164 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 



peculiar preparations with a day alone. The long, 

 lonely hours probably affected him somewhat as 

 they do a human being who is compelled to stay 

 alone all day with nothing to do. But what a 

 welcome he gave us in the evening when we came 

 back ! This was indubitable evidence of his lone- 

 liness. The first familiar object we would see in 

 the evening, on coming in sight of home, was 

 faithful Fido, sitting out in the road on the hill 

 above the house sitting straight up in that 

 peculiar way of his watching and waiting for 

 our home-coming. He knew, or seemed to know, 

 the direction from which to expect us, and was 

 able to recognise us a long way off. The years 

 have been many, and Fido's dust has long been 

 scattered by the gusts over the farms of north-west 

 Missouri ; but now, in fancy, I can see this faithful 

 creature bounding down the road in the sunset to 

 meet us, as he used to do in the golden long-ago, 

 leaping and smiling and wagging his tail, and 

 wriggling and barking in a perfect ecstasy of 

 gladness. 



Well, I'know Fido could feel and think, that 

 he loved and feared and longed and dreaded and 

 dreamed and hated and grieved and sympathised 

 and reasoned and rejoiced in short, that he was 

 moved by about the same passions and considera- 

 tions as human beings usually are. He gave the 

 same evidence of it precisely as a human being 

 does. 



The dog is the oldest of human associates. 

 Long before the historical period the dog was 



