The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1897-05-06
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH
BY MARIE LOUISE POOL.

BY MARIE LOUISE POOL.
A rough, brown dog sat at the very
edge of the tumble-down breakwater.
He was looking steadily seaward. He
was evidently old, and he was SCARED
by many fights; but his sunken mouth,
from which he had lost many teeth,
showed that he would not fight again
VIGOROUSLY.
He was gaunt from lifetime of in
sufficient food, but yet he had the air
of dog who is loved.
Sometimes he turned from his gaze
at the sea and glanced behind him at
the child who was sitting in a wheel
barrow few feet away. Every time he
glanced thus he slightly wagged his
stump of tail, and the child smiled or
she said in a softvoice:
"Good, Bossl"
And then Boss wagged harder; but
he could not give much attention to his
companion, for his whole heart was
with that bent old woman who was up
to her waist in the water by the outer
most ledge. It was there that the Irish
moss grew, and at low tide the woman
could gather it. She thrust her arm
down to the shoulder each time for her
handful of moss. She was wet, sodden
wet, save for a small place across her
back.
She had mans straw hat fastened
by small rope tightly under her chin.
Her face looked a hundred years old, it
was in truth 7O-old, scanned, and leath-
cry; and it was face you loved to look
at.
Every few moments she raised her
head and put her dripping hand up over
her eyes as she turned toward the land;
she was at first dazzled by the glare of
the water. When she looked up thus
the little girl in the wheelbarrow al
ways waved her hat; then a dim, beau
tiful smile would come in the faded eyes.
''It's Jest a doin' Of her lots of good"
she would say aloud. "I'm awful glad
1 wheeled her down. I wish now I'd
brought her down oftener this sum-
mer."
Twice as she looked shoreward she
called out shr1lly:
''Boss, you take care of her; won't
you, Boss?"
Then Boss priclxed up his ears and
shook his tail, and the girl laughed and
said she guessed she'n' Boss could git
along frst-rate.
'We're usc't to it; amt we, Boss?"
When she said this the dog got up,
came to her side, gave her swift lick
across the face, then hurried back and
sat down on the edge of the planks
again.
Once the woman out in the water
slipped and fell splashing, and Boss
jumped up, whining in a piteous quiver,
and would not be comforted even when
the child said, soothingly:
"Never mind, old fellow!"
But when the woman foundered to
her feet again and cried: "All right"
the dog sat down. Still he frequently
gave little whine under his breath. He
was thinking that this was the first
summer when he had not gone out moss
ing with his dearest friend, and he could
not understand why he was so stiff and
clumsy that he was unable to run over
the slippery rocks and keep close to her,
nosing the moss she picked up, poking
over Holsters and crabs, and seeing that
nothing happened to her. Something
was the matter with his legs, and with
the whole of him, somehow, and he
could not get over the rocks. Was it
the same thing that kept him from
gnawing bones? And he liked them
just as well as ever. He noticed that
the young dog who lived down the road
could crack bones without any trouble.
1t was all very mysterious.
When he lay in the sun near where the
moss was drying, doing and swapping
at the flies, he often looked as if he were
thinking of all these things.
And what did the girls grandmother
mean only yesterday when she stroked
his head and said:
"Poor old Boss! You're gittin' old,
jes' IS I be. 'Twon't be no kind of place
round this house 'thout Boss" He had
nuzzled his head under her hand when
she had spoken thus, but he didn't un-
derstand.
How pleasant this bright day was,
with hitssunny, gentle east wind-a wind
that brought sweet, salt smells from the
ocean.
The child shifted the embracing odor
and stretched out her hands, smiling
happily.
To be sure. she could not walk, but
granny often wheeled her to the break-
water, where she could zee the mcst
eathered.