The Dogs of Boytown. Dyer Walter Alden

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СКАЧАТЬ setter sprang up, yawned, and then stood ready for the next command. Both boys patted her and then held out their hands to Sam.

      "I hope we'll see you again sometime," said Ernest. "We like to hear you tell about your dogs."

      The man's tanned face seemed to soften a little as he shook hands with the boys.

      "Well," said he, "I guess you can see me if you want to. My social engagements ain't very pressin' just now. I ain't got one of my business cards with me, but you can just call anywhere in these woods and ask for Sam Bumpus. The dogs'll know me if the men don't. So long, boys," and he strode off down the bank with Nan dashing joyously ahead.

      "Good-by, Mr. Bumpus," called Ernest and Jack.

      He paused in the act of leaping the brook and looked around, with the twinkle in his eyes.

      "Say," he called back, "if I ever hear you call me that again I'll set the dog on you. My name's Sam, d'ye hear?" Then he slipped in among the underbrush and was gone.

      Talking animatedly about their new acquaintance and about dogs, the two boys hastened to lock up their treasure chest and depart.

      "Say, Ernest," said Jack, as they started off through the woods with their bags of chestnuts over their shoulders, "the Cave is a great place for adventures, isn't it?"

      That evening, as the family were gathered in the living-room on Washburn Street, and Mrs. Whipple was trying to repair the damage that chestnutting had wrought in a pair of Ernest's stockings, the boys asked their father if he knew Sam Bumpus.

      "Bumpus?" he asked. "Oh, yes, he's that queer fellow that lives all alone in a shack in the woods off on the Oakdale Road. An odd character, I guess, from all I hear, but they say he's a wonderful shot and people take their bird dogs to him to be broken. How did you hear about him?"

      The boys told their story, and then Ernest asked wistfully, "Papa, when can we have a dog?"

      "When your mother says you can," replied Mr. Whipple, with a smile.

      Sorrowfully the boys went off to bed, well knowing what that meant. For Mrs. Whipple was one of the people that Sam Bumpus had spoken of – the kind that don't like dogs.

      CHAPTER II,

      SAM'S SHACK

      The next Saturday was gray and chilly, but the weather did not deter Ernest and Jack Whipple from starting off early for the woods. They carried their chestnut bags as a matter of course, but this time the chestnut trees offered them very little enticement. The ones they knew best had already been robbed of their nuts, and they soon wearied of a somewhat profitless search. It was Jack who voiced what was in the minds of both boys.

      "I wish we could run across Sam Bumpus again," he said.

      Sam had said they could find him in the woods, but the woods had never seemed so extensive and it was like hunting for a needle in a haystack. They arrived at Beaver Pond and the Trapper's Cave without encountering any sign of the man and his dog.

      Chiefly as a matter of habit they built a small fire in front of the Cave and sat down beside it on their log seat to consider the problem of finding an elusive hunter in the wide woods. They did not even open the treasure chest.

      "He said anybody could tell us where to find him," said Jack, "but there's no one to ask. People don't live in the woods, do they?"

      Ernest sat pondering. "Well," said he at length, "there's that old woman that gave us the doughnuts one day. Do you remember? She had a lot of white hens that went right into her house, and a little dog named Snider that was so old he could hardly breathe."

      "Oh, yes," responded Jack, brightening up. "Where does she live?"

      "I don't know exactly," said Ernest, mournfully, "but I think it was over that way. We might find her if we hunted."

      The boys arose, put out their fire carefully, as all good woodsmen should, and started off through the woods again. They must have tramped for nearly an hour, but the very uncertainty of the outcome of their quest gave it a touch of adventure and kept them going. At last, after following various false clues, they came out unexpectedly and abruptly into the clearing behind the old woman's house. The cackling of fowls and the wheezy barking of little old Snider greeted them. As they approached, the old lady herself appeared in the doorway of her kitchen, clad in a faded blue dress and leaning on her stick. As soon as she saw that it was boys her face broke into a smile.

      "Come right in," she said, "and I'll get you some cookies."

      The boys entered and sat in the kitchen chairs to eat their cookies. They were anxious to be on their way in search of Sam Bumpus, but politeness demanded that they linger a few minutes. Ernest inquired after the health of old Snider. The widow shook her head sadly.

      "He's failin'," she replied. "I can see he's failin'. His teeth is all gone so he can't eat much and he has the azmy pretty bad. It's what us old folks has to expect, I s'pose, but I don't know what I'll do when Snider goes. He's all I've got now."

      She wiped away a tear with the corner of her apron while the boys fidgeted in their chairs. They felt sorry for her, but they didn't know what to say on an occasion like this. Ernest reached down and patted the little dog's head.

      "Poor old Snider," he murmured. Somehow that seemed to comfort the old lady.

      At last Ernest found it possible to ask her if she knew Sam Bumpus.

      "Lor', yes," she responded. "Queer old codger, Sam is, but the best-hearted man in the world. Many a good turn he's done me. He was here only this mornin' with some bones to make into soup for Snider."

      "Where did he go?" inquired Ernest.

      "He didn't say where he was goin', but I reckon if you was to go over to the Poor Farm you could find out. He was headed that way."

      The boys had ridden by the Poor Farm on several occasions but had never visited it, and they felt a slight hesitation about doing so now, but the woman assured them that the inmates were all quite harmless and gave them directions for a short cut. Thanking her for her kindness, and patting Snider good-by, they set off along a rutty woods road and in a little while came to the Poor Farm. They crossed an inclosed field where a small drove of hogs were feeding, and went around to the front of the big white house.

      They did not have to inquire for Sam Bumpus, for there he was, as natural as life, sitting on the steps of the veranda with Nan stretched out beside him. As the boys turned the corner of the house he arose with alacrity and held out his hand to them.

      "Well, well," he cried in his gruff voice, his face wreathed with smiles, "this is a sight for sore eyes. Come right up and set down here. I can't invite you in because this ain't my house. I'm just a visitor here myself. I have a lot of old cronies here, and besides, I want to get familiar with the place because I may have to come here to live myself sometime."

      He rattled on so that the boys didn't have a chance to answer. He led them up on the veranda to an old man who sat in a rocking chair, bundled up in a blanket, smoking a pipe carved wonderfully in the form of a stag's head.

      "These are my friends Ernest and Jack Whipple," he said to the old man, "and they like dogs."

      At this the old man took his pipe from his mouth with a thin, trembling hand, looked at them out of pink, watery eyes, smiled, and nodded his white head.

      "This СКАЧАТЬ