The children often say that our Tippoo, the little white dog of which I told you, does things "just like a person"; he will contentedly eat what he does not care for, because he expects to get something he likes, as a reward. If he has been naughty, you can generally know it by his face, and he will hide away under the sofa, until brought out from his refuge, and made to show what he has been doing. He cannot bear to be laughed at; nothing hurts his feelings so sorely, unless indeed it be seeing a little child petted: this is almost more than he can bear. But he behaves better than Psyche, another little Maltese terrier of my acquaintance, who used to fly at anyone who dared to kiss her mistress. Poor little Psyche's was a sad end, for she was killed by a carriage while crossing the street to get to her mistress.
Dogs have all sorts of ways of making their wants known, but I think you will admit that a little dog called Button was particularly clever in his way of doing it, when you hear how he managed. He used to have goat's milk for breakfast, and one morning, when he thought breakfast-time had passed without any being brought to him, he made up his mind that he had been forgotten; so he went to the closet where the china was kept, fetched the cup in which his milk was always given him, carried it in his teeth, and laid it down at the feet of the maid who used to milk the goat for him. I think he had earned his breakfast, don't you?
[Illustration: OUR GOAT—"NAN.">[
Another dog, who has a drinking-trough of his own, draws attention to it, if it is allowed to go dry by scratching at it, till someone fills it with fresh water.
May knows a very pretty story in verse about a little dog called Music, who did all she could to save a greyhound, Dart, from drowning, when he had gone down beneath the ice while trying to cross a frozen river. It must have been a touching thing to see her standing on the broken edge, and stretching out her paw, like a hand, to save him, while she as the poem says,
"… makes efforts and complainings, nor gives o'er Until her fellow sank, and reappeared no more."
Faithful, loving little Music failed to save her friend; but a Scotch dog was the means of saving the life of his master, as he was crossing a river on the ice. When the crash came, and he sank, he had the presence of mind to support himself by means of his gun, which lay across the broken ice. The dog, after making attempts to save his master, seemed to understand that the only thing he could do for him was to leave him, and go in search of help. So off he ran to the next village, and pulled at the coat of the first man he saw, so earnestly, that he got the man to follow him, and was in time to save the life of the drowning man.
But more remarkable still is the story of a strange dog who seems to have been sent by God to protect a poor miner's house in his absence.
In a very lonely place in Cornwall, the house of a miner is situated among the rocks. Only he and his wife lived there, and the poor woman was often left alone far into the night, as her husband's work kept him very late.
One evening a large dog came up the hill to this cottage, and began to make himself at home there, and to make friends with the miner's wife. At first she petted him, but when it began to grow dark, she thought he ought to be going to his own home, and used every effort to send him away. But the dog would not be turned out, and at last the lonely woman allowed him to stay with her. Late at night, a noise of footsteps was heard, and she ran to open the door, as she thought, to her husband. But the dog sprang past her into the darkness, and she heard the sound of a great struggle, and then the footsteps again passing down the path. The dog presently came back to her, but after a time she began to be alarmed lest he should have attacked and frightened—perhaps injured—her husband, as he was returning home. Lighting a lantern, she unbarred the door, and went out into the dark night, still attended by the strange dog, who seemed resolved not to leave her. They soon met the miner on his way home, and the dog, far from springing upon him, went up to him, and then—without a word, I was going to say—disappeared into the darkness. The miner's wife could never find out anything about him, but she felt quite sure that it was God who had sent this strange protector to take care of her in her loneliness.