Miss Elliot's Girls / Stories of Beasts, Birds, and Butterflies

is from a friend of mine who spends her summers in a quiet village in Maine, in a fine old mansion overlooking green

, and soon its fragrance will be mingled with that of new-mown hay. There is nothing new about the place but Don Quixote, the great handsome English mastiff. Do you know the mastiff-his lion-lik

hat both houses are under his protection, and passes his nights between the two. Often we hear his slow step as he paces the piazza round and round like a sentinel. H

leg and resting his weight upon it with great satisfaction. We have good fun with him out of doors, where h

d them to you as the most succinct account I can give of my new pet. As I conned them over, repeating them half-aloud, at the

-GE

n! beaut

tall, with

coat of the s

dog that the

tifu

! frolic

r tail at a

ig with a k

tearing, and

csome

affectio

love with s

ps, quite forge

nd coaxing you

tiona

! chival

l night pia

watchful, our

es is the nam

lrous

! devoti

s opened you cli

th solemn, im

coax till the c

ional

! wonder

aithful, affe

se virtues wh

be when you

rful

and a good home by seizing the first opportunity that offered to do his duty and protect the property of those who had taken him in. I have no doubt that Don Quixote, intelligent, faithful, kind, with not a drop of plebeian blood in his noble body, will fulfill all th

PKINS' YE

l the story as h

or a dog, do you? and I wish he had a little more of a tail. Liz says he's cur-tailed (Liz thinks it's smart to make puns), but he'll look a great deal better when his ear gets well and his hair grows out and covers the bare spots-don't you think so? But father says, "Handsome is that handso

residence of Thomas Tompkins, the well-known dealer in hardware, cutlery, etc., was entered last night by burglars. Much valuable property saved through the courage and pluck of a small dog belonging to the family." Th

round your ankles in that way; anyhow, he won't catch hold unless I tell him to; but you see, ever since that night

as one of 'em, and the other was a bulldog twice his size. The bulldog's master was looking on, without so much as trying to part 'em; but nobody was looking after the yellow dog: he didn't seem to have any master. Well, I want to see fair play in e

e it all right in his face and eyes. Of course he had to let go to sneeze; and I grabbed the yellow dog and ran. It was great fun. I could hear

well-fed and respectable looking; but then he was nothing but skin and bone, and covered all over with mud and dirt, and one ear w

ouse, though I've always wanted a dog of my own. I knew Liz would call him a horrid little monster, and Fred would poke fun at me-and

saying, "Turn him out! turn him out!" till I found it was no use, and I was just going to do as she said when father looked up from his supper, and says he: "Let the boy tell his story, mother. Where did you get the dog, Tommy?" "'We were all surprised, for father hardly ever interfered with mother about us children-he's so taken up with business, you know, he has

all right, now father had said so. So I took him to the shed-chamber and gave him a good supper,-how he did eat!-and I found an old mat for him to lie on, and got a basin of warm water and some soap, and

f the house, ever so far from my room. I knew mother hadn't come upstairs, for the gas was burning in the halls, as she always turned it off the last thing; and I thought to myself: "If she hears the dog when she comes up, maybe she'll put him out, and I never shall see him again." And before I knew what I was about I was running through the hall and th

ring mother screamed, and somebody kept saying, "'St, boy! 'st, boy! stick to him, good dog! stick to him!" And then I woke up, and mother really was screaming, and 'twas Fred who was saying, "Stick to him! stick to him!" And the gas was lit in the hall, and there was a great noise and hubbub out there, and I rushed out, a

you see, and, for a wonder, was on hand when he was wanted; and he just went for that fellow on the floor and clapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists as quick as you could turn your hand over;

alled the

ed dollars in money was all done up in neat packages, and they'd been through father's desk and the secretary drawers; and they'd had a lunch of cold chicken and mince-pie, and left the marks of their greasy hands on the best damask napkins Bridget had ironed that day and left to air by the kitchen ran

creeping into the room on his hands and knees,-they often do, father says,-and the dog made a rush at him in front

. And says I: "Father, don't you mean to take him round to Station C this morning?" "No, I don't," says father. Then mother said she didn't know but she'd about as soon lose the silver as to keep such a dog as that in the house, and Fred said if I must have a dog, why didn't father get me a black-and-tan terrier-"or a lovely pug," says Liz; and between 'em they got me so stirred up I didn't know what to do. I said

uint in one eye. I remembered him right away. He was one of the crowd looking on at the dog-fight down in River Street. He said he'd lost a dog, a very valuable dog, and he'd heard we'd got him. Father asked what kind of a do

Fred is sixteen he thinks he knows every thing, and he's always lording it over me. He says I'll never make a business man-I ain't sh