Sigurd Our Golden Collie and Other Comrades of the Road Part 10

For our own part, we tried not to think too much of our forsaken collie, but up in Norway we heard dogs called by his name and even on our housetop promenades in Seville we were reminded of his frolic grace by a scalawag puppy on a neighboring flat roof, a gleeful little gymnast whose joy it was to leap up and jerk the linen off the line.

Sigurd's friends and ours wrote to us of his welfare with a cheerfulness that was apt to waver before the end of the paragraph.

"I met him on the campus yesterday," scribbled Nannikachee, "and when I asked him where his professors were, he galloped all over the snow, remembering you as juncos, and on second thought he reared up against an oak and barked up into its branches to scare you out of your holes, convinced that you had come to a bad end and been turned into squirrels. Such are the workings of the mighty mind you two sillies credit him with! He looked as round and yellow as a Thanksgiving pumpkin, but there was something wistful about him, too."

On the twenty-third of May, within a month of our return, Sigurd died.

To all his losses had been added, that spring, the loss of College Hall, through whose familiar corridors he had roamed as usual, always seeking, one March afternoon, and which he found the next morning a desolation of blackened walls and blowing ashes. If Sigurd could have counted into the hundreds, he would have known that every girl was safe, but if he could have read in the papers of the quiet self-control with which, roused from their sleep to find the flames crackling about them, they had steadily carried through their fire-drill, formed their lines, waited for the word and gone out in perfect order, he would have been no prouder of them than he always was. Of course his Wellesley girls would behave like that.

Sigurd crowded with the rest of the college into close quarters, where he was more than ever underfoot. On that languid twenty-second of May he slept all day along the threshold of the improvised postoffice, and the hurrying feet stepped over him with unreproaching care. But with the arrival of the late afternoon mail, the postmistress, knowing the rush that was to come, said kindly to him:

"Now, Sigurd, you must really go away."

He rose slowly and moved from door to door till he came to the office of the Christian a.s.sociation. a.s.sured of Samaritan shelter here, he finished his snooze on their one rescued rug, but arrived at home in punctual time for his dinner, and that night it chanced to be the dinner Sigurd liked best. Little Esther, who had a romp with him on his arrival, said he "smiled all over when he smelt the liver cooking."

He sc.r.a.ped out his pan to the last crumb and then lay down in a favorite burrow of loose, cool earth for a twilight revery. One of the household, a new lover, invited him to take a stroll with her, but he excused himself with a grateful rub of his head against her knees.

He slept in Sigurd's House, as usual, and started out soon after dawn, as usual, to go for a splash in a brook not far away. An early riser, intent on making up her count of birds, met him and reported that he was trotting briskly and saluted her with "a sunny twinkle of his tail." Across the road from the brook is a pleasant old homestead under whose great trees Sigurd often took a morning nap before returning to the Scarab. Its occupants looked from the window, as they were dressing, and saw him lying at ease under a spreading evergreen. An hour later, as they rose from breakfast, they observed that Sigurd had not changed his posture and, going out to bid him good morning, found him lifeless. There was no injury on his body nor any sign of pain or struggle. He had made friends even with Death.

Did he, like the old hero Njal, "gentle and generous," foreknow his end as he chose out this quiet, beautiful spot? "We will go to our bed,"

said Njal in the saga, "and lay us down. I have long been eager for rest."

A grave was dug for Sigurd on the brow of Observatory Hill over which he had so often sped in the splendor of his strength, and there, under the pines, some score of his closest friends and ours gathered the following morning. With the reading of dog poems and the dropping of wild flowers they gave the still body, that was not Sigurd, back to earth. Jack pressed close to his mistress, whose Wallace sleeps near by, and whined as the box was lowered, while little Esther, beholding for the first time a burial, broke into wild crying.

In the autumn I stood by the grave, on which the one dear Sister left in The Orchard had planted violets and periwinkles from Laddie's mound, and watched a kindly young workman set above it a low granite block inscribed, "Sigurd--Our Golden Collie. 1902-1914." As I strewed the stone with goldenrod and turned away, there echoed on the air ancient words from the Greek Anthology, "Thou who pa.s.sest on the path, if haply thou dost mark this monument, laugh not, I pray thee, though it is a dog's grave. Tears fell for me."

Sigurd would have been well content with the honors that his College paid him,--an obituary notice written with tenderest sympathy, a commemorative letter from his Cla.s.s of 1911 and many a student elegy.

It shall be his own cla.s.s poet who paints the final picture:

"A dancing collie and gay woodland sprite, Philosopher, friend, playmate unto each, Quiet in trial and charming in delight, Without the doubtful benefit of speech.

"When snow was over earth and lake and sky, How often where pale hemlock boughs bent low Have we beheld his flying shape go by, An arrow sped from an immortal bow!"

TO JOY-OF-LIFE

So that was why our collie went away, Wise Sigurd, knowing you would come Ere a new springtide by the valley gray, Planning to guide you home,

To bark Heaven's earliest welcome, to entice Those dearest feet the dim glen through, Then proudly up blithe hills of Paradise To "find the path" for you.

