Part 13 (1/2)

V

AN ACT OF G.o.d

There must have been something prophetic in Mac's fear of thunder when he was a puppy. For, though all puppies are afraid of it, and most grown dogs for that matter, still, Mac's fear, according to Tom Jennings, his master, was more than that of the ordinary dog. That is, until the blow came. After that it was different with Mac.

Maybe he thought, having smitten him once, that lightning would smite him no more. Maybe some change had taken place in his nature which we humans cannot a.n.a.lyze or understand. Let this be as it may, the fact is that Mac, after his second year, feared thunder no more.

In law a stroke of lightning is known as an Act of G.o.d. If such is the case, it seems strange that this stroke should have fallen on Sunday night and in a G.o.d-fearing and G.o.d-serving household. As a matter of fact, Tom Jennings, his wife and three children had just driven home from church at Breton Junction and Tom, a.s.sisted by Frank, his boy of sixteen, had put up the horses. Then, as the cloud was an unusually threatening one, they all gathered in the parlour.

It was the ordinary parlour of country people who are self-respecting but neither well-to-do nor educated. There was a fancy organ, a flowered carpet; there were gaudy vases and solemn-looking enlarged crayon portraits. Near a stiffly curtained window was a sort of family altar--a table on which lay a family Bible. This Bible, a ponderous embossed volume with bra.s.s guards and clasps, reposed on a blue-velvet table cover that almost reached the floor. On the cover was worked a cross and a crown with the legend: ”He Must Bear a Cross Who Would Wear a Crown.”

When, the storm having burst on this household, Mac scratched at the door, Tom Jennings himself, a tall, raw-boned, sunburnt man, rose and let him in with some good-humoured remark. Mac was a young setter, with white, silken, curly coat and black, silken, curly ears. He looked self-consciously into the faces of the family, who were smiling at his fears; then, with a queer expression on his face, as if he, too, knew it was funny, he went to the family altar, pushed aside the embossed velvet cover, and lay down under the table. The children laughed, Tom Jennings and Frank, a lanky, handsome, serious-faced lad smiled. Mac always did this in a thunderstorm.

Just before the blow came, they heard him, as if he were still reflecting humorously upon his fears, tap the floor with his tail.

Immediately there was the s.h.i.+ver of broken gla.s.s, a crash, a child's suppressed scream, and for a moment, as the lamp went out, blackness.

But only for a moment; for next, above the s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of the Bible, there glowed for several vivid seconds blue-and-white flames like a halo.

There was no very clear recollection of what happened afterward. Having a.s.sured himself that wife and children were safe, Tom Jennings, followed by the boy Frank, ran out into the yard by the side door which they left open, and looked at the roof of the house. If any fire had started it had been drowned at once by deluges of rain. When father and son returned, Mrs. Jennings had lit another lamp. Here they all were, with white faces. Only Mac was gone.

For the better part of three days they searched for him, in the attic, in the cellar, in the barns and outhouses, in the woods near by. On the afternoon of the third day, Jennings stooped down and peered underneath the corn crib. It was set low to the ground, and two sides were boarded up. On the unboarded side weeds had grown. It was quite dark underneath.

At first he could not be sure what that dim suggestion of white he made out could be. Then he pushed aside the weeds and peered more closely, his eyes the while growing more accustomed to the dark. Finally he straightened up and called loudly:

”Here he is, folks!”

They all came running, Mrs. Jennings leaving her supper to burn if need be, Frank dropping his ax at the woodpile. When they reached him, Tom Jennings was stooping down and pleading:

”Come, Mac! Come, old man! We are all here.”

But the white figure did not stir.

At last Frank wormed his long, adolescent body underneath the sleepers of the crib, caught hold of the front paws, and pulled the setter gently forth. They examined him all over, but at first they could find no sign of injury. It was Frank who saw and understood. Frank had always had a way of knowing what was the matter with animals.

”He's blind,” said the youth.

Some of the neighbours, when they heard, said Jennings ought to put him out of his misery. But no such thought ever entered the head of any member of the Jennings family. They built him a kennel underneath the bedroom window. They taught him where to find his plate of food on the kitchen steps. Soon he learned to find his way about the yard.

At first he ran into things--into the corner of the house, into the woodpile, or into the chicken coops. He never whimpered when he did so, but looked humbled and ashamed. At last he located each object, calculated respective distances, and before the summer was over he avoided obstacles as if he had had eyes.

You would not have known he was blind but for the fact that when he drew near the steps or near a door--he learned to open screen doors with his paws--he would raise his front foot, and feel about like a blind man with a stick.

One day at dinner Jennings spoke to his family. ”I don't want any of you children ever to leave anything about the yard that he can stumble over.

Mother, whenever you move a chicken coop, call him and show him where it is, hear?”

They all agreed.

Then Mac began to follow his master to the field and to Tom Belcher's store up the road. Neighbours grinned and said they had often heard of a blind man led by a dog, but never before of a blind dog led by a man.

They never said this, though, in Tom Jennings's presence.