“‘Beautiful Joe,’ then let it be!” they cried.  “Let us go and tell mother, and ask her to give us something for our beauty to eat.”

They all trooped out of the stable, and I was very sorry, for when they were with me, I did not mind so much the tingling in my ears, and the terrible pain in my back.  They soon brought me some nice food, but I could not touch it; so they went away to their play, and I lay in the box they put me in, trembling with pain, and wishing that the pretty young lady was there, to stroke me with her gentle fingers.

By-and-by it got dark.  The boys finished their play, and went into the house, and I saw lights twinkling in the windows.  I felt lonely and miserable in this strange place.  I would not have gone back to Jenkins’ for the world, still it was the only home I had known, and though I felt that I should be happy here, I had not yet gotten used to the change.  Then the pain all through my body was dreadful.  My head seemed to be on fire, and there were sharp, darting pains up and down my backbone.  I did not dare to howl, lest I should make the big dog, Jim, angry.  He was sleeping in a kennel, out in the yard.

The stable was very quiet.  Up in the loft above, some rabbits that I had heard running about had now gone to sleep.  The guinea pig was nestling in the corner of his box, and the cat and the tame rat had scampered into the house long ago.

At last I could bear the pain no longer, I sat up in my box and looked about me.  I felt as if I was going to die, and, though I was very weak, there was something inside me that made me feel as if I wanted to crawl away somewhere out of sight.  I slunk out into the yard, and along the stable wall, where there was a thick clump of raspberry bushes.  I crept in among them and lay down in the damp earth.  I tried to scratch off my bandages, but they were fastened on too firmly, and I could not do it.  I thought about my poor mother, and wished she was here to lick my sore ears.  Though she was so unhappy herself, she never wanted to see me suffer.  If I had not disobeyed her, I would not now be suffering so much pain.  She had told me again and again not to snap at Jenkins, for it made him worse.

In the midst of my trouble I heard a soft voice calling, “Joe!  Joe!” It was Miss Laura’s voice, but I felt as if there were weights on my paws, and I could not go to her.

“Joe!  Joe!” she said, again.  She was going up the walk to the stable, holding up a lighted lamp in her hand.  She had on a white dress, and I watched her till she disappeared in the stable.  She did not stay long in there.  She came out and stood on the gravel.  “Joe, Joe, Beautiful Joe, where are you?  You are hiding somewhere, but I shall find you.”  Then she came right to the spot where I was.  “Poor doggie,” she said, stooping down and patting me.  “Are you very miserable, and did you crawl away to die?  I have had dogs to do that before, but I am not going to let you die, Joe.”  And she set her lamp on the ground, and took me in her arms.