Читать книгу Rex - Fullerton Leonard Waldo - Страница 6

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When Tom came back to the farm from school at the start of Rex's second summer there, the dog was nearly a year and a half old.

By this time Rex, a strong, big fellow, had become a noted character for miles of road and many acres of meadow and woodland round about, all the way to the lonely Blue Hills that rippled the horizon a few miles north of the farm. Nearly everybody except Abner the hired man liked Rex. But Abner shunned and feared him.

Abner came down to the little Waynesboro station driving a rickety Ford, with Rex running ahead of it, to meet Tom at the train. The dog, every nerve and sinew of his lithe body in perfect working order, could run rings around the creaking and infirm machine.

The dog and his young master hugged each other like two dancing bears. Standing on his hind legs, Rex licked Tom's face and ears, jumped up and down with frantic yelps of joy, and acted like a creature who had lost his reason.

Abner looked on, shaking his frowsy head in disapproval. "You hadn't oughta let a dog lick your face that way, Tom. It ain't healthy."

"Couldn't help myself!" laughed Tom.

Abner frowned. "Dogs an' cats is full o' germs. We been trainin' him different. We just got him broke so he don't scare the life outa people runnin' at 'em an' jumpin' up on 'em. You'll spoil him!"

"It's just his natural spirits, Abner," Tom pleaded, as man and boy clambered aboard the flivver. "That's what I like about Rex. He's lively. Always on the go, and ready to start something."

"Wisht he'd start this here car," said Abner, ruefully. "Most broke my arm a-crankin' her. Now I gotta do it again."

He got out of the rickety machine, and made further vain attempts.

"We ought to have a self-starter, Abner."

"We have. This ain't your father's machine. This is my machine. Wanted to show you how she'd run."

"Where'd you get her?"

"Over to the county fair. There was a feller from the city had a carload of 'em. They was a big bargain."

"What did you pay for her?"

"Fifteen dollars."

"How long have you had her?"

"Got her yistidday." Abner opened the hood and peered in. "I guess somethin's bust. I don't know how to mend it. Suppose we leave her here and walk home."

That was Abner's way. He was easily discouraged. He was fine with cows and calves, but ineffectual with mechanism out of order.

"Let me see," said Tom. He made a brief examination. "Well, I wonder that you got her this far. She's all out of whack!"

Abner chewed a straw pulled from his own hat. "Guess she wouldn't 'a' got here at all, if we hadn't been runnin' down hill," he answered, gloomily.

A man who had been sitting on a baggage truck on the platform of the almost deserted little station slouched up to the pair and muttered gruffly: "What'll you take for the old roller-skate?"

Tom looked at him. He looked like an out-and-out tramp. His hat was a rusted green, with holes where the black hair stuck through: it was evident that soap and razor had been strangers to his ugly face these many days. The narrow, evil eyes were bloodshot and the jaw protruded like a bulldog's, under a brick-red, scowling countenance.

Rex growled, and stepped critically round the stranger, sniffing and studying, as though he were taking notes that he might want to use on a future day.

"Be quiet, Rex!" Tom commanded.

Abner stalled, like the machine itself. "Where do you think you can go in it? 'Twun't be no good to you." That was a queer way to talk, if he wanted to sell it.

"I'm a mechanic," snapped the would-be buyer. "That's my trade. Anybody could see it ain't yours. Why," he went on, warming with enthusiasm for himself, "I bet I could fix her up in twenty minutes so she'd run!"

"Well, if you want her ez bad as all that," said Abner, "you can just give me twelve bucks for her, an' we'll call it square."

The stranger, to Abner's evident surprise, plunged his hand in his jeans and brought up a greasy wad of greenbacks, from which he slowly counted out the money.

It was paid and received in silence, except that each man grunted once, and Rex renewed his growling, as much as to say: "Who's your new friend? I don't like him. I think he's a crook."

And when the man went over to the shabby car, Rex pricked up his ears and watched him, every moment, as he tinkered with it.

"Wish you joy o' the ole wash-tub!" Abner cried as they walked away with Rex. But their customer was too busy fussing with the ruin to answer.

"Did you ever see him before?" asked Tom.

