Dick and His Cat and Other Tales Part 5

_Write:_ The dog led the man to a hut. On the way there he saved him from falling into a deep pit. The dog did his best to keep the man from falling asleep.

Questions: 1. What did the man point out to the dog? 2. What did he do to take care of the man on the way? 3. Where did he lead the man? 4. What did the man feel before he was in the hut? 5. How did the dog try to keep him awake? 6. If he had been allowed to sleep in the snow what would have happened to the man?

5. SAVED BY TRUSTY.

1. I knew nothing more about myself until I slowly waked in a warm room, and saw many strange faces round me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CALLING FOR HELP.]

"Oh, thank G.o.d!" cried a voice near me, "the poor man is getting better."

2. "What is the matter?" said I, for I seemed not to know what all the fuss was about.

"Here, my dear sir, drink this," said a voice, and a cup of steaming hot coffee was placed at my lips.

3. I drank it slowly, and then all that I had gone through rushed into my mind. "What is the time?" I asked of the person who had given me the hot coffee. He held my pulse, and I thought that he was a doctor.

4. "Within ten minutes of midnight," was the answer. "And it has taken hours to bring you round. I was almost giving you up for dead."

"You found me on the moor?"

5. "Yes, half buried in the snow. You may thank your dog for your life."

"My dog? I have no dog," said I, for I did not think of my poor friend at the moment.

6. "Yes; if it had not been for his faithful barking and howling, we should not have set out to seek you. My wife heard him, and she said that some one must be lost on the moor.

7. "The dog guided us to the shed. He had kept your face clear of snow by licking it, and had kept a little warmth in your body by lying on it; if he had not, you would now have been dead. We dug you out, and brought you here."

8. I thanked the doctor for his goodness, but my mind was chiefly fixed on that other friend, who was not dumb, for he had spoken for me after his own plan.

9. How great a reward he had given me for a few bones and a friendly word!

"Where is he now?" I asked in an eager tone.

"Who?--the dog? Oh, he is tied up in the stable.

10. "He was so much in the way, and did so much to hinder us by his attempts to show his fondness for you, that we had to shut him up.

Hark! Do you hear him?"

11. As the doctor spoke, a long, doleful howl was borne past the windows of the room. It seemed to speak of pain, longing, reproach: all feelings that a dog who had been ill repaid for his love could put into the sound.

12. "Oh, let him out, please! let him out, do!" cried I. "I cannot bear to hear him howl like that."

I then told them the story of the dog. And in the midst of the surprise which all felt at hearing it, he came in.

13. At a word from me, he jumped up by the side of the bed, and barked out all his joy at seeing me again. You may be sure that the dog was not left behind when I started that next day for home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRATEFUL FRIENDS.]

14. And you may guess what my wife and little girl thought of him. They gave him the name of Trusty, which he had well earned.

15. He had a share of the birthday feast, which took place a day later than the right one. No one at the table enjoyed a taste of each dish more than Trusty.

16. The fruit was the only thing which he did not care for. His looks improved day after day. He is my friend and the dearly loved playmate of my little girl.

17. I often look back with a most thankful heart to the day that I met him at the inn-door, and my wife has always a pat, a loving word, and a treat in the shape of some nice bone, for our Trusty.

_Write:_ When the poor man waked from his sleep he found himself in a room. The dog had been tied up in a stable, but was soon let loose.

Questions: 1. Where did the poor man find himself when he woke? 2. Where had the dog been tied up? 3. What did the man say when he heard the dog howling? 4. What did the doctor tell him about the dog? 5. When was the birthday feast held, and who enjoyed a taste of each dish? 6. What did the dog become, and what was he named?

OUT IN THE COLD.

1. POOR OLD BROWNIE.

1. "What a sharp night it is, Peter, to be sure!" said a pale woman to her husband, as she sat rocking her baby in its cradle by the fire.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

2. She had been but poorly, and had felt the cold very much. "Very sharp, indeed!" said her husband. "I feel pains in all my poor old bones."

3. "If you and I feel cold here," said he, "by the warm fire, after our good supper, what must it be outside, for those poor souls that have nothing to eat, and no fire?"

4. "Ah, bad indeed!" said his wife. "And for the poor dumb beasts, too.

How glad I am that we had that nice dry house made for the cow this summer, and the new place for the c.o.c.ks and hens!

5. "They would have been half frozen under that broken roof as it used to be when we first came here."

6. Her eldest child, a little-girl, looked up from her knitting. "The hens are all quite snug, mother, Fluffy and Biddy and the rest. I peeped in just now, after they were gone to roost."

7. "You are always a kind little one to the dumb things," said her father, stroking the soft brown head of Mercy, who had just spoken.

"And so is my little Nelly, too," he added, looking fondly at the second child, who sat on his knee.

8. "It is getting late for the children, Peter," said his wife. "Shall Mercy read a bit, before we go to bed?" So Mercy, who was a good scholar, took the Bible from the shelf and read aloud a few verses which her father found for her.

9. They told of the manger, and of how the ox and the a.s.s stood by one bitter night like this, when the infant Christ was laid in it long ago.

"Thank you, dear," said her mother, when Mercy had done. "Now run up to your warm bed."

10. "Oh look, Mercy, how nice!" cried little Nelly, "we have got a new blanket!" "That is because the squire sent it to mother; a big new thick one," said her sister. "How warm we shall be!"