"Why, Horace, I shouldn't think you'd ask! Blowing gunpowder, and running off into the woods, and most killing Pincher, and going trouting down to the 'crick' with your best clothes on, and disobeying your ma, and----"
"Sayin' bad words," added Horace, "but I stopped that this morning."
"What do you mean, Horace?"
"O, I said over all the bad things I could think of; not the swearin'
words, you know, but 'shucks,' and 'gallus,' and 'bully,' and 'by hokey,' and 'by George;' and it's the last time."
"O, I'm so glad, Horace!" cried Grace, clapping her hands and laughing; "and you won't blow any more powder?"
Horace shook his head.
"Nor run off again? Why, you'll be like Ally Glover, and you know I'm trying to be like little Eva."
"I don't want to be like Ally Glover," replied Horace, making a wry face; "he's lame, and besides, he's too dreadful good."
"Why, Horace," said his sister, solemnly; "anybody can't be too good; 'tisn't possible."
"Well, then, he's just like a girl--that's what! I'm not going to be 'characteristic' any more, but I don't want to be like a girl neither.
Look here, Grace; it's school time. Now don't you 'let on' to ma, or anybody, that I'm going to be better."
Grace promised, but she wondered why Horace should not wish his mother to know he was trying to be good, when it would make her so happy.
"He's afraid he'll give it up," thought she; "but I won't let him."
She sat on the piazza steps a long while after he had gone. At last a bright idea flashed across her mind, and of course she dropped her work and clapped her hands, though she was quite alone.
"I'll make a merit-book like Miss All'n's, and put down black marks for him when he's naughty."
When Horace came home that night, he was charmed with the plan, for he was really in earnest. His kind sister made the book very neatly, and sewed it into a cover of glossy blue paper. She thought they would try it four weeks; so she had put in twenty-eight pages, each page standing for one day.
"Now," said she, "when you say one bad word I'll put down 'one B. W.'
for short; but when you say two bad words, 'twill be 'two B. W.,' you know. When you blow gunpowder, that'll be 'B. G.'--no, 'B. G. P.' for gunpowder is two words."
"And when I run off, 'twill be 'R. O.'"
"Or 'R. A.,' said Grace, for 'ran away.'"
"And 'T.' for 'troutin'," said Horace, who was getting very much interested; "and--and--'P. A. L.' for 'plaguing aunt Louise,' and 'C.'
for 'characteristic,' and 'L. T.' for 'losing things.'"
"O, dear, dear, Horace, the book won't begin to hold it! We mustn't put down those little things."
"But, Grace, you know I shan't do 'em any more."
Grace shook her head, and sighed. "We won't put down all those little things," repeated she; "we'll have 'D.' for 'disobedience,' and 'B. W.,'
and--O! one thing I forgot--'F.' for 'falsehood.'"
"Well, you won't get any F's out of me, by hokey," said Horace, snapping his fingers.
"Why, there it is, 'one B. W.' so quick!" cried Grace, holding up both hands and laughing.
Horace opened his mouth in surprise, and then clapped his hand over it in dismay. It was not a very fortunate beginning.
"Look here, Grace," said he, making a wry face; "I move we call that no 'count, and commence new to-morrow!"
So Grace waited till next day before she dated the merit-book.
All this while Pincher's foot was growing no better. Aunt Louise said you could almost see the poor dog 'dwindle, peak, and pine.'
"But it's only his hurt," said Grace; "'tisn't a sickness."
"I reckon," returned Horace, sadly, "it isn't a _wellness_, neither."
"Why not send for Mrs. Duffy?" suggested aunt Madge. "If any one can help the poor creature, it is she."
Mrs. Duffy was the village washerwoman, and a capital nurse. It was an anxious moment for little Horace, when she unwrapped the crushed paw, Pincher moaning all the while in a way that went to the heart.
"Wull," said Mrs. Duffy, who spoke with a brogue, "it's a bad-looking fut; but I've some intment here that'll do no har-rum, and it may hulp the poor craycher."
She put the salve on some clean linen cloths, and bound up the wound, bidding them all be very careful that the dog "didn't stir his fut."
"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 Susy, 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 school-books in his teeth. Why, the boys all loved him, they 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 fire-crackers in the United States. No, not for a real drum, either; would I, Pincher?"
Horace really believed the dog understood him, and many were the secrets he had poured into his faithful ears. Pincher would listen, and wink, and wag his tail, but was sure to keep everything to himself.
"I tell you what it is, Pincher," Horace burst forth, "I'm not going to have you die! My own pa gave you to me, and you're the best dog that ever lived in this world. O, I didn't mean to catch your foot in that trap! Eat the chicken, there's a good fellow, and we'll cure you all up."
But Pincher couldn't eat the chicken, and couldn't be cured. His eyes grew larger and sadder, but there was the same patient look in them always. He fixed them on Horace to the last, with a dying gaze which made the boy's heart swell with bitter sorrow.
"He wanted to speak, he wanted to ask me a question," said Horace, with sobs he did not try to control.