sinecure. From tramps to coyotes and rattlesnakes, he had guarded the household and little ones from many a threatened danger, and bore numerous battle scars from savage animals encountered in the children's path-in one case being frightfully gored by an infuriated cow that bore down upon the toddling baby. Hitched to a sled, he pulled the children to school through the snows of winter, and watched them safely past the frail bridge over a roaring creek in summer-never failing to be at his post when the hour of their return arrived. When in the course of human events one daughter married and went into a remote part of the region, he became the mail carrier to bear notes back and forth from the two homes. From the hour that the first note was tied about his neck with the simple word "Take it to Mamie," he never misunderstood or failed in his mission; and, more wonderful still, being told to wait for an answer, he would settle down on Mamie's stoop till she tied the white scrap about his neck, when he fled like a deer through wood and mead, back to the old home. Sometimes the storm made the creek high and the way beset with difficulties, but the faithful messenger always managed to preserve the note intact. On one occasion the dark hours came before the rural deliverer could make his way through the tangled wood and swollen stream to the daughter's cottage. It happened, too, by one of those cruel turns of fate no creature can account for, that an alarm of mad dogs had that day disturbed the scattered families of the neighborhood, and Mamie and her husband had gone to bed with the terror of them before their eyes. So, when the eager "Towser" leaped on the porch, all wet and muddy, and began his friendly wiggling and wagging against the familiar door, the poor, stupid human creatures within never paused to consider that it might be their own noble friend bearing the home message to them, but, taking him for one of the maddest of the mad dogs in their bewildered minds, shot him through the heart from the cottage window. And there, in the dim light of their lantern, they found him, with the little note about his neck, all safe and dry, though his shaggy fur was dripping with muddy water from the creek and gullies through which he had made his way to them. One affectionate glance of his great, pathetic eyes, he turned upon them, one shiver of pain passed through his shaggy frame and he lay dead at their feet. It would take a Roberts or a Thompson Seton to do justice to tragedies of this kind in the animal world, though the commonness of them might furnish material for many a writer. The mad dog craze, or superstition as some deem it, lies at the bottom of many of them, as when in another instance a master brutally murdered a great noble Newfoundland dog that had just pulled its boy playmate from a near-by stream and rushed home all wet and frothing from the effort, to bring the parents to the shore where their idol lay insensible. Leaping upon the mother in its eagerness, and trying to seize her garments and draw her to the door the father deemed it mad, and with a fearful blow from a club broke its skull. Yet the wounded creature managed to make the poor human maniacs understand his purpose and follow him to the spot where their little one lay in time to save him. And then, while they worked over the child, he crept off into the woods and died. There are no nobler instances of devotion and heroism to be found in all the annals of mankind than stories like this that roll up by the score in the dog's history. It fairly looks as though Stevenson might have gone farther than the fur, in declaring how to tell dog heroes and school heroes apart. But the darkest feature in the case which the stuIdents of it unfold is the one which Nansen notes when he says that this common acceptance of the dog's life service and sacrifice tends to deaden all the better feelings in man. It is a principle which applies to more than the faithful dog in the animal kingdom. The growth of the humane societies, which bespeak protection for all our dumb relations, from horses to birds and butterflies, is one of the most promising signs of the age, where human character is concerned. There is no question that the gentle, peaceful soul of the Oriental is closely related to the tenderness toward all creatures great and small that his faith and philosophy inculcate. And yet the belief that "the soul of his grandam might haply inhabit a bird," as Shakespeare puts it, or the spirit of a lost love float past him on the wings of a butterfly, is no more reason for man's respect for these lesser creatures than the Occidental Christian teaching, that the spirit of the Great Creator breathes through every form of life his wonderful wide universe can show. Whoever gives even a passing study to the marvelous provisions that nature, "which is God," makes for the life and protection of the lower creatures, from the little green worm that matches its leafy coil, to the striped tiger that fits disguisingly into the lights and shades of the jungle, must feel some measure of awe at the mysterious spirit of life and love visible everywhere. Thoreau tells us that the light in the young partridge's eye is something that never began with the bird, but declares itself co-eval with the eternal. Another writer notes how the shades of gray and ruddy brown of its plumage harmonize with the tints of its environment and protect it from the shafts of the cruel hunter. Thus, is it, too, with the little brown thrush that hides itself in the thicket or hedge row, and Sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture It is noted as a significant mark of our leaning to Oriental lines of thought and spirituality that this kindliness toward the animal creation grows more marked and general. It certainly does seem significant that, as in one case mentioned, a business man of a busy Western city should turn aside from the call of trade to have a man arrested for "setting a bulldog on a poor little kitten" and that a municipal court should fine him $50 for the act. But, indeed, the root of the matter lies far back of race lines or distinction in the better heart of humanity, and in that Eden dream of unity and love running through all creation, when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and a little child shall lead them. THE PLACE OF THE HOME IN THE PLAN OF LIFE NOOLS build houses and wise men live in them," said Fo some observing soul before the house-building associations had tempted family men to reverse the proposition. Either way, however, it is wrong. Wise or foolish, to build your own house and live in it is the proper thing. Thus only can you fit it happily to all your follies, or adjust it to the nice requirement of your higher wisdom. Furthermore, thus only can you attach yourself to it in any way to make it other than a pile of brick and mortar, largely devised to tangle your steps and bruise your limbs at night and close about you with more or less prisonlike gloom by day. Of course, this supposes that you put something more than the raw material into the house you build; and, indeed, you do, or you wouldn't build it at all. Plenty of heart and sentiment go into its construction, though you may scorn to admit it, and Gilder's exquisite poem, "How My Chimney Was Builded," will give you countenance for it all. It takes a little time, however, to resolve this part of the business to perfection, but when it is done your house will certainly stand for something not to be computed in dollars and cents. Well may the sage declare that "it is what is done and suffered in the house that has the profoundest interest for us," for, indeed, it is in "the familiar room" that love and death stand waiting to do their utmost, and the most beautiful adventures of life are found. To break the tie and turn from the familiar room, with all its deep and sacred associa |