The Little Colonel's Hero Read online

  CHAPTER VI.

  THE WONDER-BALL'S BEST GIFT

  As the time drew near for them to move northward, Lloyd began counting thehours still left to her to spend with her new-found friends.

  "Only two moah days, mothah," she sighed "Only two moah times to gowalking with Hero. It seems to me that I _can't_ say good-bye and go away,and nevah see him again as long as I live!"

  "He is going with us part of the way," answered Mrs. Sherman. "The Majortold us last night that he had decided to visit his niece who lives atZuerich. We will stop first for a few days at a little town called Zug,beside a lake of the same name. There is a William Tell chapel near therethat the Major wants to show us, and he will go up the Rigi with us. Ithink he dreads parting with you fully as much as you do from Hero. Hiseyes follow every movement you make. So many times in speaking of you hehas called you Christine."

  "I know," answered Lloyd, thoughtfully. "He seems to mix me up with herin his thoughts, all the time. He is so old I suppose he is absent-minded.When I'm as old as he is, I won't want to travel around as he does. I'llwant to settle down in some comfortable place and stay there."

  "From what he said last night, I judge that this is the last time heexpects to visit that part of Switzerland. When he was a little boy heused to visit his grandmother, who lived near Zug. The chalet where shelived is still standing, and he wants to see it once more, he said, beforehe dies."

  "He must know lots of stories about the place," said Lloyd.

  "He does. He has tramped all over the mountain back of the town after wildstrawberries, followed the peasants to the mowing, and gone to many a fetein the village. We are fortunate to have such an interesting guide."

  "I wish that Betty could be with us to hear all the stories he tells us,"said Lloyd, beginning to look forward to the journey with more pleasure,now that she knew there was a prospect of being entertained by the Major.Usually she grew tired of the confinement in the little railway carriageswhere there were no aisles to walk up and down in, and fidgeted and yawnedand asked the time of day at every station.

  During the first part of the journey toward Zug, the Major had little tosay. He leaned wearily back in his seat with his eyes closed much of thetime. But as they began passing places that were connected withinteresting scenes of his childhood, he roused himself, and pointed themout with as much enjoyment as if he were a schoolboy, coming home on hisfirst vacation.

  "See those queer little towers still left standing on the remnants of theold town wall," he said as they approached Zug. "The lake front rests on asoft, shifting substratum of sand, and there is danger, when the water isunusually low, that it may not be able to support the weight of the housesbuilt upon it. One day, over four hundred years ago, part of the wall andsome of the towers sank down into the lake with twenty-six houses.

  "I have heard my grandmother tell of it, many a time, as she heard thetale from her grandmother. Many lives were lost that day, and there was agreat panic. Later in the day, some one saw a cradle floating out in thelake, and when it was drawn in, there lay a baby, cooing and kicking uphis heels as happily as if cradle-rides on the water were commonoccurrences. He was the little son of the town clerk, and grew up to beone of my ancestors. Grandmother was very fond of telling that tale, howthe baby smiled on his rescuers, and what a fine, pleasant man he grew upto be, beloved by the whole village.

  "It has not been much over a dozen years since another piece of the townsank down into the water. A long stretch of lake front with houses andgardens and barns was sucked under."

  "How dreadful!" exclaimed Lloyd, with a shiver. "Let us go somewhere else,Papa Jack," she begged. "I don't want to sleep in a place where the bottommay drop out any minute."

  Her father laughed at her fears, and the Major assured her that they wouldnot take her to a hotel near the water's edge.

  "We are going to the other side of the town, to an inn that stands closeagainst the mountainside. The inn-keeper is an old friend of mine, who haslived here all his life."

  In spite of all they said to quiet her fears, the Little Colonel was farfrom feeling comfortable, and took small pleasure at first in going to seethe sights of the quaint little town. She was glad when they pushed awayfrom the pier next morning, in the steamboat that was to take them acrossthe lake to the William Tell chapel. She dreaded to return, but a handfulof letters from Lloydsboro Valley, and one apiece from Betty and Eugeniathat she found awaiting her at the inn, made her forget the shifting sandsbelow her. She read and re-read some of them, answered several, and thenbegan to look for the Major and Hero. They were nowhere to be found.

  They went away directly after lunch, her father told her, to the chalet onthe mountain back of the town. "You will have to be content with my humblesociety," he added. "You can't expect to be always escorted by titledsoldiers and heroes."

  "Now you're teasin'," said Lloyd, with a playful pout. "But I do wish thatthe Majah had left Hero. There are so few times left for us to go walkin'togethah."

