You see he once had a good master; but the man was taken ill and had to go away, and for some reason could not take Dash with him.
One day when we met down town near the post-office he told me this story.
By some mishap the house of his former master took fire. How it happened he did not seem to know. The mistress had gone into a neighbor’s house for a few moments, and had left her baby asleep in the cradle, in charge of a little girl, while Dash watched at the front gate to see that no tramp came in.
Said he, “I smelt something, and looked around just in time to see that little girl as she ran out of the front door crying ‘Fire!’
“In a moment I thought of Baby, and saw that the girl had left it in the house; so I dashed through the door and into the thick smoke, and finding the cradle I caught the child by his frock, and pulling with all my might I got him out on the floor and dragged him to the door. Just as I got him to the first step, where we could breathe again, the mother arrived.
“But she came too late to have saved her baby if it had been in the cradle then, for that was already in full blaze. As it was, the poor thing was almost smothered with the smoke.
“How that mother hugged and kissed me! She made so much ado about it that I felt almost ashamed. Yet I must confess it was gratifying to know that the mother appreciated what I had done.
“Well, after that there was nothing in the house too good for me to eat, no place where I was not welcome, no kennel too nice for me to sleep in, nor was there any lack of petting.”
Just imagine what a change from a home such as that, to the miserable one he now has to endure.
I do feel so sorry for him!