The Best Friend...

-->

From the Film “The Trail of Old Drum”

The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his worst enemy.

His son or his daughter, who he has raised with loving care, may prove ungrateful.

Those we trust with our happiness… our good name, may become traitors to us.

People who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us, are often the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud on our heads.

But the one absolutely unselfish friend that you can have in this selfish world, the one who will never desert you, the one who never proves ungrateful… or treacherous… is your dog.

He is your best friend in prosperity and in poverty in health and in sickness he will sleep on the cold ground where wintry winds blow and snows drive fiercely if only to be at his masters side.

He kisses the hand that offers him no food, he licks the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world.

He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.

And when all other friends depart, he remains.

If fortune sends his master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies.

And when the last scene of all comes… and death takes his master in its embrace, and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his grave side, will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness.

Faithful and true… even to death.

George Graham Vest (Lawyer for Old Drum)