gia as some men have consumption.

At length the loneliness got so bad that he had to see some living thing
from home, or make a flunk of it and go back like a cry baby. He had
a stiff pride still, though he sobbed himself to sleep more than one
night, as many a pioneer has done before him. So he wrote home for Nita,
the collie, and got word that she would be sent. Arrangements were made
for her care all along the line, and she was properly boxed and shipped.

As the time drew near for her arrival, Cecil could hardly eat. He
was too excited to apply himself to anything. The day of her expected
arrival he actually got up at five o'clock to clean the house and make
it look as fine as possible for her inspection. Then he hitched up and
drove fifteen miles to get her. The train pulled out just before he
reached the station, so Nita in her box was waiting for him on the
platform. He could see her in a queer way, as one sees the purple centre
of a revolving circle of light; for, to tell the truth, with the long
ride in the morning sun, and the beating of his heart, Cecil was only
about half-conscious of anything. He wanted to yell, but he didn't.
He kept himself in hand and lifted up the sliding side of the box and
called to Nita, and she came out.

But it wasn't the man who fainted, though he might have done so, being
crazy homesick as he was, and half-fed and overworked while he was yet
soft from an easy life. No, it was the dog! She looked at her master's
face, gave one cry of inexpressible joy, and fell over in a real
feminine sort of a faint, and had to be brought to like any other lady,
with camphor and water and a few drops of spirit down her throat. Then
Cecil got up on the wagon seat, and she sat beside him with her head on
his arm, and they rode home in absolute silence, each feeling too much
for speech. After they reached home, however, Cecil showed her all over
the place, and she barked out her ideas in glad sociability.

After that Cecil and Nita were inseparable. She walked beside him
all day when he was out with the cultivator, or when he was mowing or
reaping. She ate beside him at table and slept across his feet at night.
Evenings when he looked over the Graphic from home, or read the books
his mother sent him, that he might keep in touch with the world, Nita
was beside him, patient, but jealous. Then, when he threw his book or
paper down and took her on his knee and looked into her pretty eyes, or
frolick