“I raised that dog from a pup, Miss. I owned his mother. I raised him. I put his name on his collar. He has it there yet, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, sir,” admitted Ruth.
“He’s always been a good dog. He’s a gentleman if ever a dog was! He had the run of the house. My wife and the girls made a great pet of him. But by and by they said he was too big and clumsy for the house. They have a couple of little fice—lap-poodles, or the like. Tom Jonah was put out, and he got jealous. Yes, sir!” and the man laughed. “Just as jealous as a human.”
“Oh!” gasped Agnes. She disliked that man!
“My name’s Reynolds,” said the man. “Everybody knows me about Shawmit. I run a lumber-yard there.
“Well! Tom Jonah got to running away to the neighbors. Stayed a while with one, then with another. Always liked kids, Tom Jonah did, and he’d stay longest where there were kids in the family.
“But it got to be a nuisance. I didn’t know whether the dog belonged to me or somebody else. So I sold him to a relative of my wife’s who came on visiting us, and took a fancy to Tom Jonah, and who lives—as I said—forty miles beyond Milton. So the old fellow was on his way back home when you took him in, eh?”
“He came to us at Milton,” Ruth replied. “He wanted to stay. I brought him down here to take care of my little sisters. We’re living in a tent down on the shore yonder——”
“And we’re going to keep him!” interrupted Agnes, angrily.
“Hush! Be still, Aggie!” begged Ruth, in a low tone.