"No. That is, I don't guess so. Well, yes, come to think of it, I guess maybe I did. There was several of 'em. Maybe he was one of 'em and maybe he wa'n't. I can't say. I don't remember."

Abner had a lazy mind in the warm sun, and he hated to disturb its peaceful slumber. But when he once began to talk, he was often too lazy to stop.

"They was a bunch of 'em—five or six, I guess—came to the farmhouse one day lately and asked could they sleep in the barn. I said they'd better not, they might get chewed up. Then one of 'em—I guess maybe it was this one—says: 'What'd we get chewed up with, rats?' An' I says, 'No—dog!' An' then I whistled, an' for about the only time he ever done it, Rex came runnin' up to me, just like askin' me what I wanted. I was goin' to tell him to sic 'em, but I didn't have to. They said they guess'd they didn't wanta sleep in the barn, after all. Rex was lookin' at 'em just the way he looked at that feller just now. Once in a while Rex looks that way at me, and it kinda gives me the cold shivers. I never did see why your pap wanted to have a dog o' that kind. But I guess maybe it's just as well, with crooks like that foolin' around here. I dunno which makes me more nervous, that dog or them fellers."

They took a short cut homeward, along the railway embankment past the crossing where Mike Farley was stationed as flagman.

They found Mike placidly dozing, his chair tilted against his little sentry-box, although the afternoon freight was due in a few minutes. The whistle would have roused him if they hadn't.

"Mike!" shouted Abner, "Tom's home!"

Mike, though he did not rise, lowered his chair's two front feet and his own slowly to the ground, and opened his eyes to their widest blue.

"Welcome home, b'ye!" he exclaimed good-naturedly, as he put out his big hand. "We've missed ye. Glad ye're back. How's yer ma an' pa? They ain't been by here lately. Too busy, I guess. Or maybe I was asleep. I hope not. I hear you got a car over to the fair yistiddy, Ab."

"Yes," said Ab, glumly. "I did. But I sold it."

"To who?"

"A fellow I met down to the station jes' now."

"Why?" asked Mike, beginning to unroll his red flag to give warning of the train.

"It bust down."

"They always do, sooner er later, Ab!" Mike nodded his head sagely. "I told ye 'twas a waste o' money. Who was the fellow ye stuck with it?"

"I dunno his name. I think it was one o' the bunch I told ye about that come to the house an' wanted to sleep in the barn."

"Oh!" said Mike. "Them iron-workers that was thrown out o' the Lamson foundry the other day. They're a bad lot. They was tryin' to wreck the machinery, is what I hear, 'cause the boss wouldn't give 'em any more money. They've been hangin' round here, expectin' him to give in, I s'pose. But he wun't. No, siree, he wun't. I know him. Used to work for him. His name's Jim Sparlin. Hard as the nails he makes. An' loves fightin'. They can't lick him. Ain't no use for 'em to hang round here any more, after he's told 'em to get out. Only I don't want 'em here when the pay-car comes along. Some of 'em's always rambling up an' down the track an' hauntin' round the station lookin' fer trouble. The new ticket agent told me several of 'em wanted to sleep in the station the other night. That was the night you wouldn't let 'em sleep in your barn, I guess. Or maybe the dog wouldn't. I tell you, that's some dog! Goo' boy, Rex, goo' boy!"

He hobbled to the middle of the road and stood there waving his red flag as the freight train hove in sight, chugging round the curve through a deep cut, with a pall of black smoke for the up-grade, and a shrill, long-drawn whistle for the station.

As it crashed and rumbled past, engineer and brakeman waved to Mike a friendly greeting.

"When the pay-car comes along does she always stop here?" Abner asked Mike, in a tone that was meant to sound indifferent and still betrayed a good deal of interest.

"You bet she does!" exclaimed the Irishman. "I go aboard her, too. Used to have to go up to the station to git my money. But since the rheumatiz took me so bad in the right leg they stop for me here. Just long enough to climb aboard an' sign the book an' git a good cigar outa Bill Sykes an' tell 'im a story an' git off again."

