would squeeze himself into all impossible places when he saw either one of us coming with the prescribed "nourishment." As for medicine, he contracted that autumn an aversion to bottles which he never overcame. Years afterward, if Sigurd, about to enter a room, stopped short on the threshold and turned abruptly away, we looked around for the bottle.
One morning the gasps were very feeble. The veterinary told us the end was at hand. We took our earth-loving collie out from his dark hospital-nook in the house and laid him down among the asters and goldenrods on the wild land at the rear. The Lady of Cedar Hill had come over to see him once more. He was lying so still that we thought he would not move again, but at the sound of that beloved voice Sigurd stirred a feeble tail and breathed a ghostly echo of his lyric cry. Faint and hoarse though it was, there was the old glad recognition in it, and his first mistress, forgetting her intended precautions for the dogs at home, knelt down beside her Njal, comforting him with tender strokes and soft, caressing words. From that hour he began to mend, but so slowly that we were anxious about him all winter. Cruel pains would suddenly dart through him and he could never understand where they came from nor who did it. We would hear the sharp, distinctive cry that meant one of those pangs and then see Sigurd stagger up from his rug or cushion, look at it with deep reproach and cross to the furthest corner of the room. Once such a shoot of pain took him as he was standing by Joy-of-Life's gentle mother, his head propped on her knee, and the air of incredulous grief with which he drew back and gazed at her smote her to the soul. It was a matter of days before he could be coaxed to come to her again.
One of the discoveries of Sigurd's illness was the heart of our Swedish maid, Cecilia. Fresh from Ellis Island, buxom, comely, neat as a scoured rolling-pin, she regarded us with no more feeling than did her molding-board. We introduced her to the ways of an American household; we helped her with the speaking of English; we paid her wages; we were, in short, her Plymouth Rock, on which she stepped to her career in the New World. Best of all, we were palates and stomachs on which to try her sugary experiments, for it was her steadfast ambition to become an artist in dough with the view of securing a lucrative position as a pastry cook. However much we might further her own interests, her imperturbable coolness made it clear that as fellow-creatures we were nothing, but she humored every whim of that sick puppy, even letting him lie in her immaculate pantry when the restless fancy took him. Her love was lasting, too, for although, as soon as we had suffered her apprenticeship and begun to enjoy her perfected craft, she ruthlessly left us for "a hotel yob," she persisted for several years in sending Sigurd a dog-picture postcard every Christmas. We always gave him the cards, telling him they came from his friend Cecilia, and he pawed them politely, but inwardly deemed them a poor substitute for the cakes, tarts, puffs and crinkle-pastes of many curious flavors that had, for one brief season, made our At Homes famous in our "little academe," dropping delicious flakes for a thrifty tongue to garner under the table.
The distemper finally passed off in a trailing effect of St. Vitus' dance, which, again, our afflicted collie could not understand. On our springtide walks, his head, as he trotted in front, would suddenly be twitched to one side, as if we had jerked it by a rein. Apparently he thought we had, for invariably he came running back to see what we wanted of Sigurd.
The final, enduring result of this hard experience was an assured devotion. Sigurd had genially accepted us from the first as his people, but now, through the suffering and weakness, he had come to know us as his very own. The lyric cry still belonged to high romance, but after all those piteous weeks when he found his only comfort in lying close beside our feet – even, in extremity, upon them – he reserved certain welcomes and caresses for us alone. Ours was the long, silent pressure of the golden head against the knee and, in time of trouble, the swift touch of the tongue upon clouded faces, and ours the long, shining, intimate gaze that poured forth imperishable loyalty and love.
LADDIE
Lowly the soul that waits
At the white, celestial gates,
A threshold soul to greet
Belovèd feet.
Down the streets that are beams of sun
Cherubim children run;
They welcome it from the wall;
Their voices call.
But the Warder saith: "Nay, this
Is the City of Holy Bliss.
What claim canst thou make good
To angelhood?"
"Joy," answereth it from eyes
That are amber ecstasies,
Listening, alert, elate,
Before the gate.
Oh, how the frolic feet
On lonely memory beat!
What rapture in a run
'Twixt snow and sun!
"Nay, brother of the sod,
What part hast thou in God?
What spirit art thou of?"
It answers: "Love,"
Lifting its head, no less
Cajoling a caress,
Our winsome collie wraith,
Than in glad faith
The door will open wide,
Or kind voice bid: "Abide,
A threshold soul to greet
The longed-for feet."
Ah, Keeper of the Portal,
If Love be not immortal,
If Joy be not divine,
What prayer is mine?
THE CALL OF THE BLOOD
"Come, brother; away!"
Sigurd was not the only representative of his family in our favored town. His sister Hildigunna, who might well be described in the words applied to Hildigunna of the saga as "one of the fairest," was given to a comparatively remote household in Wellesley Hills from which – alas! – she soon was stolen and spirited away to fates unknown. But his brother Hrut, a name speedily changed by his new owners to Laddie, took up his happy abode at The Orchard, not half a mile from us. These owners, returning from one of their many holidays abroad, had found on shipboard the Lady of Cedar Hill, on her way back from Norway. Of course she told them about the ten puppies and of course she promised them one.
Reared in the best traditions of New England, these travelers had already achieved an ideal success as founders and directors of a famous school for girls and had retired from active labors to a tranquil home whose broad Colonial porches were screened with "white foam flowers" of the clematis. They were Neighbors par excellence, so beloved, so leaned upon, so beset with callers and "old girls," with church committees and town committees, with causes and confidences, that they literally had to go to Europe to secure an occasional rest. And it was charming to see how their modest dignity and winsome graciousness received due meed of honor the Old World over, from titled personages of London to the very cab-drivers of Florence, whom they believed to be "honorable men" and were undoubtedly cheated less for so believing. Hard, shrewd faces of Paris pensions and Swiss hotels softened in their presence, and even the severe old Scotch dame who rated them roundly for gadding about the globe instead of having married and reared a freckled family, like hers, was moved to add: "But I mak nae doobt ye are mooch respectet where ye cam fram." She would have been confirmed in this amiable concession if she could have seen how their return was a village jubilee and how all our accumulated joys and sorrows trooped in at once through their open doors. They were Ladies of rare and precious quality, with a touch of precise, old-fashioned elegance, which made one frank admirer exclaim: "But they are like finest china, like porcelain, like Sèvres. There is nothing so exquisite left on earth. They are classics." Most eminently of all, they were Sisters. A childhood of strange peril