“Do you like dogs,” she asked again, for the tramp sat dumb before her. His eyes dropped. He had reached that point in the life of a vagabond where the frank, honest eyes of some one in whom hope burns brightly, makes the hopeless soul recoil and seek to hide away from questioning eyes.
“I just feel like hugging the old dog,” he said, “because he offered to be my friend, and I am so hungry for friendship. I would like to secure a position, and find a home and settle down in the ways of peace once more. I am without a friend in all the wide world. The touch of the dog’s tongue on my hand is the first friendly touch I have felt for two years. The woman inside allowed me to sit down and rest here, but she refused me a bite to eat. I guess the old dog knows how hungry and friendless and despondent I am, so he came up and gave me the kiss of loving friendship.”
“Wait,” said the girl, “I’ll bring you something to eat, poor man.”
She sat and talked to him while he ate. She had never found any one so interesting, and he had never seen any one so beautiful. He could touch her heart as never any one had touched it before. He knew so much of life and was so discouraged and hopeless with it all. His talk opened up a new world to her. Her life had been so tame and commonplace, and she had longed for news from the outside world. He did not look like a tramp, though he was ragged and dirty and unshaven. The girl went to her father and persuaded him to give the poor tramp a job.
Walter Burfield stayed. He worked hard and faithfully. He resolved to give up roaming forever and try to make a man of himself, though obliged to begin down at the bottom. The old dog followed him through the fields day after day, as though he felt that it was his influence that had called Walter back to a life of usefulness. And Walter well knew that it was old Hector’s warm kiss on his hand that brought out the heart talk that morning with Adaline Blair.
Two years afterward, as he sat under a shade tree while resting his team of horses, he hugged the old dog and said to him:
“Dear old Hector, that first kiss of yours opened the door to a brand new world for me. God, but I must have been sick and lonely on that morning I sat resting on the porch, and you and Adaline found me and took me into your affections. Your kisses are still warm and affectionate, old doggie, but I felt a warmer one last night on my lips. Do you know that your little mistress has promised to be my wife? She says she was drawn toward me when she saw me hugging her dog. It was your loving kiss, old Hector, that has brought all this new love and hope and sunlight into my life. She would never have caught me hugging you, were it not for your friendly kiss.”
LOVE LETTERS
Through an almost fatal accident, an old lady of seventy-five years lay at death’s door for many long weeks. She had not been as prosperous during the last twenty-five years of her life as she had been in her early married life, and many of her old time friends had drifted out of her life, and she drifted out of theirs. She thought of all this as she lay on her bed of affliction, too weak to move more than one arm. It was sad to think of the old friends who had forgotten her so completely. They must all know of her illness, for her daughter Mary had read several notices to her from the local papers concerning her serious accident, and more serious condition since the accident occurred.