THE SUNNYBANK COLLIES
Here, at "Sunnybank,"--at Pompton Lakes, in New Jersey,--we raisethoroughbred collies. For many years we have been breeding them. Formany years longer, I have been studying them.
The more I study them, the more I realise that there is somethingabout a collie--a mysterious, elusive something--that makes himdifferent from any other dog. Something nearer human than beast. And,for all that, he is one hundred per cent dog.
There is much to learn from him; much to puzzle over; as perhaps thefollowing discursive yarns about a few members of the long line ofSunnybank collies may show.
Greatest of them all was Lad. One would as soon have thought ofteaching nursery rhymes to Emerson as of teaching Lad "tricks." Beyondthe common babyhood lessons of obedience and of the Place's simpleLaw, he went untaught. And he taught himself; being that type of dog.For example:--
The Mistress had been dangerously ill, with pneumonia. (In my book,_Lad: A Dog_, I tell how Laddie kept vigil outside her door, day andnight, until she was out of danger; and how he celebrated herconvalescence with a brainstorm which would have disgraced athree-months puppy.) Well, on the first day she was able to be carriedout of doors, the Mistress lay in a veranda hammock, with Lad on theporch floor at her side.
Friends--several instalments of them--drove to the Place tocongratulate the Mistress on her recovery; and to bring gifts offlowers, fruit, jellies, books. All morning, Lad lay there, watchingthe various relays of guests and eyeing the presents they laid in herlap. After the fifth group of callers had gone, the big collie got upand trotted off into the forest. For nearly an hour he was absent.
Then he came back; travelling with difficulty, by reason of the heavyburden he bore. Somewhere, far away in the woods, he had found, orrevisited, the carcase of a dead horse--of an excessively dead horse.From it he had wrenched two ribs and some of the vertebrae.
Dragging this horrible gift along, he returned to the veranda. Beforeany of us were well aware of his presence (the wind setting in theother direction) he had mounted the steps and, with one mighty heave,had lifted the ribs and vertebrae over the hammock edge and laid themin the lap of his dismayed Mistress.
Humans had celebrated her recovery with presents. And he, watching,had imitated them. He had gone far and had toiled hard to bring her anoffering that his canine mind deemed all-desirable.
It was carrion; but it represented, to a dog, everything that apresent should be.
Dogs do not eat carrion. They merely rub their shoulders in it; on thesame principle that women use perfumes. It is a purely aestheticpleasure to them. And carrion is probably no more malodorous to ahuman being than is the reek of tobacco or of whisky or even of some$15-an-ounce scent, to a dog. It is all a matter of taste and ofeducation.
Noting that his gift awoke no joy whatever in its recipient's heart,Lad was monstrous crestfallen. Nor, from that day on, did he everbring carrion to the Place. He even abstained henceforth from rubbinghis shoulders in it. Evidently he gathered, from our reception of hispresent, that "it is not done."
When Lad was training his little son, Wolf, to become a decent caninecitizen, he was much annoyed by the puppy's trick of watching his sirebury bones and then of exhuming and gnawing them himself. Lad did notpunish the puppy for this. He adopted a shrewder and surer way ofsaving his buried treasures from theft.
Thereafter, he would bury the choice bone deeper in the ground thanhad been his habit. And, directly above it, just below the surface ofthe earth, he would inter a second and older bone; a bone that hadlong been denuded of all meat and was of no further value to any dog.
Wolf, galloping eagerly up to the spot of burial, as soon as Lad movedaway, would dig where his father had dug. Presently, he would unearththe topmost and worthless bone. Satisfied that he had exhausted thepossibilities of the cache, he dug no deeper; but left the new andtoothsome bone undiscovered.
By the way, did it ever occur to you that a dog is almost the onlyanimal to bury food? And did you ever stop to think why? The reason issimple.
Dogs, alone of all wild animals (dogs and their blood-brethren, thewolves), used to hunt in packs. All other beasts hunted alone or, atmost, in pairs. When prey was slain, the dog that did not bolt hisfood with all possible haste was the dog that got the smallest shareor none at all. When there was more food than could be devoured at onemeal, he had the sense to lay up provision for the next day's dinner.
He knew, if he left the carcase lying where it was, it would bedevoured by the rest of the hungry pack. So he buried as much of it ashe could, to prevent his brethren from finding and eating it.
