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Page 17
"'Then Lyda took her place on the table, and did sums on a slate with a
set of figures. Also mental arithmetic which was very pretty. "Now,
Lyda," said her master, "I want to see if you understand division.
Suppose you had ten bits of sugar and you met ten Prussian dogs, how
many lumps would you, a French dog, give to each of the Prussians?"
Lyda very decidedly replied to this with a cipher. "But, suppose you
divided your sugar with me, how many lumps would you give me?" Lyda
took up the figure five and politely presented it to her master.'"
[Illustration: ALFRED TENNYSON BARLOW.]
"Wasn't she smart? Sanch can't do that," exclaimed Ben, forced to own
that the French doggie beat his cherished pet.
"He is not too old to learn. Shall I go on?" asked Miss Celia, seeing
that the boys liked it though Betty was absorbed with the doll and Bab
deep in a puzzle.
"Oh yes! What else did they do?"
"'They played a game of dominoes together, sitting in chairs opposite
each other, and touched the dominoes that were wanted; but the man
placed them and kept telling how the game went, Lyda was beaten and hid
under the sofa, evidently feeling very badly about it. Blanche was
then surrounded with playing-cards, while her master held another pack
and told us to choose a card; then he asked her what one had been
chosen, and she always took up the right one in her teeth. I was asked
to go into another room, put a light on the floor with cards round it,
and leave the doors nearly shut. Then the man begged some one to
whisper in the dog's ear what card she was to bring, and she went at
once and fetched it, thus showing that she understood their names. Lyda
did many tricks with the numbers, so curious that no dog could possibly
understand them, yet what the secret sign was I could not discover, but
suppose it must have been in the tones of the master's voice, for he
certainly made none with either head or hands.'
"It took an hour a day for eighteen months to educate a dog enough to
appear in public, and (as you say, Ben) the night was the best time to
give the lessons. Soon after this visit the master died, and these
wonderful dogs were sold because their mistress did not know how to
exhibit them."
"Wouldn't I have liked to see 'em and find out how they were taught.
Sanch, you'll have to study up lively for I'm not going to have you
beaten by French dogs," said Ben, shaking his finger so sternly that
Sancho groveled at his feet and put both paws over his eyes in the most
abject manner.
"Is there a picture of those smart little poodles?" asked Ben, eying
the book, which Miss Celia left open before her.
"Not of them, but of other interesting creatures; also anecdotes about
horses, which will please you, I know," and she turned the pages for
him, neither guessing how much good Mr. Hamerton's charming "Chapters
on Animals" were to do the boy when he needed comfort for a sorrow
which was very near.
CHAPTER X.
A HEAVY TROUBLE.
"Thank you, ma'am, that's a tip-top book, 'specially the pictures. But
I can't bear to see these poor fellows," and Ben brooded over the fine
etching of the dead and dying horses on a battle-field, one past all
further pain, the other helpless but lifting his head from his dead
master to neigh a farewell to the comrades who go galloping away in a
cloud of dust.
"They ought to stop for him, some of 'em," muttered Ben, hastily
turning back to the cheerful picture of the three happy horses in the
field, standing knee-deep among the grass as they prepare to drink at
the wide stream.
"Aint that black one a beauty? Seems as if I could see his mane blow in
the wind, and hear him whinny to that small feller trotting down to
see if he can't get over and be sociable. How I'd like to take a
rousin' run round that meadow on the whole lot of 'em," and Ben swayed
about in his chair as if he was already doing it in imagination.
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