WHILE the folks are gone to the fair, and we have nothing to do but watch around the place and see that no tramp gets in, we might as well have a good time, and I will tell you about my brother Nero. You must not forget, though, but keep eyes, ears and nose open while I am talking.

To begin with, there was a very large family of us, or would have been if we had all been kept together. There were brothers and sisters older, and a good many younger than we. We were of the same age, and there were three others just our age, too; but they had gone to live with other families, and Nero and I were all there were left with mother. Poor, dear mother! I remember well how she used to feel when her children were taken away from her, though I was too young at that time to realize it.

When we were alone she would sigh, and many a tear have I seen fall from her eyes, as she would lap us and think of her darlings whose faces she knew not that she would ever see again.

She, poor mother, seemed to lavish all her love upon us after the other three were gone.

Mr. Bryant, our master, had a daughter—only one—whose name was Fanny. Her father and mother seemed to think the world of her; and the thing that puzzled mother was, that Mrs. Bryant, being a mother herself, should not feel more for her four-footed friend, who was a mother also. She fed us enough, and never abused us in the ways in which so many abuse their dogs; but when it came to parting mother and children it never seemed to occur to her that a mother with four feet, and that couldn’t talk, could have any motherly feelings, or care what became of her little ones.

I remember little Fanny was not so. She would cry every time one of my brothers or sisters was taken away, and after one was gone would come out with us and put her arms around mother’s silky neck and cry as though her heart would break.

Well, one day while we were quite small a man came to the house. I think he was some kind of agent. He saw mother, and could not help admiring her glossy coat and beautiful eyes, and so was anxious to get one of our family. He wanted mother herself, but soon found that money could not buy her. Fanny overheard them talking about us, and then slipped quietly out of the room, and came in great haste to where we were, and with one of us under each arm fled to a place of safety. Down through the orchard she went till she came to an old building which was used to store hay in; there, in a hole which she and some of her playmates had made to hide in, she put us, and covered us up with soft straw, and fixed it so that we could not possibly crawl out, then closed the door and went off under a sweet apple-tree to hunt for apples as though nothing had happened.

Now I suppose men will think she did not act just as she should, and perhaps she was guilty of disobedience for not telling where we were when they were hunting for us; but we were very grateful to her, and whined with delight when we heard the man drive away, and learned that he was not likely to come over that road again.

Fanny felt badly about it, and that night when she was going to bed told her mother what she had done, crying almost as hard as though we had been sold.

Fanny’s mother explained to her how it was wicked to be disobedient, and that it was disobedience to not do what she would be required to do, if all the circumstances were known, and that doing wrong that good might come of it was never right.

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.

Pulling on her shoes and stockings, and wrapping around her some of the blankets from her bed, she opened the door, which fortunately was near the stairs.

With the help of Nero she made her way through the smoke to the street, about the time the neighbors began to arrive. They were too late to have been of any help to Fanny, for the flames would have overtaken her before they reached there, but for Nero. By the time Mr. and Mrs. Bryant reached home the house was far gone. When they saw the flames they seemed almost crazy with fright; for they remembered that they had left their only child asleep in the second story. It was some minutes before they could be made to understand that Fanny was safe.

She and Nero had been hurried to the house of a neighbor, and when they found them Fanny had her arms around Nero’s neck.

When Fanny was being tucked into bed for a second time that night she said to her mother: “Are you not glad that I kept Nero from being sold? Because if he had not been there to wake me up you wouldn’t have had any little girl now.”

From that time Nero was a great pet, and I was very proud of him, though I could not help being a little bit vexed because nobody gave mother and me any credit for awakening him. One day I said something about it to her, and she said: “Never mind, Major; we know ourselves that we did our duty, and that is the important thing.”

R.