ad up in the gray dawn, and licking her face until she
covered him up warm beside her. When the trains passed he would stand up
on his hind legs, his paws on the sill, his blunt little nose against the
pane, whining at the clanging bells, or barking at the great rings of
steam and smoke coughed up by the engines below.

She taught him all manner of tricks. How to walk on his hind feet with a
paper cap on his head, a plate in his mouth, begging. How to make believe
he was dead, lying still a minute at a time, his odd ear furling nervously
and his eyes snapping fun; how to carry a basket to the grocery on the
corner, when she would limp out in the morning for a penny's worth of milk
or a loaf of bread, he waiting until she crossed the street, and then
marching on proudly before her.

With the coming of the dog a new and happier light seemed to have
brightened the shanty. Sanders himself began to feel the influence. He
would play with him by the hour, holding his mouth tight, pushing back his
lips so that his teeth glistened, twirling his ear. There was a third
person now for him to consult and talk to. "It'll be turrible cold at the
crossin' to-day, won't it, Dog?" or, "Thet's No. 23 puffin' up in the cut:
don't yer know her bell? Wonder, Dog, what she's switched fur?" he would
say to him. He noticed, too, that the girl's cheeks were not so white and
pinched. She seemed taller and not so weary; and when he walked up the
cut, tired out with the day's work, she always met him at the door, the
dog springing half way down the slope, wagging his tail and bounding ahead
to welcome him. And she would sing little snatches of songs that her
mother had taught her years ago, before the great flood swept away the
cabin and left only her father and herself clinging to a bridge, she with
a broken back.

After a while Sanders coaxed him down to the track, teaching him to bring
back his empty dinner-pail, the dog spending the hour with him, sitting by
his side demurely, or asleep in the sentry-box.

All this time the dog never rose to the dignity of any particular name.
The girl spoke of him as "Doggie," and Sanders always as "the Dog." The
trainmen called him "Rags," in deference, no doubt, to his torn ear and
threadbare tail. They threw coal at him as he passed, until it leaked out
that he belonged to "Sanders's girl." Then they became his champions, and
this name and pastime seemed out of place. Only once did he earn any
distinguis