WINTER BIRDS I WATCH them from my window, In brown and ruffled feathers Ah, may I be as cheerful And leave their tiny footprints In stars upon the snow. GEORGE COOPER. SANDY, THE GOOD SAMARITAN LAST summer I made the acquaintance of a most estimable dog. He is a Scotch collie and his name is Sandy. He is a highly respected citizen, and if he could talk, would occupy an eminent position in the community in which he lives. Everybody has the greatest confidence in him. Sandy spends a good deal of his time at a little cabin in the woods, and acts as superintendent over the place, looking after the cattle, the horses, and the chickens, and driving intruders away. His sense of hearing is so acute, and his instinct is so keen, that he can hear his master and mistress driving toward the farm before they come within a mile of it. Sandy may be snoozing on the veranda, or on the grass under one of the trees: suddenly he raises his head, looks around in an inquiring sort of way, his ears stiffen up, his eyes gleam, and then with a joyful bark he plunges into the forest that surrounds the place. Somehow he knows that the carriage is coming, and he dashes down the road as fast as he can run until he meets it with a joyful welcome. Last summer Sandy's particular duty was to look after the little chicks that were hatched from time to time, and that seemed strangely incapable of caring for themselves. Notwithstanding the anxiety and warnings of their mothers, these little strangers would persist in running into the high grass. This was almost sure destruction, because very few of them could find their way out of it again. Sandy took the matter into his charge and with patience, gentleness, and remarkable skill organized a life-saving service that proved very successful. No matter how he was engaged, he never failed to make a thorough examination of the high grass several times a day, and he seldom came out of it without bringing in his mouth a little chicken, which he would drop gently before its mother, and then go back into the wilderness for another. Sometimes he would bring out five or six stragglers in succession. Scarcely a day passed that his lifesaving service did not rescue a large portion of the broods that otherwise would have perished. He never wounded or bruised the little wanderers, but carried them in his mouth as tenderly as a mother would take a baby in her arms. And it seemed to me that the little chicks understood that Sandy was sure to rescue them, and were all the more reckless on that account. There was always a colony of dogs and cats about the camp, and when supper time came, they acted as if they were half starved. But Sandy always waited patiently until the rest were satisfied, and then in a most dignified manner he took what was left. One day Sandy brought home with him a disreputable-looking cur which belonged somewhere down in the slums of the city, and was called Major. He was a mangy skeleton covered with wounds, and in a most pitiable state of misery. Sandy coaxed him up to the house, gave him his bed and food, and licked his sores. Under this Good Samaritan treatment Major rapidly recovered health and strength, but nothing could make him look respectable. He was such a dog as would always be ugly and untidy. He did not possess a single point of beauty, nor, so far as any one could see, a spark of intelligence. But he afterward proved the truth of the old proverb that appearances are often deceitful. Sandy's master and mistress did not like Major. They tried all sorts of ways to drive him off, but Sandy stood by him and took care of him, and saw that he had a good bed and plenty of food. When it came time for the family to go out to the cabin in the woods to spend the summer, it was decided to separate Sandy and Major. The one was taken and the other was left, but no sooner did Sandy realize this fact than he showed his disapproval. He supposed that his friend was in a box in the wagon, but when it was unloaded, and Major did not appear, Sandy looked disappointed, and soon after disappeared, nor was he seen again until breakfast time the next morning when Major was at his heels. Sandy had trotted patiently back into town, hunted up his friend, and had brought him out to the cabin. He made three trips of nine miles each that day, and that was a good deal for one dog to do for another. WILLIAM E. CURTIS. MY LITTLE FARM WHEN a little farm I keep, And my garden places shall An old dial and a cote Where the pigeons fly and float, "Twixt the mountains and the sea ; - KATHERINE TYNAN. |