Bruno

“I’ll make you come,” said Lorenzo. So he took hold of him by the neck and the ears, and began to pull him. Bruno uttered a low growl.

“Oh, dear me!” said Lorenzo, “what shall I do?”

In fact, he was beginning to grow desperate. So he looked about among the bushes for a stick, and when he had found one sufficient for his purpose, he came to Bruno, and said, in a very stern voice,

“Now, Bruno, go home!”

Bruno did not move.

“Bruno,” repeated Lorenzo, in a thundering voice, and brandishing his stick over Bruno’s head, “

GO HOME!”

Bruno, afraid of being beaten with the stick, jumped up, and ran off into the bushes. Lorenzo followed him, and attempted to drive him toward the path that led toward home. But he could accomplish nothing. The dog darted to and fro in the thickets, keeping well out of the way of Lorenzo’s stick, but evincing a most obstinate determination not to go home. On the contrary, in all his dodgings to and fro, he took care to keep as near as possible to the spot where the bowl was buried.

Lorenzo goes home.

At last Lorenzo gave up in despair, and concluded to go back to the house, and wait till his father got home.

The search for the bowl.

His father returned about the middle of the afternoon, and Lorenzo immediately told him of the double loss which he had met with. He explained all the circumstances connected with the loss of the bowl, and described Bruno’s strange behavior. His father listened in silence. He immediately suspected that the gipsies had taken the bowl, and that Bruno had traced it to them. So he sent for some officers and a warrant, and went to the camp.

The bowl found.

As soon as Bruno saw the men coming, he seemed to be overjoyed. He jumped up, and ran to meet them, and then, running back to the camp again, he barked, and leaped about in great excitement. The men followed him, and he led them round behind the hut, and there he began digging into the ground with his paws. The men took a shovel which was there, one belonging to the gipsies, and began to dig. In a short time they came to a flat stone, and, on taking up the stone, they found the bowl under it.

Pursuing Murphy.

Bruno seemed overjoyed. He leaped and jumped about for a minute or two when he saw the bowl come out from its hiding-place, and raced round and round the man who held the bowl, and then ran away home to find Lorenzo. The officers, in the mean time, went off hastily in pursuit of Murphy, who had made his escape while they had been digging up the bowl.

BRUNO AND THE LOST BOY

Bruno was quite a large dog. There are a great many different kinds of dogs. Some are large, others are small. Some are irritable and fierce, others are good-natured and gentle. Some are stout and massive in form, others are slender and delicate. Some are distinguished for their strength, others for their fleetness, and others still for their beauty. Some are very affectionate, others are sagacious, others are playful and cunning. Thus dogs differ from each other not only in form and size, but in their disposition and character as well.

Pointers.

Some dogs are very intelligent, others are less so, and even among intelligent dogs there is a great difference in respect to the modes in which their intelligence manifests itself. Some dogs naturally love the water, and can be taught very easily to swim and dive, and perform other aquatic exploits. Others are afraid of the water, and can never be taught to like it; but they are excellent hunters, and go into the fields with their masters, and find the game. They run to and fro about the field that their master goes into, until they see a bird, and then they stop suddenly, and remain motionless till their master comes and shoots the bird. As soon as they hear the report of the gun, they run to get the game. Sometimes quite small dogs are very intelligent indeed, though of course they have not so much strength as large dogs.

In the above engraving we see several small dogs playing in a parlor. The ladies are amusing themselves with flowers that they are arranging, and the dogs are playing upon the carpet at their feet.

There are three dogs in all. Two of them are playing together near the foreground, on the left. The other is alone.

Bruno was a large dog.

Bruno was a large dog. He was a very large dog indeed. When other dogs were playing around him, he would look down upon them with an air of great condescension and dignity. He was, however, very kind to them. They would jump upon him, and play around him, but he never did them any harm.

Faithfulness.

Bruno was a very faithful dog. In the summer, when the farmer, his master (at a time when he belonged to a farmer), went into the field to his work in the morning, he would sometimes take his dinner with him in a tin pail, and he would put the pail down under a tree by the side of a little brook, and then, pointing to it, would say to Bruno,

Watching.

“Bruno, watch!”

Bruno and his master eating dinner in the fields.

So Bruno would take his place by the side of the pail, and remain there watching faithfully all the morning. Sometimes he would become very hungry before his master came back, but, though he knew that there was meat in the pail, and that there was nothing to cover it but a cloth, he would never touch it. If he was thirsty, he would go down to the brook and drink, turning his head continually as he went, and while he was drinking, to see that no one came near the pail. Then at noon, when his master came for his dinner, Bruno would be rejoiced to see him. He would run out to meet him with great delight. He would then sit down before his master, and look up into his face while he was eating his dinner, and his master would give him pieces of bread and meat from time to time, to reward him for his fidelity.

Bruno was kind and gentle as well as faithful. If any body came through the field while he was watching his master’s dinner, or any thing else that had been intrusted to his charge, he would not, as some fierce and ill-tempered dogs are apt to do, fly at them and bite them at once, but he would wait to see if they were going to pass by peaceably. If they were, he would not molest them. If they came near to whatever he was set to guard, he would growl a little, to give them a gentle warning. If they came nearer still, he would growl louder; but he would never bite them unless they actually attempted to seize and take away his trust. Thus he was considerate and kind as well as faithful.

Fierceness.

Some dogs, though faithful, are very fierce. They are sometimes trained to be fierce when they are employed to watch against thieves, in order that they may attack the thieves furiously. To make them more fierce, their masters never play with them, but keep them chained up near their kennels, and do not give them too much to eat. Wild animals are always more ferocious while hungry.

