"WHY?"
"You must not go in there!" said an old dog to a young pup who stood on the white steps of a large house. "You must stay out now."
"Why?" asked the young pup. For it was a trick (and a bad trick) of his to say, "Why?" when he was told to do, or not to do, a thing.
"Why?" said the old dog: "I cannot say why. Old as I am, I do not know why. But I do know, that, if you go in when it is a wet day like this, the maid will drive you out."
"But why?" went on the pup. "It is not fair. There is no sense in it. I have been in the house some days, and no one turned me out; so why should they now?"
"Those were fine, sunny days," said the old dog.
"Well, it is on the wet days that I most want to be in the house," said the pup. "And I don't see why I should stay out. So here I go."
And so he did; but he soon found, that, though no one stopped to tell him "why" he must not come in, it was quite true that he might not. The first who saw him was the cook, who had a broom in her hand.
"That vile pup!" cried she. "Look at his feet!"
"What is wrong with my feet?" barked the pup.
But she did not wait to tell him. She struck him with the broom; and he fled with a howl up the stairs.
"Oh, that pup!" cried the maid, as she saw the marks of his feet. "He ought not to come into the house at all, if he will not keep out on wet days."
"But why?" yelped the pup, as the maid threw a hearth-brush at his head.
Still no one told him why. But a man just then came up stairs. "Why, what a mess!" he said. "Oh, I see! It is that pup. I thought he knew he must not come in!"
"So I did; but I did not know why," growled the pup, as, with sore back and lame foot, he crept under a chair.
"Come out, come out!" cried the man. "I will not have you in the house at all. Out with you!" And he seized him with a strong hand, and chained him in a stall.
"You might have stopped out, and played on the grass, if you had staid there," the man said. "But, as you will come into the house when you ought not to, you must be kept where you cannot do so."
And so the young pup had to stay in the dull stall. And when, at last, he was let out, he did not ask, "Why?" if he was told to do, or not to do, a thing, but did as he ought at once, like a wise dog.
Author of "Dick and I."
