Tip Pulsifer approved of
him. Tip shut one eye and gazed at him long and earnestly; he ran his
bony fingers down the slender back to the very end of the agitated
tail. One by one he took the heavy paws in his hands and stroked them.
Then Tip smiled. Murphy Kallaberger smiled too, and declared that the
young un took after his pa; clarifying this explanation he pointed his
fat thumb over his shoulder to old Captain, beating around the
underbrush.
It was young Colonel's first day of life. And what a day to live, I
thought, as I stroked his head and wished him luck! He could not get
it into his puppy brain that I was to wait there while the others went
racing down the slope into the wooded basin below, so he lingered, to
sit before me on his haunches, his head cocked to one side, eyeing me
inquisitively. There was a tang in the air. The wind was sweeping
along the ridge-top and the woods were shivering. All about us rattled
Nature's bones, in the stirring leaves, in the falling pig-nuts, in the
crash of the belated birds through the leafless branches.
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