orry in his gray
eyes deeper. The dog saw it plainer at night than at any other time,
when out on the porch Earle lit his pipe; read it unmistakably in the
flaring up of the match against the man's face out here in the dark.
Then he laid his head on the man's knee and Earle pulled his ear, while
up in the blackness of the big oaks crickets rattled and sawed without
ceasing.

At last one afternoon from in front of his kennel he watched a heavy
thunder cloud gather over the hills and come rumbling toward him. The
sky grew black; the orchard trees, the creek bottoms, the distant hills
took on strange colours, as if autumn had miraculously come. Out of her
cabin hurried Aunt Cindy and toward the garage, her white apron like a
flag of truce flapping against the oncoming storm. He watched her put
the shovel into the little wagon and pull the wagon into the blacksmith
shop. The door creaked loudly as she closed it. Back to her cabin she
hurried, leaning against the wind. Tail tucked, the dog crawled deep
into his kennel and listened to the roar of the storm.

It had passed when Earle drove into the yard and turned him loose. So
had the ditch the boy had dug that rainy morning--washed full of sand
now, and a stick horse that had leaned idle against the lot fence was
blown down prostrate on the ground. Earle didn't want any supper, he
told Aunt Cindy as he went into the house. He did not come out on the
porch that night, and the dog sought his sleeping place beside the
garage. It was meaningless now that the wagon was gone. Restless,
lonely, strangely excited, he came back and guardedly manipulated the
screen door.

He glanced in the living room. Earle in an easy chair was staring at a
shaded lamp while he smoked his pipe. Unobserved, the dog went silently
down the hall. As he neared the bedroom door a quick obsession seized
him that the boy might be in there. Ears pricked, he stepped quickly in
and put his head on the little bed beside the big one. It was empty. He
walked round the room, whiffing this object and that; then he lay down
at the foot of the bed.

Here Earle found him. It would be all right, the man said, looking down
on him from his splendid height. Pretty lonely, wasn't it? He sat down
and unlaced one shoe: he held it in his hand a long time before he
dropped it and unlaced the other. Half undressed, he sat silent, looking
steadily into the dog's eyes. Sometimes when they were together this way
he talked as i