第15章 The Pest(6)

One day, two months after the accident, Bruce stood on all four feet once more, with no vestige left of scars or of lameness. And then, for the first time, a steady change that had been so slow as to escape any one's notice dawned upon the Mistress and the Master. It struck them both at the same moment. And they stared dully at their pet.

The shapeless, bumptious, foolish Pest of two months ago had vanished. In his place, by a very normal process of nature-magic, stood a magnificently stately thoroughbred collie.

The big head had tapered symmetrically, and had lost its puppy formlessness. It was now a head worthy of Landseer's own pencil.

The bonily awkward body had lengthened and had lost its myriad knobs and angles. It had grown massively graceful.

The former thatch of half-curly and indeterminately yellowish fuzz had changed to a rough tawny coat, wavy and unbelievably heavy, stippled at the ends with glossy black. There was a strange depth and repose and Soul in the dark eyes--yes, and a keen intelligence, too.

It was the old story of the Ugly Duckling, all over again.

"Why!" gasped the Mistress. "He's--he's BEAUTIFUL! And I never knew it."At her loved voice the great dog moved across to where she sat.

Lightly he laid one little white paw on her knee and looked gravely up into her eyes.

"He's got sense, too," chimed in the Master. "Look at those eyes, if you doubt it. They're alive with intelligence. It's--it's a miracle! He can't be the same worthless whelp I wanted to get rid of! He CAN'T!"And he was not. The long illness, at the most formative time of the dog's growth, had done its work in developing what, all the time, had lain latent. The same illness--and the long-enforced personal touch with humans--had done an equally transforming work on the puppy's undeveloped mind. The Thackeray-Washington-Lincoln-Bismarck simile had held good.

What looked like a miracle was no more than the same beautifully simple process which Nature enacts every day, when she changes an awkward and dirt-colored cygnet into a glorious swan or a leggily gawky colt into a superb Derby-winner. But Bruce's metamorphosis seemed none the less wonderful in the eyes of the two people who had learned to love him.

Somewhere in the hideous wreck of Dr. Halding's motorcar the dog had found a soul--and the rest had followed as a natural course of growth.

At the autumn dog-show, in Hampton, a "dark-sable-and-white"collie of unwonted size and beauty walked proudly into the ring close to the Mistress's side, when the puppy class was called--a class that includes all dogs under twelve months old. Six minutes later the Mistress was gleesomely accepting the first-prize blue ribbon, for "best puppy," from Judge Symonds' own gnarled hand.

Then came the other classes for collies--"Novice," "Open,""Limit," "Local," "American Bred." And as Bruce paced majestically out of the ring at last, he was the possessor of five more blue ribbons--as well as the blue Winner's rosette, for "best collie in the show.""Great dog you've got there, madam!" commented Symonds in solemn approval as he handed the Winner's rosette to the Mistress. "Fine dog in every way. Fine promise. He will go far. One of the best types I've--""Do you really think so?" sweetly replied the Mistress. "Why, one of the foremost collie judges in America has gone on record as calling him a 'measly St. Bernard monstrosity.'""No?" snorted Symonds, incredulous. "You don't say so! A judge who would speak so, of that dog, doesn't understand his business.

He--"

"Oh, yes, he does!" contradicted the Mistress, glancing lovingly at her handful of blue ribbons. "I think he understands his business very well indeed--NOW!"