  "I'm afraid that you look oftener at that dog than you do at the sceneryand the foreign sights that you came over here to see," said her father,with a smile. "You can see dogs in Lloydsboro Valley any day."

  "But none like Hero," cried the Little Colonel, loyally. "And I _am_noticin' the sights, Papa Jack. I think there was nevah anything moahbeautiful than these mountains, and I just love it heah when it is sosunny and still. Listen to the goat-bells tinklin' away up yondah wherethat haymakah is climbing with a pack of hay tied on his shouldahs! Andhow deep and sweet the church-bell sounds down heah in the valley as ittolls across the watah! The lake looks as blue as the sapphires inmothah's necklace. The pictuah it makes for me is one of the loveliestthings that my wondah-ball has unrolled. Nobody could have a bettahbirthday present than this trip has been. The only thing about it that hasmade me unhappy for a minute is that I must leave Hero and nevah see himagain. He follows me just as well now as he does his mastah."

  The Major came back from his long climb up the mountain, very tired. "Itis more than I should have undertaken the first day," he said, "but backhere in the scenes of my boyhood I find it hard to realise that I am anold, old man. I'll be rested in the morning, however, ready for whatevercomes."

  But in the morning he was still much exhausted, and came down-stairsleaning heavily on his cane. He asked to be excused from going up on theRigi with them. He said that he would stay at home and sit in the sun andrest. They offered to postpone the trip, but he insisted on their goingwithout him. They must be moving on to Zuerich, soon, he reminded them, andthey might not have another day of such perfect weather, for theexcursion.

  Hero stood looking from the Major in his chair, to the Little Colonel,standing with her hat and jacket on, ready to start. He could notunderstand why he and his master should be left behind, and walked fromone to the other, wagging his tail and looking up questioningly into theirfaces.

  "Go, if you wish," said the Major, kindly patting his head. "Go and takegood care of thy little Christine. Let no harm befall her this day!" Thedog bounded away as if glad of the permission, but at the door turnedback, and seeing that the Major was not following, picked up his hat inhis mouth. Then, carrying it back to the Major, stood looking up into hismaster's face, wagging his tail.

  The Major took the hat and laid it on the table beside him. "No, notto-day, good friend," he said, smiling at the dog's evident wish to havehim go also. "You may go without me, this time. Call him, Christine, ifyou wish his company."

  "Come Hero, come on," called Lloyd. "It's all right."

  The Major waved his hand toward her, saying, "Go, Hero. Guard her well andbring her back safely. The dear little Christine!" The name was utteredalmost in a whisper.

  With a quick, short bark, Hero started after the Little Colonel, stayingso closely by her side that they entered the train together before theguard could protest. If he could have resisted the appealing look in theLittle Colonel's eyes as she threw an arm protectingly around Hero's neck,h
e could not find it in his heart to refuse the silver that Papa Jackslipped into his hand; so for once the two comrades travelled side byside. Hero sat next the window, and looked out anxiously, as the littlemountain engine toiled up the steep ascent, nearer and nearer to the top.

  It was noon when they reached the hotel on the summit where they stoppedfor lunch.

  "How solemn it makes you feel to be up so high above all the world!" saidLloyd, in an awed tone, as they walked around that afternoon, and tookturns looking through the great telescope, at the valley spread out like amap below them.

  "How tiny the lake looks, and the town is like a toy village! I thoughtthat the top of a mountain went up to a fine point like a church steeple,and that there wouldn't be a place to stand on when you got there. Seemsthat way when you look up at it from the valley. It doesn't seem possiblethat it is big enough to have hotels built on it and lots and lots of roomleft ovah. When the Majah said to Hero, in such a solemn way, 'Take goodcare of thy little Christine, let no harm befall her this day,' I thoughtmaybe he wanted Hero to hold my dress in his teeth, so that I couldn'tfall off."

  Mrs. Sherman laughed and Mr. Sherman said, "Do you know that you areactually up above the clouds? What seems to be mist, rolling over thevalley down there like a dense fog, is really cloud. In a short time weshall not be able to see through it."

  "Oh, oh!" cried the Little Colonel, in astonishment. "Really, Papa Jack? Ialways thought that if I could get up into the clouds I could reach outand touch the moon and the stars. Of co'se I know bettah now, but I shouldthink I'd be neah enough to see them."

  "No," answered her father, "that is one of the sad facts of life. Nomatter how loudly we may cry for the moon, it is hung too high for us toreach, and the 'forget-me-nots of the angels,' as Longfellow calls thestars, are not for hands like ours to pick. But in a very little while Ithink that we shall see the lightning below us. Those clouds down thereare full of rain. They may rise high enough to give us a wetting, so itwould be wise for us to hurry back to the hotel."

