IV. FAIRLY AFLOAT.
Harry Leslie lay long awake that night, thinking over the words his father had carelessly enough dropped. “Dog in the manger”—what did that mean exactly? He had heard the phrase more than once, but had never stopped to consider it in any way. Yet it was a plain sort of illustration, carrying its own meaning along with
it. Harry had once been staying in the country with some cousins at a farm-house called Clover Hollow, and he remembered them all laughing one day at “Grip,” a little Skye terrier, that had got into one of the mangers in the stable, and kept at a respectable distance the good old pony to which it belonged, barking at him and refusing to allow him the enjoyment of his own breakfast. And Grip could not, of course, enjoy it himself—chopped hay and oats not being at all in his line. Seemingly, the only pleasure Grip derived from this performance lay in keeping “Donald,” the old pony, from having any breakfast! And it was very laughable at the time. Yes; Harry understood the words perfectly. And though it had been laughable enough in the case of Grip, which was only a terrier, still, however clever he might have been thought, Harry felt that it
was not quite the same when practised by rational beings. True, he was only keeping that which most clearly belonged only to himself, whereas Master Grip had feloniously seized on the possession of another. There was that difference, certainly. Still, there was something in the thing Harry did not quite like. He was usually a kind, unselfish sort of boy, and he did not enjoy feeling that he was doing something rather miserly now. And then, just that evening, his mother had been reading some verses from the Bible to him, as she usually did, and one of them had been: “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” He had not thought much about the words at the time, but they came back to his memory now.
Early next morning Harry sent for Walter to come and speak to him.
“Wat,” he said very cheerily, “the
Rover is going to make its first voyage to-day. Hurrah! Aren’t you glad?”
Walter stared at his friend and wondered if he had grown suddenly worse, and was talking nonsense through feverishness.
“I doubt they won’t let you out to the beach just yet, Hal!” he said soothingly.
“No, indeed!” said Harry, smiling brightly. “But you are going to take the ship down for me, and launch her, and all that. Bobby and Frank will go too, of course, and the girls, if nurse can take them; and then you’ll come back and tell me all about it—won’t you, Wat?”