Thus, the dog, alone of all quadrupeds, still bolts his food in hugeand half-chewed mouthfuls; and the dog buries food for future use.These two traits are as purely ancestral as is the dog's habit ofturning around several times before settling himself to sleep for thenight. His wild ancestors did that, to crush the stiff grasses andreeds into a softer bed and to scare therefrom any lurking snakes orscorpions.
Lad's "talking" was a byword, at Sunnybank. Only to the Mistress andmyself would he deign to "speak." But, to us, he would sometimes talkfor five minutes at a time. Of course, there were no actual words inhis speech. But no words were needed to show his meaning.
His conversation used to run the full gamut of sounds, in a way thatwas as eerie as it was laughable. He could--and did--express everyshade of meaning he chose to.
Indignation or disgust was voiced in fierce grumbles and mutters, thatwere run together in sentence lengths. Sympathy found vent in queercrooning sounds, accompanied by swift light pats of his absurdly tinywhite forepaws. Grief was expressed in something too much like humansobs to be funny. And so on through every possible emotion,--exceptfear. The great dog did not know fear.
No one, listening when Lad "talked," could doubt he was seeking toimitate the intonation and meanings of the human voice.
Once, the Mistress and I went on a visit of sympathy to a lugubriousold woman who lived some miles from Sunnybank, and who had been laidup for weeks with a broken arm. The arm had mended. But it was still asource of mental misery to the victim. We took Lad along, on our call,because the convalescent was fond of him. We had every cause, soon, towish we had left him at home.
From the instant we entered the old woman's house, a demon of evilmirth seemed to possess the dog. Outwardly, he was calm and sedate, asusual. He curled up beside the Mistress, and, with head gravely on oneside, proceeded to listen to our hostess' tale of the long and painfulillness. But, scarcely had the whiningly groaning accents framed asingle sentence of the recital, when Lad took up the woful tale on hisown account.
His voice pitched in precisely the same key as the speaker's, he beganto whine and to mumble. When the woman paused for breath, Lad filledin the brief interval with the most heartrendingly lamentable groans;then continued his plaint with her. And all the time, his deep-set,sorrowful eyes were fairly a-dance with mischief, and the tip of hisplumy tail was quivering in a tense effort not to betray his sinfulglee by wagging.
It was too much for me. I got out of the room as fast as I could. Iescaped barely in time to hear the hostess moan:
"Isn't it wonderful how that dog understands my terrible suffering? Hecarries on, just as if it were his own agony!"
But I knew better, in spite of Lad's affirmative groan. In personalagony, Lad could never be lured into making a sound. And when theMistress or myself was unhappy, his swift and heart-broken sympathydid not take the form of lamentable ululations or of such impudentcopying of our voices.
It was just one of Lad's jokes. He realised as well as we did that theold lady was no longer in pain and that she was a chronic calamityhowler. That was his way of guying the mock-sufferer. Genuine troublealways stirred him to the depths. But, his life long, he hated fraud.
Lad's story is told in detail, elsewhere; and I have here writtenoverlong about him. But his human traits were myriad and it is hardfor me to condense an account of him.
Then ther
e was Bruce,--hero of my dogbook of the same name. Bruce's"pedigree name" was Sunnybank Goldsmith; and for many years he broughtlocal dog-show fame to the Place by an unbroken succession ofvictories. A score of cups and medals and an armful of blue ribbonsattest his physical perfection.
But dog-shows take no heed of a collie's mentality, nor of thethousand wistfully lovable traits which make him what he is. When wecarved on Bruce's headstone the inscription, "_The Dog Without aFault_," we referred less to his physical magnificence than to thesoul and the heart of him.
He was wholly different from Lad. He lacked Lad's d'Artagnan-like dashand gaiety and uncanny wisdom. Yet he was clever. And he had a strangesweetness of nature that I have found in no other dog. That, and aperfect "one-man-dog" obedience and goodness.
Like Lad, he was never struck or otherwise punished; and never neededsuch punishment. He and Laddie were dear friends, from the moment theymet. And each was the only grown male dog with which the other wouldconsent to be on terms of cordiality.
Bruce had a melancholy dignity, behind which lurked an elusive senseof fun.
For his children--he had many dozens of them--he felt an eternaldisgust; even aversion. Let visitors start to walk towards thepuppy-yards, and Bruce at once lowered his head and tail and slunkaway. When a group of the puppies, out for a gallop, caught sight oftheir sire and bore down gleefully upon him, Bruce would stalk off inutter gloom. Too chivalric to hurt or even to growl at any of thescrambling oncoming babies, he would none the less take himself out oftheir way with all possible haste.
