Lad of Sunnybank

Albert Payson Terhune

Description

Lad of Sunnybank details the misadventures of a collie named Lad, written by the master of dog-based literature, Albert Terhune. A sequel to Terhune’s famous book "Lad: A Dog", in this book Lad befriends a raccoon named Ramsey, a fox named Aesop, and a monkey named Darwin. Filled with exciting tales of courage and loyalty in the face of danger, this rare book is a must-read for dog-lovers and collectors of Terhune’s beautiful work.

Sujets

• Fiction
• Animals

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 11 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774644621
• Langue: English

Extrait

Lad of Sunnybank
by Albert Payson Terhune

First published in 1929
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Lad of Sunnybank
by Albert Payson Terhune
To
Lad’s Many Thousand Friends,
Young and Old, Everywhere,
My Book Is Dedicated
To The Reader
About eleven years ago my earliest stories of SunnybankLad appeared in book form. It is more than fifteen yearssince the first of these was published in the Red BookMagazine .
The stories themselves had no claim to greatness, noreven to literary merit. I know that as well as you do. ButLaddie was great enough to counterbalance any defectsof his chronicler, and to bring unlooked-for success tomy tales of his adventures and of his strange personality.
Better than that, the stories won for the grand oldcollie a host of friends, both here and in Europe, friendsto whom he was as real as though they had known himin the flesh.
Many of those friends have written to me, again andagain, asking to hear more about Lad.
So I have ventured to write this latest book, hoping toplease Lad’s old-time admirers and perhaps to gain otherfriends for him, by making our long-dead collie chumlive anew in its pages.
Albert Payson Terhune

“ Sunnybank ”
Pompton Lakes
New Jersey
(1929)

