Frank of Freedom Hill

by Samuel A. Derieux

Aunt Cindy, who had watched the performance, shook her head.

"Dat dawg knows," she declared; "he shorely knows!"

"I should think," said Earle, rising, "the way the boy worries him, he would be glad of a little peace."

"Well, he like grown folks, Mr. Steve, he love to be bothered by chillun. Dis place daid widout dat boy. Lorsy, lorsy!"

Earle drove off in the car and the old woman went into the house. Usually she sang as she waddled about her work—now she was silent. All afternoon the dog lay, nose pointed toward the distant city. He could see across the orchard where one day not long before Tommy had picked up June apples off the ground and put them in a basket, down the hill to the creek bottoms. He could see the creek itself flashing here and there through clumps of trees, the creek where Tommy used to throw sticks for him to fetch. He spent his captivity in dignified resentment.

But he quickly forgot his grievance when at dusk he heard the hum of the returning car. He ran as far as he could to meet it, his tail slapping the taut chain. When Earle drove into the yard and turned him loose he ran to the car, he jumped up on the running board; he stared at the empty back seat.

"Nothing doing, old man," said Earle gently as he turned away.

So the strange days passed. Every morning he followed Earle about the plantation; every afternoon he was chained up; every evening he was given his freedom till next day. Things did not mend. Earle grew more silent, his conferences with Aunt Cindy briefer, the worry in his gray eyes deeper. The dog saw it plainer at night than at any other time, when out on the porch Earle lit his pipe; read it unmistakably in the flaring up of the match against the man's face out here in the dark. Then he laid his head on the man's knee and Earle pulled his ear, while up in the blackness of the big oaks crickets rattled and sawed without ceasing.

At last one afternoon from in front of his kennel he watched a heavy thunder cloud gather over the hills and come rumbling toward him. The sky grew black; the orchard trees, the creek bottoms, the distant hills took on strange colours, as if autumn had miraculously come. Out of her cabin hurried Aunt Cindy and toward the garage, her white apron like a flag of truce flapping against the oncoming storm. He watched her put the shovel into the little wagon and pull the wagon into the blacksmith shop. The door creaked loudly as she closed it. Back to her cabin she hurried, leaning against the wind. Tail tucked, the dog crawled deep into his kennel and listened to the roar of the storm.

It had passed when Earle drove into the yard and turned him loose. So had the ditch the boy had dug that rainy morning—washed full of sand now, and a stick horse that had leaned idle against the lot fence was blown down prostrate on the ground. Earle didn't want any supper, he told Aunt Cindy as he went into the house. He did not come out on the porch that night, and the dog sought his sleeping place beside the garage. It was meaningless now that the wagon was gone. Restless, lonely, strangely excited, he came back and guardedly manipulated the screen door.