Bruno

About midnight he heard a sound. He raised his head and listened. It seemed like the sound of footsteps going through the yard. He started up, and put his head close to the door. He heard the footsteps going up close to the house. He began to bark very loud and violently. The robbers opened the door with a false key, and went into the house. Bruno barked louder and louder. He crowded hard against the door, trying to get it open. He moaned and whined, and then barked again louder than ever.

Lorenzo came to the window.

“Bruno,” said he, “what a plague you are! Lie down, and go to sleep.”

Bruno, hearing Lorenzo’s voice, barked again with all the energy that he possessed.

“Bruno,” said Lorenzo, very sternly, “if you don’t lie down and be still, to-morrow night I’ll tie your mouth up.”

Murphy was now in the house, and all was still. He had got the silver bowl, and was waiting for Lorenzo to go to bed. Bruno listened attentively, but not hearing any more sounds, ceased to bark. Presently Lorenzo went away from the window back to his bed, and lay down. Bruno watched some time longer, and then he went and lay down too.

In about half an hour, Murphy began slowly and stealthily to creep out of the house. He walked on tiptoe. For a time he made no noise. He had the bowl in one hand, and his shoes in the other. He had taken off his shoes, so as not to make any noise in walking. Bruno heard him, however, as he was going by, and, starting up, he began to bark again. But Murphy hastened on, and the yard was accordingly soon entirely still. Bruno listened a long time, but, hearing no more noise, he finally lay down again in his corner as before.

What could be the reason that the poison failed?

Murphy crept away into the thicket, and so went home to his encampment, wondering why Bruno had not been killed by the poison.

“I put in poison enough,” said he to himself, “for half a dozen dogs. What could be the reason it did not take effect?”

When the people of the house came down into the kitchen the next morning, they found that the door was wide open, and the silver bowl was gone.

What became of the silver bowl will be related in another story. I will only add here that gipsies have various other modes of obtaining money dishonestly besides stealing. One of these modes is by pretending to tell fortunes. Here is a picture of a gipsy endeavoring to persuade an innocent country boy to have his fortune told. She wishes him to give her some money. The boy wears a frock. He is dressed very neatly. He looks as if he were half persuaded to give the gipsy his money. He might, however, just as well throw it away.

THE SILVER BOWL RECOVERED

On the night when Lorenzo’s silver bowl was stolen by the gipsy, all the family, except Lorenzo, were asleep, and none of them knew aught about the theft which had been committed until the following morning. Lorenzo got up that morning before any body else in the house, as was his usual custom, and, when he was dressed, he looked out at the window.

“Ah!” said he, “now I recollect; Bruno is fastened up in his house. I will go the first thing and let him out.”

Lorenzo discovers the open door.

So Lorenzo hastened down stairs into the kitchen, in order to go out into the yard. He was surprised, when he got there, to find the kitchen door open.

“Ah!” said he to himself, “how came this door open? I did not know that any body was up. It must be that Almira is up, and has gone out to get a pail of water.”

He releases Bruno.

Lorenzo went out to Bruno’s house, and took down the board by which he had fastened the door. Then he opened the door. The moment that the door was opened Bruno sprang out. He was very glad to be released from his imprisonment. He leaped up about Lorenzo’s knees a little at first, to express his joy, and then ran off, and began smelling about the yard.

Bruno’s mysterious behavior.

He found the traces of Murphy’s steps, and, as soon as he perceived them, he began to bark. He followed them to the kitchen door, and thence into the house, barking all the time, and looking very much excited.

“Bruno,” said Lorenzo, “what is the matter with you?”

Bruno went to the door of the closet where the bowl had been kept. The door was open a little way. Bruno insinuated his nose into the crevice, and so pushing the door open, he went in. As soon as he was in he began to bark again.

“Bruno!” exclaimed Lorenzo, “what is the matter with you?”

Bruno looked up on the shelf where the bowl was usually placed, and barked louder than ever.

“Where’s my bowl?” exclaimed Lorenzo, looking at the vacant place, and beginning to feel alarmed. “Where’s my bowl?”

He spoke in a tone of great astonishment and alarm. He looked about on all the shelves; the bowl was nowhere to be seen.

“Where can my bowl be gone to?” said he, more and more frightened. He went out of the closet into the kitchen, and looked all about there for his bowl. Of course, his search was vain. Bruno followed him all the time, barking incessantly, and looking up very eagerly into Lorenzo’s face with an appearance of great excitement.

“Bruno,” said Lorenzo, “you know something about it, I am sure, if you could only tell.”

The wind-mill.

Lorenzo, however, did not yet suspect that his bowl had been stolen. He presumed that his mother had put it away in some other place, and that, when she came down, it would readily be found again. So he went out into the yard, and sat on a stone step, and went to work to finish a wind-mill he had begun the day before.

Lorenzo’s mother explains the mystery.

By-and-by his mother came down; and as soon as she had heard Lorenzo’s story about the bowl, and learned, too, that the outer door had been found open when Lorenzo first came down stairs, she immediately expressed the opinion that the bowl had been stolen.

“Some thief has been breaking into the house,” said she, “I’ve no doubt, and has stolen it.”

“Stolen it!” exclaimed Lorenzo.

“Yes,” replied his mother; “I’ve no doubt of it.”

So saying, she went into the closet again, to see if she could discover any traces of the thieves there. But she could not. Every thing seemed to have remained undisturbed, just as she had left it the night before, except that the bowl was missing.

“Somebody has been in and stolen it,” said she, “most assuredly.”

Bruno, who had followed Lorenzo and his mother into the room, was standing up at this time upon his hind legs, with his paws upon the edge of the shelf, and he now began to bark loudly, by way of expressing his concurrence in this opinion.

“Seek him, Bruno!”

“Seize him, Bruno!” said Lorenzo. “Seize him!”

Bruno, on hearing this command, began smelling about the floor, and barking more eagerly than ever.

“Bruno smells his tracks, I verily believe,” said Lorenzo, speaking to his mother. Then, addressing Bruno again, he clapped his hands together and pointed to the ground, saying,

“Go seek him, Bruno! seek him!”

Bruno departs upon his errand.

Bruno began immediately to follow the scent of Murphy’s footsteps along the floor, out from the closet into the kitchen, and from the kitchen into the yard; he ran along the path a little way, and then made a wide circuit over the grass, at a place where Murphy had gone round to get as far as possible away from Bruno’s house. He then came back into the path again, smelling as he ran, and thence passed out through the gate; here, keeping his nose still close to the ground, he went on faster and faster, until he entered the thicket and disappeared.

Lorenzo did not pay particular attention to these motions. He had given Bruno the order, “Seek him!” rather from habit than any thing else, and without any idea that Bruno would really follow the tracks of the thief. Accordingly, when Bruno ran off down the yard, he imagined that he had gone away somewhere to play a little while, and that he would soon come back.

“He’ll be sure to come back pretty soon,” said he, “to get his breakfast.”

But Bruno did not come back to breakfast. Lorenzo waited an hour after breakfast, and still he did not come.