took the little one on his knee, and called
Sonny to come and make friends. At the sound of the loved summons
Sonny shot out from the kennel, which had become his constant refuge,
tore wildly across the yard, and strove, in a sort of ecstasy, to show
his forgiveness and his joy by climbing into Joe's lap. Being a large
dog, and the lap already filled, this meant roughly crowding out the
Kid, of whose very existence, at this moment, Sonny was unaware. But
to the obtuse man Sonny's action seemed nothing more than a mean and
jealous effort to supplant the Kid.

To the Kid this proceeding of Sonny's was a fine game. He would
grapple with the dog, hug him, pound him gleefully with his little
fists, and call him every pet name he knew.

But the man would rise to his feet angrily, and cry, "If that's all
ye're good fer, git! Git out, I tell ye!" And Sonny, heartsore and
bewildered, would shrink back hopelessly to his kennel. When this, or
something much like it, had happened several times, even Ann, for all
her finer perceptions, began to feel that Sonny might be a bit nicer
to the Kid, and, as a consequence, to stint her kindness. But to
Sonny, sunk in his misery and pining only for that love which his
master had so inexplicably withdrawn from him, it mattered little
whether Ann was neglectful or not.

Uneventfully day followed day on the lonely backwoods farm. To Sonny,
the discarded, the discredited, they were all hopeless days, dark and
interminable. But to the Kid they were days of wonder, every one. He
loved the queer black and white pigs, which he studied intently
through the cracks in the boarding of their pen. He loved the calf,
and the three velvet-eyed cows, and the two big red oxen, inseparable
yoke fellows. The chickens were an inexhaustible interest to him; and
so were the airy throngs of buttercups afloat on the grass, and the
yet more aerial troops of the butterflies flickering above them, white
and brown and red and black and gold and yellow and maroon. But in the
last choice he loved best of all the silent, unresponsive Sonny, of
whose indifference he seemed quite unaware. Sonny, lying on the grass,
would look at him soberly, submit to his endearments without one
answering wag of the tail, and at last, after the utmost patience that
courtesy could require, would slowly get up, yawn, and stroll off to
his kennel or to some pretended business behind the barn. His big
heart harboured no resentment against th