Then after Fanny was asleep her mother told Mr. Bryant why they had failed to find us, and after he heard the whole story he said: “Bless her dear heart; for her sake we will keep the little fellows, and Bess” (that was mother’s name) “will look at us with less sadness in her great eyes.”
So Mrs. Bryant told Fanny that they had decided to keep us both until we were much bigger, at least, and she need not worry any more about our being sold.
When they told mother you should have seen her leap for joy; she sprang up upon her hind feet, and put her fore paws upon Mr. Bryant’s breast, forgetting in her great joy that her feet were not clean; but he, good man, only patted her and let her lick his cheek, and called her “Good old Bess,” and then told her to go and look after her children and give them their supper.
I heard her say to one of the neighbors some months after, as she was telling her experience with us, that that was the first time she had lain down with any peace of mind for weeks.
Well, the bigger we grew the more Fanny loved us, and so we did her. We never let her go down in the orchard, or out into the woods, or to fish in the brook but what we went with her, and we drove everything and everybody away, unless she told us not to.
After awhile she decided that she wanted one of us in her room nights. To that arrangement her mother at first strongly objected; but her father plead for her, and the mother finally consented.
When the cold weather came on Fanny got a rug, and had Nero sleep on that rug on the foot of her bed, “to keep her feet warm,” she said.
This had been going on for some time when Mr. and Mrs. Bryant went out to visit a neighbor’s at some kind of a gathering, and left mother and me outside in our kennel to watch, and Nero to remain in the room with our little friend Fanny.
The hired man and the cook, instead of remaining at home as they were expected to, went to spend the evening with a neighbor, thinking it would be all right with Fanny, as she was asleep. But it had been ironing day, and the clothes had been left hanging in the kitchen to air, and how it was no one will ever know, but in some way they took fire. Mother was the first to discover it, and began to bark with all her might to awaken Fanny and Nero. I remember that I barked too, just as hard and loud as I could.
Soon Nero heard it, and began to feel that something must be the matter somewhere. His first thought was that he ought to awaken his young mistress, and he went at the job as best he knew. But she was too sound asleep to be awakened by barking, do the best he could; so he sprang upon her shoulder and began to pull at her nightdress, and finally took her by the ear, and pulled so hard that it almost started the blood. Then she awakened in a great fright, for a bright light was shining so she could see everything in her room.