He accordingly ran round to the back side of the garden-house to get
the ladder. Bruno followed him, watching him very eagerly to see what
he was going to do. Hiram brought the ladder forward, and planted it
against the garden-house, a little beyond the place where the cage, was
hanging. In the mean time, Ralph had run off to the house to get a pail
of water, vainly imagining that he could do at least something with it
toward extinguishing the flames and rescuing the bird. By the time he
got back, Hiram had placed the ladder, and was just going up, amid the
smoke and sparks, to get the cage.[5] Bruno stood by at the foot of the
ladder, looking up eagerly to Hiram, and watching as if he were going
to take the cage as soon as it came down.
[5] See Frontispiece.
Hiram had to stop once or twice in going up the ladder to get breath,
for the wind blew the smoke and sparks over him so much at intervals as
almost to suffocate him. He, however, persevered, and finally succeeded
in reaching the cage. He took it off from its fastening, and brought
it down the ladder. When he reached the ground, Bruno took it from his
hand by means of the ring at the top, and ran off with it away from the
fire. He then placed it carefully upon the ground, and began leaping
around it, wagging his tail, and manifesting every other indication of
excitement and delight.
Ralph was very much pleased, too, to find that his robin was safe. He
took the cage, and, carrying it away, set it down at a still greater
distance from the fire. The garden-house was burned to the ground.
Hiram and Bruno waited there until the fire was almost out, and then
they went home. Hiram experienced a feeling of great satisfaction and
pleasure at the thought that he had been able to save Ralph’s bird. “I
should have been sorry,” said he to himself, “if he had lost his bird,
and I think, too, that he will be sorry now that he let my little Foxy
go.”
The next morning, after breakfast, Hiram concluded that he would go
round into Ralph’s garden, and look at the ruins of the fire. He passed
out through the gate at the bottom of his father’s garden, and then
turned into the path leading to the other gate, and there, to his
surprise, he saw Ralph sitting on a stone, feeding Bruno with a piece
of meat. It was a piece which he had saved from his own breakfast for
the purpose. Bruno was eating the meat with an appearance of great
satisfaction, while Ralph sat by, patting him on the head.
[Sidenote: “Hiram, I am giving Bruno some breakfast.”]
“Hiram,” said Ralph, as soon as he saw Hiram coming, “I am giving Bruno
some breakfast.”
Bruno looked up toward Hiram and wagged his tail.
“That’s right,” said Hiram. “He seems to like it very much.”
“Hiram,” said Ralph, again.
“What?” said Hiram.
Ralph hesitated. He seemed to have something on his mind, and not to
know exactly how to express it.
“How is the robin this morning? Did he get stifled any by the smoke?”
[Sidenote: Restitution. Ralph proposes to get another fox for Hiram.]
“No,” said Ralph; “he is as bright as a lark.” Then, after a moment’s
pause, he added, “I am sorry I let your Foxy get away. I suppose I
ought to pay you for him; and, if I could get another fox for you, I
would. I have not got any thing but just my bird. I’ll give you him.”
To find Ralph taking this view of the subject was something so new and
strange to Hiram, that at first he did not know what to say.
“No,” he replied, at length, “I would rather not take your bird, though
I am very sorry that Foxy has got away. If you had only told me that
you wanted your collar, I would have taken it off, and fastened Foxy
with something else.”
Ralph hung his head and had nothing to say.
The boys went soon after this to look at the bed of ashes and embers
that marked the spot where the garden-house had stood, and then they
sauntered together slowly back into Hiram’s garden. Bruno followed
them. He seemed to understand that a great change had somehow or other
taken place in Ralph’s disposition of mind toward him, and he was no
longer afraid. The boys went together to the place where Foxy had been
confined.
“John Thomas hunts foxes sometimes with his father,” said Ralph. “There
are a great many in the woods back of their farm. I am going to see if
I can’t get him to catch you another young one. I shall tell him I will
give him half a dollar if he will get one, and that is all the money I
have got.”
