Wenonah's Stories for Children

by Clara Louise Burnham; Warren Proctor

He was a tease and a bully—and a bully is always a coward, you know. The little girls at school avoided him. They never knew what minute he would pull their hair, or stick out his foot suddenly and trip them up.

The animals feared him, and the meanest thing a boy can do, even worse than pulling a little girl's hair, is to be unkind to animals, or even to tease them. No boy who likes to play fair will do it; for animals cannot speak, or defend themselves.

Peter's dog wanted to love him, as dogs always do, but he couldn't trust his master. When they went out together, the dog, whose name was Pat, followed at a little distance. He wanted to go with Peter, but he was afraid of the heavy shoe that could suddenly fly out and hurt him.

So Peter lost all the best part of life by being sulky and dishonest and spending his time thinking up mischievous things to do. There was another boy in the village where Peter lived whom he especially disliked. This boy's name was Lawrence, and the reason Peter hated him was that although smaller than himself, Lawrence had once or twice jumped to the defence of some girl or boy whom Peter was hurting, and driven the bigger boy off with his fists.

Peter was scowling and thinking about Lawrence one day as he was trudging along the dusty road, Pat following at a safe distance. The dog was hoping that pretty soon his master wouldn't look so cross and that he would dare to go closer. Once in a while when Peter felt good-natured he used to throw sticks for Pat to run after and bring back, and Pat loved that.

Well, Peter trudged along with his hands in his pockets, but not whistling as happy boys do. His eyes were on the dusty road as he thought about Lawrence and wished he could beat him. He had once found a penny as he walked along this road and he was thinking about that, too, and wishing he could find another. He began to wonder what he would buy with it if he could find one.

All at once he noticed a shining little object lying by the roadside. He went toward it and Pat noticed his movement and saw as quickly as Peter did that the shining object was a little stick. The dog's ears and tail went up gladly. If Peter was going to pick up a stick, that meant that he would throw it and they would have a game. Pat ran in front of Peter and got in his way and the impatient boy gave him a kick.

Down went Pat's ears and tail, and crying out, he ran away to a safe distance, while Peter stooped to the strange, small, shining object. It was very smooth and looked like silver. It was probably more valuable than a penny, and the boy picked it up. He would hide it and wait to see if he could hear anything of the owner, and then make him pay a good price for it.

Peter's eyes shone with satisfaction at this thought, and he picked up the silver stick. It was different from anything he had ever seen and he wondered what its owner used it for.