AN AVIATOR DOG

New Zealand Tablet, 23 August 1917, Page 36

AN AVIATOR DOG

A writer in the New York Sun tells this story; ; “One day, Marcel Thirouin,' a French '.aviator, tired of circling around in the , air, decided ,to come down, and he alighted, in a lonely. place in the West of Servia. When he looked about him he noticed , a little boy huddled close to a dead man, and"a dog was snuggled up to the child. The man was the boy’s father. There was no one to bury the dead, or to care for the living. Both boy and dog were famished, and trembling with cold. Marcel decided to take the boy in his machine —it might be too late .to save him if he waited to notify the nearest village. Picking up the child he dropped him in the basket, and prepared to get in himself. The boy £ould not make his rescuer understand his language, but there was no mistaking his gestures and the tears that rained down his cheeks. He was pleading for his dog : and the dog pleaded, too, whining so piteously that the aviator could not leave him behind. The little fellow realised that his father was dead — dog was the only link with his old home, so he wept, and begged until Marcel tossed the shivering, whining dog into the car beside him. Immediately the dog settled down on the aviator’s feet, helping to keep them warm. Not a word from the boy, or a whimper from the dog, as the machine flew for two hours, not even when a violent jolt threatened to throw them out. -

• “Finally Marcel picked out a favorable place to land, and came down near a camp of Servians. The soldiers fed the child and the dog and finally Marcel .found a home for the child with some French peasants. But they would not take the dog. • > “So I adopted him,” says Marcel, “and he has become a faithful companion. He is the. best flyer you can. imagine. - ; It would break his heart if I took a trip without him,, and he lies curled up at my feet as I take long jaunts in the clouds. He never moves, is so •light that he is never in the way, and he never loses his presence of mind. His companionship gives me comfort. When I land he lies right in the basket, and heaven help anyone who should attempt to enter it.’ ” •