Sigurd had been with us only a few days when we took him over to see his brother, already for nearly three months a resident at The Orchard. We found Laddie, slender, white and dainty, quite at home on the luxurious drawing-room sofa.
"I'm stronger than you," growled Sigurd, but Laddie, always the gentlest and sweetest tempered of collies, acquiesced so pleasantly that it was an amicable meeting. At the first hint of a second growl, Laddie gave up the place of honor to his guest.
Of course we remonstrated, admonished Sigurd and urged the accommodating host, whose good manners delighted the Sisters, to jump back, which he did, tucking himself unobtrusively into the further corner of the sofa. Sigurd immediately claimed that corner, which Laddie yielded to him with unruffled magnanimity, crossing over to the other. Sigurd promptly changed his mind again, pushing Laddie, this time a little inclined to demur, down to the floor. Unable to devise a plan by which he could curl into both corners at once, Sigurd stretched himself out at full length, doing his best to reach from end to end of the sofa, while Laddie, closely copying the attitude of this arrogant big brother, lay along the rug below. Scandalized by Sigurd's conduct, we would have removed him from his usurped throne in short order, but the Sisters, rejoicing in the perfection of Laddie's social graces and secretly convinced of their collie's moral superiority to ours, would not allow any interference with the visiting puppy's comfort.
That freedom of the sofa was precious to Sigurd's pride and by repeated efforts he tried to convince his obtuse mistresses that he was entitled to the same privilege at home. But Joy-of-Life, who did not believe in "pampering pets," stood firm. There was one evening, in particular, when Sigurd jumped up on our living-room lounge some score of times, keeping all the while a challenging eye on her, and just as many times was ignominiously tumbled off. When she finally took possession herself, laughing at his discomfiture, he banged his way out into the kitchen and went down with a thump on the bare floor, hoping that we would hear how hard it was and realize how sorely poor Sigurd was abused. Finding that no apologies were forthcoming, he bounded to the front door, barked his orders to have it opened and shot out into the dark. Within five minutes the familiar tinkle called us to the telephone and over the wire flowed the blithe voice of one of the Sisters.
"I must tell you what a lovely call we are having from dear Sigurd. He barked to come in only a minute ago and went right up to the sofa and took it all for himself—oh, yes, our Cousin had been sitting there with Laddie, but they didn't mind at all—and there he is now, making himself so charmingly at home, the beautiful boy. I do wish you could see him."
"We will," responded Joy-of-Life, and off we started to chastise Young Impudence, whom we had begun to suspect of being a trifle self-willed; but when we arrived the Sisters would by no means consent to his overthrow. So there, while the chat went on, Sigurd lolled and sprawled, yawning, stretching himself to an incredible length, rolling over on his back with paws held high as if to applaud his victory and continually turning up to Joy-of-Life eyes of such sparkling glee that her purposes of discipline melted in mirth.
None the less, she was a match for him, resorting to strategy when she was forbidden the exercise of force. Calling Laddie to her, she began to stroke his nestling head. Instantly Sigurd, with a multitudinous flourish of legs that might have moved a centipede to envy, flung himself off the sofa and roared imperiously at the front door:
"Open this, Somebody, and be quick about it, too. Time to be off. Oh, come along, Folks. You've no need to pat any dog but me. Good-night, Lovely Ladies. S'long, Lad. See you tomorrow in the gloaming."
And unless we kept a strict watch, so he would. How often, while surveying from our west porch, with Sigurd demurely sitting up between us, the last faint flushes of the sunset sky, from across the road there would be suddenly visible against the dusk a presence like a celestial apparition, so white and hushed it was, the shining figure, the lifted, listening head! And in the fraction of a second, even while we were catching at his collar, off would go Sigurd with a great leap, and away the brother collies would tear on a mighty run that kept two households anxious far into the night. There was nothing celestial about their behavior.
These lawless excursions often culminated in garbage-pail raids, debauches from which the young prodigals would sneak home, abashed with nausea. Once in a Commencement season we returned late in the evening, with a guest, from the high solemnity of the President's Reception, to find our hall strewn with Jonah strips of ham-rind and junks of pumpkin. Our guest was a brilliant, worldly being, a very dragon-fly of swiftness and gleam, and there she stood, exquisitely gowned in rose-red under lace whose color was that of moonlight seen through thin clouds, beholding our culprit, who an hour before had been exultantly ranging a world of mysterious and infinite adventure, flattened contritely in the midst of his enormities.