Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. VVarious
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. V
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
The best dog-story--though there are a number of best stories of this
honest fellow--we fear is an old one; but we can not forbear telling
it, for the benefit of those who may not have met with it before. A
surgeon found a poor dog, with his leg broken. He took him home, set
it, and in due time gave him his liberty. Off he ran. Some months
afterward the surgeon was awoke in the night by a dog barking loudly
at his door. As the barking continued, and the surgeon thought he
recognized the voice, he got up, and went down stairs. When he opened
the door, there stood his former patient, wagging his tail, and by his
side another dog--a friend whom he had brought--who had also had the
misfortune to get a leg broken. There is another dog-story of a
different kind, told by Mr. Jenyns, which we think very amusing. A
poodle, belonging to a gentleman in Cheshire, was in the habit of
going to church with his master, and sitting with him in the pew
during the whole service. Sometimes his master did not come; but this
did not prevent the poodle, who always presented himself in good time,
entered the pew, and remained sitting there alone: departing with the
rest of the congregation. One Sunday, the dam at the head of a lake in
the neighborhood gave way, and the whole road was inundated. The
congregation was therefore reduced to a few individuals, who came from
cottages close at hand. Nevertheless, by the time the clergyman had
commenced reading the Psalms, he saw his friend the poodle come slowly
up the aisle, dripping with water: having been obliged to swim above a
quarter of a mile to get to church. He went into his pew, as usual,
and remained quietly there to the end of the service. This is told on
the authority of the clergyman himself.
A hungry jackdaw once took a fancy to a young chicken which had only
recently been hatched. He pounced upon it accordingly, and was
carrying it off, when the hen rushed upon him, and beat him with her
wings, and held him in her beak, until the cock came up, who
immediately attacked the jackdaw, and struck him so repeatedly that he
was scarcely able to effect his escape by flight. But the best
hen-story is one in Mr. Jenyns' "Observations." A hen was sitting on a
number of eggs to hatch them. An egg was missing every night; yet
nobody could conjecture who had stolen it. One morning, after several
had been lost in this way, the hen was discovered with ruffled
feathers, a bleeding breast, and an inflamed countenance. By the side
of the nest was seen the dead body of a large rat, whose skull had
been fractured--evidently by blows from the beak of the valiant hen,
who could endure the vile act of piracy no longer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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