Treve’s entertaining badnesses had woven themselves into the very life of the Place. Their passing left a keen hurt. The more so because, under them, lay bedrock of staunch loyalty and gentleness.
I have not the skill to paint our eccentrically lovable chum’s word picture, except in this clumsily written sketch. If I were to attempt to make a whole book of him, the result would be a daub.
But I have tried at least to make his name remembered by a few readers; by giving it to the hero of the “Treve” collection of stories. Perhaps some one, reading, may like the name, even if not the stories, and may call his or her next collie, “Treve”; in memory of a gallant dog that was dear to Sunnybank.
We buried him in the woods, near the house, here. A granite boulder serves as his headstone.
Alongside that boulder, a few days ago, we buried the Mistress’s hero collie, Wolf; close to his old-time playmate, Treve.
Perhaps you may care to hear a word or two of Wolf’s plucky death. Some of you have read his adventures in my other dog stories. More of you read of his passing. For nearly every newspaper in America printed a long account of it.
It is an account worth reading and rereading; as is every tale of clean courage. I am going to quote part of the finely-written story that appeared in the New York Times of June 28, 1923; a story far beyond power of mine to improve on or to equal:
"Wolf, son of Lad, is dead. The shaggy collie, with the eyes that understood and the friendly tail, made famous in the stories of Albert Payson Terhune, died like a thoroughbred. So when Wolf joined his father, in the canine Beyond, last Sunday night, there was no hanging of heads.
"Wolf died a hero. But yesterday the level lawns of Sunnybank, the Terhune place at Pompton Lakes, N. J., seemed empty and the big house was curiously quiet. True, other collies were there; but so, too, was the big boulder out in the woods with just ‘Wolf’ graven across it.
"Ten years ago, when thousands of readers were following Lad’s career as told by his owner, Mr. Terhune, an interesting event took place at Sunnybank. Of all the puppies that had or have come to Sunnybank, that group of newcomers was the most mischievous. Admittedly, Lad was properly proud, but readers will remember his occasional misgivings about one of the pups. The cause of parental concern was Wolf. He was a good puppy, you know, but a trifle boisterous; maybe—yes, he was, the littlest bit inclined to wildness.