Bing/Chapter 1

Mrs. Browning stood on the corner of Broad Street, at the point where Bay Path crosses it on its way from Boston to Albany. She was waiting for a trolley car to Meadowdale. In summer, this street on which she stood was a nature-lover's paradise, with its four rows of gigantic elms stretching their long arms far out over the green carpet. At close of day, when the ​dark shadows stole from behind the trunks of the mighty trees and stray sunbeams filtered down through the leaves and made patches of gold on the green carpet, it was a child's paradise.

But, now, as Mrs. Browning saw it on Christmas Eve, its beauty was of another order, and it fairly took away her breath as she gazed in awe upon it. There had been a heavy snowfall two days before, and this had been succeeded by rain which had frozen as it fell, so that now the village green and adjacent fields were covered with a coating of crystals that glistened and glimmered in the moonlight like a woodland lake with its first coating of ice.

Every twig of the great elms was bejeweled with ice, and all the weeds and bushes were hung with diamonds. It looked more like a fairy world than the staid old town. The icicles on the trees ​caught the moonbeams and refracted them in all the colors of the prism, while countless stars in the heavens added to the brilliancy of the scene.

It was an animated picture, with children shouting and laughing and, occasionally, a sleigh-ride party crossing the street. The loads of merry youngsters sang and shouted and rang discordant cow-bells as they passed. But when there came an occasional lull in the merrymaking, it seemed to Mrs. Browning that the stillness which followed had a peculiar quality, as though the hush of that far-off Christmas, nineteen hundred years before, had come down through the centuries and settled like a benediction on the old town.

At this point in Mrs. Browning's reflections, the trolley car stopped at her corner and she hurried inside to quite another world. Outside, the air had been clear, ​crisp, and bracing; but inside the car, the artificial warmth was heavy with many perfumes strangely mingled together. Every one in the car was excited and full of good spirits. Many were talking and laughing and already extending Christmas greetings, although it was only Christmas Eve. There was a sound of animated conversation, a general Christmas chatter, each advising the other as to what they should get for Johnnie or Susie, or debating concerning their gifts for their husbands this year. It was so hard to get just the right thing for one's husband. Presently, Mrs. Browning was seated and chatting with a neighbor, for she, too, was in quest of a Christmas present.

Mrs. Browning did not ride into town, but stopped by a cross street about a mile from the center. A brisk walk for five minutes down this street brought her to ​a low old-fashioned house, where she mounted the piazza steps and rang the bell. At the sound of the tinkling bell, there was a chorus of barks from the dog company inside. There was the high staccato of the Pomeranian, the deep bay of the police dog, and several other tones ranging in between these two in pitch.

Presently, a tall lank man with a stoop in his shoulders opened the door.

"Good evening, Mr. Manson," said Mrs. Browning.

He did not at first recognize his visitor.

"Oh, is that you, Mrs. Browning?" he exclaimed. "Come right in," and he threw wide the door.

As Mrs. Browning entered, a beautiful English setter crowded up to her and put her muzzle into the woman's hand, and received a pat on her noble head. The police dog looked curiously in from a side door, ​and the two Pomeranians viewed the newcomer from a distance.

"Here, you dogs, get back there! This is your friend, Mrs. Browning. Don't you know her? Come right in. Mrs. Manson has stepped out for a minute," and he led the way to the sitting-room.

"Here, you, Queenie," said the man peremptorily to a sleek greyhound that was in the large easy chair, "get up and give Mrs. Browning the chair."

The greyhound raised herself, yawned, and jumped lightly to the floor.

"Thank you, Queenie," said Mrs. Browning, as she seated herself.

"How is Mr. Browning?" inquired Mr. Manson. "I understand he has been in the hospital."

"Yes," replied Mrs. Browning. "He just arrived home this afternoon. He is tired out. We can't blame him. This ​pounding away at a typewriter for twenty-five years with an endless round of dictionaries, manuscripts, and then more manuscripts is enough to tire out any one. I don't see how he stands it."

"That's so," said Mr. Manson. "It's all I can do to just keep track of the titles of his books, to say nothing of reading them."

"And that brings me to my errand," explained Mrs. Browning. "I must not be away too long. He is all alone. I have come over to buy the fox terrier you advertised in the paper this morning. I want it for a Christmas present for Mr. Browning. He is tired and discouraged, and I know a little dog will do him good. He wants something snuggly to cuddle. I think the paper said the price was twenty-five dollars," and Mrs. Browning reached for her pocket-book.

​At these words, Mr. Manson looked troubled and ran his fingers through his hair.

"I'm mighty sorry, Mrs. Browning, but I sold that little fox terrier an hour ago. I don't know of any one in the whole world I would rather have sold him to than to you and Mr. Browning, but he is gone. I'm very sorry."

Mrs. Browning's astonishment and disappointment were so great that. she dropped her pocket-book, and change rolled in every direction. When the money had been recovered and the pocket-book had been put back in the bag, Mr. Manson said: "I think I can fix you up all right. Fox terriers are good, but I have got some other dogs that will do just as well."

"Oh, no, you haven't," put in Mrs. Browning. "A fox terrier was just what ​I wanted. I have made up my mind, and another dog won't do."

But Mr. Manson was not discouraged. He knew dogs, and he also thought he knew men and women, so he kept right on just as though he had not heard Mrs. Browning. "You come out to the kennels and see what I have. I've got the most wonderful lot of beagle pups you ever saw in your whole life, as many as twenty of them, and every one a beauty. I know you will like them, once you see them."

"I do not think I should want to buy one," said Mrs. Browning. "I had made up my mind to buy a fox terrier."

