WHILE the folks are gone to the fair, and we have nothing to do but watch around the place and see that no tramp gets in, we might as well have a good time, and I will tell you about my brother Nero. You must not forget, though, but keep eyes, ears and nose open while I am talking.
To begin with, there was a very large family of us, or would have been if we had all been kept together. There were brothers and sisters older, and a good many younger than we. We were of the same age, and there were three others just our age, too; but they had gone to live with other families, and Nero and I were all there were left with mother. Poor, dear mother! I remember well how she used to feel when her children were taken away from her, though I was too young at that time to realize it.
When we were alone she would sigh, and many a tear have I seen fall from her eyes, as she would lap us and think of her darlings whose faces she knew not that she would ever see again.
She, poor mother, seemed to lavish all her love upon us after the other three were gone.
Mr. Bryant, our master, had a daughter—only one—whose name was Fanny. Her father and mother seemed to think the world of her; and the thing that puzzled mother was, that Mrs. Bryant, being a mother herself, should not feel more for her four-footed friend, who was a mother also. She fed us enough, and never abused us in the ways in which so many abuse their dogs; but when it came to parting mother and children it never seemed to occur to her that a mother with four feet, and that couldn’t talk, could have any motherly feelings, or care what became of her little ones.
I remember little Fanny was not so. She would cry every time one of my brothers or sisters was taken away, and after one was gone would come out with us and put her arms around mother’s silky neck and cry as though her heart would break.
Well, one day while we were quite small a man came to the house. I think he was some kind of agent. He saw mother, and could not help admiring her glossy coat and beautiful eyes, and so was anxious to get one of our family. He wanted mother herself, but soon found that money could not buy her. Fanny overheard them talking about us, and then slipped quietly out of the room, and came in great haste to where we were, and with one of us under each arm fled to a place of safety. Down through the orchard she went till she came to an old building which was used to store hay in; there, in a hole which she and some of her playmates had made to hide in, she put us, and covered us up with soft straw, and fixed it so that we could not possibly crawl out, then closed the door and went off under a sweet apple-tree to hunt for apples as though nothing had happened.
Now I suppose men will think she did not act just as she should, and perhaps she was guilty of disobedience for not telling where we were when they were hunting for us; but we were very grateful to her, and whined with delight when we heard the man drive away, and learned that he was not likely to come over that road again.
Fanny felt badly about it, and that night when she was going to bed told her mother what she had done, crying almost as hard as though we had been sold.
Fanny’s mother explained to her how it was wicked to be disobedient, and that it was disobedience to not do what she would be required to do, if all the circumstances were known, and that doing wrong that good might come of it was never right.