Hiram did not reply to this suggestion. He did not know exactly what to
say. His thought was, that no other fox that could possibly be found
would supply the place, in his view, of the one that he had lost. He
had taken so much pains to teach that one, and to tame him, that he had
become quite attached to him individually, and he was very sure that he
should never like any other one so well. He did not, however, like to
say this to Ralph, for he perceived that Ralph was very much troubled
about what he had done, and was quite anxious to make some reparation,
and he thought that it would trouble him still more to learn that all
reparation was wholly out of his power.
“And if he catches one for you,” continued Ralph, “then I’ll give you
the collar for your own. I would give it to you now, if it would do you
any good.”
“I’ll take the chain off, at any rate,” said Hiram, “and carry it in,
and keep it, in case I ever should have another fox.”
[Sidenote: Foxy found.]
So he stooped down, and began to unhook the chain from the stake to
which it was fastened. As he did this, his face was brought down pretty
near to the hole under the wall, and, looking in there, his attention
was attracted to two bright, shining spots there, that looked like the
eyes of an animal.
[Sidenote: “Run and get the collar.”]
“Hi--yi,” said he, suddenly, “I verily believe he is here now. Run and
get the collar.”
Ralph took a peep, first, into the hole, and then ran for the collar.
When he came back, he found Hiram sitting down on the grass, with the
fox in his arms. The truth was, that the fox had been treated so kindly
since he had been in Hiram’s keeping, and he had become so accustomed
to his hole under the wall, that he did not wish to go away. When he
found himself at liberty by the removal of the collar, he had gone off
a little in the grass and among the bushes, but, when night came on,
he had returned as usual to his hole; and when he heard the voices of
the boys at the wall in the morning, he supposed that Hiram had come to
give him his breakfast, and he came accordingly out to the mouth of his
hole to see if his supposition were correct. He submitted to have his
collar put on very readily.
Thus there was a general reconciliation all round, and Bruno, Foxy,
Hiram, and Ralph became, all four of them, very excellent friends.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
This story reminds me of another one relating to the burning of a small
building in the bottom of a garden, called a tool-house. I will here
relate that story, and then tell more about Bruno. It will be seen that
this tool-house took fire in a very singular way. Precisely how Ralph’s
garden-house took fire never was known. It was probably in some way
connected with the matches which Ralph left upon the floor. Whether
he stepped upon one of them, and thus ignited it, and left it slowly
burning--or whether some mouse came by, and set one of them on fire by
gnawing upon it--or whether one of the matches got into a crack of the
floor, and was then inflamed by getting pinched there by some springing
or working of the boards, produced by the gardener’s walking over the
floor or wheeling the wheelbarrow in--whether, in fine, the mischief
originated in either of these ways, or in some other wholly unknown,
could never be ascertained.
At all events, however--and this is the conclusion of the story--the
garden-house was soon rebuilt, and Ralph was effectually cured of his
resentment and enmity by the noble and magnanimous spirit which Hiram
and Bruno exhibited in saving his bird.
_Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good._
Three times I have put this precept in the story, in order that you may
be sure to remember it.
THE BURNING OF THE TOOL-HOUSE.
When one has committed a fault, to acknowledge it frankly, and to bear
the consequences of it one’s self submissively, is magnanimous and
noble. On the contrary, to resort to cunning tricks to conceal it, and
especially to attempt to throw the blame of it upon others who are
innocent, is mean and contemptible.
[Sidenote: Description of the tool-house. Thomas, the gardener.]
Once there were two boys, named William and John, who had a building
for a tool-house and work-shop at the bottom of their father’s garden.
It was very similar in its situation to the one described in the last
story. The building was at a place where the land descended, so that
while it was only one story high on the front side toward the garden,
it was two stories high on the other side toward a brook, which ran
along near the lower garden fence. The upper part of the building was
the tool-room. This room opened out upon one of the alleys of the
garden. The lower part was the shop. The door leading into the shop
was behind. There was a fire-place in the shop, and the chimney passed
up, of course, through the tool-room; but there was no fire-place in
the tool-room, for there never was any occasion to make a fire there.
The only use of that room was, that Thomas, the old gardener, used to
keep his spades, and rakes, and hoes, and other garden tools in it;
and sometimes of a summer evening, when his work was done, he used
to sit at the door of it and smoke his pipe. The building was very
convenient, though it was small, and old, and so not of much value.
