By inches Pete succeeded in coaxing Van in front of the stove, where he sat, grave and silent, watching the streak of red coals through the draft, with only now and then a sobbing whimper. Violent grief cannot last forever. By and by he lay down alongside, with his nose on Pete’s knee, and the sad brown eyes closed.
When bedtime came, he followed Pete up to the garret room, with its sloping sides, and he spent the night snuggled close to the little boy. Through the dark hours he forgot his sorrow and loneliness, forgot that he was a poor, deserted waif, and in prison; forgot even his dear mistress, his own Betsy.
“A long-drawn, homesick howl.”
CHAPTER XV
VAN’S HARD LESSONS
ANOTHER day or two of vain grieving, and Van’s gallant spirit began to react, and he showed more interest in the things around him. He would eat his food, but he was grave and solemn, and not at all like the merry rascal the Johns knew. It was not a bit like living at his own home, where he had porter-house steak and liver for his daily food. But he learned that hunger brings an appetite, and what he had was good for him, so he soon ate contentedly, as did the other dogs.
The Trimble house was not large. The upper story consisted of two bedrooms, Pete’s and another like it. Downstairs was another bedroom, the kitchen, the dining-room, the woodshed, and, crowning glory of all, the “parlor.” Like most treasures of its kind in the neighborhood, it was kept with closed shutters, and one’s voice was lowered a little when one crossed the threshold. Here Van was seldom allowed to come, nor did he care much.
Sometimes, on Sunday evenings, when the minister and his wife came to tea, a fire was lit in the Franklin stove in this sacred room. Then, for an hour, until bedtime, Van and Pete would tread softly over the woollen roses in the carpet, and sit before the blaze. Sometimes, too, Van would even lean against the best black skirt of the minister’s wife, who liked dogs. But these festive occasions came seldom, and were not so lovely that Van longed for them. It was all so different from home, where he ranged the whole house through, welcome everywhere.
He was no more the proud, haughty little Prince, with a whole family to wait on him. Down in his lonely heart he grieved and grieved, and often, as he sat in front of his kennel, he would utter a long-drawn, homesick howl, as he thought of his Betsy, of Dr. Johns, of Mrs. Johns, and Mary, and Treesa; of his basket in the kitchen, and all the comforts of his beloved Hill-Top.
In the winter evenings he would lie by the dining-room stove, on one of Pete’s old coats, and dream sadly of better days. He had really very little to complain of in the treatment he received. That his luxuries were few was no fault of the Trimbles, and indeed he was quite as well off without them. The great tragedy lay in the chain and the closed gate; the eternal longing for the old freedom, the wild rambles through wood and field, and his dear family.