But, on occasion, he could rise to a sense of his duties as a parent.As when one of the young dogs was left tied for a few minutes to aclothesline, three summers ago. The youngster gnawed the line in twoand pranced merrily away on a rabbit hunt, dragging ten feet of ropewith him.
When I came home and saw the severed clothesline, I knew what must behappening, somewhere out in the woods. The dangling rope was certainto catch in some bush or stump. And the puppy, in his struggles, wouldsnarl himself inextricably. There, unless help should come, he muststarve to death.
For twenty-four hours, two of the men and the Mistress and myselfscoured the forests and hills for a radius of several miles. We lookedeverywhere a luckless puppy would be likely to entangle himself. Weshouted ourselves hoarse, in hope of an answering cry from the lostone.
After a day and a night of this fruitless search, the Mistress and Iset off again; this time taking Bruce along. At least, we started offtaking him. After the first hundred yards, he took us. Why I botheredto follow him, I don't yet know.
He struck a bee line, through woods and brambles, travelling at a hardgallop and stopping every few moments for me to catch up with him. Atthe end of a mile, he plunged into a copse that was choked withbriars. In the centre of this he gave tongue, with a salvo ofthunderous barks. Twice before, I had searched this copse. But, at hisurgency, I entered it again.
In its exact centre, hidden from view by a matted screen of briars andleaves, I found the runaway. His rope had caught in a root. He hadthen wound himself up in it, until the line enmeshed him and held himclose to earth. A twist of it, around his jaws, had kept him frommaking a sound. He was half dead from fright and thirst.
Having found and saved the younger dog, Bruce promptly lost allinterest in him. He seemed ashamed, rather than pleased, at ourlaudations.
On such few times as we went motoring without him, Bruce was always onhand to greet us on our return. And his greeting took an odd form.Near the foot of the drive was a big Forsythia bush. At sight of theapproaching car, Bruce invariably rushed over to this bush and hidbehind it. At least he bent his head until a branch of the bush hid itfrom view.
Then, tail a-quiver, he would crouch there; not realising that all ofhim except his head was in plain sight to us. When at last the car wasalmost alongside, he would jump out; and stand wagging his plumed tailexcitedly, to note our surprise at his unforeseen presence. Never didthis jest pall on him. Never did he have the faintest idea that hishead was the only part of his beautiful self which was not clearlyvisible.
Bruce slept in my bedroom. In the morning, when one of the maidsknocked at the door to wake me, he would get to his feet, cross theroom to the bed, and lay his cold muzzle against my face, tapping atmy arm or shoulder with his paw until I opened my eyes. Then, at once,he went back to his rug and lay down again. Nor, if I failed to climbout of bed for another two hours, would he disturb me a second time.
He had waked me, once. After that, it was up to me to obey the summonsor to disregard it. That was no concern of Bruce's. His duty was done!
But how did a mere dog know that the knock on the door was a signalfor me to get up? Never by any chance did he disturb me until heheard that knock.
He was psychic, too. Rex, a dog that I had had long before, used tosleep in a certain corner of the lower hall. He slept there for years.He was killed. Never afterward would Bruce set foot on the spot whereRex had been wont to lie. Time and again I have seen him skirt thatpart of the floor, making a semi-circular detour in order to avoidstepping there. I have tested him a dozen times, in the presence ofguests. Always the result was the same.
Peace to his stately, lovable, whimsical soul! He was my dear chum.And his going has left an ache.
Wolf is Lad's son--wiry and undersized; yet he is as golden asKatherine Lee Bates' immortal "Sigurd." He inherits his sire'swonderful brain as well as Laddie's keen sense of humour.
Savage, and hating strangers, Wolf has learned the law to this extent:no one, walking or motoring down the drive from the gate and comingstraight to the front door, must be molested; though no strangercrossing the grounds or prowling within their limits need betolerated.
A guest may pat him on the head, at will; and Wolf must make no signof resentment. But all my years of training do not prevent him fromsnarling in fierce menace if a visitor seeks to pat his sensitivebody. Very young children are the only exceptions to this rule of his.Toddling babies may maul him to their hearts' content; and Wolf revelsin the discomfort.
Like Lad, he is the Mistress' dog. Not merely because he belongs toher; but because he has adopted her for his deity.
When we leave Sunnybank, for two or three months, yearly, inmidwinter, Wolf knows we are going; even before the trunks are broughtfrom the attic for packing. And, from that time on, he is in dire,silent misery. When at last the car carries us out of the gate, hesits down, points his muzzle skyward, and shakes the air with a seriesof raucous wolf-howls. After five minutes of which, he sullenly,stoically, takes up the burden of loneliness until our return.