Here is a picture of a fierce watch-dog, set to watch against thieves. He is kept hungry, in some degree, all the time, to make him more ferocious. He looks hollow and gaunt. There is a pan upon the ground, from which his master feeds him, but he has eaten up all that it contained, and he wants more. This makes him watchful. If he had eaten too much, he would probably now be lying asleep in his kennel. The kennel is a small house, with a door in front, where the dog goes in and out. There is straw upon the floor of the kennel. The dog was lying down upon the floor of his kennel, when he thought he heard a noise. He sprang up from his place, came out of the door, and has now stopped to listen. He is listening and watching very attentively, and is all ready to spring. The thief is coming; we can see him climbing over the gate. He is coming softly. He thinks no one hears. A moment more, and the dog will spring out upon him, and perhaps seize him by the throat, and hold him till men come and take him prisoner.

This dog is chained during the day, but his chain is unhooked at night, so as to leave him at liberty. By day he can do no harm, and yet the children who live in the neighborhood are afraid to go near his kennel, he barks so ferociously when he hears a noise; besides, they think it possible that, by some accident, his chain may get unfastened.

Tiger’s fidelity. His ferocious character.

This dog’s name is Tiger. Bruno was not such a dog as Tiger. He was vigilant and faithful, but then he was gentle and kind.

Bruno’s master, the farmer, had a son named Antonio. That is, his name was properly Antonio, though they commonly called him Tony.

The difference between Antonio and Bruno.

Tony was very different from Bruno in his character. He was as faithless and remiss in all his duties as Bruno was trusty and true. When his father set him at work in the field, instead of remaining, like Bruno, at his post, and discharging his duty, he would take the first opportunity, as soon as his father was out of sight, to go away and play. Sometimes, when Bruno was upon his watch, Tony would attempt to entice him away. He would throw sticks and stones across the brook, and attempt to make Bruno go and fetch them. But Bruno would resist all these temptations, and remain immovable at his post.

It might be supposed that it would be very tiresome for Bruno to remain so many hours lying under a tree, watching a pail, with nothing to do and nothing to amuse him, and that, consequently, he would always endeavor to escape from the duty. We might suppose that, when he saw the farmer’s wife taking down the pail from its shelf, and preparing to put the farmer’s dinner in it, he would immediately run away, and hide himself under the barn, or among the currant-bushes in the garden, or resort to some other scheme to make his escape from such a duty. But, in fact, he used to do exactly the contrary of this. As soon as he saw that his master was preparing to go into the field, he would leap about with great delight. He would run into the house, and take his place by the door of the closet where the tin pail was usually kept. He would stand there until the farmer’s wife came for the pail, and then he would follow her and watch her while she was preparing the dinner and putting it into the pail, and then would run along, with every appearance of satisfaction and joy, by the side of his master, as he went into the field, and finally take his place by the side of the pail, as if he were pleased with the duty, and proud of the trust that was thus committed to him.

Antonio’s expedients to avoid work.

In fact, he was really proud of it. He liked to be employed, and to prove himself useful. With Tony it was the reverse. He adopted all sorts of schemes and maneuvers to avoid the performance of any duty. When he had reason to suppose that any work was to be done in which his aid was to be required, he would take his fishing-line, immediately after breakfast, and steal secretly away out of the back door, and go down to a brook which was near his father’s house, and there – hiding himself in some secluded place among the bushes, where he thought they could not find him – he would sit down upon a stone and go to fishing. If he heard a sound as of his father’s voice calling him, he would make a rustling of the leaves, or some other similar noise, so as to prevent his hearing whether his father was calling to him or not. Thus his father was obliged to do without him. And though his father would reprove him very seriously, when he came home at noon, for thus going away, Tony would pretend that he did not know that his father wanted him, and that he did not hear him when he called.

The plowing.

One evening in the spring, Tony heard his father say that he was going to plow a certain piece of ground the following day, and he supposed that he should be wanted to ride the horse. His father was accustomed to plow such land as that field by means of a yoke of oxen, and a horse in front of them; and by having Tony to ride the horse, he could generally manage to get along without any driver for the oxen, as the oxen in that case had nothing to do but to follow on where the horse led the way. But if Tony was not there to ride the horse, then it was necessary for the farmer to have his man Thomas with him, to drive the horse and the oxen. There was no way, therefore, by which Tony could be so useful to his father as by thus assisting in this work of plowing; for, by so doing, he saved the time of Thomas, who could then be employed the whole day in other fields, planting, or hoeing, or making fence, or doing any other farm-work which at that season of the year required to be done.

Antonio escapes.

Accordingly, when Tony understood that this was the plan of work for the following day, he stole away from the house immediately after breakfast, and ran out into the garden. He had previously put his fishing-line, and other necessary apparatus for fishing, upon a certain bench there was in an arbor. He now took these things, and then went down through the garden to a back gate, which led into a wood beyond. He looked around from time to time as he went on, to see if any one at the house was observing him. He saw no one; so he escaped safely into the wood, without being called back, or even seen.

He felt glad when he found that he had thus made his escape – glad, but not happy. It is quite possible to be glad, and yet to be not at all happy. Tony felt guilty. He knew that he was doing very wrong; and the feeling that we are doing wrong always makes us miserable, whatever may be the pleasure that we seek.

His walk through the wood.

There was a wild and solitary road which led through the wood. Tony went on through this road, with his fishing-pole over his shoulder, and his box of bait in his hand. He wore a frock, like a plowman’s frock, over his dress. It was one which his mother had made for him. This frock was a light and cool garment, and Tony liked to wear it very much.