Lad: A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune Read Free Book Online Page A

terrible jaws as was Lady herself.
    He sniffed in friendly fashion at the child’s pathetically upturned face. Into the dull baby eyes, at sight of him, came a look of pleased interest—the first that had crossed their blankness for many a long day. Two feeble little hands reached out and buried themselves lovingly in the mass of soft ruff that circled Lad’s neck.
    The dog quivered all over, from nose to brush, with joy at the touch. He laid his great head down beside the drawn cheek, and positively reveled in the pain the tugging fingers were inflicting on his sensitive throat.
    In one instant, Lad had widened his narrow and hard-established circle of Loved Ones, to include this half-dead wisp of humanity.
    The child’s mother came up the steps in the Master’s wake. At sight of the huge dog, she halted in quick alarm.
    â€œLook out!” she shrilled. “He may attack her! Oh do drive him away!”
    â€œWho? Lad?” queried the Mistress. “Why, Lad wouldn’t harm a hair of her head if his life depended on it! See, he adores her already. I never knew him to take to a stranger before. And she looks brighter and happier, too, than she has looked in months. Don’t make her cry by sending him away from her.”
    â€œBut,” insisted the woman, “dogs are full of germs. I’ve read so. He might give her some terrible—”
    â€œLad is just as clean and as germless as I am,” declared the Mistress, with some warmth. “There isn’t a day he doesn’t swim in the lake, and there isn’t a day I don’t brush him. He’s—”
    â€œHe’s a collie, though,” protested the guest, looking on in uneasy distaste, while Baby secured a tighter and more painful grip on the delighted dog’s ruff. “And I’ve always heard collies are awfully treacherous. Don’t you find them so?”
    â€œIf we did,” put in the Master, who had heard that same asinine question until it sickened him, “if we found collies were treacherous, we wouldn’t keep them. A collie is either the best dog or the worst dog on earth. Lad is the best. We don’t keep the other kind. I’ll call him away, though, if it bothers you to have him so close to Baby. Come, Lad!”
    Reluctantly, the dog turned to obey the Law, glancing back, as he went, at the adorable new idol he had acquired; then crossing obediently to where the Master stood.
    The Baby’s face puckered unhappily. Her pipestem arms went out toward the collie. In a tired little voice she called after him:
    â€œDog! Doggie! Come back here, right away! I love you, Dog!”
    Lad, vibrating with eagerness, glanced up at the Master for leave to answer the call. The Master, in turn, looked inquiringly at his nervous guest. Lad translated the look. And, instantly, he felt an unreasoning hate for the fussy woman.
    The guest walked over to her weakly gesticulating daughter and explained:
    â€œDogs aren’t nice pets for sick little girls, dear. They’re rough; and besides, they bite. I’ll find Dolly for you as soon as I unpack.”
    â€œDon’t want Dolly,” fretted the child. “Want the dog! He isn’t rough. He won’t bite. Doggie! I love you! Come here!”
    Lad looked up longingly at the Master, his plumed tail awag, his ears up, his eyes dancing. One hand of the Master’s stirred toward the hammock in a motion so imperceptible that none but a sharply watchful dog could have observed it.
    Lad waited for no second bidding. Quietly, unobtrusively, he crossed behind the guest, and stood beside his idol. The Baby fairly squealed with rapture, and drew his silken head down to her face.
    â€œOh, well!” surrendered the guest, sulkily. “If she won’t be happy any other way, let him go to her. I suppose it’s safe, if you people say so. And it’s the first thing she’s been interested in, since—No,