Evening Star Newspaper, March 3, 1935, Page 78

llustration by Paul Bransom B e e e R i i THIS WEEK s . [} " \ -’ v 5 ’{ . / ’ al, - &2 ‘:’z} o~ ¢ - {/I Rl NP ' (N AN oy Nt Ry o LN March 3, 1935 Happily She Lay Down Beside It, Her Deepset, Dark Eyes Alight REMEMBERE Give MNan a (hallenge And a piteous army of dogs have done their serving in that uselessly loyal way, since Grecian Argus waited twenty endless years in the Ithica courtyard for the return of his lost master, Odysseus. The tale of these hopelessly hoping canine sentries could be stretched to many hundred pages. Memory of their vigils was reawakened a few months ago by one of the most pathetic news stories of the year. Here it is: Back in 1924, Francis McMahon lived in Erie, Illinois. He was a laborer, a lonely man whose best chum was his furry young collie, Shep. The two were inseparable. McMahon fell down a flight of stairs. His skull was fractured. He was taken in an ambulance to St. Anthony's Hospital, at Rock Island. Shep bounded into the ambulance and cuddled close to his master, whimpering and licking the man's face. At the hospital, McMahon was lifted onto a stretcher and borne indoors. Shep marched alongside. Thus the little procession reached the elevator, whence the sufferer was to be carried upstairs to the operating room. Shep tried to shove his way into the lift. But an interne barred his way. McMahon leaned feebly toward the dog, stroking his head and whispering: “It's all right, old friend. I'll be back. Wait for me here!" Now this was something Shep could under- stand and obey. A hundred times when McMahon had been going into some building where dogs were not allowed, he had used that same command: “Wait for me here!" So Shep stretched himself out on the floor beside the elevator shaft — and waited. He is still waiting. McMahon never came back. The man died next day. His body was taken from the hos- pital by another elevator on another side of the building. Thus, Shep did not know he was gone. The collie had been told to wait where he was. That had been his master’s last command. When Shep had been told to wait anywhere, his human god had never failed to come back to him. The dog_seemed calmly confident the same thing would happen now. That was in August, 1924. For more than ten years Shep has been waiting at the hos- pital elevator. At first he would run forward eagerly, every time the car came to the ground floor; then, dejected, he would go wearily back to his resting place. ‘ ‘Tu:;‘ z:}so serve who only stand and Dogs of Loyalty. Read These (lassic True Stortes of Their Faithfulness Through Long, & mpty Years By ALBERT PavsoN TERHUNE Later — after countless false hopes had sent him running to the lif. — he would lie where he was, fixing his eyes on each des- cending car. The Franciscan Sisters in charge of the hospital took pity on the forlorn collie. They arranged a soft mat for him to lie on. They brought him food and water. They made friends with him. So did the visiting doctors and the internes. They gave him as much exercise as he would take — though always he would hurry back to his mat as soon as they let him indoors again. As the years dragged on, night watchmen told strange tales of the dog's actions. They said that sometimes during the still hours of darkness, Shep would start up from his sleep and leap gaily to his feet and dash over to the elevator, wagging his tail ecstatically and barking glad welcome to — to WHAT? Last November the Illinois Deep Water- way, near Joliet, was dragged in vain for days, on the strength of another dog's queer actions. Nobody knew whose dog it was. But his motions told a story too plain to be mis- understood. Day and night he stood waiting at the same place on the bank, staring into the water. . From time to time he would rouse the echoes by a series of frantic barks — calls for help. Then he would plunge in and swim about until he was exhausted; clearly search- ing for someone who had sunk. Police and government employees dragged the Waterway in vain. Which proved nothing. For many a human body has sunk and never has been recovered by even the most skillful dragging. Berger Edwards of a local govern- ment engineering boat brought food to the unhappy canine watcher, but could not get him to eat. The dog was waiting — waiting disconsolate at the spot whence his master had vanished. My little brown collie, Sunnybank Jean — long afterward to be run over and killed by a carload of speed-mad motorists who crashed Sunnybank's gates —had a puppy, Jock, which she adored. . Most canine mothers feel little interest in their pups, after weaning time. This was a very rare and rather beautiful exception. Jean shared Jock's kennel yard. She would carry the choicest bits of her dinner to him. Every day she would wash him from head to tail with her tireless pink tongue; even after he was larger than was she. She went with him everywhere. I have never before or since seen such absolute de- votion in one animal for another. She was unhappy if Jock were out of her sight for a minute. Then when the puppy was full grown he fell ill with distemper. I shut him in a big box stall in the stables. There we fought a long and losing fight against the foul disease. I kept all the other dogs far away from the infected stable. Jean was shut in a distant kennel yard, where she moped and refused to eat. When Jock died, L had him buried nearly a quarter mile from the house — in a lakeside field where Sunnybank dogs have been buried for three quarters of a century. I let Jean out of the kennel yard, next morning. Straightway she began to search for her lost puppy. For hours she quartered the whole place, sniffing the ground and some- times barking a summons — the call that Jock never before had disobeyed. Then at last she found what she sought. She came galloping up to me and caught the hem of my shooting coat, and led me to the mound that covered Jock's grave. Happily she lay down beside it, her plumed tail waving, her deepset dark eyes alight. There was no grief in her actions or in her bearing. She had scented out the spot where her precious son seemed at last much nearer to her than he had been in weeks. That was good news. Very evidently she thought that by lying there, waiting, she would be at hand when he should appear again. Her waiting had no grief in it. It was full of gay hope. Day after day, for years, in all weathers, until her death, Jean would trot to Jock's grave and spend hours at a time lying hope- fully beside it. She was on the way back to the house from such a vigil when the motor car crushed her. A friend of mine, Wilson by name, moved from a Philadelphia suburb, some years ago, to settle in California. He did not take his big brown collie, Jack, along; but left the dog with a relative who was fond of him. Jack would not stay at his new home. In- stead he went back to his master’s closed house and took up his abode on its porch. Every afternoon he would trot down to the trolley station to meet the car on which Wilson always had come from Philadelphia. In the old days, Jack never had missed a day in meeting this car and in escorting his master home. Now, he would scan each passenger's face, then plod miserably back to the porch. He grew as thin as a skeleton. He was pining to death from loneliness and sorrow:. A neighbor telegraphed the story to Wilson. Laugh at Wilson, if you like, for what he did when he got that telegram. My hat is off to such a man. Wilson took the next train East. He rode out from Philadelphia, on his arrival, by his usual trolley car. Feebly, hopelessly, Jack crawled to the station as usual. Then he caught sight of the master he had been waiting for so long, and so heartbrokenly. W:lison told me: *“Jack gave a scream of unbelieving rapture and he threw himself bodily on mz;gsogbing as a child might sob. He shivered all over as if he had a chill. And I? Well, I blew my nose hard and I did a lot of fast winking. And I made a mighty resolve then and there that Jack and I never should be separated again, as long as he might live.” One solitary case wherein a deserted dog's dm_ry waiting was rewarded. But, oh, the myriad pitiful times when it is not! 4 3