Patience Rewarded

The following story is a very touching one I once read on chicken Soup. This is a dog story, but we can learn a lot from it.

Wilson's dog, Jack, was an energetic, six-year-old collie that would meet him every day at the trolley station when Wilson returned from work. This was a ritual that had began when Jack was a pup. The dog know the route to and from the station like the back of his paw-and following that route was the highlight of his day. Do when Wilson changed his job and had to move to California, he thought it best to leave Jack on his home turf in Philadelphia with a relative. He explained all this to the dog upon leaving and told him that they both would have to adjust to new homes.

But Jack didn't want a new home. He would not stay with the family he'd been left with. He returned to Wilson's old house, even though it was boarded up, and there he passed his solitary days beside an abandoned chair beneath the portico. But every evening, tail wagging, he trotted off to the trolley station. For as long as Jack had been in the world, Wilson had always taken the same trolley home from work, and Jack had been there to greet him. But evening after evening, there was no sign of the devoted dog's master. Confused and sad, he would return alone to the deserted house.

The dog's depression grew. He refused the food left for him, and as the days passed, he became thinner and thinner, his tibs noticeable even though his thick blond coat. But every evening, ever hopeful, he'd go to the station to meet the trolley. And every evening, he'd return to the porch more despondent than before.

No one knows why Jack's new family didn't contact Wilson, but Jack's deteriorating condition didn't go unnoticed. A friend who lived nearby was so upset by it that he took it upon himself to send a telegram to Wilson in California, informing him of the dog's situation.

That was all it took.

Wilson bought a return train ticket immediately; he know what he had to do. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, he waited several hour just so that he could take the same trolley that he always did when coming home. When it arrived at the station, sure enough, there was Jack, waiting and watching as the passengers got off. Looking and hoping. And then suddenly there he was, his beloved owner. His master had returned at last! Jack's world was whole once more-and so was Wilson's.

Wilson told the famed dog writer Terhune, "Jack was sobbing almost like a child might sob. He was shivering all over as if he had a chill. And I? Well, I blew my nose and did a lot of fast winking."

Wilson took his devoted dog, Jack, back to California with him. They were never separated again.