[SEVENTOES' GHOST]
"You needn't waste any more time talkin' about it, Benjamin; you can jest take that puppy-dog and carry him off. I don't care what you do with him; you can carry him back where you got him, or give him away, or swap him off; but jest as sure as you leave him here half an hour longer, I'll call Jimmy up from the hay-field and have him shoot him. I won't have a dog round the place, nohow. Couldn't keep Seventoes a minute; he's dreadful scart of dogs."
"Grandsir—"
"Take that puppy-dog and go along, I tell ye. I won't have any more talk about it."
Benjamin Wellman, small and slight, sandy-haired and blue-eyed, stood before his grandfather, who sat in his big arm-chair in the east door. Benjamin held in his right hand an old rope, which was attached to a leather strap around a puppy's neck. The puppy pulled at the rope, keeping it taut all the time. He also yelped shrilly. He did not like to be tied. The puppy was not a pretty one, being yellow and very clumsy; but Benjamin thought him a beauty. He had urged to his grandfather that there would not be a dog to equal him in the neighborhood when he was grown up, but the old man had not been moved.
There were tears in Benjamin's pretty blue eyes, but his square chin looked squarer. He tried to speak again. "Grandsir—" he began.
"Not another word," said his grandfather.
Benjamin looked past his grandfather into the kitchen. His mother sat in there stemming currants. He went around to the other door and entered, dragging the puppy after him.
"Mother," he said, in a low voice, "can't I keep him?"
His grandfather in the east door looked around suspiciously, but he could hear nothing; he was somewhat deaf.