A Spectral Collie

by Elia W. Peattie

　　

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WILLIAM PERCY CECIL happenedto be a younger son, so he left home-- which was England -- and wentto Kansas to ranch it. Thousandsof younger sons do the same, only their destinationis not invariably Kansas.An agent at Wichita picked out Cecil'sfarm for him and sent the deeds over to Englandbefore Cecil left. He said there was ahouse on the place. So Cecil's mother fittedhim out for America just as she had fittedout another superfluous boy for Africa, andparted from him with an heroic front and bigagonies of mother-ache which she kept toherself.The boy bore up the way a man of hisblood ought, but when he went out to thekennel to see Nita, his collie, he went topieces somehow, and rolled on the grass withher in his arms and wept like a booby. Butthe remarkable part of it was that Nita wepttoo, big, hot dog tears which her masterwiped away. When he went off she howledlike a hungry baby, and had to be switchedbefore she would give any one a night's sleep.When Cecil got over on his Kansas placehe fitted up the shack as cosily as he could,and learned how to fry bacon and make sodabiscuits. Incidentally, he did farming, andsunk a heap of money, finding out how notto do things. Meantime, the Americanslaughed at him, and were inclined to turnthe cold shoulder, and his compatriots, ofwhom there were a number in the county,did not prove to his liking. They consoledthemselves for their exiled state in fashionsnot in keeping with Cecil's traditions. Hishomesickness went deeper than theirs, perhaps,and American whiskey could not makeup for the loss of his English home, nor flirtationswith the gay American village girlsquite compensate him for the loss of hisEnglish mother. So he kept to himself andhad nostalgia as some men have consumption.At length the loneliness got so bad that hehad to see some living thing from home, ormake a flunk of it and go back like a crybaby. He had a stiff pride still, though hesobbed himself to sleep more than one night,as many a pioneer has done before him. Sohe wrote home for Nita, the collie, and gotword that she would be sent. Arrangementswere made for her care all along the line, andshe was properly boxed and shipped.As the time drew near for her arrival, Cecilcould hardly eat. He was too excited toapply himself to anything. The day of herexpected arrival he actually got up at fiveo'clock to clean the house and make it lookas fine as possible for her inspection. Thenhe hitched up and drove fifteen miles to gether. The train pulled out just before hereached the station, so Nita in her box waswaiting for him on the platform. He couldsee her in a queer way, as one sees the purplecentre of a revolving circle of light; for, totell the truth, with the long ride in the morningsun, and the beating of his heart, Cecilwas only about half-conscious of anything.He wanted to yell, but he didn't. He kepthimself in hand and lifted up the slidingside of the box and called to Nita, and shecame out.But it wasn't the man who fainted, thoughhe might have done so, being crazy homesickas he was, and half-fed and overworkedwhile he was yet soft from an easy life. No,it was the dog! She looked at her master'sface, gave one cry of inexpressible joy, andfell over in a real feminine sort of a faint,and had to be brought to like any other lady,with camphor and water and a few drops ofspirit down her throat. Then Cecil got upon the wagon seat, and she sat beside himwith her head on his arm, and they rode homein absolute silence, each feeling too much forspeech. After they reached home, however,Cecil showed her all over the place, and shebarked out her ideas in glad sociability.After that Cecil and Nita were inseparable.She walked beside him all day when he wasout with the cultivator, or when he was mowingor reaping. She ate beside him at tableand slept across his feet at night. Eveningswhen he looked over the Graphic fromhome, or read the books his mother sent him,that he might keep in touch with the world,Nita was beside him, patient, but jealous.Then, when he threw his book or paper downand took her on his knee and looked into herpretty eyes, or frolicked with her, she fairlylaughed with delight.In short, she was faithful with that faith ofwhich only a dog is capable -- that unquestioningfaith to which even the most lovingwomen never quite attain.However, Fate was annoyed at this perfectfriendship. It didn't give her enough to do,and Fate is a restless thing with a horribleappetite for variety. So poor Nita died oneday mysteriously, and gave her last look toCecil as a matter of course; and he held herpaws till the last moment, as a stanch friendshould, and laid her away decently in apine box in the cornfield, where he could beshielded from public view if he chose to gothere now and then and sit beside her grave.He went to bed very lonely, indeed, thefirst night. The shack seemed to him to beremoved endless miles from the other habitationsof men. He seemed cut off from theworld, and ached to hear the cheerful littlebarks which Nita had been in the habit ofgiving him by way of good night. Her amiableeye with its friendly light was missing,the gay wag of her tail was gone; all herridiculous ways, at which he was never tiredof laughing, were things of the past.He lay down, busy with these thoughts,yet so habituated to Nita's presence, thatwhen her weight rested upon his feet, asusual, he felt no surprise. But after a momentit came to him that as she was dead theweight he felt upon his feet could not behers. And yet, there it was, warm and comfortable,cuddling down in the familiar way.He actually sat up and put his hand downto the foot of the bed to discover what wasthere. But there was nothing there, savethe weight. And that stayed with him thatnight and many nights after.It happened that Cecil was a fool, as menwill be when they are young, and he workedtoo hard, and didn't take proper care of himself;and so it came about that he fell sickwith a low fever. He struggled around for afew days, trying to work it off, but one morninghe awoke only to the consciousness ofabsurd dreams. He seemed to be on the sea,sailing for home, and the boat was tossingand pitching in a weary circle, and couldmake no headway. His heart was burningwith impatience, but the boat went round andround in that endless circle till he shriekedout with agony.The next neighbors were the Taylors, wholived two miles and a half away. They wereawakened that morning by the howling of adog before their door. It was a hideoussound and would give them no peace. SoCharlie Taylor got up and opened the door,discovering there an excited little collie."Why, Tom," he called, "I thought Cecil'scollie was dead!""She is," called back Tom."No, she ain't neither, for here she is,shakin' like an aspin, and a beggin' me togo with her. Come out, Tom, and see."It was Nita, no denying, and the men, perplexed,followed her to Cecil's shack, wherethey found him babbling.But that was the last of her. Cecil said henever felt her on his feet again. She hadperformed her final service for him, he said.The neighbors tried to laugh at the story atfirst, but they knew the Taylors wouldn't takethe trouble to lie, and as for Cecil, no onewould have ventured to chaff him.

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