The oily stuff had a very good taste, and Van licked it all off carefully. Then he snuggled close to Pete, with his sorrowful head hidden in the little boy’s shirt.
“Now you jest git up as clost as you like, an’ go ter sleep an’ forgit all about it. I’ll stay with you, and don’t you feel bad. I’m right here, and I’ll take keer of you.”
Mrs. Trimble called Pete for the noon-day meal. There was no response. She had her suspicions, however, went out, and peeped into the kennel. There they lay, fast asleep, the tousled tow head and the smooth brown one, close together, the doggie still breathing in sobbing gasps, but comforted.
CHAPTER XVI
THE JOURNEY HOME
“He was home again and his college days were over.”
IN the afternoon Van’s kennel was put back into its old place, and he lay there all day, sick, exhausted, and miserable.
Next morning he was turned loose once more in the chicken-yard, and Mr. Trimble stayed outside. There was no one to interfere; Van might have killed the whole flock, for anything that he could see to hinder. He never glanced at them—not even at the smallest broiler. He was sick of even the very thought of chickens. He lay down by the gate in the sun, and licked the still smarting seams on his sides.
Roosters strutted proudly past him; old hens scratched placidly in the dirt all around him; the young ones came and went right under his very nose—it was all the same to him. One lesson was thoroughly learned; and although for eight long months afterward he spent an hour every morning in the yard with the chickens, never again was he known to touch one.
Always, always, in Van’s lonely heart was the thought of home and his beloved little mistress. But with a chain at the kennel, a high fence all around the place, and a spring lock on the gate, there was not much chance of escape.