"It's comin'," said the blacksmith. "Now, Johnnie Kongapod, you tell us the story. Tell us how Aunt Olive frightened ye when you went to pilot her off to the camp-meetin'."
"No," said Johnnie Kongapod. "It thunders. You must get Aunt Olive to tell you that story."
"When you come to meet her," said the blacksmith to Jasper. "Kongapod would tell it to you, but he's afraid of the cloud. No wonder."
A vivid flash of lightning forked the sky. There followed an appalling crash of thunder, a light wind, a few drops of rain, a darker air, and all was still. The men looked out as the cloud passed over.
"You will have to stay here now," said the blacksmith, "until the cloud has passed. Our stories may seem rather rough to you, edicated as you are over the sea. Tell us a story—a German story. Let me put the old leather chair up here before the fire. If you will tell us one of those German stories, may be I'll tell you how Johnnie Kongapod here and Aunt Olive went to the camp-meetin', and what happened to them on the way."
There was a long silence on the dark air. The blacksmith enlivened the fire, which lit up the shop. Jasper sat down in the leather chair, and said:
"Those Indian dogs remind me of scenes and stories unlike anything here. The life of the dog has its lesson true, and there is nothing truer in this world than the heart of a shepherd's dog. I am a shepherd's dog. I am speaking in parable; you will understand me better by and by.
"Let me tell you the story of 'The Shepherd Dog,' and the story will also tell a story, as do all stories that have a soul; and it is only stories that have souls that live. The true story gathers a soul from the one who tells it, else it is no story at all.
"There once lived on the borders of the Black Forest, Germany, an old couple who were very poor. Their name was Gragstein. The old man kept a shepherd dog that had been faithful to him for many years, and that loved him more than it did its own life, and he came to call him Faithful.
"One day, as the old couple were seated by the fire, Frau Gragstein said: