Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [65]
‘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.’
Nan went away quite crushed, though she hadn’t the least glimmering what Jem meant, and Jem scowled at the embers of the smouldering sunset. Dogs were barking all over the Glen. The Jenkins down the road were out calling theirs… all of them took turns at it… everyone, even the Jenkins tribe could