  "It is the strangest thing that evah happened to me in all my life!" saidLloyd a few minutes later, as they sat on the hotel piazza, watching thestorm below them. Overhead the summer sun was shining brightly, but justbelow the heavy storm clouds rolled, veiling all the valley from sight.They could see the forked tongues of lightning darting back and forth farbelow them, and hear the heavy rumble of thunder.

  "It seems so wondahful to think that we are safe up above the storm. Look!There is a rainbow! And there is anothah and anothah! Oh, it is sobeautiful, I'm glad it rained!"

  The storm, that had lasted for nearly an hour, gradually cleared away tillthe valley lay spread out before them once more, in the sunshine, greenand dripping from the summer shower.

  "Well," said the Little Colonel, as they started homeward, "aftah thisI'll remembah that no mattah how hard it rains the sun is always shiningsomewhere. It nevah hides itself from us. It is the valley that getsbehind the clouds, just as if it was puttin' a handkerchief ovah its facewhen it wanted to cry. It's a comfort to know that the sun keeps shining,on right on, unchanged."

  It was nearly dark when they reached the little inn again in Zug. Thenarrow streets were wet, and the eaves of the houses still dripping. Thelandlord came out to meet them with an anxious face. "Your friend, the oldMajor," he said, in his broken English, "he have not yet return. I fearthe storm for him was bad."

  "Where did he go?" inquired Mr. Sherman. "I did not know that he intendedleaving the hotel at all to-day. He did not seem well."

  "Early after lunch," was the answer. "He say he will up the mountain go,behind the town. He say that now he vair old man, maybe not again will hecome this way, and one more time already before he die, he long to gatherfor himself the Alpine rosen."

  "Have you had a hard storm here?" asked Mrs. Sherman.

  The landlord shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.

  "The vair worst, madame. Many trees blow down. The lightning he strike ahouse next to the church of St. Oswald, and a goatherd coming down justnow from the mountain say that the paths are heaped with fallen limbs, andslippery with mud. That is why for I fear the Major have one accidentmet."

  "Maybe he has stopped at some peasant's hut for shelter," suggested Mr.Sherman, seeing the distress in Lloyd's face. "He knows the region aroundhere thoroughly. However, if he is not here by the time we are throughdinner, we'll organise a searching party."

  "Hero knows that something is wrong," said the Little Colonel, as theywent into the dining-room a few minutes later. "See how uneasy he seems,walking from room to room. He is trying to find his mastah."

  The longer they discussed the Major's absence the more alarmed theybecame, as the time passed and he did not return.

  "You know," suggested Lloyd, "that with just one arm he couldn't helphimself much if he should fall. Maybe he has slipped down some of thosemuddy ravines that the goatherd told about. Besides, he was so weak andtiahed this mawnin.'"

  Presently her face brightened with a sudden thought.

  "Oh, Papa Jack! Let's send Hero. I know where the Majah keeps his things,the flask and the bags, and the dog will know, as soon as they arefastened on him, that he must start on a hunt. And I believe I can say thewords in French so that he'll undahstand. Only yestahday the Majah had merepeating them."

  "That's a bright idea," answered her father, who was really more anxiousthan he allowed any one to see. "At least it can do no harm to try."

  "I don't want any dessert. Mayn't I go now?" Lloyd asked. As she hurriedup the stairs, her heart beating with excitement, she whispered toherself, "Oh, if he _should_ happen to be lost or hurt, and Hero shouldfind him, it would be the loveliest thing that evah happened."

  Hero seemed to know, from the moment he saw the little flask marked withthe well-known Red Cross, what was expected of him. All the guests in theinn gathered around the door to see him start on his uncertain quest. Hesniffed excitedly at his master's slipper, which Lloyd held out to him.Then, as she motioned toward the mountain, and gave the command in Frenchthat the Major had taught her, he bounded out into the gloaming, withseveral quick short barks, and darted up the narrow street that led to themountain road.

  Maybe if he had not been with his master that way, the day before, hemight not have known what path to take. The heavy rain had washed away alltrails, so he could not trace him by the sense of smell; but rememberingthe path which they had travelled together the previous day, heinstinctively started up that.

  The group in the doorway of the inn watched him as long as they could seethe white line of his silvery ruff gleam through the dusk, and then, goingback to the parlour, sat down to wait for his return. To most of them itwas a matter of only passing interest. They were curious to know how muchthe dog's training would benefit his master, under the circumstances, ifhe should be lost. But to the Little Colonel it seemed a matter of lifeand death. She walked nervously up and down the hall with her hands behindher, watching the clock and running to the door to peer out in thedarkness, every time she heard a sound.

