The Ball of Fire by George Randolph Chester

Everybody was at the depot to meet Gail; just everybody in the world! It was midnight when the train rolled in, and, as she came toward the gate, the faces outside, with the high station lights beaming down upon their eagerness, were like a flashing dream of all the faces she had ever loved. Of course there was her mother, a little stiff, a little sedate, a little reserved, but, under her calm exterior, fluttering with a flood of pent-up emotion. There was her father, a particularly twinkling-eyed gentleman, a somewhat thinner, somewhat older, somewhat neater edition of Uncle Jim, and he had, of all things, her favourite collie, Taffy, perched high on his shoulder! It was from her father that Gail had her vivacity and from her mother her faculty of introspection. Dazed by the unexpected delight, and the pain, too, of seeing all these dear old faces, she was for picking them out in detail, when Taffy made a blur of them.

Taffy, suddenly recognising his playfellow in the throng, first deafened Miles Sargent with a series of welcoming barks, and then began climbing up his back. Sargent, always gifted with the capacity for over-estimating his own powers, a quality which had permitted his brother Jim to slightly outrun him in the game of life, had fondly hoped that he could restrain Taffy by the firm hold of the forepaws over his shoulder; but collies are endowed with a separate set of muscles for wriggling purposes alone, and the first thing Miles Sargent knew, Taffy had crawled right over him, and had kicked off from his cravat, and had shot straight through the outcoming throng, a flash of yelping brown and white, brushing over a woman with a basket, and landing against Gail with the force of all his lively affection.