“I don’t see what’s to prevent my liking both,” she smiled, as she disappeared up the stairs.
The next day it was still raining. I set off alone to make ready for the arrival of the Pilligs. I was standing on my kitchen porch talking to Mike when they arrived. It was a memorable moment. I heard the sound of wheels, and looked up. A wagon was approaching, driven by an old man. Beside him, beneath a cotton umbrella, sat a thin woman in black, with gray hair and a worried look. Behind them, on a battered trunk, sat Peter, who was not thin, who wore no worried look, and who chewed gum. Beneath the wagon, invisible at first, trotted a mud-bespattered yellow pup. The wagon stopped.
“Good morning, Mr. Upton,” said Mrs. Pillig. “This is me and Peter.”
“Where’s Buster?” said Peter.
At the word Buster, the yellow pup emerged from beneath the cart, wagging the longest tail, in proportion to the dog, ever seen on a canine. It would be more correct to say that the tail wagged him, for with every excited motion his whole body was undulated to the ears, to counterbalance that tail.
I went out and aided Mrs. Pillig to alight, and then Mike and I lifted the trunk to the porch. I looked at the dog, which had also joined us on the porch, where he was leaving muddy paw marks.
“Do I understand that Buster is also an arrival?” said I.
“Oh, dear me, Mr. Upton, you must excuse me,” Mrs. Pillig cried anxiously. “Mrs. John Barker’s boy Leslie gave Buster to Peter a month ago, and of course I sent him right back, but he wouldn’t stay back, and yesterday we took him away again, and this morning he just suddenly appeared behind the wagon, and I told Peter he couldn’t come, and Peter cried, and Buster wouldn’t go back, and I’ll make Peter take him away just as soon as the rain stops.”
“Well, I hadn’t bargained on Buster, that’s a fact,” said I. I didn’t like dogs; most people don’t who’ve never had one. But he was such a forlornly muddy mongrel pup, and so eloquent of tail, that I spoke his name on an impulse, and put out my hand. The great tail wagged him to the ears, and with the friendliest of undulations he was all at once close to me, with his nose in my palm. Then he suddenly sat up on his hind legs, dangled his front paws, looked me square in the eyes, and barked.
That was too much for me. “Peter,” said I, “you may keep Buster.”