THE BLUE BOOK.
Days passed, but there was the same hush upon the house. Everybody moved
about softly, and spoke in low tones. Horace was not told that he must
go to school, but he knew aunt Louise thought his shoes made a great
deal of noise, and just now he wanted to please even her. More than
that, it was very pleasant to see the boys; and while he was playing
games he forgot his sorrow, and forgot his mother's sad face. There was
one thing, however, which he could not do: he had not the heart to be
captain, and drill his company, just now.
"Horace," said Grace, as they were sitting on the piazza steps one
morning, "I heard ma tell grandma yesterday, you'd been a better boy
this week than you had been before since--since--pa went away."
"Did she?" cried Horace, eagerly; "where was she when she said it? What
did grandma say? Did aunt Madge hear her?"
"Yes, aunt Madge heard her, and she said she always knew Horace would be
a good boy if he would only think."
"Well, I _do_ think," replied Horace, looking very much pleased; "I
think about all the time."
"But then, Horace, you know how you've acted some days!"
"Well, I don't care. Aunt Madge says 'tisn't so easy for boys to be
good."
Grace opened her round blue eyes in wonder.
"Why, Horace, I have to make my own bed, and sweep and dust my room,
and take care of my drawers. Only think of that; and Prudy always round
into things, you know! Then I have to sew, O, so much! I reckon you
wouldn't find it very easy being a girl."
"Poh! don't I have to feed the chickens, and bring in the eggs, and go
for the cows? And when we lived home----"
Here Horace broke down; he could not think of home without remembering
his father.
Grace burst into tears. The word "home" had called up a beautiful
picture of her father and mother sitting on the sofa in the library,
Horace and Pincher lying on the floor, the door open from the balcony,
and the moon filling the room with a soft light; her father had a smile
on his face, and was holding her hand.
Ah! Grace, and Horace, and their mother would see many such pictures of
memory.
"Well, sister," said Horace, speaking quite slowly, and looking down at
the grass, "what do I do that's bad?"
"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.
O, it was sad to close those beautiful eyes forever, those beseeching
eyes, which could almost speak.
Mrs. Clifford came and knelt on the stone hearth beside the basket, and
wept freely for the first time since her husband's death.
"Dear little Pincher," said she, "you have died a cruel death; but your
dear little master closed your eyes. It was very hard, poor doggie, but
not so hard as the battle-field. You shall have a quiet grave, good
Pincher; but where have they buried our brave soldier?"
[Illustration: CAPTAIN HORACE AND HIS DOG. Page 138.]