The queer part of it is that he knows--as Lad and Bruce used toknow--in some occult way, when we are coming home. And, for hoursbefore our return, he is in a state of crazy excitement. I don't tryto explain this. I have no explanation for it. But it can be proven byanyone at Sunnybank.
The ancestral herding instinct is strong in Wolf. It made itselfknown, first, when a car was coming down the drive towards the house,at a somewhat reckless pace, several years ago. In the centre of thedrive, several of the collie pups were playing. When the car wasalmost on top of the heedless bevy of youngsters, Wolf darted out,from the veranda, rushed in among the pups and shouldered them off thedrive and up onto the bank at either side. He cleared the drive ofevery one of them; then bounded aside barely in time to escape thecar's front wheels.
He was praised for this bit of quick thought and quicker action. Andthe praise made him inordinately proud. From that day on, he hashustled every pup or grown dog off the drive, whenever a car has comein sight through the gateway.
When the pups are too far scattered for him to round them up and shovethem out of harm's way, in so short a time, he adopts a still bettermode of clearing the drive. Barking in wild ecstasy, he rushes at topspeed down the lawn, as though in pursuit of some highly alluringprey. No living pup can resist such a call. Every one of theyoungsters dashes in pursuit. Then, as soon as the last of them is farenough away from the drive, Wolf
stops and comes trotting back to thehouse. He has done this, again and again. To me, it savours of humanreasoning.
In the car, Wolf is as efficient a guard as any policeman. When theMistress drives alone, he sits on the front seat beside her. If shestops in front of any shop, he is at once on the alert. At suchtimes, a woman acquaintance may come alongside for a word with her.Wolf pays no heed to the newcomer.
But let a _man_ approach the car; and Wolf is up on his toes, andready for trouble. If the man lays a hand on the automobile, in thecourse of the chat, Wolf is at his throat. When I am driving with theMistress, he lies on the rear seat and does not bother to act aspoliceman; except when we leave the car in his keeping.
People, hereabouts, know this trait of Wolf's and his aversion to anystranger. And they forbear to touch the car when talking with us. Lastyear, a friend came alongside, while we were waiting, one evening, forthe mail to be sorted. Wolf had never before seen this man. Yet, aftera single glance, the dog lost his usual air of hostility. There was aslight tremble in our friend's voice as he said to us:
"My collie was run over to-day and killed. We are mighty unhappy, atour house, this evening."
As he spoke, he laid his hand on the door of the car. Wolf lurchedforward, as usual. But, to our amazement, instead of attacking, hewhimpered softly and licked the man's face. Never before or since,have I seen him show any sign of friendly interest in a stranger--noteven to this same man, when they chanced to meet again, a few monthslater.
Bruce's son, Jock, was the finest pup, from a dog-show point ofview--and in every other way--that we have been able to breed. Jockwas physical perfection. And he had a brain, too; and abundant charm;and a most intensely haunting personality. He had from earliestpuppyhood, all the steadfast qualities of a veteran dog; and at thesame time a babylike friendliness and love of play.
Nor did he know what it was to be afraid. Always, in presence ofdanger, he met the menace with a furious charge, accompanied by aclear, trumpet-bark of gay defiance. Once, for instance, he had beenlying beside my chair on the veranda. Suddenly he jumped to his feet,with that same gay, fierce bark.
I turned to see what had excited him. A huge copperhead snake hadcrawled up the vines to the porch floor and had wriggled on; to withina foot or two of my chair.
Jock was barely six months old. Yet he flew to the assault with moresense than would many a grown dog.
All dogs have a horror of copperheads, and Jock was no exception. Byinstinct, he seemed to know what the snake's tactics would be. For hestrove to catch the foe by the back of the neck, before the copperheadcould coil.
He was a fraction of a second too late. Yet he was nimble and wiseenough to spring back out of reach, before the coiling serpent couldstrike. Then, with that same glad bark of defiance, he danced abouthis enemy, trying to take the snake from the rear and to flash in andget a neck grip before the copperhead could recoil after each futilestrike.
I put an end to the battle by a bullet in the snake's ugly head. AndJock was mortally offended with me, for hours thereafter, for spoilinghis fun.
