The key to Betsy's heart

ANOTHER day or two of vain grieving, and Van’s gallant spirit began to react, and he showed more interest in the things around him. He would eat his food, but he was grave and solemn, and not at all like the merry rascal the Johns knew. It was not a bit like living at his own home, where he had porter-house steak and liver for his daily food. But he learned that hunger brings an appetite, and what he had was good for him, so he soon ate contentedly, as did the other dogs.

The Trimble house was not large. The upper story consisted of two bedrooms, Pete’s and another like it. Downstairs was another bedroom, the kitchen, the dining-room, the woodshed, and, crowning glory of all, the “parlor.” Like most treasures of its kind in the neighborhood, it was kept with closed shutters, and one’s voice was lowered a little when one crossed the threshold. Here Van was seldom allowed to come, nor did he care much.

Sometimes, on Sunday evenings, when the minister and his wife came to tea, a fire was lit in the Franklin stove in this sacred room. Then, for an hour, until bedtime, Van and Pete would tread softly over the woollen roses in the carpet, and sit before the blaze. Sometimes, too, Van would even lean against the best black skirt of the minister’s wife, who liked dogs. But these festive occasions came seldom, and were not so lovely that Van longed for them. It was all so different from home, where he ranged the whole house through, welcome everywhere.

He was no more the proud, haughty little Prince, with a whole family to wait on him. Down in his lonely heart he grieved and grieved, and often, as he sat in front of his kennel, he would utter a long-drawn, homesick howl, as he thought of his Betsy, of Dr. Johns, of Mrs. Johns, and Mary, and Treesa; of his basket in the kitchen, and all the comforts of his beloved Hill-Top.

In the winter evenings he would lie by the dining-room stove, on one of Pete’s old coats, and dream sadly of better days. He had really very little to complain of in the treatment he received. That his luxuries were few was no fault of the Trimbles, and indeed he was quite as well off without them. The great tragedy lay in the chain and the closed gate; the eternal longing for the old freedom, the wild rambles through wood and field, and his dear family.

At bedtime he would be wrapped in his own blanket that smelled of home, to sleep away the long nights. At the first crack of dawn he would stretch himself, yawn, and walk from the foot of Pete’s bed up to where the little boy’s tousled head lay on the pillow. There he would paw at the coverlet until Pete woke up, and let him inside for one more delicious snooze, before it was time for Pete to be out helping his father with the chores.

But this was “College,” and the life he led was quite secondary to the lessons which he was there to learn.

Mr. Trimble returned three days after Van’s arrival. He had been to Boston, and had come back, bringing with him another dog, who was chained in front of a kennel just as Van had been, and who went through the same period of revolt and frenzy.

Mr. Trimble came over and looked at Van, and nodded approvingly as he noted the points of the thoroughbred.

“No doubt about your breeding, young fellow, but how anybody ever let such a dog as you are run wild, beats me. Why, you ought to be on the benches at the shows, taking prizes. Well, you’ll have to mend your manners; if you stay with me. But I’ll give you two or three days more to git acquainted. And then, we’ll see what can be done with you.”

“You’ll let him stay with me nights, won’t you, Pop?” Pete was hovering about anxiously.

“Land, yes, ef you want him. It won’t do him no hurt, and his trainin’ll only take daytimes. He’s a house-coddled pet anyway, and spoiled, like they always are. Hm! I guess his lessons’ll surprise him some.”

“You won’t hurt him too hard, Pop?”

“Pete, you’ll never make a trainer. You’re too soft-hearted, like yer Ma. You’ll make a better husband than me mebbe, but I’ll hev to learn you another trade. Come, we’ve got to move them kennels over to the other side of the yard, where they’ll git the sun in the cold weather.”

One bright cool morning, Mr. Trimble, after Pete had gone to school, came out to Van’s kennel, and unfastened one end of his chain, still keeping him confined.

“Your lessons begin now, young fellow. You’ll be wishing you had leather pants in about five minutes.”

He led Van across the yard, wondering, but unsuspecting, to another yard full of chickens of all sizes, from big old roosters, to half-grown pullets.

