One mornin’ I says to him, “Josiah Allen, what’s the use of your keepin’ that pup?”
Says he “Samantha, he is a good feller, if I will kinder run ahead of him, and keep between him and the cows, he will go on to them first rate, he seems to want encouragement.”
“Encouragement!” says I, “I should think as much.”
I didn’t say no more, and that very day the axident happened. Josiah heard me holler, and he come runnin’ from the barn—and a scairter man I never see. He took me right up, and was carryin’ of me in. I was in awful agony—and the first words I remember sayin’ was these, in a faint voice.
“I wonder if you’ll keep that pup now?”
Says he firmly, yet with pity, and with pale and anxious face.
“Mebby you didn’t encourage him enough.”
Says I deliriously, “Did you expect I was goin’ to carry him in my arms and throw him at the hens? I tried every other way.”
THE AXIDENT.