“Good morning, Dr. Johns. Hello, Van! Taking him on a vacation?”
“Hardly a vacation, I am afraid. In fact, it is quite the contrary. He’s been killing chickens, and I’m taking him to Trimble, the trainer, over in Westchester, to see if he can be cured of the habit.”
“That so? Well, now, I’m mighty sorry. He’s a great dog. I’d be glad to own one of his kind, chickens or no chickens. You see me and the little fellow are old friends.”
“Indeed? I wish the farmers around here could talk of him as kindly.”
“They would if they got acquainted with him, personal. You see, I’ve been running on this Hospital car ever since he was a puppy. One day, about a year ago, when he was a little tad, no bigger’n a pint of cider,—you could put him in your pocket,—Miss Betsy took him in town on my car, and he had the time of his life. He sat on the front seat like a man, and there wasn’t a house or tree on the line that he didn’t take in.
“Well, the very next day, at the same hour, I was startin’ to take my fares, and, if you’ll believe it, there sat that little scamp, perky and peart as you please, alone on the front seat, just where he had sat with Miss Betsy, and lookin’ as if he owned the car. How he got up there I don’t know; he was too small to climb. He must have taken it flying. But there he was as sassy as a squirrel.”
Dr. Johns laughed. “Did he pay his fare?”
“Not he. I didn’t ask no fares of him. I let him ride for nothing to the end of the line and back. Since then he’s had a free ride every time he asked for it—more times than I can count. All the car men know him.”
“He seems to make friends easily,” said Dr. Johns.
“Ha, ha! Not as easy as you’d imagine, Doctor. He gets his ride, and he wags the thing he calls his tail at us; but none of us ever got him to follow us. He always beats it up the hill back home at the end of the trip. Now I’m mighty sorry he’s gone wrong. He must have been in bad company. Here you are at the station, Doctor. Good luck to you. So long, Van!”