“WELL, uncle, and if I did kick the little beast, what of that? He’s only a dog, a mere shepherd’s dog,” said Steenie Steers, in a tone of con-tempt, as he looked down on the rough little creature that had crouc-hed for protection beside the chair of his master, Farmer Macalpine.
“And what is a dog—a shepherd’s dog—but a useful creature, a grateful creature, that might teach a lesson to many of a nobler race?” said the farmer tartly.
Macalpine had a face almost as sharp and eyes almost as keen as those of his four footed companion, and his shock of tawny hair was almost as thick and rough as the coat of his faithful Trusty. There was nothing smooth about Farmer Macalpine, as his spoiled nephew found to his cost whenever he and his uncle chanced to be together.
Steenie Steers thought himself a very fine fellow indeed; in this, as in many other things, he had formed a very different opinion from that of Farmer Macalpine. Though Steenie was not yet quite twelve years of age, he already put on all the airs of a grown-up fop. Macalpine had fo-und the boy lolling in the only easy-chair in the room of his aunt, Miss Steers, with his silver-tipped cane in his hand; and Steenie had hardly risen to welcome his uncle, though he had not met him for more than a week.
“I’ve come to see your Aunt Elizabeth, Steenie; is she at home?” asked Macalpine.
“Aunt Bess—why, no; she’s out somewhere,” answered the nephew. “I dare say that she’s trotted over to the doctor’s,” he added, in a tone of utter indifference.
“Is her head better? How did she sleep last night?” inquired the farmer.
“How can I tell? I’ve just come in from a stroll in the woods,” replied Steenie.
“I suppose that you did not go on your stroll without your breakfast; you must have seen your aunt then,” said Macalpine, in his rather snappish manner.
“I wasn’t down to breakfast till old Aunt Bess had done hers, and gone out,” answered Steenie. “I was up late last night at the Burnsides,” ad-ded the boy, with a yawn.
“I’ve heard your aunt say half-a-dozen times that she did not like your going to those Burnsides,” said the farmer.
Steenie laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not bound to care for all her likes or dislikes either,” muttered the boy, tapping his front teeth with his silver-tipped cane.
Macalpine’s sharp keen eyes looked sharper and keener than ever as he observed, “After your aunt’s bringing you up, and doing everything for you these ten years, ever since you could toddle alone, I think that she has a good claim at least to your obedience, if you have no affec-tion to give.”
Apparently Master Steenie did not relish his uncle’s remark, for, per-haps to turn the conversation, he began teasing the farmer’s dog. Ma-calpine’s angry remonstrance led to the reply of his nephew with which my little story begins.
“I wonder that you care to keep such a rough ugly cur as that Trusty,” observed Steenie Steers.
“I keep him for some use,” answered the farmer. “Trusty guards my flock attends to my call; by day or by night; in snow, rain, or hail, he is always ready to do my bidding. He’s a good old fellow,” continued Ma-calpine, stooping to pat his rugged friend, who licked the farmer’s hand in return. “I’ve reared him from a puppy.”
“I should not care to rear such a common kind of dog as that,” obser-ved Steenie, who prided himself on being a dog-fancier. “If he were a King Charles spaniel now—”
“Or a pug or a poodle,” interrupted the farmer; “I should not consider him worth the rearing. I care for use, not for show.”
“Your favourite does not cost you much, I’ll be bound!” said Steenie Steers, with a saucy laugh.
“Trusty costs me nothing,” answered Macalpine, “for he is content with a few bones, and fairly earns what he gets. But a friend of mine once reared a puppy that would, perhaps, be a puppy just to your taste. Plenty of care and pains she bestowed on the useless creature, and stuffed it with food more than enough. I consider that much of that good feeding was downright waste, seeing what the puppy was to turn out, and that my poor friend really stinted herself to pamper her pet.”
“Did the creature devour so much, then?” inquired young Steers.
“Why, he must have gobbled up, during his training,—let me see—let me see,” and Macalpine rubbed his shaggy head to help out his calcula-tions,—”the pet must have gobbled up as good as three hundred big legs of mutton!”
“I say!” exclaimed Steenie, in much amazement. “Your friend’s pet must have been no pup, but a lion, and one with a monstrous appetite, too! Such a brute as that would soon eat his mistress out of house and home.”
“He did not eat all the mutton in a day—or a week—or a month; he took his time about it,” said the farmer, with a low chuckling laugh. “But my friend’s hungry pet did not live on mutton alone; we must add to the meat some three hundred pounds of fresh butter!”
“A dainty dog!” exclaimed Steenie.
“And not much less than a thousand loaves of white bread,” said Macal-pine “with tubs of milk, and casks of beer, and I don’t know how many plum-cakes, seed-cakes, iced cakes, and all sorts of sweeties besides!”
“You are cracking a joke on me, uncle,” said Steenie. “I’ll answer for it that your friend’s pet was never a puppy at all.”
“I could not answer for it that he is not one now, and a very useless puppy, and a very ungrateful puppy,” cried the farmer, rising from his seat. “There, I see my sister coming,” he added, as he looked through the open door-way; “Trusty, you and I will go and meet her.”
Trusty, ever ready, sprang up and followed his master.
Steenie’s face had grown exceedingly red at the words of Macalpine; the boy bit hard the silver tip of his cane. He could now see clearly enough what his uncle’s meaning had been. Steenie himself was the idle, ungrateful puppy, that, after having been fed for ten long years on his kind aunt’s bounty, had made no kind of return for all the care and love which she had lavished upon him.
I must say that Farmer Macalpine had a rude and disagreeable way of giving reproof; he did not, as all Christians ought to do, speak the truth in love. His manners and his words were as rough as his hair. We may have no such plain-spoken uncle to remind us of things which we do not care to remember, but it is well for all who have been brought up by parents or friends in comfortable homes, all who have been fed and clothed year after year by the kindness of others, to ask themselves what return they are making for all that they have received.
I fear that Steenie Steers is not the only boy who deserves the name of “a very useless puppy,” and who might, if he would, learn a lesson from Trusty, the old shepherd’s dog.
