A mildewed maxim runs: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."Some proverbs live because they are too true to die. Others endure because they have a smug sound and because nobody has bothered to bury them. The one about old dogs and new tricks belongs in both categories. In a sense it is true. In another it is not.
To teach the average elderly dog to sit up and beg, or to roll over twice, or to do other of the asinine things with which humans stultify the natural good sense of their canine chums, is as hard as to teach a sixty-year-old grave-digger to become a musical composer.
But no dog with a full set of brains is ever past learning new things which are actually needful for him to learn. And, sad to say, many an old dog, on his own account, picks up odd new accomplishments--exploits which would never have occurred to him in his early prime. Nobody knows why. But it has happened, numberless times.
And so it was with Sunnybank Lad.
Laddie had passed his twelfth birthday; when, by some strange freak, he brought home one day a lace parasol. He had found it in the highroad, on his way back to the Place after a sedate ramble in the forest. Now, it was nothing new for the great collie to find missing articles belonging to the Mistress or to the Master.
Every now and then he would lay at their feet a tobacco pouch or a handkerchief or a bunch of keys that had been dropped, carelessly, somewhere on the grounds; and which Lad recognized, by scent, as belonging to one of the two humans he loved.
These bits of treasure trove, he delighted in finding and restoring. Yes, and--though those who had never seen him do this were prone to doubt it--he was certain to lay the recovered object at the feet of whichever of the two had lost it. For instance, it never occurred to him to drop a filmy square of lace-and-cambric at the muddied feet of the Master; or a smelly old tobacco-pouch at the Mistress's little feet.
There was nothing miraculous about this knowledge. To a high-bred dog, every human of his acquaintance has a distinctive scent;which cannot be mistaken. Lad used no occult power inn returning to the rightful owner any article he chanced to find on lawn or on veranda.
But the lace parasol was different. That, presumably, had fallen from some passing motor-car. bound for Tuxedo or for the Berkshires. It did not belong at the Place.
Lad happened to see it, lying there in the highway. And he brought it, forthwith, to the house; carrying it daintily between his mighty jaws; and laying it on the living-room floor in front of the astonished Mistress. Probably, he laid it before her, instead of before the Master, because she was the first of the two whom he happened to encounter. It is doubtful if he realized that a parasol is a purely feminine adjunct;--although the Mistress always declared he did.
She picked up the gift and looked it over with real admiration.
It was a flimsily beautiful and costly thing; whose ivory handle was deftly carven and set with several uncut stones; and whose deep fringe of lace was true Venetian Point.
"Why, Laddie!" she exclaimed, in wondering delight. "Where in the world did you get this? Look!" she went on, as her husband came in from his study. "See what Laddie brought me! I saw him coming down the drive with something in his mouth. But I had no idea what it was. Isn't it a beauty? Where do you suppose he--?""As long as motorists go around curves at forty miles an hour,"decided the Master, "so long their piled-up valuables are likely to be jostled out of the tonneau. I found a satchel, last week, at the curve, up there, you remember; and a hat, the week before.
What are you going to do about this thing?"
"Oh," said the Mistress, with a sigh of renunciation, "I suppose we'll have to advertise it; and watch the 'Lost and Found' columns, too. But--wouldn't it be glorious if nobody should see our advertisement or--or ever advertise for it? It's so lovely! Ihate to think it may belong to somebody who can't appreciate it as I do."Now, Laddie had lived on the Place for many more years than he could remember. And he had spent the bulk of that time in studying the faces and the voices and the moods of these two people whom he worshiped. Moreover, he had an intelligence that is not given to most dogs,--even to collies--and a queer psychic twist to his brain that had puzzled his owners as much as it had delighted them:
Watching the Mistress, now, with his classic head on one side and his deep-set dark eyes fixed on her eager face, he saw that his roadway gift had made her very happy. Also, that her caressing hand on his head showed pride in what he had done. And this, as ever, thrilled the old dog, to the very soul.
He wagged his plumed tail, in gladness, and thrust his nose into her palm and began to "talk" in gleeful treble. To none but the Mistress and the Master would Lad deign to "talk." And, none listening to him could doubt he was trying to copy the human voice and human meanings.
"Dear old Laddie!" praised the Mistress, running her fingers through his lion-like ruff. "GOOD Laddie!, Thank you, ever so much! Nobody but a very, VERY wonderful collie named Lad could have had the perfect taste to pick out such a parasol. And now we're going to have a whole handful of animal crackers, for reward."The crooningly sweet voice, the petting, the gift of animal crackers of which he was childishly fond--all these delighted Lad beyond measure. And they confirmed him in the belief that he had done something most laudable.
What he had done was to pick up a stray object, away from home, and bring it to the Mistress. He knew that. And that was all he knew. But, having won high praise for the deed, he resolved then and there to repeat it.
Which proves that old dogs can be taught new tricks. And which started all the trouble.
That afternoon, the Mistress and the Master went for a five-mile ramble through the woods and over the mountains, back of the Place. With them went old Laddie, who paced gravely between them.