1 THE WHISPERER
Down the winding and oak-shaded furlong of drivewaybetween Sunnybank House and the main road trottedthe huge mahogany-and-snow collie. He was mighty ofchest and shoulder, heavy of coat, and with deep-setdark eyes in whose depths lurked a Soul.
Sunnybank Lad was returning home after a gallopinghunt for rabbits in the forests beyond The Place.
On the veranda of the gray old house sat the Mistressand the Master, at the end of the day’s work. At theMistress’s feet, as always, lay Wolf, the fiery little son ofLad. Gigantic Bruce—dog without a flaw—sprawledasleep near him. Behind the Master’s chair snoozedBruce’s big young auburn son, Bobbie.
Ordinarily these collies would have fared forth withtheir king, Lad, on his rabbit hunt. But, this afternoon,one and all of them had been through the dreaded ordealof a scrubbing at the hands of Robert Friend, ThePlace’s English superintendent, and one of the other men.
Lad had recognized the preparations for this loathlyflea-destroying scrub and had seen the disinfectant mixedin the bath-barrel. So he trotted off, alone, to the woods,unseen by the other dogs or by the men.
Lad loved his swims in the lake at the foot of the oak-starredlawn. But he abhorred the evil-smelling barrel-dip—adip designed to free him of the fleas which beginto infest every outdoor long-haired dog with the full adventof spring.
When the Master chanced to be at hand to supervisethe dipping, Lad remained, always, martyr-like, to takehis own share of the ordeal. But today the Master hadbeen shut up in his study all afternoon. Lad ever refusedto recognize any authority save only his and theMistress’s. Wherefore his truant excursion to the woods.
Wolf glanced up from his drowse before Lad hadtraveled halfway down the driveway, on his homewardjourney. Wolf was The Place’s official watchdog. Asleepor awake, his senses were keen. It was he that had heardor scented his returning sire before any of the rest. TheMistress saw him raise his head from the mat at her feet,and she followed the direction of his inquiring glance.
“Here comes Laddie,” she said. “Robert was lookingall over for him when he dipped the other dogs. Hecame and asked me if——”
“Trust Lad to know when dipping-day comesaround!” laughed the Master. “Unless you or I happento be on hand, he always gives the men the slip. He——”
“He’s carrying something in his mouth!” interposedthe Mistress—“something gray and little and squirmy.Look!”
The great collie had caught sight of his two humandeities on the veranda. He changed his trot to a hand gallop.His plumed tail waved gay welcome as he cametoward them. Between his powerful jaws he carried withinfinite care and tenderness a morsel of tawny-gray fluffwhich twitched and struggled to get free.
Up to the veranda ran Lad. At the Mistress’s feet he depositedgently his squirming burden. Then, his tail waving,he gazed up at her face, to note her joy in thereception of his gift.
Forever, Lad was bringing things home to the Mistressfrom his woodland or highroad walks. Once the gift hadbeen an exquisite lace parasol, with an ivory handle madefrom an antique Chinese sword—a treasure which apparentlyhad fallen from some passing motorcar.
Again, he had deposited at her feet a very dead andvery much flattened chicken, run over by some carelessmotorist and flung into a wayside ditch, whence Lad hadrecovered it.
Of old, a run-over chicken or dog or cat was all butunknown in the sweet North Jersey hinterland. Horsesand horse drivers gave such road-crossers a fair chanceto get out of the way; nor did horses approach at suchbreakneck pace that too often there could be no hope ofescape.
Today, throughout that same hinterland, as everywhereelse in America—though practically never inGreat Britain—pitiful little wayside corpses mark thetearing passage of the twentieth-century juggernaut.
The slain creatures’ owners pay for the smooth roadswhich permit speed to the invading motorists, thus becomingin a measure the motorists’ hosts. The intrudersreward the hospitality not only by murderously recklessspeed, but by stripping roadside woods and dells of theirflowering trees—usually leaving the fragrantly beautifultrophies to wilt and die in the cars’ tonneaus and thenthrowing away the worthless trash before reaching theirday’s destination.
Where once there were miles of flowery dogwoodand mountain laurel and field blossoms bordering theroads, there are now desolation and the stumps ofwrenched-off branches and uprooted sod, which minglepicturesquely with chicken bones and greasy paper andegg shells and other pretty remnants of motor-picnickers’roadside lunches.
In one or two states an effort has been made to curbreckless driving by erecting white crosses at spots wheresome luckless pedestrian has been murdered by aspeeding car. In these states the motorists have protestedvigorously to the courts; begging that the grim remindersbe removed, as the constant sight of them mars thefun of a jolly ride.
But nowhere have crosses or other warnings beenraised over the death-places of car-smashed livestock; norto mark the wastes where once bloomed glorious flowers.There would not be enough crosses to go around, ifall craftsmen toiled night and day to turn them out.
It used to be said that grass never again grew whereAttila, the raiding Hun, had ridden. Attila was a humaneand tenderly considerate old chap, compared to thebrainless and heartless and speed-delirious driver of apresent-day installment-payment car.
Lad had shown deep chagrin when the Mistressrecoiled from the long-dead and much-flattened chickenhe had brought home to her and when the Master orderedit taken away and buried. Carefully the dog haddug it up again evidently thinking it had been interredby mistake. With wistful affection he had deposited it onthe floor close beside the Mistress’s chair in the dining-room,and he had been still more grieved at the dearth ofwelcome which had greeted its return from the grave.
The Mistress looked with dubious curiosity at today’soffering he had just brought her. Even before he laid itdown on the floor the other dogs were pressing aroundin stark excitement. Lad stood over his find, baring histeeth and growling deep down in his furry throat. Atsuch a threat from their acknowledged king, not one ofthe other collies—not even fiery Wolf—dared to comecloser.
The Mistress stooped to touch the grayish creature herchum and worshiper had brought home to her from theforests.
It was a baby raccoon.
Unhurt, but fussily angry and much confused by itsnew surroundings, was the forest waif. It snarled at theMistress and sought peevishly to dig its tiny milkteethinto her caressing fingers. Instantly Lad caught it upagain, holding it deftly by the nape of its neck, as if toshow the Mistress how the feeble infant might behandled without danger of a bite.
As she did not avail herself of the hint, he laid thebaby raccoon down again and began solicitously to lickit all over.
How he had chanced upon the creature, back there inthe woods, nobody was ever to know. Perhaps itsmother had been shot or trapped and the hungry andhelpless orphan’s plight had touched the big collie’sheart—a heart always ridiculously soft toward anythingyoung and defenseless.
In any event, he had brought it home with him andhad borne it at once to the Mistress as if begging herprotection for it.
“What are we to do with the wretched thing?” demandedthe Master. “It—”
“First of all,” suggested the Mistress, “I think we’dbetter feed it. It looks half starved. I’ll get some warmmilk. I wonder if it has learned how to eat.”
It had not. But it learned with almost instant ease, lappingup the milk r