"Well, it won't cost anything to look at them," returned Mr. Manson. "Come out and see them. They are such beauties, and so full of life."

As Mr. Manson had said, the beagle pups were beauties. There were nearly ​twenty of them jumping about in their own particular pen. They moved so rapidly that it was almost impossible to pick out one and then be sure you still had your eyes on the same dog a minute after. Mrs. Browning gazed at them in perfect silence for at least a minute, and Mr. Manson, like the wise man that he was, said nothing.

"Well," he inquired at last, "how do they look to you? What do you think of them?"

"They are great," said Mrs. Browning enthusiastically. "They are beautiful little dogs. I don't know—— Perhaps one of them would do for Mr. Browning, even though I had made up my mind to get a fox terrier."

"I am sure it would," returned her host. "I tell you what I will do. You pick out one, and we will make Mr. Browning a ​Christmas present of it together. I will give half and you half."

"No, that will never do," returned Mrs. Browning. "I want to give the whole myself."

"All right," said Mr. Manson good-naturedly. "I will let you have the pup at half-price."

The next question was to select a pup from the wriggling mass. Mrs. Browning selected at least a half-dozen and then changed her mind when she thought she had discovered one which was better than her last choice. Finally, in utter perplexity, she asked Mr. Manson to pick out one, and there was no question in his mind as to which was the best one. Almost immediately he caught his favorite and held him up for Mrs. Browning's inspection. The little dog was symmetrically formed and beautifully marked.

​"I will take it," said Mrs. Browning. So the purchase was made then and there, and they returned to the house and found an empty basket in which to carry the pup home.

"Now, if he isn't satisfactory in every way and Mr. Browning doesn't like him, you bring him right back and I will give you another," said Mr. Manson, as Mrs. Browning departed with her purchase.

Arrived at the street corner, she found that there were still several minutes before the car was due, so she went into a little store to wait. She placed the basket on the counter and extended Christmas greetings to the grocery man. They were still talking when a pleasant woman of about fifty bustled in.

"Oh, hello, Mrs. Browning, is that you? Aren't you lost? I wish you a Merry Christmas."

​"Why," said Mrs. Browning, "I have just been up to your place. I wanted to see you, but I couldn't wait. I have got to get home as soon as possible, as I left Mr. Browning alone."

"What have you got in the basket?" inquired Mrs. Manson suspiciously. "It isn't one of the babies, is it?"

At the sound of her voice, there was a great commotion inside the basket and a pathetic whimpering.

"There, now, I knew you had one of the babies," exclaimed Mrs. Manson. "I wonder which one it is. It sounds like Bing. It couldn't be Bing, though; Mr. Manson wouldn't sell him. Why, he is the pick of the kennels!"

At this instant, the pup pushed up the lid from the basket and quickly stuck out his head.

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Manson. ​"It is Bing! I thought it sounded like him. Mr. Manson wouldn't have sold him to anybody except you. He was intending to keep him."

"How did you happen to name him Bing?" inquired Mrs. Browning. "I am glad if he is the pick of the kennels."

"Oh, I don't know," returned her friend. "They just seem to name themselves. One day he was sniffing around my feet and I said, 'I know what your name is, little dog, it is Bingo.' It is after the old song, Bingo, don't you remember?" and Mrs. Manson hummed the old ditty:

Half an hour later, Mrs. Browning hurried into her own house and deposited the basket on the sofa.

​"I have a Christmas present for you, Lawrence," she said, snapping on the light; "come over here to the sofa. I want you to see it."

"A Christmas present for me? Why, it won't be Christmas until to-morrow."

"Yes, I know," returned Mrs. Browning, "but I wanted you to have it right off."

The man got up slowly and went over to the lounge. In the meantime Mrs. Browning had opened the basket and deposited the little dog beside it.

"What is it, another puppy?" inquired the man. "You know I always said, after Scottie died, I never could bear to have another dog."

"I know you said that," returned Mrs. Browning. "That is what you always say when we lose an old dog, and somehow we always get another."

​Mr. Browning lifted the pup in his arms and returned to his easy-chair, and the little dog snuggled down in his lap while his new master caressed his long silky ears and stroked his head.

"What breed is it?" he inquired finally. "Not that it matters, if it is just dog."

"I intended to get you a fox terrier," replied Mrs. Browning, "but the one I went for was sold. This is a beagle hound."

"Humph," said Mr. Browning, "a beagle hound. Why, I used to have one when I was a small boy, and I thought the world of it. Perhaps this one will be just as good."

At this point in the conversation, Mrs. Browning went into the kitchen to do the dishes which she had left in her haste to go to the city, and Mr. Browning was left with the new puppy. As the man felt the ​warm little body of the dog nestling against him and the little head lying confidingly in the palm of his hand, this mite of a dog did something for him that weeks of treatment in the hospital and much medicine had failed to accomplish, for it unlocked a well-spring of love in his being. A great tension in his mind was relieved, nerves relaxed, and happy tears filled his eyes. Yes, he was going to love this little dog. He had come at just the right time and he was as welcome as sun-light in a darkened room. Yes, he would be one of the family and take the place of their old collie.

Fifteen minutes later, when Mrs. Browning returned to the room, she found the man asleep in the easy-chair, and the little dog resting on his shoulder and nestling against the man's face in an attitude of perfect contentment. The dog, ​too, was asleep, so Mrs. Browning tiptoed out of the room lest she should disturb the sleepers. A great joy filled her heart. Her Christmas gift was the right sort because it had brought love, which is the light of the world, into a darkened life. Yes, the little dog would be one of the family.