  Some one played a noisy two-step on the loose-jointed old piano. A youngman sang a serenade in Italian, and two girls, after much coaxing,consented to join in a high, shrill duet.

  Light-hearted laughter and a babel of conversation floated from theparlour to the hall, where Lloyd watched and waited. Her father waitedwith her, but he had a newspaper. Lloyd wondered how he could read whilesuch an important search was going on. She did not know that he had littlefaith in the dog's ability to find his master. She, however, had not asingle doubt of it.

  The time seemed endless. Again and again the little cuckoo in the hallclock came out to call the hour, the quarters and halves. At last therewas a patter of big soft paws on the porch, and Lloyd springing to thedoor, met Hero on the threshold. Something large and gray was in hismouth.

  "Oh, Papa Jack!" she cried. "He's found him! Hero's found him! This is theMajah's Alpine hat. The flask is gone from his collah, so the Maj
ah musthave needed help. And see how wild Hero is to start back. Oh, Papa Jack!Hurry, please!"

  Her call brought every one from the parlour to see the dog, who wasspringing back and forth with eager barks that asked, as plainly as words,for some one to follow him.

  "Oh, let me go with you! _Please_, Papa Jack," begged Lloyd.

  He shook his head decidedly. "No, it is too late and dark, and no tellinghow far we shall have to climb. You have already done your part, my dear,in sending the dog. If the Major is really in need of help, he will haveyou to thank for his rescue."

  The landlord called for lanterns. Several of the guests seized their hatsand alpenstocks, and in a few minutes the little relief party was hurryingalong the street after their trusty guide, with Mr. Sherman in the lead.He had caught up a hammock as he started. "We may need some kind of astretcher," he said, slinging it over his shoulder.

  They trudged on in silence, wondering what they would find at the end oftheir journey. The mountain path was strewn with limbs broken off by thestorm. Although the moon came up presently and added its faint light tothe yellow rays of the lanterns, they had to pick their steps slowly,often stumbling.

  Hero, bounding on ahead, paused to look back now and then, with impatientbarks. They had climbed more than an hour, when he suddenly shot aheadinto the darkest part of the woods and gave voice so loudly that they knewthat they had reached the end of their search, and pushed forwardanxiously.

  The moonlight could not reach this spot among the trees, so denselyshaded, but the lanterns showed them the old man a short distance from thepath. He was pinned to the wet earth by a limb that had fallen partlyacross him. Fortunately, the storm had been unable to twist it entirelyfrom the tree. Only the outer end of the limb had struck him, but thetangle of leafy boughs above him was too thick to creep through. Hisclothes were drenched, and on the ground beside him, beaten flat by thestorm, lay the bunch of Alpine roses he had climbed so far to find.

  He was conscious when the men reached him. The brandy in the flask hadrevived him and as they drew him out from under the branches and stretchedthe hammock over some poles for a litter, he told them what had happened.He had been some distance farther up the mountain, and had stopped at apeasant's hut for some goat's milk. He rested there a long time, nevernoticing in the dense shade of the woods that a storm was gathering.

  It came upon him suddenly. His head was hurt, and his back. He could nottell how badly. He had lain so long on the wet ground that he was numbwith cold, but thought he would be better when he was once more restingwarm and dry at the inn.

  He stretched out his hand to Hero and feebly patted him, a faint smilecrossing his face. "Thou best of friends," he whispered. "Thou--" Then hestopped, closing his eyes with a groan. They were lifting him on thestretcher, and the pain caused by the movement made him faint.

  It was a slow journey down the slippery mountain path. The men who carriedhim had to pick their steps carefully. At the inn the little cuckoo cameout of the clock in the hall and called eleven, half past, and midnight,before the even tramp, tramp of approaching feet made the Little Colonelrun to the door for the last time.

  "They're comin', mothah," she whispered, with a frightened face, and thenran back to hide her eyes while the men passed up the steps with theirunconscious burden. She thought the Major was dead, he lay so white andstill. But he had only fainted again on the way, and soon revived enoughto answer the doctor's questions, and send word to the Little Colonel thatshe and Hero had saved his life. "Do you heah that?" she asked of Hero,when they told her what he had said. "The doctah said that if the Majahhad lain out on that cold, wet ground till mawnin', without any attention,it surely would have killed him. I'm proud of you, Hero. I'm goin' to getPapa Jack to write a piece about you and send it to the _Courier-Journal_.How would you like to have yo' name come out in a big American newspapah?"

  Several lonely days followed for the Little Colonel. Either her father ormother was constantly with the Major, and sometimes both. They werewaiting for his niece to come from Zuerich and take him back with her to ahospital where he could have better care than in the little inn in Zug.