II

OTHER COMRADES OF THE ROAD

THE PINE GROVE PATH

Our festal day was yet so young, As through the pines I came to you, The level sunrise lightly flung Before my feet, O eager feet, A flickering path of flame to you.

The purple finches, breakfasting On pinecone seeds, in charity Tossed down the silky scales, to bring My human heart, O singing heart, A share of their hilarity.

But gladder than those revelers So raspberry red, I sped to you, Beyond the pines, beyond the firs, A birthday guest, O blissful guest To tread the path that led to you.

ROBIN HOOD

"The little bird with the red breast, which for his great familiarity with men they call a Robin, if he meet any one on the woods to go astray, and to wander he knows not whither out of his way, of common charitie will take upon him to guide him, at least out of the woods, if he will but follow him, as some think. This I am sure of, it is a comfortable and sweet companion."

--_Partheneia Sacra_. By "H. A." 1533.

The early history of Robin Hood, like that of too many ill.u.s.trious characters, is veiled in obscurity. I never knew his parents nor was I ever on speaking terms with any other member of his family. I cannot tell whether his nursery was set in an apple tree or elm or oak or pine, nor whether it was wind or boy or other untoward circ.u.mstance of nestling life that cast his helpless infancy adrift upon the world. Our earliest knowledge of Robin Hood dates from Sunday morning, June 16, 1901, when a group of Wellesley children, demurely wending their way to Sunday School across a bit of open green, heard chirps in the gra.s.s and picked up a baby robin, cold, hungry, bedraggled, pecked and generally forlorn. They took him to Sunday School, m.u.f.fling him in a spick-and-span small handkerchief when his cries became too shrill and, after this vain attempt at spiritual comfort, gave him to one of their mammas, who, for several days, managed to sustain him on experimental diets. Thursday morning, being about to make her summer exodus, she cheerfully transferred her fosterling to me. Her farewell attention, a spoonful of milk poured down his yawning throat, nearly ended his adventures on the spot. He turned up his eyes, gasped and stiffened, but with admirable presence of mind she balanced him on his bill, gave him a dexterous tap in the crop and wiped up the milk from the table, while Robin, blinking ruefully, resigned himself to a nap in my pocket.

He woke before we reached home, however, and demanded luncheon so imperiously that I called at the nearest house and begged for bread. At the drug store I paused again for water and, to make better connection between this fluid and the depths of that bright orange cavity which Robin so confidingly opened, I bought a medicine-dropper, but soon found that a finger-tip would do as well.

Owing to these attentions by the way, Robin Hood was in an agreeable and sociable frame of mind when he first met his adopted family, yet all his baby graces gained for him only a mocking reception. He was such a dumpy, speckle-breasted fluff, with funny folding legs that could not hold him up on the perch, no tail and an utterly disproportionate amount of bill, that it was impossible to take him seriously, but his trustful little heart never once suspected that we were making fun of him. He cuddled down cosily on an improvised couch in the corner of a canary cage and devoted himself to a steady alternation of snoozes and gorges. Everybody laughed at him--the Dryad, who declared him a little monster of greediness and bad manners; the chipmunks, who peered curiously into his cage whenever we left it for sun and air on the piazza; even Joy-of-Life, who promptly sallied out with a long iron spoon to dig him worms. For Robin Hood would keep on ringing his dinner-bell, so to speak, even while the moistened bits of bread were being thrust down his vociferous throat, ceasing from that hungry clamor only when he was stuffed to the point of suffocation.

Then, with a ridiculous little grunt, he would topple off the supporting hand back to his trundle-bed and doze like a dormouse only to awake, in half an hour or so, an utterly famished birdling, all one yellow gape of tremulous eagerness and outcry.

At this stage of development, living to eat, and eating to sleep, Robin was left for several days in the care of Dame Gentle, kindest of neighbors, pending the absence of his foster family. Here he was petted to his babyhood's content and soon evinced a docile, affectionate disposition. He took a dislike to his cramped canary cage, but now he was strong enough to perch, and once placed on a chair rung by a hand he trusted, he would sit quiet from one feeding time to the next, or until he heard a familiar voice or step. Then, floppity-flop, down to the floor would tumble Robin and hop joyously to meet his friend. He soon had a soft, crooning little note for Dame Gentle, and all the summer long, while he became a general chatterbox, kept a peculiarly confidential accent and manner for her.

We resumed our charge on the third of July, but on the Fourth our attention was somewhat diverted from Robin by the gift of a baby vireo, apparently wounded by a fall from the nest. This green jewel, wild as a windy leaf at first, was soon tamed, but his diet proved a difficult problem. Robin Hood was only too ready to eat anything and everything, but the tiny vireo, though calling piteously for food, turned his bill away in sore disappointment from our various offerings. He would not touch the crumbs of softened bread, nor Robin's favorite mess of mashed potato and hard-boiled egg-yolk. We consulted all our bird-books, and when we learned that the case demanded "masticated insects," we sat down and looked at each other in despair. I generously offered to catch any number of insects, if Joy-of-Life would do the masticating, but little Liberty Bell finally compromised on a masticated raspberry. The next day, mocking-bird food was procured for him, and this he swallowed with apparent relish, but still he did not thrive.