In the winter, the boys were accustomed occasionally to have a fire in
the work-shop below, when they were at work there. There was not much
danger in this, for the floor of the room was of stone.
[Sidenote: Sealing the packages.]
In the summer, of course, they never required a fire, except when they
wished to use the glue. Then they were accustomed to make a small
fire to dissolve the glue. One summer morning, however, they wanted a
candle. They had been collecting garden seeds, and they wished to seal
them up in small packages with sealing-wax. It would have been better,
perhaps, to have tied the parcels up with twine; but the boys took a
fancy to using sealing-wax, for the sake of the interest and pleasure
which they expected to find in the work of sealing. So, just before
noon, when they had got their seeds all ready, William went up to the
house, and his mother gave him a long candle.
When William came into the shop, John accosted him, saying,
[Sidenote: The boys have no candlestick.]
“Why, William, you have not brought any candlestick. What shall we do
for a candlestick?”
“I forgot that,” said William.
“Never mind,” said John; “we can make one with a block and three nails.”
There is a way of making a candlestick in a shop, which consists of
driving three nails into a small block of wood, at such a distance
apart as to leave just space for the end of the candle between them.
If the nails are driven into the block in a proper manner, and if the
heads of the nails are not too large, this contrivance makes quite a
good candlestick.
Another way is to take a similar block of wood, and bore a hole in the
top of it just large enough to receive the end of the candle, and just
deep enough to hold it firmly.
William proposed that they should make the candlestick by boring a
hole, but John thought it was best to do it by means of nails.
[Sidenote: The two candlesticks.]
So they concluded to make two. John was to make one with nails, and
William one with the borer. So they both began to look about among
the shavings under the bench for blocks, and when they found two that
seemed to answer their purpose, William went to a drawer, and selected
a borer of the proper size, while John began to choose nails with small
heads out of a nail-box which was upon the bench for his operation.
In due time the candlesticks were both finished. The one which William
had made was really the best; but John insisted that the one which he
had made was the best, and so William, who was a very good-natured boy,
gave up the point. The candle was put into John’s candlestick, and
William put his away upon a shelf, to be used, perhaps, on some future
occasion. The boys then lighted the candle by means of a match, and put
it on the end of the work-bench where they were going to do the work of
putting up their seeds.
[Sidenote: The boys leave the candle burning.]
It was now, however, about noon, which was the hour for the boys to
go home to dinner. They arranged their seeds a little upon the bench,
but did not have time to begin to seal them up before they heard the
dinner-bell ring. They then left their work, and went up to the house.
Unfortunately, they left the candle burning. As it was bright daylight,
and especially as the sun shone in near where the candle stood, the
flame was very faint to the view; in fact, it was almost entirely
invisible, and the boys, when they looked around the shop just before
they left it, did not observe it at all.
After dinner, the boys concluded that they would go a fishing that
afternoon, and not finish putting up their seeds until the following
day.
[Sidenote: The matting. The pipe.]
While they were gone, the candle was burning all the time, the flame
gradually descending as the combustion went on, until, about tea-time,
it reached the block of wood. It did not set the wood on fire, but
the wick fell over, when the flame reached the wood, and communicated
the fire to a roll of matting which lay upon the bench behind it. The
matting had been used to wrap up plants in, and was damp; so it burned
very slowly. About this time, Thomas, the old gardener, came and sat
down in the doorway of the tool-house above, smoking his pipe. He did
not know, however, what mischief was brewing in the room below; and so,
when it began to grow dark, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe upon
the ground of the garden, shut the tool-room door, and went home.
[Sidenote: Fire! fire!]
That night, about midnight, the boys were suddenly awakened and
dreadfully terrified by a cry of fire, and, on opening their eyes, they
perceived a strong light gleaming into the windows of their bed-room.
They sprang up, and saw that the tool-house was all on fire. The people
of the house dressed themselves as quick as possible, and hastened to
the spot, and some of the neighbors came too. It was, however, too
late to extinguish the fire. The building and all the tools which it
contained, both in the tool-room and in the shop, and all the seeds
that the boys had collected were entirely consumed.
