"But then we just loved him so, you know, auntie! Why, we thought he was just as good as any body. He never bit nor growled, that dog didn't, not a mite. There wasn't one of us but he loved,—'specially Miss All'n."
"Now wasn't it too bad Mrs. Snell made such a fuss? She didn't love that dog one speck,—I don't know as she ever saw him,—and she didn't care whether he was dead or alive. I just know she didn't."
"I'll tell you how it was. Sometimes he got locked up all night. He'd be asleep, you know, by the stove, or else under the seats, and Miss All'n would forget, and suppose he was gone with the rest of the scholars."
"Well, he was a darling old dog, if he did chew up the books! I just about know he got hungry in the night, or he never would have thought of it. How did he know it was wrong? he didn't know one letter from another. He spoiled Jenny Snell's spelling-book, I know, and lots of readers and things; but what if he did, auntie, now what of it?"
"I ain't crying any thing about that, I wouldn't have you to think! But you see Mrs. Snell made a great fuss, and went to her husband and told him he ought to be shot."
"That Mr. Snell ought to be shot?"
"Now, Susy, I shouldn't think you'd feel like laughing or making fun.—The dog, of course; and they sent for the city marshal. You know Mr. Garvin, Horace?"
"Yes, the man that scowls so, with the scar on his nose, and a horse-whip in his hand."
"Miss All'n cried. She lifted up the lid of her desk, and hid her head, but we all knew she was crying. You see we had such a time about it. We thought he was going to carry the dog off to some place, and take care of him like he was his master, or may be shut him up, or something that way; but, do you believe, he just shot that dog right in the yard!"
"How dreadful!"