CHAPTER V 



"YET proof was plain that since the day 

 On which the traveler thus had died 

 The dog had watched about the spot, 

 Or by his master's side." 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 



THEY said I was a good Fairy of 

 light to the boys and girls, for thus 

 every year, as my five-dollar tax 

 was paid, I gave them a half-dozen or more 

 fine new books to read; for all of us poor 

 gentle little dogs paid as much or more than 

 some big men who helped make the city 

 laws. We paid it into the City Library 

 fund, and we had to buy our lives this way 

 every May-day, or else the big men in 

 blue coats and brass buttons could catch us 

 and shoot us! That was the law, mamma 

 said. 



But they were not all so cruel as the law, 

 for there was one poor little yellow dog, with 

 such sad eyes, who used to steal up the back 

 way, through the grove, to call on me, and 

 try to find a stray bone in the waste-bucket; 



47 



