Jem was sometimes allowed now to go down to the Harbour Mouth of an evening to buy fish. It was an errand he delighted in, for it meant that he could sit in Captain Malachi Russell's cabin at the foot of a bent-covered field close to the harbour, and listen to Captain Malachi and his cronies, who had once been daredevil young sea captains, spinning yarns. Every one of them had something to tell when tales were going round. Old Oliver Reese ... who was actually suspected of being a pirate in his youth ... had been taken captive by a cannibal king ... Sam Elliott had been through the San Francisco earthquake ... "Bold William" Macdougall had had a lurid fight with a shark ... Andy Baker had been caught in a waterspout. Moreover, Andy could spit straighter, as he averred, than any man in Four Winds. Hook-nosed, lean-jawed Captain Malachi, with his bristly grey moustache, was Jem's favourite. He had been captain of a brigantine when he was only seventeen, sailing to Buenos Aires with cargoes of lumber. He had an anchor tattooed on each cheek and he had a wonderful old watch you wound with a key. When he was in good humour he let Jem wind it and when he was in very good humour he would take Jem out cod-fishing or digging clams at low tide, and when he was in his best humour he would show Jem the many ship models he had carved. Jem thought they were romance itself. Among them was a Viking boat, with a striped square sail and a fearsome dragon in front ... a caravel of Columbus ... the Mayflower ... a rakish craft called The Flying Dutchman ... and no end of beautiful brigantines and schooners and barques and clipper-ships and timber droghers.
"Will you teach me how to carve ships like that, Captain Malachi?” pleaded Jem.
Captain Malachi shook his head and spat reflectively into the gulf.
"It doesn't come by teaching, son. Ye'd have to sail the seas for thirty or forty years and then maybe ye'd have enough understanding of ships to do it ... understanding AND love. Ships are like weemen, son ... they've got to be understood and loved or they'll never give up their secrets. And even at that ye may think ye know a ship from stem to stern, inside AND out, and ye'll find she's still hanging out on ye and keeping her soul shut on you. She'd fly from you like a bird if ye let go your grip on her. There's one ship I sailed on that I've never been able to whittle a model of, times out of mind as I've tried. A dour, stubborn vessel she was! And there was one woman ... but it's time I took in the slack of my jaw. I've got a ship all ready to go into a bottle and I'll let ye into the secret of that, son.”
So Jem never heard anything more of the "woman" and didn't care, for he was not interested in the sex, apart from Mother and Susan.
THEY were not "weemen." They were just Mother and Susan.
When Gyp had died Jem had felt he never wanted another dog; but time heals amazingly and Jem was beginning to feel doggish again.
The puppy wasn't really a dog ... he was only an incident. Jem had a procession of dogs marching around the walls of his attic den where he kept Captain Jim's collection of curios ... dogs clipped from magazines ... a lordly mastiff ... a nice jowly bulldog ... a dachshund that looked as if somebody had taken a dog by his head and heels and pulled him out like elastic ... a shaven poodle with a tassel on the end of his tail ... a fox-terrier ... a Russian wolfhound ... Jem wondered if Russian wolf-hounds ever got anything to eat ... a saucy Pom ... a spotted Dalmatian ... a spaniel with appealing eyes. All dogs of high degree but all lacking something in Jem's eyes ... he didn't just know what.
Then the advertisement came out in the Daily Enterprise. "For sale, a dog. Apply Roddy Crawford, Harbour Head." Nothing more.
Jem could not have told why the advertisement stuck in his mind or why he felt there was a sadness in its very brevity. He found out from Craig Russell who Roddy Crawford was.
"Roddy's father died a month ago and he has to go to live with his aunt in town. His mother died years ago. And Jake Millison has bought the farm. But the house is going to be torn down. Maybe his aunt won't let him keep his dog. It's no great shakes of a dog but Roddy has always had an awful notion of it.”
"I wonder how much he wants for it. I've only got a dollar," said Jem.
"I guess what he wants most is a good home for it," said Craig.
"But your dad would give you the money for it, wouldn't he?”
"Yes. But I want to buy a dog with my own money," said Jem. "It would feel more like MY dog then.”
Craig shrugged. Those Ingleside kids WERE funny. What did it matter who put up the cash for an old dog?
That evening Dad drove Jem down to the old, thin, rundown Crawford farm, where they found Roddy Crawford and his dog. Roddy was a boy of about Jem's age ... a pale lad, with straight, reddish-brown hair and a crop of freckles; his dog had silky brown ears, a brown nose and tail and the most beautiful soft brown eyes ever seen in a dog's head. The moment Jem saw that darling dog, with the white stripe down his forehead that parted in two between his eyes and framed his nose, he knew he must have him.
"You want to sell your dog?" he asked eagerly.
"I DON'T want to sell him," said Roddy dully. "But Jake says I'll have to or he'll drown him. He says Aunt Vinnie won't have a dog about.”
"What do you want for him?" asked Jem, scared that some prohibitive price would be named.
Roddy gave a great gulp. He held out his dog.
"Here, take him," he said hoarsely. "I ain't going to sell him ... I ain't. Money would never pay for Bruno. If you'll give him a good home ... and be kind to him ...”
"Oh, I'll be kind to him," said Jem eagerly. "But you must take my dollar. I wouldn't feel he was MY dog if you didn't. I won't TAKE him if you don't.”
He forced the dollar into Roddy's reluctant hand ... he took Bruno and held him close to his breast. The little dog looked back at his master. Jem could not see his eyes but he could see Roddy's.
"If you want him so much ...”
"I want him but I can't have him," snapped Roddy. "There's been five people here after him and I wouldn't let one of them have him ... Jake was awful mad but I don't care. They weren't RIGHT.
But you ... I want YOU to have him since I can't ... and take him out of my sight quick!”
Jem obeyed. The little dog was trembling in his arms but he made no protest. Jem held him lovingly all the way back to Ingleside.
"Dad, how did Adam know that a dog was a DOG?”
"Because a dog couldn't be anything but a dog," grinned Dad.
"Could he now?”
Jem was too excited to sleep for ever so long that night. He had never seen a dog he liked so much as Bruno. No wonder Roddy hated parting with him. But Bruno would soon forget Roddy and love HIM.
They would be pals. He must remember to ask Mother to make sure the butcher sent up the bones.
"I love everybody and everything in the world," said Jem. "Dear God, bless every cat and dog in the world but specially Bruno.”
Jem fell asleep at last. Perhaps a little dog lying at the foot of the bed with his chin upon his outstretched paws slept, too: and perhaps he did not.
Chapter 24
Cock Robin had ceased to subsist solely on worms and ate rice, corn, lettuce and nasturtium seeds. He had grown to be a huge size ... the "big robin" at Ingleside was becoming locally famous ... and his breast had turned to a beautiful red. He would perch on Susan's shoulder and watch her knit. He would fly to meet Anne when she returned after an absence and hop before her into the house: he came to Walter's windowsill every morning for crumbs. He took his daily bath in a basin in the back yard, in the corner of the sweet-briar hedge, and would raise the most unholy fuss if he found no water in it. The doctor complained that his pens and matches were always strewn all over the library, but found nobody to sympathize with him, and even he surrendered when Cock Robin lit fearlessly on his hand one day to pick up a flower seed. Everybody was bewitched by Cock Robin ... except perhaps Jem, who had set his heart on Bruno and was slowly but all too surely learning a bitter lesson ... that you can buy a dog's body but you cannot buy his love.