Anne of Ingleside (19 page)

‘Will you teach me how to carve ships like that, Captain Malachi?’ pleaded Jem.

Captain Malachi shook his head and spat reflectively into the gulf.

‘It doesn’t come by teaching, son. Ye’d have to sail the seas for thirty or forty years and then maybe ye’d have enough understanding of ships to do it… understanding
and
love. Ships are like weemen, son… they’ve got to be understood and loved or they’ll never give up their secrets. And even at that ye may think ye know a ship from stem to stern, inside
and
out, and ye’ll find she’s still hanging out on ye and keeping her soul shut on you. She’d fly from you like a bird if ye let go your grip on her. There’s one ship I sailed on that I’ve never been able to whittle a model of, times out of mind as I’ve tried. A dour, stubborn vessel she was! And there was one woman… but it’s time I took in the slack of my jaw. I’ve got a ship all ready to go into a bottle and I’ll let ye into the secret of that, son.’

So Jem never heard anything more of the ‘woman’ and didn’t care, for he was not interested in the sex, apart from Mother and Susan.
They
were not ‘weemen’. They were just Mother and Susan.

When Gyp had died Jem had felt he never wanted another dog; but time heals amazingly, and Jem was beginning to feel doggish again. The puppy wasn’t really a dog… he was only an accident.

Jem had a procession of dogs marching around the walls of his attic den where he kept Captain Jim’s collection of curios… dogs clipped from magazines… a lordly mastiff, a nice jowly bulldog… a dachshund that looked as if somebody had taken a dog by his head and heels and pulled him out like elastic… a shaven poodle with a tassel on the end of his tail… a fox terrier… a Russian wolfhound… Jem wondered if Russian wolfhounds ever got anything to eat… a saucy Pom… a spotted Dalmatian… a spaniel with appealing eyes. All dogs of high degree but all lacking something in Jem’s eyes… he didn’t just know what.

Then the advertisement came out in the
Daily Enterprise
. ‘For sale, a dog. Apply Roddy Crawford, Harbour Head.’ Nothing more. Jem could not have told why the advertisement stuck in his mind or why he felt there was a sadness in its very brevity. He found out from Craig Russell who Roddy Crawford was.

‘Roddy’s father died a month ago and he has to go to live with his aunt in town. His mother died years ago. And Jake Millison has bought the farm. But the house is going to be torn down. Maybe his aunt won’t let him keep the dog. It’s no great shakes of a dog, but Roddy has always had an awful notion of it.’

‘I wonder how much he wants for it. I’ve only got a dollar,’ said Jem.

‘I guess what he wants most is a good home for it,’ said Craig. ‘But your Dad would give you the money for it, wouldn’t he?’

‘Yes. But I want to buy a dog with my own money,’ said Jem. ‘It would feel more like
my
dog then.’

Craig shrugged. Those Ingleside kids
were
funny. What did it matter who put up the cash for an old dog?

That evening Dad drove Jem down to the old, thin, run-down Crawford farm where they found Roddy Crawford and his dog. Roddy was a boy of about Jem’s age… a pale lad, with straight, reddish-brown hair and a crop of freckles; his dog had silky brown ears, brown nose and tail, and the most beautiful soft brown eyes ever seen in a dog’s head. The moment Jem saw that darling dog, with the white stripe down his forehead that parted in two between his eyes and framed his nose, he knew he must have him.

‘You want to sell your dog?’ he asked eagerly.

‘I
don’t
want to sell him,’ said Roddy dully. ‘But Jake says I’ll have to or he’ll drown him. He says Aunt Vinnie won’t have a dog about.’

‘What do you want for him?’ asked Jem, scared that some prohibitive price would be named.

Roddy gave a great gulp. He held out his dog.

‘Here, take him,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I ain’t going to sell him… I ain’t. Money would never pay for Bruno. If you’ll give him a good home… and be kind to him…’

‘Oh, I’ll be kind to him,’ said Jem eagerly. ‘But you my dollar. I wouldn’t feel he was
my
dog if you didn’t. I won’t
take
him if you don’t.’

He forced the dollar into Roddy’s reluctant hand, he took Bruno and held him close to his breast. The little dog looked back at his master. Jem could not see his eyes but he could see Roddy’s.

‘If you want him so much…’

‘I want him but I can’t have him,’ snapped Roddy. ‘There’s been five people here after him and I wouldn’t let one of them have him… Jake was awful mad, but I don’t care. They weren’t
right
. But you… I want
you
to have him since
I
can’t, and take him out of my sight quick!’

