Bruno. Byrd Spilman Dewey

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СКАЧАТЬ I had never cultivated an intimacy with Mrs. Nimrod, so that I might have "run in" to call, and thus have an opportunity to comfort the poor homesick fellow!

      Julius saw the tear-traces when he returned towards evening, and proposed a stroll down town; thinking, I suppose, that if we sat at home we should be sure to talk of Bruno and be melancholy.

      We walked through all the principal streets of the town, meeting and greeting friends and acquaintances, stopping to glance at new goods in several of the shops; bringing up at last in the town's largest bookstore.

      We were just starting for home, when on the sidewalk there was a sudden flurry and dash, and Bruno, stomach to earth, was crawling about us, uttering yelps and whines that voiced a joy so great it could not be told from mortal agony.

      Regardless of the fact that we were on the most public thoroughfare of the town, I fell on my knees to hug him, and could not keep back tears of mingled joy and pain. His poor thin sides! His gasps of rapture! Oh, Boonie, Boonie!

      The first excitement over, we looked about us for Mr. Nimrod. He was nowhere to be seen. Bruno had evidently escaped, and was running away to look for us when he had chanced to strike our trail and so had found us.

      We were glad he was alone. We both felt that if he had been torn from us at that supreme moment he would have died; he was so faint with fasting and grief, and then the overwhelming joy at finding those he had thought to be forever lost to him! He squeezed himself in between us, and kept step as we went homeward in the gathering twilight.

      As soon as we reached home, we hurried him to the kitchen to enjoy the sight of the poor fellow at his trencher. How we fed him! I ransacked the pantry for the things he liked best, till his sides began to swell visibly. He paused between mouthfuls to feast his loving eyes on first one, then the other of us, and his tail never once stopped wagging. Rebecca came purring in to rub against his legs, and even submitted with shut eyes to a kiss from his big wet tongue. He must have felt that such an hour repaid him for all his sufferings.

      After he had eaten until he evidently could not take another morsel, we drew him in front of us as we sat side by side, for a three-cornered talk. He sat on end, waving his tail to and fro on the floor, wrinkling his forehead and cocking up his ears, while we explained the situation to him.

      We told him how kind Mr. Nimrod meant to be to him, how he would train him to hunt and take him on long daily runs. Then we reminded him how impossible it was for Julius to go on such excursions with him, and of how many scrapes he had got into by going alone, – he seeming to take it all in and to turn it over in his mind.

      Then we told him that since he had found our new home he could come often to see us, and he would always find us glad to see him, – yes, more than glad!

      Then Julius got his hat and said, —

      "Come on, Boonie; now we're going home."

      He seemed quite willing to go. I told him good-by with a heart so light I could scarcely believe it the same one I had felt to be such a burden when I had set off for our walk two hours earlier. I busied myself then preparing a little supper against Julius's return; for we had not been able to eat since breakfast, and I knew by my own feelings that Julius would welcome the sight of a well-spread smoking table; and he said on his return that I "guessed just right."

      He and Bruno had found the Nimrods very much disturbed over their dog's disappearance. Mr. Nimrod had just returned from an unsuccessful search, and they were wondering what to do next. They welcomed the wanderer, but were concerned, too, that he had discovered our dwelling-place.

      "I'm afraid we'll have to keep him tied up now," said Mr. Nimrod.

      Julius thought not, and said, —

      "Now that he knows where we are, and can come for a glimpse of us now and then, I believe he'll be better contented than he was when he thought we'd left the country."

      Better contented he certainly was, but he positively refused to stay at home. It soon came to be a regular thing for Julius to escort him back every evening.

      The Nimrods lived nearly a mile from us, so Julius did not lack for exercise.

      Mr. Nimrod finally came to remonstrate with us.

      "You ought to shut him out," he cried, "then he'd have to come back home."

      For answer, Julius showed him certain long, deep scratches on our handsome new doors, adding, —

      "Don't you see? It's as much as our doors are worth to shut him out, and he leaps that four-foot fence as if it were but four inches."

      There was obviously no possible reply to such logic as this; so he continued to come, – dragging sometimes a rope or strap, or some other variety of tether, triumphantly proving that love laughs at locksmiths!

      The Nimrods at last lost heart. Bruno never would eat there, and he never stayed when he could manage to escape. One night it was raining hard when the time came for him to be taken "home," so they did not go; and that seemed to settle it.

      He was our dog.

      We had given him away without his consent, and he refused to be given; so the trade was off. He stayed closely at home now, seeming to think we might disappear again if he did not watch us.

      CHAPTER V

      Unless there were guests in the house, we usually slept with all the inner doors wide open for better circulation of air.

      One night we were awakened by tremendous barkings and growlings from Bruno. Julius spoke to him, and he answered with a whine. Then we could hear his feet pad-padding on the carpet as he went from our room, tap-tapping on the oil-cloth in the hall, pad-padding again through the sitting-room and the dining-room, then tap-tapping on the painted kitchen floor, with more loud barks and deep growls.

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