Jack, the Fire Dog. Wesselhoeft Lily F.

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СКАЧАТЬ They were evidently very fond of their dog, for they stopped often to pat him and speak to him.

      “Where have I seen those children?” asked Jack of himself. “I am sure I have seen them before;” and he tried hard to recall their faces.

      “I have it!” he exclaimed at last. “It was the night of the fire when we found the blind kid, and they are the children who looked after him.”

      He looked at the dog the children were leading. “‘Yellow dog with a black pug nose, answers to the name of Toby.’ Well, who would have thought I should hear from him so soon? Hallo, Toby! is that you?”

      “Yes,” replied Toby; “but who are you, and how do you happen to know my name?”

      Jack quickly arose and stepped up to the little yellow dog. The children good-naturedly waited for them to exchange the time of day, during which time Jack managed to explain to Toby his interview with the large farm-dog. “I did not expect to hear from you so soon,” said Jack, “but now that I have, we must make our plans in a hurry. I suppose you want to go back to your old home?”

      “Of course I do. After having a whole town to roam about in, it isn’t very pleasant to be tied up in an old shed.”

      “Why didn’t you run away?” asked Jack.

      “I wasn’t sure of my way. It is terribly confusing to a country dog to find his way about in a city. Besides, these children are very good to me, and I was afraid of falling into worse hands.”

      “You know how to slip your collar, I suppose?” asked Jack.

      “Sometimes I can, but this strap is pretty tight,” replied Toby.

      “I see that your education has been neglected, so I will give you a few instructions given me by an old bull-dog, Boxer by name, who could slip any collar that was ever invented.”

      “I should be very glad to hear them,” replied little Toby.

      “Well, first you back out just as far as your rope will allow you to go. Then you gradually work your head from side to side, with your chin well up in the air, kind of wriggling your head free. If your collar is tight, that doesn’t always work; so next you lie flat on your back, keeping your nose as high up as you can get it. You can kind of ease it up with your fore feet, too. You do just as I’ve told you and you’ll find yourself free in time. I stump any one to make a collar that these rules won’t work on.”

      “I’ll do my best,” said little Toby.

      “The bull-dog I told you of, did a thing once that I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t known it to be a fact. He had slipped so many collars that they had a sort of harness made for him with a strap that went back of his fore legs. Well, one morning they found that he had slipped that. It beats the Dutch how he managed to do it, but he did it all right. It took him all night to do it, and in the morning they found him all used up, and lying as if he were dead. He was quite an old dog then, and not so strong as he used to be, but you know bull-dogs never give up anything they undertake.”

      “Did he get well?” asked Toby, much interested.

      “I’ll tell you. As I said before, he lay like a dead dog, and it was warm and sunny out of doors, so they carried him out and laid him in the sun. After a while he seemed to take an interest in things about him,—wagged his tail when they spoke to him and all that. Bull-dogs are awfully affectionate, you know. Then they began to have a little hope for him, when who should come along but another dog he knew? There had been some bad blood between the two, and what do you think? No sooner does my old friend catch sight of the other than up he jumps and runs after him. Of course he was too feeble to do anything in the fighting line, but his intentions were good.”

      “Wasn’t the excitement too much for him?” asked Toby, anxiously.

      “Not a bit of it. It did him good,—limbered him up and set him right on his legs. Bull-dogs are tough.”

      “I should like to know him,” said Toby, modestly. “He must be a remarkable dog.”

      “He certainly is,” replied the Fire-Dog. “I should like to introduce you, but the fact is, we are not on speaking terms now. He means well, Boxer does, but he’s kind of jealous-minded. You see it gives me quite a position to run with the engine, and Boxer, he feels equal to the business, and it kind of riles him to see me setting off to a fire. I suppose he thinks I feel smart of myself and am taking on airs. It is just as you have been brought up. Now, if Boxer had been brought up in the Fire Department, his natural pluck would have taken him through the worst fire that ever was. The more he got singed, the farther he would venture in.”

      “Do you ever meet now?” asked Toby.

      “Yes, quite often; he lives near by. We don’t look at one another, though, as we pass, except perhaps out of the corners of our eyes. Boxer, he always shivers and his eyes kind of bulge, and he walks on tiptoe. You know that bull-dogs are awfully sensitive, and they always shiver when they are excited, but it isn’t the shiver of a cowardly dog. You had better look out for a bull-dog when you see him shiver, for he isn’t in the state of mind to take much from another dog when he’s in that condition. He laps his chops too, then.”

      The children had been waiting all this time, the boy who held Toby by a string occasionally giving him a gentle pull as a reminder that it was time to go. They patted Jack, while they peered curiously in through the open door at the engine that stood ready for use at a moment’s notice. They thought it was time to start for home, as they had quite a distance to go. So Toby took leave of his new friend, casting longing glances behind him as he was pulled along.

      “He appears to be a well-meaning sort of fellow,” said Jack to himself, “but he doesn’t look to me smart enough to apply the rules I have given him. A dog of character like Boxer would have brought it about by himself. However; it’s as well that we are not all made alike.”

      Jack’s attention was before long diverted from the subject of his new acquaintance by the return of his charge Billy, who greeted him so affectionately that warm-hearted Jack forgot everything else and escorted his charge into the engine-house to see that he got safely up the steep stairs.

      Meanwhile Mr. Ledwell and Sam drove down town to do a few errands. One of them was to leave an order at a bake-shop, and as the sleigh stopped before the door, they noticed a group of children, one of them holding by a string a little yellow dog with a black pug nose. They were gazing eagerly in at the tempting display of cakes in the large windows, and Sam noticed that the little dog seemed to eye them just as longingly as the children did.

      Now Sam’s grandpapa was just the kind of man that any child or animal would appeal to if he were in trouble, and as he stepped out of the sleigh and walked by the group of children, he looked at them in his usual pleasant manner.

      “Mister,” said a voice very timidly, “will you please to give me a cent to buy something to eat?”

      The voice came from a little girl, the youngest of the children.

      “Why, Maysie, you mustn’t ask for money; that’s begging,” said the boy who was holding the dog.

      “What do you want to eat, little girl?” asked Mr. Ledwell’s kind voice.

      “Cake,” replied Maysie, emboldened by the pleasant eyes that seemed to be always smiling.

      “Well, look in at that window,” said Mr. Ledwell, “and tell me what kind of cake you think СКАЧАТЬ