Nobody could imagine how the building took fire. Some said it must
have been set on fire by malicious persons. Others thought that old
Thomas must have been unconsciously the author of the mischief, with
his pipe. Nothing certain, however, could be ascertained at that time,
and so the company separated, determining to have the matter more fully
investigated the following morning.
William and John, who had dressed themselves when the alarm was first
given, and had gone to the fire, now went back to their room, and went
to bed again.
[Sidenote: What was the origin of the fire? A conversation.]
After they had been in bed some time, and each thought that the other
must be asleep, William said to John,
“John!”
“What?” said John.
“Are you asleep?” asked William.
“No,” said John.
“I will tell you how I think the tool-house got on fire,” said William.
“How?” asked John.
“Why, I believe we left our candle burning there,” replied William.
“Yes,” said John, “I thought of that myself.”
Here there was a little pause.
Presently John said,
“I don’t suppose that they will know that our candle set it on fire.”
“No,” said William, “unless we tell them.”
[Sidenote: The conversation continued.]
“They will suppose, I expect,” added John, “that Thomas set it on fire
with his pipe.”
“Yes,” said William, “perhaps they will.”
Here there was another pause.
[Sidenote: The boys hesitate.]
“Unless,” continued John, after reflecting on the subject a little
while in silence, “unless mother should remember that she gave us the
candle, and ask us about it.”
“We could say,” he added again, “that we did not go into the shop any
time in the afternoon or evening. That would be true.”
“Yes,” said William. “We did not go into it at all after we went home
to dinner.”
The boys remained silent a few minutes after this, when John, who felt
still quite uneasy in mind on the subject, said again,
“I expect that father would be very much displeased with us if he knew
that we set the tool-house on fire, for it has burned up all his tools.”
“Yes,” said William.
“And I suppose he would punish us in some way or other,” added John.
“Yes,” said William, “I think it very likely that he would.”
“But then, John,” continued William, “I don’t think it would be right
to let Thomas bear the blame of setting the tool-house on fire, when we
are the ones that did it.”
John was silent.
“I think we had better go and tell father all about it the first thing
to-morrow morning.”
“We shall get punished if we do,” said John.
“Well,” said William, “I don’t care. I had rather be punished than try
to keep it secret. If we try to keep it secret, and let Thomas bear the
blame, we shall be miserable about it for a long time, and feel guilty
or ashamed whenever we meet father or Thomas. I had rather be punished
at once and have it done with.”
[Sidenote: “Let us tell father.”]
“Well,” said John, “let us tell father. We will tell him the first
thing to-morrow morning.”
The affair being thus arranged, the boys ceased talking about it,
and shut up their eyes to go to sleep. After a few minutes, however,
William spoke to his brother again.
“John,” said he, “I think I could go to sleep better if I should go and
tell father now all about it. I don’t suppose that he is asleep yet.”
“Well,” said John, “go and tell him.”
So William got up out of his bed, and went to the door of his father’s
room. He knocked at the door, and his father said “Come in.” William
opened the door. His father was in bed, and there was no light in the
room, except a dim night-lamp that was burning on a table.
[Sidenote: The explanation.]
“Father,” said William, “I came to tell you that I suppose I know how
our tool-house caught on fire.”
“How was it?” asked his father.
“Why, John and I had a candle there before dinner, and I believe we
left it burning; and so I suppose that, when it burned down, it set the
bench on fire.”
“That could not have been the way,” said his father, “for, when it got
down to the candlestick, it would go out.”
“But there was not any candlestick,” said William, “only a wooden one,
which we made out of a block and three nails.”
“Oh! that was the way, was it?” said his father. “Indeed!”
Here there was a short pause. William waited to hear what his father
would say next.
“Well, William,” said his father, at length, “you are a very good boy
to come and tell me. Now go back to your bed, and go to sleep. We will
see all about it in the morning.”
So William went out; but, just as he was shutting the door, his father
called to him again.
“William!” said he.
“What, sir?” said William.
