Bert and I roared. “They’re all alike,” cried Bert to me. “You ain’t got no fit clothes, neither, hev you, Miss Goodwin?”
“Of course not,” she laughed. “But I expect to go.”
“Well, I ain’t got no swaller tail myself,” said Bert. “But I expect to go. We’ll jest leave the old lady ter home.”
“Will you, now?” said she. “Do you s’pose I’d lose a chance to see how Mrs. Pillig’s feedin’ our friend? Not much!”
“Seven o’clock, then!” I called, as I went back down the road, to light my old student’s lamp again at last, and labour in my own house in the quiet evening, the time of day the Lord appointed for mental toil. As I drew near, the form of Buster emerged from the shed, barking savagely, his bark changing to whimpers of joy as I spoke his name. He pleaded to come into the house with me, so I let him come, and all the evening he lay on the rug beside my chair, while I worked. Now and then I leaned to stroke his head, whereupon he would roll over on his back, raise his four paws into the air, and present his white belly to be scratched. When I stopped, he would roll back with a grunt of profound satisfaction, bat one eye at me affectionately, and go to sleep again.
“Buster,” said I, “hanged if I don’t like you.”
His great tail spanked the rug.
The house seemed oddly more companionable for his presence. Yes, I did like him–I who had thought I hated dogs! I put him to bed at eleven, in the woodshed, and bade him good-night aloud.
The next day Mrs. Pillig was nervously busy with preparations for the feast. The ice man came, and the butcher. I worked half the day at my manuscripts, and half cleaning up the last of my orchard slash, mowing the neglected grass with a scythe, and trimming the grass between the house and the road with a lawn mower. I also edged the path to the kitchen door. Every few moments I looked up the road toward Bert’s, but no figure drew near with saucily tilted nose. There was only Buster, trotting hither and yon in every part of the landscape, and, at half-past three, the chunky form of Peter coming home from the Slab City school. I set Peter to work for an hour sawing wood.
“But I gotter study,” he said.