Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/102

Rh and breathed through it, as I have seen some people doing, I would have been more comfortable, but dogs always like to breathe through their noses.

"You have taken more cold," said Miss Laura, this night, as she put my plate of food on the floor for me.

"Finish your meat, and then come and sit by the fire with me. What! do you want more?" I gave a little bark, so she filled my plate for the second time. Miss Laura never allowed any one to meddle with us when we were eating. One day she found Willie teasing me by snatching at a bone that I was gnawing. "Willie," she said, "what would you do if you were just sitting down to the table feeling very hungry, and just as you began to eat your meat and potatoes, I would come along and snatch the plate from you?"

"I don't know what I'd do" he said, laughingly; "but I'd want to wallop you."

"Well," she said, "I'm afraid that Joe will 'wallop' you some day if you worry him about his food, for even a gentle dog will sometimes snap at any one who disturbs him at his meals; so you had better not try his patience too far." Willie never teased me after that, and I was very glad, for two or three times I had been tempted to snarl at him.

After I finished my tea, I followed Miss Laura upstairs. She took up a book and sat down in a low chair, and I lay down on the hearth rug beside her.

"Do you know, Joe," she said with a smile, "why you scratch with your paws when you lie down, as if to make yourself a hollow bed, and turn around a great many times before you lie down?" Of course I did not know, so I only stared at her.