“Yes, I reckon you are kind’er stuck on him! It’s a pity, Limpy, ’cause you can’t hustle same’s the rest of us do, an’ so don’t earn as much money.”
“Snip has what milk he needs——”
“An’ half the time you feed him by goin’ hungry yourself.”
“What of that?” Seth cried sharply. “Don’t I tell you we two are the only friends each other’s got! I’d a good deal rather get along without things than let him go hungry, ’cause he wouldn’t know why I couldn’t feed him.”
“A dog is only a dog, an’ that’s all you can make out of it. I ain’t countin’ but that Snip is better’n the general run, ’cause, as Teddy Dixon says, he’s blooded; but just the same it don’t stand to reason you should treat him like he was as good as you.”
“He’s a heap better’n I am, Tim Chandler! Snip never did a mean thing in his life, an’ he’s the same as a whole family to me.”
As if understanding that he was the subject of the conversation, the dog pressed his cold nose against the boy’s neck, and the latter cried triumphantly:
“There, look at that! If you didn’t have any folks, Tim Chandler, an’ couldn’t get ’round same as other fellers do, don’t you reckon his snugglin’ up like this would make you love him?”
“He ain’t really yours,” Tim said after a brief pause, whereat the lame boy cried fiercely:
“What’s the reason he ain’t? Didn’t I find him ’most froze to death more’n a year ago, an’ haven’t I kept him in good shape ever since? Of course he wasn’t mine at first; but I’d like to see the chump who’d dare to say he belonged to anybody else! If you didn’t own any more of a home than you could earn sellin’ papers, an’ if nobody cared the least little bit whether you was cold or hungry, you’d think it was mighty fine to have a chum like Snip. You ought’er see him when I come in after he’s been shut up in the room all the forenoon! It seems like he’d jump out of his skin, he’s so glad to see me! I tell you, Tim, Snip loves me just like I was his mother!”