104 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



place where tlie ship was building. Other ele- 

 phants were brought to assist in the work, and 

 some of them were able to drag beams so 

 large that twenty men were unable to move 

 them. But what surprised the traveler most 

 was, not the amazing strength of the animal, 

 but its sagacity ; for when other beams ob- 

 structed the road, the elephant would raise the 

 end of his own beam, that it might slide easily 

 over those which lay in his way. M. Tereen, 

 another traveller, tells us that he also had the 

 opportunity of noticing the sagacity of an el- 

 ephant. Its master had let out the animal for 

 a certain sum per day, and its employment was 

 to cany with its trunk timber for a building 

 from the bank of a river. This business it 

 carried on very cleverly under the guidance of 

 a boy, and the sagacions animal laid the pieces 

 of timber one upon another in such exact or- 

 der that no man in a timber-yard could have 

 done the work better. 



THE STOLEN" DOG. 



A gentleman had a good shepherd dog which 

 could do almost everything except talk. If 

 every boy and girl were as faithful to perform 

 every duty, the world would be a great gainer. 

 One day a drover bought a flock of sheets of 

 Coly's master, and bade Coly go along and 



help the man drive them. It was thirty miles 

 to the man's home, and he was requested when 

 he got there to feed the dog and bid him to go 

 home. It would have taken a good many 

 smart men and boys to have kept the flock in 

 as good order in that long mai'ch as that one 

 faithful driver. The man was so pleased with 

 his skill, that he made up his mind to keep the 

 dog. He was to leave the country soon, so he 

 shut him up and tried to win his heart away 

 from his old master. But his advances met 

 with no response. He ate the nice food given 

 him like a sensible dog, but he watched his 

 chances of escape as keen as if he had been a 

 prisoner of war at Richmond. But for days 

 he was unsuccessful. 



At last, however, a chance occurred, and he 

 was not slow to improve it. 



"That fellow ti'ied to steal me,'' he reasoned, 

 "and I shouldn't wonder if he meant to steal 

 all those sheep, too. I'll just gather them all 

 up and take them home to my master." 



So to work he went, and managed to find, or 

 make, an opening out into the highway, and 

 then marched them all off in the dead of night 

 like any other fugitives. What was the sur- 

 prise of his old master to see him come home 

 with his flock after so long an absence ! He 

 was certainly too honest a dog to enter into 

 partnership with a thief. — Merry's Museum. 



