Farmer Bluff's dog Blazer

by Florence E. Burch

This rent-money was the proceeds of his mother's exertions with her mangle, and was always dropped into an old tea-pot occupying a place of honour on the mantel-shelf—each amount put in or taken out being duly entered in red pencil on a square of card, which also had its quarters in this Britannia-metal safe.

Now it always fell to Bill's lot to carry the mangling home out of school hours; and it seemed to him, when he got the idea of taking the sixpence, that it was nothing but fair he should have something for his pains.

"If other people don't pay you, why, you must pay yourself," reasoned Bill. "That's square enough."

When he came to see the red pencil entries on the card, he was somewhat shaken as to the safety of this policy, however "fair and square" it might be. It was not even as if he had been one of many brothers. The coin would certainly be missed; and upon whom but himself should suspicion fall?

It occurred to him to make the experiment of rubbing out one of the entries. He had no eraser, but he was pretty ready with expedients. Quick as lightning, one finger went to his mouth, and thence to the tidily kept account; but such a horrible smear was the result, that his hair almost stood on end. It was impossible but that his mother would see that the card had been tampered with; if, in addition, she found the money sixpence short, the mischief would be out, and he would be "in for it."

Exactly what that might mean was not clear to Bill. All he knew was that his father had given him the strap on one occasion, and that he did not desire a repetition of the experience. It was already Thursday. Under ordinary circumstances, the sixpence would have had to be replaced before Monday. But since Farmer Bluff had been laid up, the rents had been running; so that, unless the Squire suddenly took it into his head to send some one round, there would be no particular hurry.

Bill, however, was shrewd enough to believe in being on the safe side. Accordingly, he had left no stone unturned to put himself in a position to restore the stolen sixpence. The scheme about the hornets' nest having fallen through, he had even hunted up and down outside the shop fronts in the street, in hopes of picking up change dropped by some careless housewife when out marketing. But, fortunately for the good of thieves, they do not often receive such encouragement in their crooked ways; and Bill's researches proved fruitless.

He was still puzzling his brains after a way out of the difficulty, when Dick's curiosity about geese furnished the very idea he wanted. Bill had robbed the hens' nests before this, as well as the orchard. What was to prevent him from getting a goose's egg?

To be sure, geese were not very nice to have to do with.

Jenny Greenlow, carrying her father's dinner along the riverbank to the Infirmary, where he was at work upon the roof, had been attacked by one and knocked down; and there the child had lain until her father, badly in want of his meal and perplexed at her delay, went along to meet her, and found her half dead with fright, whilst the goose was still feeding on the contents of the basket. But the goose was probably attracted by the smell of the basket's contents; and then Jenny was only a girl! What goose of any sense would dream of molesting a boy! Bill went to work at once to plan the details of the adventure, delighted with the scheme.