When he was eight months old, I took the little chap to Paterson, tohis first (and last) dog show. Never before had he been off the Placeor in a house. Yet he bore himself like a seasoned traveller; and he"showed" with the perfection of a champion. He won, in class afterclass; annexing two silver cups and several blue ribbons. His peerlesssire, Bruce, was the only collie, in the whole show, able to win overhim, that day.
Jock beat every other contestant. He seemed to enjoy showing and todelight in the novelty and excitement of it all. He was at the showfor only a few hours; and it was a triumph-day for him.
Yet cheerfully would I give a thousand dollars not to have taken himthere.
For he brought home not only his many prizes but a virulent case ofdistemper; as did other dogs that attended the same show.
Of course, I had had him (as well as all my other dogs) inoculatedagainst distemper, long before; and such precautions are supposed tobe effective. But the disease got through the inoculation and infectedhim.
He made a gallant fight of it--oh, a _gallant_ fight!--the fearlesslittle thoroughbred! But it was too much for him. For five weeks, heand I fought that grindingly losing battle.
Then, in the dim grey of a November dawn, he lifted his head from myknee, and peered through the shadows towards one black corner of theroom. No one, watching him, could have doubted that he sawSomething--lurking there in the dark.
Sharply, he eyed the dim room-corner for an instant. Then, from histhroat burst forth that glad, fierce defiance-bark of his--hisfearlessly gay battle shout. And he fell back dead.
What did he see, waiting for him, there in the murk of shadows?Perhaps nothing. Perhaps "the Arch-Fear in visible shape." Who knows?
In any case, whatever it was, he did not fear it. He challenged it asfiercely as ever he had challenged mortal foe. And his hero-spiritwent forth to do battle with it--unafraid.
God grant us all so gallant an ending!
His little mother, Sunnybank Jean, had never cast Jock off, as do mostdog-mothers when their pups are weaned. To the day I quarantined himfor distemper, she and her son had been inseparable.
A week after Jock's death, Jean came running up to me, shaking withglad eagerness, and led me to the grave where the puppy had beenburied. It was far off, and I had hoped she would not be able to findit. But she had been searching, very patiently, whenever she was free.
And now, when she had led me to the grave, she lay down close besideit. Not despondently; but wagging her plumed tail gently, and as ifshe had found at last a clue in her long search. Scent or some othersense told her she was nearer her baby than she had been in days. Andshe was well content to wait there until he should come back.
All of which is maudlin, perhaps; but it is true.
Perhaps it is also maudlin to wonder why a sane human should be foolenough to let himself care for a dog, when he knows that at best he isdue for a man's size heartache within a pitifully brief span of years.Dogs live so short a time; and we humans so long!
This rambling tale of my dogs leaves no room to tell at length of thecollie who was never allowed in the dining-room until the after-dinnercoffee was served; and who came the length of the hall and up to thetable the moment the maid brought in the coffee cups (how he timed itto the very second, none of us knew; yet not once did he missconnections by the slightest fraction of a minute).
Nor does it permit the tale of the collie pup who was proud of hisstunt in learning to take the morning paper off the front steps andcarry it into the dining-room; and whose pride in the accomplishmentled him presently to collect all the morning papers from all the doorsteps within the radius of a mile and deposit them happily at my feet.
Nor can I tell of the collie that caught and followed the trail of myfootsteps, through the rain, along a crowded city street; in and outof a maze of turnings; and came up with me inside of three minutes.Nor of a long line of other collies, some of whom showed humanintelligence; and some, intelligence that was almost more than human.
Not even of the clown pup that was so elated over "rounding up" hisfirst bunch of sheep that he proceeded to round up chickens and catsand every living and round-up-able creature that he could find; norof the collie who, taught to fetch my hat, was wont to romp up to mein the presence of many outsiders; bearing proudly in his teeth anassortment of humble, not to say intimate and humiliating, garments.
* * * * *
Comedian dogs, spectacular dogs, gloriously human dogs, Sunnybankcollies of every phase of heart and brain and soul--one common andpathetically early tragedy has waited or waits for you all! Among you,you have taught me more of true loyalty and patience and courtesy anddivine forgiveness and solid sanity and fun and a hundred otherworth-while lessons, than all the masters I have studied under.
* * * * *
I wonder if it is heretical to believe that when at last my tired
feetshall tread the Other Shore, a madly welcoming swirl of exultantcollies--the splendid Sunnybank dogs that have been my chumshere--will bound forward, circling and barking around me, to lead meHome!
Heretical or otherwise, I want to believe it. And if I fail to findthem there, I shall know I have taken the Wrong Turning and havereached a goal other than I hoped for.
THE END
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