Jem obeyed. The little dog was trembling in his arms, but he made no protest. Jem held him lovingly all the way back to Ingleside.

‘Dad, how did Adam know that a dog was a
dog
?’

‘Because a dog couldn’t be anything but a dog,’ grinned Dad. ‘Could he now?’

Jem was too excited to sleep for ever so long that night. He had never seen a dog he liked so much as Bruno. No wonder Roddy hated parting with him. But Bruno would soon forget Roddy and love
him
. They would be pals. He must remember to ask Mother to make sure the butcher sent up the bones.

‘I love everybody and everything in the world,’ said Jem. ‘Dear God, bless every cat and dog in the world but specially Bruno.’

Jem fell asleep at last. Perhaps a little dog lying at the foot of the bed with his chin upon his outstretched paws slept, too: and perhaps he did not.

Cock Robin had ceased to subsist on worms and ate rice, corn, lettuce, and nasturtium seeds. He had grown to be a huge size… the ‘big robin’ at Ingleside was becoming locally famous… and his breast had turned to a beautiful red. He would perch on Susan’s shoulder and watch her knit. He would fly to meet Anne when she returned after an absence and hop before her into the house: he came to Walter’s window-sill every morning for crumbs.

He took his daily bath in a basin in the backyard, in the corner of the sweet-briar hedge, and would raise the most unholy fuss if he found no water in it. The doctor complained that his pens and matches were always strewn all over the library, but found nobody to sympathize with him, and even he surrendered when Cock Robin lit fearlessly on his hand one day to pick up a flower seed. Everybody was bewitched by Cock Robin, except perhaps Jem, who had set his heart on Bruno and was slowly but all too surely learning a bitter lesson… that you can buy a dog’s body but you cannot buy his love.

At first Jem never suspected this. Of course Bruno would be a bit homesick and lonesome to begin with, but that would soon wear off. Jem found it did not. Bruno was the most obedient little dog in the world; he did exactly what he was told, and even Susan admitted that a better behaved animal couldn’t be found. But there was no life in him. When Jem took him out Bruno’s eyes would gleam alertly at first, his tail would wag, and he would start off cockily. But after a little while the glow would leave his eyes and he would trot meekly beside Jem with drooping crest. Kindness was showered upon him by all, the juiciest and meatiest of bones were at his disposal, not the slightest objection was made to his sleeping at the foot of Jem’s bed every night. But Bruno remained remote… inaccessible… a stranger. Sometimes in the night Jem woke and reached down to pat the sturdy little body; but there was never any answering lick of tongue or thump of tail. Bruno permitted caresses but he would not respond to them.

Jem set his teeth. There was a good bit of determination in James Matthew Blythe and he was not going to be beaten by a dog…
his
dog, whom he had bought fairly and squarely with money hardly saved from his allowance. Bruno would just
have
to get over being homesick for Roddy…
have
to give up looking at you with the pathetic eyes of a lost creature…
have
to learn to love him.

Jem had to stand up for Bruno, for the other boys in school, suspecting how he loved the dog, were always trying to ‘pick on’ him.

‘Your dog has fleas… Great Big Fleas,’ taunted Perry Reese.

Jem had to trounce him before Perry would take it back and say Bruno hadn’t a single flea, not one.

‘
My
pup takes fits once a week,’ boasted Bob Russell. ‘I’ll bet your old pup never had a fit in his life. If I had a dog like that I’d run him through the meat-grinder.’

‘We
had
a dog like that once,’ said Mike Drew. ‘But we drowned him.’

‘My dog’s an
awful
dog,’ said Sam Warren proudly. ‘He kills the chickens and chews up all the clothes on washday. Bet your dog hasn’t spunk enough for that.’

Jem sorrowfully admitted to himself, if not to Sam, that Bruno hadn’t. He almost wished it had. And it stung him when Watty Flagg shouted: ‘Your dog’s a
good
dog… he never barks on Sunday,’ because Bruno didn’t bark any day.

But with it all he was such a dear, adorable little dog.

‘Bruno,
why
don’t you love me?’ almost sobbed Jem. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you… we could have
such
fun together.’ But he would not admit defeat to anyone.

Jem hurried home one evening from a mussel-bake at the Harbour Mouth because he knew a storm was coming. The sea moaned so. Things had a sinister, lonely look. There was a long rip and tear of thunder as Jem dashed into Ingleside.

