THE STORY OF THE LITTLE BOY AND THE LITTLE DOG
There was a little boy and there was a little dog. The two lived together and loved each other, and where one went the other followed.
Now, all of a sudden, the little boy and his nurse moved away to another city, far, far off. This puzzled the little boy so much that for once he forgot the little dog. When he remembered him, it was the middle of the night. But, for all that, he got up and waked his nurse to ask her where the little dog could be. The nurse rubbed her sleepy eyes and said,
“Sleep now, my lamb, and wait till day,
Thy little dog is on the way.”
Then she closed her eyes and straightway fell fast asleep, and so there was nothing for the little boy to do but to fall asleep, too.
At break of day the little boy was at the window watching for the little dog. But alas! no little dog came. When the little boy asked his nurse what could be keeping the little dog, she said,
“Be patient, my lamb, ’tis but peep of day,
Thy little dog is on the way.”
Well, the morning and the noon passed, and no little dog came. The little boy grieved so that he could neither eat nor play. At last when evening began to darken, and still no little dog came, and still the little boy watched at the window, the nurse put on her bonnet and shawl and went out to find the little lost dog.
It wasn’t long before she was back with a dog that looked something like the dear lost one, but much thinner and quieter. When the little boy said so to his nurse, she said,
“Yes, poor doggie! But he came a long way,
Without bite or sup, a night and a day;
Give him, my lamb, a bowl of warm milk,
And soon you’ll see him as sleek as silk.”
The little boy ran and gave him the milk. When the little dog had lapped up the milk, he felt so much better that he licked the little boy’s face, and the two frisked about the room.
But the little boy noticed that the little dog did not caper so merrily as he used to do. Indeed, the poor creature soon became quiet and sad again. And, although the little boy made his own legs go as fast as a windmill, he could not coax the little dog to run a race with him. He saw, too, that the little dog found it very hard to curl himself up on the hearthrug for a nap. And the next day the little dog was so wretched that he refused to eat.
“Poor, poor doggie, what ails you, whatever ails you?” cried the little boy. “You’ll die if you do not eat.” He lifted the dog tenderly into his lap, when—what should he feel on the stomach but a seam! “Nurse,” he cried, “come quickly; something is stitched so tight around the poor dog’s body he cannot eat nor breathe.”
The nurse ran in with the scissors in her hand. And lo!
With a nip and a snip, and snip and a nip,
And a very loud pip!
out came the little boy’s own little dog.
“Now I see through it all,” cried the nurse. And what she saw was what had really happened.
While the little dog was on his way to the little boy, a dog-seller snatched him up and carried him into a shop. There he tried to change him into a French poodle by sewing him into a skin-tight black jacket with curly trimming. But by great good luck it was down the street past this very shop the nurse walked and spied the little dog peeping out to see how he might escape.
“Oh, I’ll never forget thee again,” cried the little boy. And he didn’t. The two lived happy together ever after, and where one went the other followed.
—Angela M. Keyes