"Well, I guess we'll be goin' on upta the house." Abner turned to Tom. "I was goin' to give you a ride in my car. But she ain't no good to me now. Ne'mmind: I only lost three dollars on her. That ain't so much."

Tom whistled to Rex, who was rummaging among charred stumps on the other side of the track, and the trio started up the long, slow hill to the farm. Tom was full of stories of the life at school, to which Abner listened, poking in a "hum" or a "haw" now and then, to show that he heard. But he was not a very exciting audience.

Pretty soon he pulled a brown bottle from his left hip pocket.

"What's that stuff?" asked Tom.

"I hafta take it," answered Abner. "Doctor told me to. Tonic for my liver." He applied it to his lips. If it was medicine, it must have tasted unusually good, for he smacked lusciously and then he took what he called another swig, just for good luck.

At the farmhouse that evening, Tom told his parents about the accident to the car, and mentioned Abner's medicine.

Mr. Mason looked troubled. "It's awful stuff," he said. "It'll be the death of him. I've warned him often enough."

"He's been acting so queerly lately," Mrs. Mason remarked. "There's something curious about the way he got that car yesterday and sold it again to-day. Do you suppose it really broke down, or that he was only pretending he couldn't fix it?"

"Why should he be pretending, Mother?"

"I don't know. Maybe he was a friend of that man, and wanted him to have it."

"But Mother, they didn't act as if they knew each other at all. They didn't talk to each other like friends."

"Well, of course I don't know," Mrs. Mason admitted doubtfully. "I just had an idea, with this drinking and everything, and those queer men hanging round here, that maybe——"

"Maybe what?" Mr. Mason lowered his newspaper and looked at Mother over his glasses.

"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Mason.

"I wonder why he asked Mike Farley about the pay-car, Father?"

"What did he say to Mike about it?" inquired Mr. Mason.

"He asked if the pay-car always stopped at the crossing."

"O well," said Mr. Mason, turning to the next sheet of his Wayne County Weekly Gazette, "Abner and Mike have known each other quite a while. I guess Abner just asked the question to make conversation. I told Abner to-day he could look for another place. He gets drunk too often. I'm sick and tired of him. I've lost all patience with him."

Mrs. Mason heaved a sigh of relief. "I'm glad of it, Alfred," she replied. "I never really trusted him. The sooner he goes the better.—Look at Rex. You'd almost think that dog takes in every word we're saying!"

Long afterward they recalled how Rex's eyes shone in the radiance of the new electric lamp that evening. There he lay, nose on paws, looking up at them—ready to caress a knee or nuzzle a hand if offered the least encouragement to do so.

"I tell you," confessed Mrs. Mason, "I'm getting as fond of that dog, almost, as though Tom had a four-footed brother. Tom, when you're away at school I get to missing you so much I'd almost die if Rex didn't comfort me. He's a big help. We're great pals, aren't we, Rex?"

The dog thumped his tail on the rag carpet, meaning yes with all his might.

That same night, about midnight, Tom in his third-story room was dreaming beautifully—all the nice things of which a boy could dream after his first day of summer freedom.

He dreamed, for one thing, that he was flying in a bi-plane with silver wings high over the hills. He was going in a spiral, up and up. Rex was sitting beside him in the cockpit of the plane, barking at all the world below, and especially at the dogs of the different countries they were crossing—Brazil and India and Africa and Japan, all in a few minutes. There were mountains with snow on their tops, and there were roaring seas, with ships that plunged ahead through gales and lashing water-spouts. And then the plane passed directly over the red-hot, flaming top of a volcano, and Rex was barking louder than ever. The smoke rose in choking billows, and Rex was tugging at Tom's sleeve as if to tell his young master that it was very dangerous to stay there, and they must fly away as fast as they could....

Suddenly, as if his plane had crashed to earth with him, Tom woke to find that whatever he had been dreaming, the fire was real.

Smoke was pungent in the air, and it poured into the room under the crack of the door so thick and strong that he could hardly breathe. He rushed to the open window.

Down below his father and mother, hidden by the smoke, were calling him, and Rex barked loudly.

"Coming!" Tom screamed. He snatched up coat and trousers and threw them on.

Then he sprang to the door of the room. It was locked.

Abner's room was next his own.

