Rick and Ruddy: The Story of a Boy and His Dog

by Howard Roger Garis

But Ruddy heard the whistle, and instantly he was awake, sitting up with ears lifted to catch the slightest sound. Ruddy looked toward the hedge, for though he could not see very well he could hear better, and smell best of all. And he could hear well enough to know that the whistle came from the other side of the hedge.

Now if dogs think, and I am beginning to believe more and more that they do something very like thinking, Ruddy must have reasoned something like this:

"Hello! Here's Rick home from school ahead of time! He must have been a good boy and the teacher let him out early. Now for some fun!"

Ruddy knew about the time that Rick came home from school each day. Ruddy could tell time a little. I mean, by this, that he knew at about what hour each day certain things would happen. He always knew it was meal time, though of course he could not look at the face of the clock and tell at what hour the hands pointed. I doubt if he could have told which were the clock hands and which were the black figures. But Ruddy knew when it was time for his meals, and he had come to know about the time Rick came home from school each day. And now, as he heard the whistle, the dog thought it was his master who had arrived ahead of the usual hour.

Ruddy was not much surprised at hearing the whistle. True Rick, of late, had given up uttering the shrill call from away down the street as he ran from school. It was this call that Haw-Haw had imitated and so often puzzled the dog. This which Ruddy had heard was a different whistle, such as Rick often used to call his dog back, when the two of them were racing over the fields, and the setter would run too far ahead.

"Now for some fun!" thought Ruddy, in the only way dogs can think. "Rick's home and we'll have a grand race!"

Ruddy must have known it was not the crow whistling this time, though whether he recalled seeing Haw-Haw asleep in the warm corner behind the stove I cannot say.

Anyhow, up jumped Ruddy, and, with a joyous bark, he leaped over the hedge, at a low place, and found himself on the other side.

And then came a big disappointment. For Rick was not there at all. Instead there was a ragged man, a man whose face needed shaving, a man whose scent Ruddy remembered only too well—a man whom the dog feared.

"O ho! You came when I whistled all right; didn't you?" spoke the man in a low voice. "I thought you would! I thought I'd find you if I sneaked around long enough. Now I've got you back, maybe I'll have some luck!"