Not that he felt ashamed at all, but very tired and lame, hobbling behind his family into a bright, chattering room, where everybody wanted to pet him and where all he wanted was to be let alone to sleep his frolic off. Why must he be waked up with foolish laughter because that glittering tree, which he had not been allowed to investigate for squirrels, had given, in his name, a toy ship to Wallace, whose father, Professor Wit, must needs observe: "How like dear Sigurd, to present his neighbors with his barque!" And though for him the Christmas tree bore a chocolate caramel in the inmost box of a nest of boxes, he would, to the disappointment of the company who had heard of his skill in opening parcels, yawn and fall asleep over each box in turn. At his best, he bit drowsily into the pasteboard and pushed at the string more clumsily than usual with a pair of grimy paws from which the circle of silken skirts would draw away. Christmas, indeed, and an inaccessible chocolate caramel for dinner!
Sigurd's most thrilling adventures, naturally, had to do with dogs, but cats were an interesting side issue. The self-protective qualities of the feline race I realized on our first Sunday walk with the puppy, when a gray kitten bobbed up in our path. Sigurd romped forward, Joy-of-Life caught him by the collar, and I, for my sins, picked up the kitten. It looked so tiny, helpless and soft; it felt like a frame of steel and wire, every little muscle tense, while its claws flashed out like daggers and ripped up the back of my hand. In due time Sigurd learned how formidable a cat may be. If she ran, he pelted after until she took refuge up a tree, but if she proved to be some shrewd old grimalkin who held her ground he suddenly slackened his pace and sauntered casually by, trying to look as if he did not see her.
His one constant dog friend was Laddie. Their escapades were the top of all adventure,—such orgies of wild joy that I would gladly lie awake again listening for the hoarse bark of our returning prodigal. But with other dogs of his own sex, acquaintance, however affably begun, would soon ripen into a fight, unless the new comrade were too small and weak or had reasons of his own for declining the test of battle. With Gyp, across the way, a sly little black and tan, well-named, for his ancestors must have run with the Romany folk and bequeathed to him a genius for thievery, Sigurd did not take the trouble to quarrel. Gyp, always skulking about our premises, would make off with any of our lighter possessions carelessly left on porch or lawn. We had suffered these losses without redress—for to the dog's master, only too ready to beat poor Gyp cruelly on the least provocation, we would not make complaint—till Sigurd came. He had been with us barely a week when, one afternoon, as we were reading under the trees, Joy-of-Life reached a hand behind her for her parasol. It was not there. As we both exclaimed, questioned and looked about under the shrubbery where the wind, had there been a wind, could not possibly have blown it, our new guardian stood watching our
"unsuccessful pains
With fixed considerate face,
And puzzling set his puppy brains
To comprehend the case."
Suddenly he caught sight of Gyp trying with guilty haste to get a long object, balanced in his jaws, through a favorite hole in his backyard fence. It was never done, for Sigurd was upon him in a twinkling, had shaken him thoroughly and brought back the parasol essentially unharmed. Several times again he recovered our goods and chattels, invariably giving the culprit a vigorous shaking, but otherwise keeping on neighborly terms with the little scamp, till life ended for Gyp in a kick from his drunken master's boot.
With another neighbor, black Rod, a noble St. Bernard, the initial friendship was soon broken. The two dogs were of about the same age and had many a frisk together that first summer, but when Rod tried to join us on our walks, Joy-of-Life, who thought one big puppy enough for amateurs to handle, would sternly bid Rod, "Go home." Sigurd would promptly spring to enforce the command, and Rod would slowly and sulkily retreat. After a few of these experiences, Rod ceased to follow us, but he never forgave any one of the three. Thenceforth for the rest of their lives the two dogs, who knew themselves almost equally matched in size and strength, passed each other, often a dozen times a day, with bristling backs and low, cautious growls, while never could my friendliest greetings, even when I was alone, win the least wiggle of a wag from Rod's rigid, remembering tail. He was so fortunate as to live in a household of children, for whom he made the most faithful of protectors, and often, on a sparkling winter day, I have met him coasting with them, racing down the hill abreast of the sled, tail waving, eyes gleaming, but the instant he became aware of my obnoxious presence and observation, the tail would stiffen and the eyes would cloud. His hostility was a genuine hurt to me, so much did I like and respect the dog, but even in his old age, when pain and weakness lay heavy on him, and the children—did he understand?—were teasing their mother to have him chloroformed so that they might have in his place a stylish young Boston bull, he would accept from me no comfort of touch or tone. Another unhappy result of these early rebuffs was that Sigurd got it firmly fixed in his yellow noddle that the words Go home were the profanest of curses, and whenever he was so addressed, especially by one of us, his aspect of grief and horror was ludicrous to behold. Besides, he did not go.
Through Sigurd our circle of fellowship was widened for all time. Here we had been living on, half stifled in biped society, well-nigh unaware of the jubilant dog world bounding about our feet, but in a few months our own collie had made us acquainted with a democratic variety of canine types. And still I would almost rather meet a new dog than a new poet. A certain Norwegian lake is twice as dear to memory for the courteous Great Dane that did the honors of the bank and shared our tea cakes there; the only duchess to whose boudoir, at the heart of a frowning Border castle, we were ever invited, impressed us less than the three pompous poodles, their snowy curls so absurdly like her own, that squatted on the edges of her flowing heliotrope morning-gown and were simultaneously upset whenever one of her Ladyship's energetic impulses brought her to her feet.