On Sunday, the seventh, an eager troop of children brought to our door another fallen vireo, this wee waif seeming in worse state than the other. We named him Church Bell and cherished him as tenderly as our ignorance might, but I hope Cornelia never had half the trouble with her jewels that our pair of emeralds gave us. Their sharp, incessant, querulous pipe, the utterance of pains we could not soothe, was so trying to the nerves that, when I heard Joy-of-Life dropping books, I would transfer the nest from her desk to mine, and when Mary came up with a message from the grocer to find me spilling ink, she would take the vireos down to her ironing board and drown their plaints by her l.u.s.ty voice of song. They were exquisite little creatures to see, and as trustful with us as was Robin himself, but we never had the key to their mystery. They would cry even in sleep and had hours of violent trembling. We would sometimes put them in the rough, outdoor cage which had been built for Robin, a large, square, unfloored box with roof and walls of woven wire. He looked big and lubberly beside them, like Puck beside Oberon and t.i.tania, but he was always good-natured with his dainty guests and often tried to join in the conversation as they sat, pressed close together, on the far end of the twig which served him for a perch, lamenting like elfin Banshees. A touch of chilly weather ended their brief tragedy. Liberty Bell was hushed forever in the dawn of Tuesday, the ninth, and by Wednesday noon Church Bell lay silent beside him in the rockery which was already the burial cairn of three beloved chickens, Microbe, Pat and Cluxley.

Meanwhile Robin Hood had been causing his share of anxiety. The birdlings were all so tame that, in feeding them, we used to throw back that half of the cage-top which served as lid, whereupon they would fly up to the edge of the box and sit there in a row for dinner.

Occasionally one of the vireos would flash up into a low tree and wail for food until we had to bring the step-ladder and fetch him down. But it was not until Robin's winglets were fairly grown that he seemed aware of the existence of trees. Then, suddenly, one azure afternoon, he glanced up, c.o.c.ked his head, spread his untried Icarus-plumes and was off. In instant consternation, the whole family trooped after him, so far as groundlings could, while he flew from tree to tree and roof to roof. Chirping in his affectionate fas.h.i.+on, he peeped down upon us with evident surprise as if to ask, "Why don't you come, too? It's much nicer up here." Innocent of mirrors, he probably thought that we looked just like him, or that he looked just like us, and he could not understand why we chose to be earth-gropers when the leafy branches swayed so delectably in mid-air. But he was such a social and kindly little bird that, on our repeated calls, he came dipping down to us and, without protest of a feather, let himself be shut into his cage again.

Now we were face to face with the question that had already cast its shadow before. Should we make a life-long captive of our Robin, who took so pleasantly to human ways, or should we give him the perils and delights of liberty? Mary's eyes were very wistful, and Joy-of-Life and I reiterated to each other that our house-reared bird would be handicapped in the greenwood struggle for life, that he was necessarily weaker and less wary than other young robins, that there were white kittens next door, that a gaunt, gray hunting-cat had been seen lurking about the wire box--and yet, all the while, we knew what we must do.

"He who bends to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sunrise."

And so, on the following day, whenever any of us were at leisure to guard our artless adventurer from the dangers of the yard, we set the cage-lid wide and let him go where he would. He made small use of his privileges at first. Little runs on the lawn amused him for a while, but he would soon mount to the piazza rail and tease the occupant of the steamer chair for food and petting. His hops over the shelving rock behind the house were feeble; his trips of exploration to the neighboring trees and roofs were brief. He was hardly more than a baby robin yet and, soon wearied, he would go back into his cage for a nap on the familiar perch. An old maternal robin showed much interest in this lonely, weak-legged youngster, who seemed so unthrifty about picking up ants for himself, but he squealed with fright and flew to us whenever she approached him. She would stand silently beside the cage and study him through the wire while he slept, but whether she was the matron of a robin-home for crippled children, or one of his kinsfolk puzzling out a likeness, our bewildered fosterling, whose idea of mother-birds was formed on Dame Gentle and ourselves, would have, from first to last, nothing to do with her.

But one evening, July 7th, just as we had finished giving Robin Hood a particularly good supper on the edge of his box, he suddenly soared and left us. The house stands

"About a young bird's flutter from a wood,"

and, to our dismay, Robin Hood made thitherward as if it were Sherwood Forest, disappeared among the dusky treetops and returned not a chirp to all our agitated calling. He had not pa.s.sed a night out of doors for the three weeks that he had been under human guardians.h.i.+p, and we felt that anything from a fatal chill to a fatal hawk might befall him. But the first sound that greeted my waking senses in the morning was Mary's delighted, rich-toned, "Why, Robby!"

and there, on top of his cage, sat a hungry, happy little bird, chirping eagerly and gesticulating with one wing in a funny fas.h.i.+on of his own, peculiar to seasons of excitement.