"'You'd rather I told you about it? Well. Lie down, Grip! Be quiet! can't you? He don't mean any thing by sniffing round your ankles in that way; anyhow, he won't catch hold unless I tell him to; but you see, ever since that night he wants to go for every strange man or woman that comes near the place. Liz says "he's got burglars on the brain."
"'I guess I'll begin at the beginning and tell you how I came by him. One night after school I'd been down to the steamboat landing on an errand for father, and along on River Street there was a crowd of loafers round two dogs in a fight. This dog was one of 'em, and the other was a bulldog twice his size. The bulldog's master was looking on, without so much as trying to part 'em; but nobody was looking after the yellow dog: he didn't seem to have any master. Well, I want to see fair play in every thing. It makes me mad to see a fellow thrash a boy half his size, or a big dog chew up a little one. So I steps up and says to the bulldog's master, "Why don't you call off your dog?" but he only swore at me and told me to mind my own business.
"'Well, I know a trick or two about dogs, and I ran into a grocer's shop close by and got two cents' worth of snuff, and I let that bulldog have it all right in his face and eyes. Of course he had to let go to sneeze; and I grabbed the yellow dog and ran. It was great fun. I could hear that dog sneezing and coughing, and his master yelling to me, but I never once held up or looked behind me till I was half-way up Brooks Street.
"'Then I set the yellow dog down on the sidewalk and looked him over. My! he's a beauty now to what he was then, for he's clean and well-fed and respectable looking; but then he was nothing but skin and bone, and covered all over with mud and dirt, and one ear was torn and one eye swelled shut, and he limped when he walked, and—well, never mind, old Grip! you was all right inside, wasn't you?
"'Well, I never dreaded any thing more in all my life than taking that dog home. Mother hates dogs. She never would have one in the house, though I've always wanted a dog of my own. I knew Liz would call him a horrid little monster, and Fred would poke fun at me—and, oh, dear! I'd rather have gone to the dentist's or taken a Saturday-night scrub than go into that dining-room with Grip at my heels.
"'But it had to be done. They were all at supper, and mother took it just as I was afraid she would. If she only would have waited and let me tell how I came by the dog, I thought maybe she would have felt sorry for the poor thing; but she was in such a hurry to get his muddy feet off the dining-room carpet that she wouldn't listen to a single word I said, but kept saying, "Turn him out! turn him out!" till I found it was no use, and I was just going to do as she said when father looked up from his supper, and says he: "Let the boy tell his story, mother. Where did you get the dog, Tommy?" "'We were all surprised, for father hardly ever interfered with mother about us children—he's so taken up with business, you know, he hasn't any time left for the family. But I was glad enough to tell him how I came by the dog; and he laughed, and said he didn't see any objection to my keeping him over night. I might give him some supper and tie him up in the shed-chamber, and in the morning he'd have him taken round to Police-station C, where, if he wasn't claimed in four days, he'd be taken care of.
"'I knew well enough how they'd take care of him at Station C. They'd shoot him—that's what they do to stray dogs without any friends. But anyhow, I could keep him over night, for mother would think it was all right, now father had said so. So I took him to the shed-chamber and gave him a good supper,—how he did eat!—and I found an old mat for him to lie on, and got a basin of warm water and some soap, and washed him as clean as I could and rubbed him dry, and made him warm and comfortable: and he licking my hands and face and wagging his stump of a tail and thanking me for it as plain as though he could talk.
"'But oh, how he hated to be tied up! Fact is, he made such a fuss I stayed out there with him till past my bed-time; and when at last I had to go I left him howling and tugging at the string. Well, I went to sleep, and, after a while, I woke up, and that dog was at it still. I could hear him howl just as plain, though the shed-chamber was at the back of the house, ever so far from my room. I knew mother hadn't come upstairs, for the gas was burning in the halls, as she always turned it off the last thing; and I thought to myself: "If she hears the dog when she comes up, maybe she'll put him out, and I never shall see him again." And before I knew what I was about I was running through the hall and the trunk-room, and so out into the shed. It was pitch dark out there, but I found my way to Grip easy enough by the noise he made when he saw me; and it didn't take long to untie the string and catch him up and run back with him to my room. I knew he would be as still as a mouse in there with me. You were lonesome out there in the shed, weren't you, Grip?
"'What would mother say? Well, you see, I meant to keep awake till she came upstairs and tell her all about it; but I was so tired I dropped asleep in a minute, and the first thing I knew I was dreaming that I was running up Brooks Street with Grip in my arms, and the bull-dog close after us, and just as he was going to spring mother screamed, and somebody kept saying, "'St, boy! 'st, boy! stick to him, good dog! stick to him!" And then I woke up, and mother really was screaming, and 'twas Fred who was saying, "Stick to him! stick to him!" And the gas was lit in the hall, and there was a great noise and hubbub out there, and I rushed out, and there was a man on the floor and the yellow dog had him by the throat. Father stood in the door-way with his pistol cocked, and he said in a quiet kind of way (just as father always speaks when he means business): "If you stir you are a dead man!" But I should like to know how he could stir with that grip on his throat!
"'Then there came a banging and ringing at our front door, and Fred ran to open it, and in rushed our policeman—I mean the one that takes our street on his beat. He had heard the noise outside, you see, and, for a wonder, was on hand when he was wanted; and he just went for that fellow on the floor and clapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists as quick as you could turn your hand over; and when he got a look at him he says: "Oh, it's you, Bill Long, is it? We've been wanting you for some time at the lodge (that was his name for the police-station). Well, get up and come along!"