“There,” he said, as he undid the chain from Van’s collar, “that’ll be your happy home for a few minutes.”

Van took no note of the fact that Mr. Trimble had stepped inside the yard and closed the gate, nor that he was holding his right hand behind him. Instantly, at the sight of the chickens, all his old wild instincts came to life within him. He forgot the changes, he forgot the old punishments at the Hill-Top, forgot everything, except that here was sport before him, and plenty of it.

He seized a nice, well-behaved little pullet, gave it one shake, dropped it, and turned to find another, when there before him loomed Mr. Trimble, large and terrible.

“DOWN, SIR!”

Van looked for Pete to rescue him. Pete was not there. The gate was closed; there was not the slightest loophole for escape. He crouched at Mr. Trimble’s feet, awaiting the punishment that he knew was coming. He could stand a whipping. The fun of the crime to him had always been worth the punishment.

The whipping came, swift and awful; not one of Betsy’s whippings, nor yet of Dr. Johns’. No, indeed! It was like nothing that Van had ever heard of or dreamed of. Mr. Trimble knew how to whip so it would be remembered.

Van’s little body writhed with the pain and the smart of it, but never a sound did he utter, not the faintest whisper. No soldier ever showed more grit and courage. No Stoic ever shut his teeth more grimly and silently. Even as the lashings fell, Mr. Trimble could not help admiring that indomitable spirit; but duty must be done, and it was done.

There was no doubt at all about that whipping. It was the real thing, and a terrible surprise to the culprit. Mr. Trimble went away and left him in the yard, with the dead chicken before him, and the live ones all around him. For a long time Van lay without stirring. By and by Mr. Trimble brought his kennel, and put it beside him; after a while Van crawled in—a half-dead bundle of agony—and lay down and licked the welts, quivering and trembling still with the awful awakening of his first lesson.

He knew well enough why he had been whipped—the chicken had hardly ceased breathing when the whip descended. Just now he did not want even to think of chicken; he loathed the whole species. He was not chained now, he might range from one end of the chicken-yard to the other, but he had no such desire. In his shame he only wanted to crawl off where no one could ever see him again. He knew at last what a bad thing it was to kill innocent birds that could not help themselves.

Mr. Trimble went about other business and left Van while the punishment soaked into his brain. The lesson must be thorough or it would do no good at all.

A little freckled face under a tousled tow thatch popped through a chink in the gateway. A voice breathless with running whispered,

“Van! Van! Are you there?”

A tiny, almost inaudible, whine was the answer.

Silently Pete slipped in, dropping his books inside the gate. He had been on tenter hooks all the morning, for he knew that this was to be the day of the “lesson,” and he had run all the way home. He shut the gate carefully so that no one might hear.

Two blue eyes looked down pityingly into Vanny-Boy’s sad brown ones. The kennel was large, and Pete slipped in bodily, and took the aching, trembling sinner tenderly in his arms. He cuddled the little heaving body close to his own.

“You pore little feller!” he whispered. “I jest couldn’t stand it. Pop does lick awful sometimes. An’ it hurts too; I know. I hain’t never been licked fer killin’ chickens, though, so mebbe I don’t know the hull of it.

“My! Look at them stripes! I ain’t never had ’em on me like that.” Tender hands were feeling all over Van’s little legs and sides. “Now never you mind, Van, I brought sumpin to make ’em feel better.”

The “sumpin” proved to be a box of soft, oily stuff that had a queer nice smell. Pete rubbed it all over the welts, taking great care not to hurt them any more.

The oily stuff had a very good taste, and Van licked it all off carefully. Then he snuggled close to Pete, with his sorrowful head hidden in the little boy’s shirt.

“Now you jest git up as clost as you like, an’ go ter sleep an’ forgit all about it. I’ll stay with you, and don’t you feel bad. I’m right here, and I’ll take keer of you.”

Mrs. Trimble called Pete for the noon-day meal. There was no response. She had her suspicions, however, went out, and peeped into the kennel. There they lay, fast asleep, the tousled tow head and the smooth brown one, close together, the doggie still breathing in sobbing gasps, but comforted.