‘Will you, then, tell us some stories about it, dear grandmamma?’ said both the little girls.
Grandmamma thought a little, and then began as follows:—
‘There was an old woman, who lived all alone in a very old cottage; she had a little dog, who was very fond of her, and always slept at the foot of her bed. One stormy evening in autumn the old woman was washing her feet in a tub close to the fire, before going to bed. The little dog ran out of the house and ran in again; at last he came up to the old woman, and barked at her, and whined, and then ran out of the house again. The old woman took no notice of her dog, but continued washing her feet; but the dog came in again, and looked uneasy and restless, and barked, and at length he took hold of the woman’s dress with his teeth, and tried to pull her away. The old woman pushed him away, and gave him a little slap on his head, and told him to be quiet, and the dog ran out again on to the road howling and whining; but he came back directly, and seemed quite furious, for he seized the old woman by her clothes, and pulled and tore, and looked so wild and strange, that his mistress took her feet hastily out of the water, put them into her slippers, and followed her dog through the open cottage door on to the road, to see what could be the matter. She had hardly reached the road when a dreadful loud noise made her turn round, and to her terror she saw that the chimney of her old cottage had fallen in and part of the roof; she looked through the still open door, and saw that her chair and tub had been crushed by the falling bricks and mortar, and she knew that she herself had been thus mercifully saved from being killed, thanks to the fidelity and instinct of her little dog.’
‘What a nice story, dear grandmamma!’ said Alice; ‘and how clever the dog was! But will you tell us some more about the cleverness of animals? Are other animals as clever as dogs?’
‘Yes, dear child, many instances are told of the sagacity or cleverness of other animals; but I think that dogs are the cleverest, for when people have been buried in the snow, dogs are sent to find them out.’
‘Pray tell us how, grandmamma,’ begged Alice.
‘There are some very high hills or mountains in other countries, much higher than our hills here, which are nearly always covered with snow, and so cold that the snow is seldom melted. These mountains are called the Alps, and divide France and Switzerland from Italy. (You will remember, dear Alice, the chain of mountains you looked at in your map this morning.) Travellers who are obliged to cross these high mountains often lose their way in the deep snow, and at last get covered with snow, and they would die, and indeed often do die, in the snow and cold. On stormy and snowy nights, when travellers are exposed to greater danger, good men, monks, who live on those mountains, go out with a number of clever dogs in search of those people who may have lost their way. These dogs, by dint of scratching and smelling at the snow, are able to find out where the poor traveller has fallen, and has been buried by the snow. They bark whenever they find one, and the good monks come to their help, and dig out the half-frozen traveller, who otherwise must have died.’
After listening attentively, Alice said—
‘How wonderful it is! I did not know that dogs were so clever and so useful.’
‘But are cats as clever?’ asked Beatrice.