He ran back to the window, climbed along the rain-gutter, and found his way to Abner's room. Abner was not there.

The bed had been slept in, but Abner's clothes were gone, and his big carpet-bag was missing.

Tom sprang to the window. In the red glare his father caught sight of him, through the smoke-clouds.

"Tom!" Mr. Mason shouted. "Come down! Where's Abner?"

"I don't know!" Tom called back.

The boy wrenched open the door and ran into the hall. The house was full of smoke, and as he looked over the banisters he saw flames licking and leaping below.

That way of escape was cut off.

Once more he sought the window. There was no porch on that side of the house. The winter shutters had been removed. It would have been a drop of more than thirty feet from the sill to the ground.

His father, with Rex at his heels, ran into the house. At the foot of the stairs a wave of fire met them, as from a seething furnace, and Mr. Mason recoiled from it.

But Rex refused to stop for anything. Up the blazing stairway bounded the gallant animal several steps at a time.

"Rex, go back!" Tom cried—but the dog kept on.

And he came just in time.

For Tom was so choked and blinded by the smoke that he no longer knew what he was doing.

As Rex sprang to him, the boy fell upon the animal in a dead faint, his arms tightly clasped round the dog's neck.

Losing not a second, Rex put forth all the strength left in his stalwart frame, turned to the head of the stair and began to drag the half-conscious boy down the stairway.

Rex's hair was afire, and Tom's clothes were burning, too.

Step by step the dog tottered downward into the seething, writhing flames.

It was as if he walked directly to his own destruction.

He could go no faster, for at any instant the boy's fingers might relax their hold.

The flames leapt about him like devils that would snatch away the precious burden if they could.

Once Tom was roused, as they reached the landing, half-way to the second floor.

"Good—old—Rex!" Tom said, but he did not know that he said it.

Round the corner Rex dragged him, and the floor was all but burned through. The rafters sagged and at any instant might collapse into the living-room.

Just then Tom let go his hold and fell, rolling over and over to the bottom of the stair.

The dog stopped an instant as though he could not follow.

The fire was round him, in a high leaping ring, and the smoke coiled through its rage, in angry billows like sea-waves under the lashing of the storm.

With a defiant toss of his head, and the light of the fire gleaming in his eyes, Rex plunged on down to the foot of the stair, before the open front door of the house.

Then he seized the belt of Tom's Norfolk jacket in his teeth, dragged the boy out into the open, and fell over at the feet of Tom's father and mother as though dead.

When Tom came to, he was in his father's arms, by the lilac hedge. His mother was bathing his face and forehead from a tin dipper. Rex, revived, looked on anxiously. Round about them were scattered the few things that Mr. and Mrs. Mason and the faithful cook Martha had been able to save.

"How did it happen, Mother?"

"You know as much as I, dear boy."

"Did somebody set the house on fire?"

"I think Abner did it," Mr. Mason put in. "He wanted to pay me back for getting rid of him. When Abner gets drunk, he goes mad—he'll do anything.—God bless that dog!"

Mrs. Mason put her arm about the animal's neck, and he pawed her knee. "He saved Tom's life," she said in a low voice with tears in it.

"I don't know what happened, Mother. I just remember falling on Rex's neck, and holding on to him. Then I think I must have fallen down the stairs. He must have pulled me to the door when we got to the bottom. Isn't he a wonder?"

By this time a few of their distant neighbors had come, several in their cars and the rest afoot.

But there was nothing they could do. The ancient farmhouse was dry as a bone, and with such a rushing start it was a smoking ruin long before the summer dawn.

There was an old, abandoned house across the road, which Mr. Mason owned, and into it they promptly moved. They wasted little time in vain regrets.

"We've lost just about everything," was the way Mrs. Mason put it. "But things don't matter, compared with those we love. Thank God, only poor Alphonse and Gaston lost their lives. We'll make this house into the cosiest, happiest home that a father, a mother, a boy and a dog ever lived in."

And if you came by several weeks later, and saw the repainted house, with the crimson rambler over the door and the white curtains at the windows, you would say they were succeeding.

But Abner had not returned, and they often puzzled over the riddle of his disappearance.