a special, quiet courtesy, though he never invited her to a game of
stick again.
Sigurd had one playmate who shamefully imposed upon his noble
disposition. Nellie was an ancient spaniel, whose black curls were
turning a dingy gray. She was our next neighbor and Sigurd's first
love. Nellie was too fat and wheezy to romp, but she would sit,
blinking approval, the center of a circle whose circumference was made
by the golden gambols of our infatuated puppy. Around and around her he
would caper, while she yawned and scratched--she was always a vulgar
old thing--and took her exercise by proxy. We did not allow Nellie
inside the house, to Sigurd's grieved surprise, but his dinner-dish was
regularly set out of doors, by the back steps, and Nellie, every now
and then, when her own rations had not been satisfactory or when Sigurd
had peculiarly toothsome viands on his plate, would take advantage of
his chivalry to play on him a low-down trick. Out of sight on the other
side of the house, she would raise a wail of feigned distress,
whereupon our gallant Volsung, just in the first enjoyment of his food,
would lift his head, listen, even drop the piece of meat in his mouth
and speed away to her rescue, running down one hill and up another in a
vain endeavor to discover the villain of whom she had complained.
Meanwhile Nellie, puffing with detestable delight, would waddle around
to the doorsteps and gobble up the best of Sigurd's dinner. When she
heard him bounding back, she discreetly shuffled off, so that Sigurd's
ideal remained unspotted. Dear, faithful lad! To the last of her
disgraceful days, he was old Nellie's champion and dupe.
All the while his development was going on apace. When he came to us he
was already, like his brothers and sisters, proficient in giving the
right paw, and could also, under protest, stand on his hind legs in a
corner and "go roly-poly," a senseless performance, that he detested,
on floors, but a natural and joyful gymnastic on the grass. He soon
added to these accomplishments the agile arts of jumping over a stick
and leaping through a hoop, though his tribulations with the hoop were
many. He would brandish it over his head, run with it and trip in it,
get his legs and body all wound up in it, and finally throw himself
upon it and bite it into docility. He readily learned to catch, but his
tastes were not extravagant and he would disdainfully drop in the
thickets the rubber balls that were bought for him and grub up for
himself some crooked branch or tough old chip that suited his purpose
better.
Being educators ourselves, we did not think much of education as such
and gave little attention to teaching him artificial tricks.
Joy-of-Life was in favor of vocational training and decided that he
must learn to guard. Her efforts nearly achieved success. For one proud
fortnight Sigurd would, at the word of command, lie down and, resisting
every temptation to leave his post, watch over a handkerchief or glove
or parasol until he was called off by the same voice that had imposed
the duty on him. It was I who ruined this excellent attainment by
setting him, beside a pansy-bed agleam with sympathetic twinkles, to
guard a hoptoad. To Sigurd's dismay and annoyance that brownie of the
garden refused to play the game. How could a puppy remain at his post
if his post would not remain at the puppy? Sigurd tried to paw the toad
back into place, he remonstrated with it in a series of shrill barks
and at last, when he heard us laughing at him, he indignantly
repudiated, and forever, the whole business of guarding. It was then
that Joy-of-Life accused me of being a demoralizing influence and for
Sigurd's good reminded me of what I had quite forgotten and he had
never known,--that he was not "our puppy" but hers.
"I want," said Joy-of-Life, bending her earnest look upon us both,
"that Sigurd should grow up into a good dog, and how can he be a good
dog if you turn duty into a joke?"