“Mind, Master Jack,” said Robert, “don’t let that vicious donkey touch you. Perhaps he’ll bite you. Come away, my lad, directly,” and Robert seized Jack by the hand, and pulled him away.
“Yes, the horrid brute!” said Teddy, who, with the others, had come to the stable door. “Of course, Norman isn’t always nice, but Neddy had no business to try to drown him. I’ll take good care that I have nothing more to do with such a donkey.”
“And I, too,” said Dick, and so said all the others. Jack looked very sorrowful, but as Robert put him on the other donkey’s back and led him away he looked round and said to me in his usual kind little voice:—
“Poor, poor Neddy! Never mind, I’ll always love you just the same, though I mustn’t ride you any more, and perhaps some day you’ll be good again, won’t you, dear Neddy?”
I could have cried when I heard this. It was more than I could bear. As soon as Jack was gone, I crept out of the stable, and made my way into the fields. Then I lay down and thought of all the wicked things I had done in my life: how I had knocked my first mistress down, and broken her nose; how I had deceived the farmer, and how revengeful and evil I had been when he punished me for my deceit. I thought of all the happy life I had led in my present home, and how very, very kind they had all been to me until I had done this wicked thing to Norman. Norman had killed poor Jenny, it is true; but then he didn’t do it on purpose, and his father had punished him for it; what business had I to give way to feelings of revenge? I thought of dear little Janie and Jack, and how good and kind they had been to me when I was ill; and when I remembered that, owing to my wickedness, they were not to be allowed to ride me any more, I felt so unhappy that I could not keep still any longer. I began to run as hard as I could, trying to run away from myself, but the faster I ran, the more miserable I was, until at last I ran my head right up against a stone wall, and fell down senseless.
When I came to myself it was late in the afternoon, and I couldn’t tell where I was. Three people were sitting a little way off by the roadside, but as their backs were turned they didn’t see me. What was my astonishment to recognize in them the owner of the performing donkey Muffles, with his wife and son! They looked unhappy and hungry, and I learned from what they said that poor Muffles had been badly hurt by the crowd that day at the fair, and that they had been obliged to leave him for a time with a kind farmer who offered to turn him out to grass in his field, while they went about looking for a little work to keep them alive until Muffles was once more well enough to perform at fairs.
When I heard all this, I felt still more unhappy, for it was all my fault that Muffles had been hurt, and the showman’s family forced to go hungry because they had no money to buy food. Then I suddenly remembered that little Jack hoped I would some day turn good again. “I can begin to be good again this very minute,” thought I. “I can follow these people to the next village, and earn some money for them by performing tricks.” So I jumped up, and trotted behind them until they stopped at the door of a little inn to ask the host if he would let them stay there that night. They said they had no money to pay for a night’s lodging, but perhaps he could give them some work to do instead. The host shook his head, and said that he had plenty of people in his house to do all his work, and that the showman must go somewhere else.
Just as they were turning sorrowfully away from the door, I trotted up, bowed to the innkeeper, and then stood up on my hind legs and began to dance. I did several of the tricks that Muffles was accustomed to do, and I did them so gracefully that quite a large crowd collected. At last I thought it was time to make the collection, so I picked up the showman’s hat in my teeth and took it round to everybody in the crowd. Before I had finished my round the hat was so full of money that I had to empty it into the showman’s hands, and when he came to count his gains there proved to be nearly ten dollars. So the showman and his wife and boy were able to have a good supper and a night’s lodging at the inn, and they gave me a supper and a night’s lodging in the stable.
In the morning I followed them to the next place, and we gave two or three performances in different parts of the town; so that before dinner-time I had earned for the showman no less than sixteen dollars, and then I thought I had atoned for my unkindness to him on the day of the fair, and that I would go back and try to show Jack that I was now good.