For those dear, swift steps of thine,
Whose path is my perfect way
Of holiness.
ADVENTURES
"Puntarvolo. Is he religious?
Gentleman. I know not what you call religious, but he goes to church, I am sure."
—Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour.
The zest, the fun, the excitement Sigurd infused into our human humdrum outwent all expectation. I think it added a relish even to Joy-of-Life's devotions at the early service of St. Andrew's that a suppressed yelp and a vehement scamper might at any second denote Laddie's appearance and Sigurd's instant reversion from her pious attendant in the vestibule to a wild creature of enraptured speed. He opened our eyes to a new vision of the most familiar things. What we had considered merely gray squirrels were revealed, through his glorious campaign against them, as goblin banditti bent on insult and robbery. For on those enchanted autumn days, when we would be wandering through the rich-colored, spicy woods, where winds laughed among the branches and chased leaves bright as jewels down the air, these impertinent squirrels were always scolding overhead and dropping acorns on us. I remember one such stroll, when a falling chestnut smacked Sigurd soundly on the nose. He at once attributed the indignity to the squirrels—quite unjustly this time—and made off in pursuit of a wily old fellow that whisked in and out among the slender birch boles and led him, as if for the mere sport of it, on a far chase. I was absorbed meanwhile in altruistic combat with a troop of ants, a foraging party returning to their hill-castle with a company of belated beetles as booty. As often as I brushed the ranks into confusion with a spray of goldenrod, it was astonishing to see how quickly the discomfited ants would rally and how immediately every one of the madly skurrying beetles—for their pitiless captors had deprived them of their wings—would be again a prisoner, surrounded in close formation by a marching escort. Looking up from this insect tragedy, I saw Sigurd tearing back with something in his mouth that, for one horrified instant, I thought was the slaughtered squirrel. It turned out to be my hat, which, blowing merrily away from the bramble whereon it was hung, had been captured by my friend in need, who proudly restored it, somewhat the worse for the manner of its rescue. Later on, in the hushed Indian summer noons, Joy-of-Life and I would take our luncheon out into the woods, where our golden collie would roll over and over in a rustling bed of leaves much of his own color or of brown, fragrant pine-needles, his bright eyes always on the watch for any aggression from the peering citizens of the trees.
The winter, however, was Sigurd's heroic season. He had the soul of a helper, not of a pet, and longed for occupation, responsibility, service. His sentry duty at night, his guardianship in our walks, his herding of the family into the dining-room three times a day with punctual solicitude, these were not enough. It was amusing and yet, in a way, touching to see with what strenuous earnestness he took upon himself the task of driving the squirrels away from the bird boxes. For our neighbors, the "shadowtails," as the Greeks called them, were so obtuse as to appropriate to their own comfort and convenience every provision we made for the flying folk. We had put up in the trees near the house a few bird palaces, variously named, according to the dominant interest of those whose respective windows overlooked them, Toynbee Hall, the Tabard Inn, the Waldorf-Astoria, the Mermaid Tavern; but their bluebird tenants were soon ejected, and families of baby squirrels, for whose repose their parents busily chewed up mattresses of leaf and bark, were reared in those proud abodes. To this Sigurd had to submit, though he would lie for hours on the piazza, his chin on his paws, wondering why the Collie Creator, whom he probably took to be much like his adorable father Ralph, only a thousand times as big—for had not Sigurd heard in the skies the thunder of his bark?—denied to dogs the gift of climbing trees. But their attack on the food-boxes brought these pirates almost within Sigurd's reach.