  It greatly worried the old man that he should be the cause of disarrangingtheir plans and delaying their journey. He urged them to go on and leavehim, but they would not consent. Sometimes the Little Colonel slipped intothe room with a bunch of Alpine roses or a cluster of edelweiss that shehad bought from some peasant. Sometimes she sat beside him for a fewminutes, but most of her time was spent with Hero, wandering up and downbeside the lake, feeding the swans or watching the little steamboats comeand go. She had forgotten her fear of the bottom dropping out of the town.

  One evening, just at sunset, the Major sent for her. "I go to Zuerich inthe morning," he said, holding out his hand as she came into the room. "Iwanted to say good-bye while I have the time and strength. We expect toleave very early to-morrow, probably before you are awake."

  His couch was drawn up by the window, through which the shimmering lakeshone in the sunset like rosy mother-of-pearl. Far up the mountain soundedthe faint tinkling of goat-bells, and the clear, sweet yodelling of apeasant, on his homeward way. At intervals, the deep tolling of the bellof St. Oswald floated out across the water.

  "When the snow falls," he said, after a long pause, "I shall be far awayfrom here. They tell me that at the hospital where I am going, I shallfind a cure. But I know." He pointed to an hour-glass on the table besidehim. "See! the sand has nearly run its course. The hour will soon be done.It is so with me. I have felt it for a long time."

  Lloyd looked up, startled. He went on slowly.

  "I cannot take Hero with me to the hospital, so I shall leave him behindwith some one who will care for him and love him, perhaps even better thanI have done." He held out his hand to the dog.

  "Come, Hero, my dear old comrade, come bid thy master farewell." Fumblingunder his pillow as he spoke, he took out a small leather case, and,opening it, held up a medal. It was the medal that had been given him forbravery on the field of battle.

  "It is my one treasure!" murmured the old soldier, turning it fondly, asit lay in his palm. "I have no family to whom I can leave it as anheirloom, but thou hast twice earned the right to wear it. I have no fearbut that thou wilt always be true to the Red Cross and thy name of Hero,so thou shalt wear thy country's medal to thy grave."

  He fastened the medal to Hero's collar, then, with the dog's great headpressed fondly against him, he began talking to him softly and gently inFrench. Lloyd could not understand, but the sight of the gray-haired oldsoldier taking his last leave of his faithful friend brought the tears toher eyes.

  She tried to describe the scene to her mother, afterward.

  "Oh, it was so pitiful!" she exclaimed. "It neahly broke my heart. Then hecalled me to him and said that because I was like his little Christine, heknew that I would be good to Hero, and he asked me to take him back toAmerica with me. I promised that I would. Then he put Hero's paw in myhand, and said, 'Hero, I give thee to thy little mistress. Protect andguard her always, as she will love and care for thee.' It was awfullysolemn, almost like some kind of blessing.

  "Then he lay back on the pillows as if he was too tiahed to say anothahword. I tried to thank him, but I was so surprised and glad that Hero wasmine, and yet so sorry to say good-bye to the Majah, that the right wordswouldn't come. I just began to cry again. But I am suah the Majahundahstood. He patted my hand and smoothed my hair and said things inFrench that sounded as if he was tryin' to comfort me. Aftah awhile Iremembahed that we had been there a long time, and ought to go, so Ikissed him good-bye, and Hero and I went out, leavin' the doah open as hetold us. He watched us all the way down the hall. When I turned at thestairway to look back, he was still watchin'. He smiled and waved hishand, but the way he smiled made me feel worse than evah, it was so sad."

  Mr. Sherman went with the Major next morning, when he was taken to Zuerich.Lloyd was asleep when they left the inn, so the last remembrance she ha
dof the Major was the way he looked as he lay on his couch in the sunset,smiling, and waving his hand to her. When Christmastide came, it was as hesaid. He was with his little Christine.

  "I can hardly keep from crying whenever I think of him," Lloyd wrote toBetty. "It was so pitiful, his giving up everything in the world that hecared for, and going off to the hospital to wait there alone for hishour-glass to run out. Hero seems to miss him, but I think he understandsthat he belongs to me now. I can scarcely believe that he is really mine,and that I may take him back to America with me. He is the best thing thatthe wonder-ball has given me, or ever can give me.

  "To-morrow we start to Lucerne to see the Lion in the rocks, and fromthere we go to Paris. Only a little while now, and we shall all betogether. I can hardly wait for you to see my lovely St. Bernard with hisRed Cross of Geneva, and the medal that he has earned the right to wear."