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“Say, Ben, you give him to me if your grandfather won’t let you keep him,” he had whispered, with a nudge. “Father said I might have a dog soon as there was a good chance, and Mr. Dyer won’t want it back. He’s giv away all but this, and he wants to get rid of ’em. They’re common kind of dogs, anyhow. I heard him say so.”

Benjamin had looked at him stiffly. “Oh, I guess grandsir’ll let me keep this puppy, he’s such a smart one,” he had answered, with dignity.

“Well, you ask him, and if he won’t, I’ll take him,” said Sammy.

But Benjamin had not asked his grandfather. He had not had courage to run the risk. He had waited the three weeks which the store-keeper had said must elapse before the little dog could leave its mother, and then had gone over to the village and brought it home, without a word to any one, trusting to the puppy’s own attractions to plead for it. It had seemed to Benjamin that nobody could resist that puppy. But Grandfather Wellman had all his life preferred cats to dogs, and now he was childishly fond of Seventoes. Benjamin’s mother often said that she didn’t know what grandsir would do if anything happened to Seventoes.

Benjamin, going out of the yard with the puppy under his arm, could see Seventoes sitting on the shed roof. That and the ledge of the old well behind the barn were his favorite perches. Grandfather Wellman thought he chose them because he was so afraid of dogs. Benjamin looked at him, and wished Caesar was big enough to shake him. He had named the puppy Caesar on his way home from the village. There was a great mastiff over there by the same name. Benjamin had always admired this big Caesar, and now thought he would name his dog after him. It was the same principle reduced on which Benjamin himself had been named after Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin trudged down the road, kicking up the dust with his toes. That was something he had been told not to do, so now in this state of mind he liked to do it. The sun beat down fiercely upon his small red cropped head in the burned straw-hat, and his slender shoulders in the calico blouse. The puppy was large and fat for his age, and made his arms ache. The stone-walls on both sides of the road were hidden with wild-rose and meadowsweet bushes; the fields were dotted with hay-makers; now and then a loaded hay-cart loomed up in the road. Many boys no older than Benjamin had to work hard in the hay-fields, but Grandfather Wellman was too careful of him; he would not let him work much in vacation; he had never been considered very strong. But Benjamin did not think of that. One grievance will outweigh a hundred benefits. He hugged the struggling puppy tight in his arms and trudged on painfully, brooding over his wrongs.

He muttered to himself as he went, “Wanted a dog ever since I was born. All the other boys have got ’em. ‘Ain’t never had nothing but an old cat. Sha’n’t never have a chance to get such a dog as this again. Wish something would happen to that old cat; shouldn’t care a mite.” He stubbed more fiercely into the dust, and it flew higher; a squirrel ran across the road, and he looked at it with an indifferent scowl.

When he reached Sammy Tucker’s house he saw Sammy out in the great north yard raking hay with his father. Sammy looked up and saw Benjamin coming.

“Holloa!” he sang out, eagerly. Then he dropped his rake and raced into the road. His black eyes winked fast with excitement. “Say, won’t he let you keep him, Ben?” he cried.

“No; he won’t let me keep nothing.”

“Going to let me have him, then?”