“Get up as early as you can to-morrow morning, and go to Thomas’s, and
tell him how it was. He thinks that he must have set the tool-house on
fire, and he is quite troubled about it.”
“Yes, sir, I will,” said William.
Then he went back to his room, and reported to John what he had done,
and what his father had said. The boys were both very much relieved in
mind from having made their confession.
“I am very glad I told him,” said William; “and now I only wish I could
tell Thomas about it without waiting till morning.”
“So do I,” said John.
“But we can’t,” said William, “so now we will go to sleep. But we will
get up, and go to his house the first thing in the morning.”
[Sidenote: The boys get up early to explain the accident to Thomas.]
This the boys did. Thomas’s mind was very much relieved when he heard
their story. He went directly into the house to tell his wife, who, as
well as himself, had been very anxious about the origin of the fire.
When he came out, he told the boys that he was very much obliged to
them for coming to tell him about it so early. “In fact,” said he, “I
think it is very generous and noble in you to take the blame of the
fire upon yourselves, instead of letting it rest upon innocent people.
There are very few boys that would have done so.”
[Sidenote: The final result.]
William and John were fortunately disappointed in their expectations
that they would have to suffer some punishment for their fault. In
fact, they were not even reproved. They told their father all about it
at breakfast, and he said that, though it certainly was not a prudent
thing for boys to trust themselves with a wooden candlestick in a shop
full of wood and shavings, still he did not think that they deserved
any particular censure for having made one. “The whole thing was one of
those accidents which will sometimes occur,” said he, “and you need not
think any thing more about it. I will have a new tool-house and shop
built pretty soon, and will make it better than the old one was. And
now, after breakfast, you may go down and rake over the ashes, and see
if you can rake out any of the remains of the garden tools.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: An important principle.]
It would have been better for the story if it had happened that the
boys, in setting fire to the tool-house, had really been guilty of some
serious fault, for which they were afterward to be punished; for the
nobleness and magnanimity which are displayed in confessing a fault,
are so much the greater when the person confessing occasions himself
suffering by it.
WILLING TO LEARN.
[Sidenote: Bruno was willing to learn.]
Bruno had one excellent quality, which made him a special favorite with
the several boys that owned him at different times. He was _willing to
learn_.
[Sidenote: Boys and girls.]
When you are attempting to teach a dog any new art or accomplishment,
it is a great thing to have him willing to learn. It is the same, in
fact, if it is a girl or a boy that is the pupil. Sometimes, however,
when you are attempting to teach a dog, he shows very plainly all the
time that he does not wish to learn. If you have got him harnessed into
a little carriage, and wish to teach him to draw, he will stop and
seem very unwilling to proceed, and, perhaps, sit right down upon the
ground; or, if he has any chance to do so, he will run off and hide in
the bushes, or, if it is in the house that you are teaching him, in a
corner of the room or under the table. I was taking a walk once on the
margin of a stream, and I met some boys who were attempting to teach
their dog to dive into the water after sticks and such things, and the
dog was so unwilling to make the attempt, that they were obliged every
time to take him up and throw him in.
[Sidenote: A difficult lesson for a dog.]
I have known children to behave just in this way in learning to read or
to write. They come to the work reluctantly, and get away from it as
often and as quick as they can. But it was not so with Bruno. He was
glad to learn any thing that the boys were willing to teach him. A boy
at one time took it into his head to teach him to walk up a flight of
steps backward, and although Bruno could not conceive what possible
advantage it could ever be to him to learn such an accomplishment as
that, still he went to work resolutely to learn it, and though at first
he found it very difficult to do, he soon succeeded in going up very
well.
If any boy who reads this book should make the attempt to teach _his_
dog to go up steps backward, and should find the dog unwilling to
learn, he will know at once how hard it is for his teacher to teach
him to write or to calculate, when he takes no interest in the work
himself. If he then imagines that his dog were as desirous of learning
to go up the steps backward as he is to teach him, and were willing
to try, and thinks how easy it would be in that case to accomplish
the object, he will see how much his own progress in study would be
promoted by his being cordially interested himself in what he is doing.
[Sidenote: The dog that went to market.]