The Dogs of Boytown
Walter Dyer
Walter A. Dyer
The Dogs of Boytown
CHAPTER I
SAM BUMPUS AND HIS NAN
There are misguided people in this world who profess to believe that only grown-ups can fully appreciate the beauties of nature. Oh, the grown-ups talk more about that sort of thing, to be sure, and know how to say poetic things about winter fields and sunsets that are usually locked in a boy's heart. But for the fullest appreciation of blue skies and autumn woods and sandy shores, and the most genuine enjoyment of broken sunshine on the forest floor, the smell of falling oak leaves, and the song of the wind in the pines or rustling across broad, rolling fields, give me a boy every time. I know, for I have been one.
That is why I am going to begin this story about boys and dogs by telling of a certain crisp October morning – a Saturday morning when boyhood enjoys its weekly liberty. There had been frost the night before and the air was still cool and very clear. It was like drinking cold water to take long breaths of it. The golden sun was rising high above the rounded hills to the east and the sunlight turned to glistening silver the shreds of smoke that drifted lazily up from the chimneys of Boytown in the little valley a mile or so away.
I must digress for a moment to speak of Boytown. You will not find it on the map, for that is not its real name. It is not always wise to call people and places by their real names in a book, and so I have given this name to the Connecticut town where lived all the boys and the dogs that I am going to tell about. It was a nice old town, just about the right size, with a broad main street where the stores and business buildings were, and in the upper end of which a narrow green ran down the middle with a row of big elm trees in it. Most of the people lived on the side streets, some of which ran for quite a distance up Powder Mill Hill to the west. But most of the pleasant places in this part of the world lay to the east. The railroad ran along that side of the town, and beyond it were the brickyards and Hulse's Pond. If you were in search of adventure, you skirted this pond, went up over a long, grassy hill, and at length entered the woods which stretched all the way to Oakdale, broken now and then by farms and open stretches of hilly meadow or pasture land.
Here in the woods there was much to be seen on this fine October day. There were squirrels everywhere, busy with the harvesting of their winter's supply of nuts, and if you were lucky you might catch a glimpse of a cottontail rabbit disappearing into a thicket, or a grouse shooting off among the trees with a great whirring of wings. The autumn foliage was at its finest, the deep green of pine and hemlock mingling with the crimson of the oaks, the flaming scarlet of the maples, and the translucent gold of the silvery-stemmed birches. Above the trees the sky was that soft blue color that you like to lie on your back and look at, with here and there fleecy little clouds constantly changing into all sorts of odd and whimsical shapes. From the branches of a tall pine a flock of sooty crows, alarmed by the sound of human voices, arose all together and floated off over a little clearing in company formation, cawing loudly.
If you had been one of those crows, you would have looked down at the figures of two boys emerging from the woods. One was a slender lad of about twelve, quite tall for his age, with straight black hair and bright black eyes. The other, who was perhaps three years younger, was so plump as almost to deserve the nickname of "Fatty." He had lighter hair and eyes and there were freckles across the bridge of his not very prominent nose. Both boys were dressed in their old clothes and carried white cloth flour bags which already contained a few quarts of chestnuts. They stood gazing with practised eyes at the tree-tops around the little clearing.
"There ought to be some here, Jack," said the older boy. "The biggest trees always grow near the edges."
"They're the easiest to get at, too," responded Jack.
They walke