‘Where’s Bruno?’ he shouted.

It was the first time he had gone anywhere without Bruno. He had thought the long walk to the Harbour Mouth would be too much for a little dog. Jem would not admit to himself that such a long walk with a dog whose heart was not in it would be a little too much for him as well.

It developed that nobody knew where Bruno was. He had not been seen since Jem left after supper. Jem hunted everywhere, but he was not to be found. The rain was coming down in floods, the world was drowned in lightning. Was Bruno out in that black night…
lost
? Bruno was afraid of thunderstorms. The only times he had ever seemed to come near Jem in spirit was when he crept close to him while the sky was riven asunder.

Jem worried so that when the storm was spent Gilbert said, ‘I ought to go up to the Head anyway to see how Roy Westcott is getting on. You can come, too, Jem, and we’ll drive round by the old Crawford place on our way home. I’ve an idea Bruno has gone back there.’

‘Six miles? He’d never!’ said Jem.

But he had. When they got to the old deserted, lightless Crawford house a shivering, bedraggled little creature was huddled forlornly on the wet doorstep, looking at them with tired, unsatisfied eyes. He made no objection when Jem gathered him up in his arms and carried him out to the buggy through the knee-high, tangled grass.

Jem was happy. How the moon was rushing through the sky as the clouds tore past her! How delicious were the smells of the rain-wet woods as they drove along! What a world it was!

‘I guess Bruno will be contented at Ingleside after this, Dad.’

‘Perhaps,’ was all Dad said. He hated to throw cold water, but he suspected that a little dog’s heart, losing its last hope, was finally broken.

Bruno had never eaten very much, but after that night he ate less and less. Came a day when he would not eat at all. The vet was sent for but could find nothing wrong.

‘I knew one dog in my experience who died of grief and I think this is another,’ he told the doctor aside.

He left a ‘tonic’ which Bruno took obediently and then lay down again, his head on his paws, staring into vacancy. Jem stood looking at him for a long while, his hands in his pockets; then he went into the library to have a talk with Dad.

Gilbert went to town the next day, made some inquiries, and brought Roddy Crawford out to Ingleside. When Roddy came up the veranda steps Bruno, hearing his footfall from the living-room, lifted his head and cocked his ears. The next moment his emaciated little body hurled itself across the rug towards the pale, brown-eyed lad.

‘Mrs Doctor dear,’ said Susan in an awed tone that night, ‘the dog was
crying
… he
was
. The tears actually rolled down his nose. I do not blame you if you do not believe it. Never would I have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes.’

Roddy held Bruno against his heart and looked half defiantly, half pleadingly at Jem.

‘You bought him, I know… but he belongs to me. Jake told me a lie. Aunt Vinnie says she wouldn’t mind a dog a bit… but I thought I mustn’t ask for him back. Here’s your dollar… I never spent a cent of it… I couldn’t.’

For just a moment Jem hesitated. Then he saw Bruno’s eyes.

‘What a little pig I am!’ he thought in disgust with himself. He took the dollar.

Roddy suddenly smiled. The smile changed his sulky face completely, but all he could say was a gruff ‘Thanks’.

Roddy slept with Jem that night, a replete Bruno stretched between them. But before he went to bed Roddy knelt to say his prayers and Bruno squatted on his haunches beside him, laying his forepaws on the bed. If ever a dog prayed Bruno prayed then… a prayer of thanksgiving and renewed joy in life.

When Roddy brought him food Bruno ate it eagerly, keeping an eye on Roddy all the time. He pranced friskily after Jem and Roddy when they went down to the Glen. ‘Such a perked-up dog you never saw,’ declared Susan.

But the next evening, after Roddy and Bruno had gone back, Jem sat on the side doorstep in the owl light for a long time. He refused to go digging for pirate hoards in Rainbow Valley with Walter… Jem felt no longer splendidly bold and buccaneering. He wouldn’t even look at the Shrimp, who was humped in the mint, lashing his tail like a fierce mountain lion crouching to spring. What business had cats to go on being happy at Ingleside when dogs broke their hearts!

He was even grumpy with Rilla when she brought him her blue velvet elephant. Velvet elephant, when Bruno had gone! Nan got as short shrift when she came and suggested they should say what they thought of God in a whisper.

‘You don’t s’pose I’m blaming God for
this
?’ said Jem sternly. ‘You haven’t any sense of proportion, Nan Blythe.’