Annie Laurie

San Francisco Examiner/July 17,1907

I HEARD some one singing or trying to sing in the back garden the other day. I walked very softly around the corner of the house and peeked—not peeped—peeked. They are two different things, I would have you know. One of them is sneaky and the other is friendly.

Well, my friendly peek showed me a little girl I know sitting in the shade with her rough, ugly Irish terrier lying on the grass beside her. His shaggy head was in her lap, and she was chanting in such a mournful, sentimental voice that it was all the Irish terrier could do to keep from howling out of sheer, melancholy enjoyment.

“Oh, my darling Blazer dog,” chanted the little girl I know. “Dey’s little angels up in heaven dat looks just like you, oh, Blazer dog, with de velvet ears.”

Over and over the little girl I know sang her melodious chant, like some little priestess of a strange and long-forgotten religion.

And the sun shone and the wind made little dancing shadows of the whispering leaves on the green grass, and the rough dog lay in a transport of sentimental joy.

“Oh, Blazer of the velvet ears”—how she chose the only pretty thing about that dog, and how unerringly she chose it.

To her he is not ugly or uncouth or rough haired or boisterous. He is her faithful friend with the beautiful velvet ears.

I’m going to learn a lesson from that little girl I know.

The next time a friend of mine disappoints me in some way, turns out to be less clever, or less ambitious, or less industrious than I hoped, I’m going to remember Blazer of the velvet cars, fix my mind on the one beautiful quality my friend does possess and forget all about the traits he ought to have, perhaps, and has not.

How easy it is to see all the little blemishes and the little faults and the little follies even in those we love. How easy it is to criticize even friendship into a cold, sneering thing which is not worthy of the name.

Friend! What is there on earth like a good, faithful friend, and what’s the use of letting yourself criticize a real friend for even a real fault?

You don’t have to be blind to his faults. You can look them right straight in the face, smile, forget them and go on loving him just the same.

Come, little girl I know. You’ve put a new meaning into the word friendship for me. Let’s go out into the back garden together, and I’ll make a chain of daisies for you and one for Blazer of the velvet ears—your friend; your friend and mine.