Her puppyhood was unpromising. Indeed, for one born on a farm, where is lack neither of shelter nor food, her earliest hours were doubly perilous, for, in addition to the prospect of a watery grave in a bucket, her existence, and that of the whole litter, was threatened by negligent nursing. Fate had given the little family a mother not only herself young, but of all dogs that ever worked on a farm the most irresponsible. It was quite in keeping with her reputation that Lucy should bring her children to birth in the exposed hollow trunk of a tree and then forget the blind, sprawling, whimpering puppies for hours together. It was going hard with the weaklings when fate again took a hand in their welfare, this time in the person of young Zub. It had become evident to the farm folk, to whom matters of birth and reproduction are commonplaces of daily life, that Lucy’s new duties had come upon her, and it was plainly evident, too, before the third day had run, that she was neglecting them. It was then that young Zub, or Zubdil, as he was indifferently called, either name serving to distinguish him from Owd Zub, his father, actively bestirred himself. Hitherto he had done no more than keep his eyes and ears open as he moved about the farm buildings, but neither soft whimper nor the sound of tender noses nuzzling against a warm body had rewarded him. His first deliberate efforts were to watch Lucy’s comings and goings, in the hope of tracing her hiding-place. But the mother dog, a poacher at heart and with all a four-footed poacher’s cunning, had easily beaten him at this game. When he recognised this, angry at the thought that somewhere a small family was suffering, he soundly cuffed her about the ears in the hope that she would bolt for her hiding-place and her blind charges. But the graceless one, howling, raced no further than to her kennel, and from its depths kept one watchful eye open for further developments. ‘Drat thee,’ cried Zubdil, as his experiment went wrong, ‘but I’ll find ’em yet.’ He turned and slowly entered the kitchen, where Owd Zub was quietly chuckling to himself. ‘Shoo’s bested thee, reight an’ all, this time,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t thy books tell thee owt?’ It was a thrust he was fond of making. Zubdil’s strongly developed taste for reading was something beyond the old farmer’s understanding. He would have given but occasional heed to it had not the younger man taken up works on scientific farming and breeding, and also studied these subjects in a course of postal lessons with the Agricultural Department at the Northern University. New ideas thus acquired often clashed with the father’s ingrained conservative methods, and they left him sore. A chance to get in a sly dig at this ‘book larning’ was too good to be missed. He chuckled again as he asked the question.