“FATHER, may I have an English setter for my Christmas present?”
Edwy spoke in a subdued tone, for the president of a certain Association, a country club, of which his father was a member, had come to say good-bye. One branch of the party of campers on the lake was about to break up; city schools were calling them from forest and from field.
The stranger had taken a seat on the broad veranda, his dog at his heels, his carriage and horses waiting.
Bruno knew his little friend Edwy. The boy stood stroking the dog’s ears and speaking gentle words to him. The dog seemed to listen but although he was all attention and laid his head down on crossed paws, one eye was alert for the movements of his master.
A dog, an English setter like Bruno, was one thing which Edwy had sought with constant iteration since he was old enough to talk; especially since he had seen the devotion of Bruno for his master and even his master’s horses. He had also gained the dog’s confidence towards himself.
Edwy’s mother felt that she must not let him keep on hoping for the impossible. They could not take a dog to a city home while they were building the camp on the lake. It was equally out of the question either, to carry him back and forth on the cars, or to leave him at home with servants while all the family were away.
As he stood stroking the dog’s ears and speaking his own little tender words to him, the watchful mother explained, aside, the reason of the refusal.
“You know, Edwy, a dog gets so terribly homesick if left in the care of servants. Just see how Bruno is waiting to leap to his master’s side, and fly down the road the moment the horse’s hoofs ring on the highway.... When you are older....”
How Edwy hated the words, “when you are older!” It always meant that you couldn’t have something when you wanted it. But as he was a well-bred child, he always kept quiet in company. He had sometimes confided to Willard, his brother, but that didn’t help much.
“Could I have a kitten then? I do want some kind of a thing that isn’t either dumb or dead.” A certain chum of Edwy’s—not the usual kind of a chum—but one in his own and Willard’s estimation well worthy of the name, had noticed the fact that the child had so bravely banished the frown of disappointment. She had also noted the fact that no ban had been placed against a kitten, and a plan was forming in her mind, but she did not divulge it.