"O, but he don't want to stir!" said Horace. "He just lies down by the stove all day."
Mrs. Duffy shook her head, and said, "He was a pooty craycher; 'twas more the pities that he ever went off in the wuds."
Horace hung his head. O, if he could have blotted out that day of disobedience!
"Wasn't it a real rebel, heathen man," cried Prudy, "to put the trap where Pincher sticked his foot in it?"
Pincher grew worse and worse. He refused his food, and lay in a basket with a cushion in it, by the kitchen stove, where he might have been a little in the way, though not even Aunt Louise ever said so.
If Grace, or Susie, or Prudy went up to him, he made no sign. It was only when he saw his little master that he would wag his tail for joy; but even that effort seemed to tire him, and he liked better to lick Horace's hand, and look up at his face with eyes brimful of love and agony.
Horace would sit by the half hour coaxing him to eat a bit of broiled steak or the wing of a chicken; but though the poor dog would gladly have pleased his young master, he could hardly force himself to swallow a mouthful.
These were sad days. Grace put down now and then a "B.W." in the blue book; but as for disobedience, Horace had just now no temptation to that. He could hardly think of anything but his dog.
Pincher was about his age. He could not remember the time when he first knew him. "O, what jolly times they had had together! How often Pincher had trotted along to school, carrying the satchel with the schoolbooks in his teeth. Why, the boys all loved him, just loved him so."
"No, sir," said Horace, talking to himself, and laying the dog's head gently on his knee: "there wasn't one of them but just wished they had him. But, poh! I wouldn't have sold him for all the cannons and firecrackers in the United States. No, not for a real drum, either; would I, Pincher?"