“Well, let him go.”

“Come here, sir!” Satan bounded toward the tall boy, frisking and trustful and begged again.

“Go home, sir!”

Satan needed no second command.  Without a sound he fled out the barn-yard, and, as he swept under the front gate, a little girl ran out of the front door of the big house and dashed down the steps, shrieking: 

“Saty!  Saty!  Oh, Saty!” But Satan never heard.  On he fled, across the crisp fields, leaped the fence and struck the road, lickety-split! for home, while Dinnie dropped sobbing in the snow.

“Hitch up a horse, quick,” said Uncle Carey, rushing after Dinnie and taking her up in his arms.  Ten minutes later, Uncle Carey and Dinnie, both warmly bundled up, were after flying Satan.  They never caught him until they reached the hill on the outskirts of town, where was the kennel of the kind-hearted people who were giving painless death to Satan’s four-footed kind, and where they saw him stop and turn from the road.  There was divine providence in Satan’s flight for one little dog that Christmas morning; for Uncle Carey saw the old drunkard staggering down the road without his little companion, and a moment later, both he and Dinnie saw Satan nosing a little yellow cur between the palings.  Uncle Carey knew the little cur, and While Dinnie was shrieking for Satan, he was saying under his breath: 

“Well, I swear!—­I swear!—­I swear!” And while the big man who came to the door was putting Satan into Dinnie’s arms, he said sharply: 

“Who brought that yellow dog here?” The man pointed to the old drunkard’s figure turning a corner at the foot of the hill.

“I thought so; I thought so.  He sold him to you for—­for a drink of whiskey.”

The man whistled.

“Bring him out.  I’ll pay his license.”

So back went Satan and the little cur to Grandmother Dean’s—­and Dinnie cried when Uncle Carey told her why he was taking the little cur along.  With her own hands she put Satan’s old collar on the little brute, took him to the kitchen, and fed him first of all.  Then she went into the breakfast-room.

“Uncle Billy,” she said severely, “didn’t I tell you not to let Saty out?”

“Yes, Miss Dinnie,” said the old butler.

“Didn’t I tell you I was goin’ to whoop you if you let Saty out?”

“Yes, Miss Dinnie.”

Miss Dinnie pulled forth from her Christmas treasures a toy riding-whip and the old darky’s eyes began to roll in mock terror.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Billy, but I des got to whoop you a little.”

“Let Uncle Billy off, Dinnie,” said Uncle Carey, “this is Christmas.”

“All wite,” said Dinnie, and she turned to Satan.

In his shining new collar and innocent as a cherub, Satan sat on the hearth begging for his breakfast.

A NEST-EGG

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY