PAGE 7
The Coon Dog
by
“Goodness alive, who ‘s this? Good for you, old handsome! Why, I ‘ll be hanged if it ain’t old Rover, boys; it’s old Rover!” But Isaac could not speak another word. They all crowded round the wistful, clumsy old dog, whose eyes shone bright, though his breath was all gone. Each man patted him, and praised him, and said they ought to have mistrusted all the time that it could be nobody but he. It was some minutes before Isaac Brown could trust himself to do anything but pat the sleek old head that was always ready to his hand.
“He must have overheard us talkin’; I guess he ‘d have come if he ‘d dropped dead half-way,” proclaimed John Henry, like a prince of the reigning house; and Rover wagged his tail as if in honest assent, as he lay at his master’s side. They sat together, while the fire was brightened again to make a good light for the coon-hunt supper; and Rover had a good half of everything that found its way into his master’s hand. It was toward midnight when the triumphal procession set forth toward home, with the two lanterns, across the fields.
V.
The next morning was bright and warm after the hard frost of the night before. Old Rover was asleep on the doorstep in the sun, and his master stood in the yard, and saw neighbor Price come along the road in her best array, with a gay holiday air.
“Well, now,” she said eagerly, “you wa’n’t out very late last night, was you? I got up myself to let Tiger in. He come home, all beat out, about a quarter past nine. I expect you had n’t no kind o’ trouble gittin’ the coon. The boys was tellin’ me he weighed ‘most thirty pounds.”
“Oh, no kind o’ trouble,” said Isaac, keeping the great secret gallantly. “You got the things I sent over this mornin’?”
“Bless your heart, yes! I ‘d a sight rather have all that good pork an’ potatoes than any o’ your wild meat,” said Mrs. Price, smiling with prosperity. “You see, now, ‘Liza Jane she ‘s given in. She did n’t re’lly know but ‘t was all talk of ‘Bijah ’bout that dog’s bein’ wuth fifty dollars. She says she can’t cope with a huntin’ dog same ‘s he could, an’ she ‘s given me the money you an’ John York sent over this mornin’; an’ I did n’t know but what you ‘d lend me another half a dollar, so I could both go to Dipford Centre an’ return, an’ see if I could n’t make a sale o’ Tiger right over there where they all know about him. It’s right in the coon season; now ‘s my time, ain’t it?”
“Well, gettin’ a little late,” said Isaac, shaking with laughter as he took the desired sum of money out of his pocket. “He seems to be a clever dog round the house.”
“I don’t know ‘s I want to harbor him all winter,” answered the excursionist frankly, striking into a good traveling gait as she started off toward the railroad station.