[THE LITTLE DOG-CATCHER.]
BY MARY D. BRINE.
Jamie was thinking. Well, what of that? Boys often think, don't they? No, indeed, that's just what they don't do; at least Jamie couldn't remember when he had seated himself deliberately to make a business of thinking before this occasion. And now he sat with a puzzled face, and a line between his eyes, so deep in thought that neither the coaxing fore-paws of Nep the dog nor the sound of clinking marbles could arouse him. The question with Jamie was just this: Should he continue to hide Neppie from the eye of man, and thus be happy in the secret knowledge that at last he owned a pet of his very own, who came and went at his bidding, and gave him love for love, or should he take him to the dog pound and earn his thirty cents as well as the others who rejoiced in the title of "dog-catcher"?
"I want that thirty cents, that's one thing sure and certain," thought Jamie, "an' if I don't get it by luggin' Neppie to the pound, I won't get it anyway, and that's just another certain sure thing. I sha'n't get rich waitin' fur Aunt Betty to give me a cent now and then; and there's Tom Blake got his pockets full half the time. But when a fellow cares for a dorg, he kinder hates to go back on 'im. And Nep cares for me, too, and he wouldn't think I'd be such a mean chap. Now if Aunt Betty didn't hate dorgs so bad, I'd ask her to let me keep 'im fair an' square, and then I shouldn't have to be 'fraid he'd bark every minute, and let folks know I was hiding 'im here under this old box, tied, poor old feller, so he can't move hardly. There comes Jack Jones. Wish he'd keep away, and let a feller think a moment in peace."
Along came Jack, jingling some money in his hand. "Hello, Jim, whose dorg yer got?"
Jamie passed his arm caressingly about the dog's neck, and replied, "Mine, of course; who d'yer think, Jack Jones?"
"Ain't yer goin' to take him to the pound? See here," displaying three silver tens in his soiled palm to Jamie's envious brown eyes. "Got 'em at the pound just now for catching a dorg. Goin' to the circus to-night. Big show, I tell yer. Can't yer come along?"
Jamie's eyes began to widen and grow shiny. The circus? Oh, wouldn't he like to go! But Aunt Betty only kept a little store, and had hard work to keep herself and chubby-faced little nephew in bread and butter, and as for giving him money to go to the circus, why, Jamie knew he might as well hope to catch stars. So he only shook his head, and Jack passed on with the parting advice, "Better sell that dorg, and earn thirty cents, and come along."
Again Jamie plunged deeply into thought, forgetting to pet and fondle his four-footed companion according to his usual custom during these stolen visits.
About ten days before our introduction to the little boy, a lady living in one of the handsome houses out on one of the avenues, where each house has its own garden, and where there is always a sweet suggestion of real country, happened to look out of her window one morning, and exclaimed, anxiously: "There is that dog again, Bridget. What shall we do to get rid of him? He'll be sure to bite Nellie some day, and it is a shame the dog-catchers don't come out here."