CORA, THE SPANIEL.
The pet which took little Carlo’s place in our home and hearts was a pretty, chestnut-colored water-spaniel, named Cora. She was a good, affectionate creature, and deserved all our love. The summer that we had her for our playmate, my brother Albert, my sister Carrie, and I, spent a good deal of time down about the pond, in watching her swimming, and all her merry gambols in the water. There grew, out beyond the reeds and flags of that pond, a few beautiful, white water-lilies, which we taught her to bite off and bring to us on shore.
Cora seemed to love us very much, but there was one whom she loved even more. This was little Charlie Allen, a pretty boy of about four or five years old, the only son of a widow, who was a tenant of my father, and lived in a small house on our place. There grew up a great and tender friendship between this child and our Cora, who was always with him while we were at school. The two would play and run about for hours, and when they were tired, lie down and sleep together in the shade. It was a pretty sight, I assure you, for both were beautiful.
It happened that my father, one morning, took Cora with him to the village, and was gone nearly all day; so little Charlie was without his playmate and protector. But after school, my sister, brother, and I called Cora, and ran down to the pond. We were to have a little company that night, and wanted some of those fragrant, white lilies for our flower-vase. Cora barked and leaped upon us, and ran round and round us all the way. Soon as she reached the pond, she sprang in and swam out to where the lilies grew, and where she was hid from our sight by the flags and other water-plants. Presently, we heard her barking and whining, as though in great distress. We called to her again and again, but she did not come out for some minutes. At last, she came through the flags, swimming slowly along, dragging something by her teeth. As she swam near, we saw that it was a child,—little Charlie Allen! We then waded out as far as we dared, met Cora, took her burden from her, and drew it to the shore. As soon as we took little Charlie in our arms, we knew that he was dead. He was cold as ice, his eyes were fixed in his head, and had no light in them. His hand was stiff and blue, and still held tightly three water-lilies, which he had plucked. We suppose the poor child slipped from a log, on which he had gone out for the flowers, and which was half under water.
Of course we children were dreadfully frightened. My brother was half beside himself, and ran screaming up home, while my sister almost flew for Mrs. Allen.
O, I never shall forget the grief of that poor woman, when she came to the spot where her little dead boy lay!—how she threw herself on the ground beside him, and folded him close in her arms, and tried to warm him with her tears and her kisses, and tried to breathe her own breath into his still, cold lips, and tried to make him hear by calling, “Charlie, Charlie, speak to mamma! speak to your poor mamma!”
But Charlie did not see her, nor feel her, nor hear her any more; and when she found that he was indeed gone from her for ever, she gave the most fearful shriek I ever heard, and fell back as though she were dead.
By this time, my parents and a number of the neighbours had reached the spot, and they carried Mrs. Allen and her drowned boy home together, through the twilight. Poor Cora followed close to the body of Charlie, whining piteously all the way. That night, we could not get her out of the room where it was placed, but she watched there until morning.
Ah, how sweetly little Charlie looked when he was laid out the next day! His beautiful face had lost the dark look that it wore when he was first taken from the water; his pretty brown hair lay in close ringlets all around his white forehead. One hand was stretched at his side, the other was laid across his breast, still holding the water-lilies. He was not dressed in a shroud, but in white trousers, and a pretty little spencer of pink gingham. He did not look dead, but sleeping, and he seemed to smile softly, as though he had a pleasant dream in his heart.
Widow Allen had one other child, a year younger than Charlie, whose name was Mary, but who always called herself “Little May.” O, it would have made you cry to have seen her when she was brought to look on her dead brother. She laughed at first, and put her small fingers on his shut eyes, trying to open them, and said, “Wake up Charlie! wake up, and come play out doors, with little May!” But when she found that those eyes would not unclose, and when she felt how cold that face was, she was grieved and frightened, and ran to hide her face in her mother’s lap, where she cried and trembled; for though she could not know what death was, she felt that something awful had happened in the house.
But Cora’s sorrow was also sad to see. When the body of Charlie was carried to the grave, she followed close to the coffin, and when it was let down into the grave, she leaped in and laid down upon it, and growled and struggled when the men took her out. Every day after that, she would go to that grave, never missing the spot, though there were many other little mounds in the old church-yard. She would lie beside it for hours, patiently waiting, it seemed, for her young friend to awake and come out into the sunshine, and run about and play with her as he was used to do. Sometimes she would dig a little way into the mound, and bark, or whine, and then listen for the voice of Charlie to answer. But that voice never came, though the faithful Cora listened and waited and pined for it, through many days. She ate scarcely any thing; she would not play with us now, nor could we persuade her to go into the pond. Alas! that fair, sweet child, pale and dripping from the water, was the last lily she ever brought ashore. She grew so thin, and weak, and sick, at last, that she could hardly drag herself to the grave. But still she went there every day. One evening, she did not come home, and my brother and I went down for her. When we reached the church-yard, we passed along very carefully, for fear of treading on some grave, and spoke soft and low, as children should always do in such places. Sometimes we stopped to read the long inscriptions on handsome tombstones, and to wonder why so many great and good people were taken away. Sometimes we pitied the poor dead people who had no tombstones at all, because their friends could not afford to raise them, or because they had been too wicked themselves to have their praises printed in great letters, cut in white marble, and put up in the solemn burying-ground, where nobody would ever dare to write or say any thing but the truth. When we came in sight of Charlie’s grave, we talked about him. We wondered if he thought of his mother, and cried out any when he was drowning. We thought that he must have grown very weary with struggling in the water, and we wondered if he was resting now, sleeping down there with his lilies. We said that perhaps his soul was awake all the time, and that, when he was drowned, it did not fly right away to heaven, with the angels, to sing hymns, while his poor mother was weeping, but stayed about the place, and somehow comforted her, and made her think of God and heaven, even when she lay awake in the night, to mourn for her lost boy.
So talking, we came up to the grave. Cora was lying on the mound, where the grass had now grown green and long. She seemed to be asleep, and not to hear our steps or our voices. My brother spoke to her pleasantly, and patted her on the head. But she did not move. I bent down and looked into her face. She was quite dead!