What The Lovely Lady Says
It was quite by accident that years ago I met a warm devoted bit of life called Raggety. He has since become a near neighbor and an intimate and devoted friend.
First in my memory, I see a bundle of wet yellow fur carried up a stairway in a northern city by the sea, and when I interestedly inquiredwhoit was, received the reply, “Don’t you know Raggety?”
But the really truly introduction came in a railroad station one fine June morning, how long after our first meeting I do not know. I was unhappy. I had said good-bye for a whole Summer to my precious pet Balribbie, and left my bit of Blue Skye happiness behind me. It was no use, the tears would come whenI thought of that little bunch of affection with its soft yellow head sitting in the farmhouse window,—waiting, watching for her truant mistress.
Raggety’s little paw touched me and his cold wet black nose nuzzled into my hand with the wonderful sympathy of discovering a friend. Raggety’s lovely brown eyes were also filled with tears. He was in trouble and pining for the Mistress who had just left him. Every one was going away and he gasped at the loneliness of life.
We sat side by side on the hard station bench and had ten minutes of affection and bliss. All I could do was to say softly, “Wait a minute, wait a minute! Suddenly Time goes by and Mistresses reappear, tails wave round, and long happy walks begin again for little doggies!”
My train came and there was another tear at Raggety’s heart strings. The casual stranger of a few minutes beforehad become endeared forever by her knowledge of the comforting scratching places of little beasties.
Summers in Europe went and came; Time slipped by and one day he took little dog Balribbie with him, and hurly-burly Jeems begged to take her place. Then as accidentally as Raggety and I had met in that distant railroad station, so Time brought Raggety and his Mistress and Jeems and his Mistress to live in a pretty southern village and we four became a dog club or show!
And here Raggety is to-day making friends as he needs them, or dropping them when he yearns for quiet; always ready for a walk with an agreeable companion, or a fight with Al Kelly’s dog up the road; a swim in the cold creek; a tid-bit (if it’s the same to you!); a scurry through the brush after Molly Cottontail or a plunge into the deep wet meadow where the frogs sing and the violetsbloom. Even a great pig does not fright him until he sees the snout bear down upon his little paws, to lift him up and off and away!
This is why Raggety is loved. He was born a little trusting dog and he has made himself the companion of scholars and sages.
You, dear Raggety, are one of the Dog-stars in my firmament of loves. Along with Balribbie and Teddy and Jeems, you will greet your slower, earth-plodding Mistresses in some far-off Heaven. We shall see you wagging your long tail of welcome and tinkling your little silver bell, ushering us into that Kingdom of Love.