Link could not understand why the same wit which sent Chum half a mile, of his own accord, in search of one missing sheep out of the entire flock, should not tell him that a fire is kept alive by the putting of wood on it.
In search of some better authority on dog intelligence, Link paid his first visit to Hampton's little public library. There, shamefacedly, he asked the boy in charge for some books about dogs. The youth looked idly for a few minutes in a crossindex file. Then he brought forth a tome called "The Double Garden," written by someone who was evidently an Eyetalian or Polack or other foreigner, because he bore the grievously un-American name of "Maeterlinck".
"This is all I can find about dogs," explained the boy, passing the linen-jacketed little volume across the counter to Link. "First story in it is an essay on 'Our Friend, the Dog,' the index says. Want it?"
That evening, by his kitchen lamp, Ferris read laboriously the Belgian philosopher's dog essay. He read it aloud—as he had taken to thinking aloud—for Chum's benefit. And there were many parts of the immortal essay from which the man gleaned no more sense than did the collie.
It began with a promising account of a puppy named Pelleas. But midway it branched off into something else. Something Link could not make head nor tail of. Then, on second reading, bits of Maeterlinck's meaning, here and there, seeped into Ferris's bewilderedly groping intellect.
He learned, among other things, that Man is all alone on earth; that most animals don't know he is here, and that the rest of them have no use for him. That even flowers and crops will desert him and run again to wildness, if Man turns his back on them for a minute. So will his horse, his cow and his sheep. They graft on him for a living, and they hate or ignore him.
The dog alone, Link spelled out, has pierced the vast barrier between humans and other beasts, and has ranged himself, willingly and joyously, on the side of Man. For Man's sake the dog will not only starve and suffer and lay down his life, but will betray his fellow quadrupeds. Man is the dog's god. And the dog is the only living mortal that has the privilege of looking upon the face of his deity.
All of which was doubtless very interesting, and part of which thrilled Ferris, but none of which enlightened him as to a dog's uncanny wisdom in certain things and his blank stupidity in others. Next day Link returned the book to the library, no wiser than before, albeit with a higher appreciation of his own good luck in being the god of one splendid dog like Chum.
July had drowsed into August, and August was burning its sultry way toward September. Link's quarterly check from the Paterson Market arrived. And Ferris went as usual to the Hampton store to get it cashed. This tine he stood in less dire need of money's life-saving qualities than of yore. It had been a good summer for Link. The liquor out of his system and with a new interest in life, he had worked with a snap and vigor which had brought results in hard cash.
None the less, he was glad for this check. In another month the annual interest on his farm mortgage would fall due. And the meeting of that payment was always a problem. This year he would be less cruelly harassed by it than before.