His ears cocked up and his eyes were bright as the machine came into sight.  Then he saw his dear mistress look back at him, her hand waved and her voice called, “Good-bye, Prince Jan!  Be a good dog!”

“Woof!  Woof!” he answered, as he always answered her “good-bye” call.  Then the automobile vanished among the trees.

It was summer time and the middle of the day was very warm, so Jan decided he would take a swim in the ocean.  It was great sport battling the huge waves while white sea-gulls darted screaming over his head, fearing he would steal the fish they hoped to catch and eat.  Cooled by the water, he returned to the front porch and stretched out where he could see the road, for he always ran and welcomed his folks when they came home from their drives.  He was very happy and comfortable until the new housekeeper came out with a broom.

“Get off, you dirty beast!” she cried, shaking the broom over his head.  “This porch was washed to-day.”

Jan jumped up in surprise.  No one had ever spoken to him that way.  The old housekeeper, who had gone away, had been his friend.  Whenever the family was absent at night Jan had kept her company in her room, and she always had cookies there for him.  John, her husband, had been the old stableman.

The broom waved nearer.  He looked into the woman’s angry face, then walked down the front steps.

“I’ll go to the stable till Elizabeth comes home,” he thought as he went toward the back of the house.

But, John, the stableman, who had cared for the handsome horses of the Pixleys until automobiles filled the carriage house, had gone away to another place where people still used horses.  John had been Jan’s loyal friend.  The new man, William Leavitt, had not made friends with Jan, but there were many nice dark places, out of William’s sight, where Jan often took a nap during the heat of the day, and William never knew it.

Jan was making for a favorite spot under the old family carriage, when William saw him.

“Get out!” he shouted furiously.

The dog stopped.  William came closer and lifting his hand, threw a monkey-wrench at Jan.  It missed him, and the dog hurried away to the garden, where many trees made dense shadows.  There was a spot under a low-hanging pepper tree where Jan dug into the cool, moist earth until he had made a nice, big hole.  Then he lay down and uttered a sigh of content.  His eyes closed and soon he was sound asleep.

A vicious kick wakened him, and he leaped to his feet to see the gardener standing over him swearing.  Jan ran away, but stood a short distance off, watching the man fill up the hole under the tree.  As the man finished the work, he saw the dog and hurled a stone which struck above Jan’s eye, making a jagged cut that started to bleed.

Half-mad with pain, Jan ran until he found a place in the orange grove, far back from the house, and trembling, he huddled down.  His heart thumped and again he suffered from the fear of things he did not understand just as he had felt when his mother howled on the day he had been led from the Hospice.