IN YE OLDEN TIME.—“BEWITCHED!”
BILLY’S HOUND.
(A Two-Part Story.)
BY SARA E. CHESTER.
PART II.
BUT it was his last hurrah; for puppies, like people, view the world through their own eyes, and where their brother had seen, approved, and desired, they gazed quite indifferently. Bob and Billy carried them out-doors for a broader view of life; but could not persuade them that sunshine and verdure were more to be desired than two snug little beds underground. Better death, with no good Puppy-land to go to; better an end of all things, than life with its ups and downs, its roses and thorns, the uncertain joys and certain ills that puppy flesh is heir to—such seemed their reflections as they gazed upon the world with languid, melancholy eyes. They shunned their brother’s gay society; they refused food and wailed with hunger; they partook of a little and wailed with pain; one died in the evening, yawning and stretching; the other in the morning, kicking and squealing; two new graves were dug under the apple-tree: and one puppy fell heir to the love of six.
“I wouldn’t care so much if they hadn’t opened their eyes,” said Billy; “but I thought they were sure to live then. It’s discouraging, I declare; I’m afraid it’s going to end like the ten little Injuns, ‘And then there were none.’”
“No, it won’t,” said Bob. “We’ll raise this fellow.”