These compliments pleased Sam and Billy as much as they did the three children to whom they referred, and little Maysie resolved to repeat them to Mother the next time she was reproved for her manners.
As for Jack the Fire-dog, after the arrival of the three city children he spent more time than ever on Mr. Ledwell’s premises. Since he could not be with his old engine and his beloved company, he could feel interest in no other engine; but there were the dear children, and Jack had always been accustomed to the company of children and could not live without them. So by degrees Jack established himself on the Ledwell estate, and from sleeping there on extremely hot nights came to sleep there every night. It was very pleasant sleeping under the large elms, with the sea-breezes wafted to him, or on cool nights, in the roomy stable, where he could smell the sweet hay overhead and hear the bull pups nestling in their sleep in their box from the room beyond; for the mother of the pups had become reconciled to Jack since he had no intention of hurting her babies, and even allowed him to play with them, now they had grown large and strong.
It was a very fortunate thing for the pups and their mother and the horses and every one on the place, too, that Jack had seen fit to take up his abode on the premises—but we will tell what happened.
One night when the man whose duty it was to close the stable was about to lock up, he caught sight of Jack lying under the large elm-tree in front of the stable.
“‘Twill be cold, old boy, before morning,” he said to Jack as he held the door open, “and I advise you to come inside.”
Jack had been thinking the same thing himself, so he got up and went in to his bed in the harness-room. The heavy door was rolled to and locked, and the man went upstairs to his room on the floor above.
A night-watchman is usually employed where valuable horses are kept, and usually there was one on Mr. Ledwell’s place, but for the past two nights he had been at his home ill from a cold, and the premises were left unguarded.
Jack curled up in his comfortable bed, listening for a while to the heavy steps of the men overhead, the occasional stamping from the horses’ stalls, or the rattling of their halter chains against their iron mangers; to the occasional nestling of the pups as they stirred in their sleep and crowded one another in their attempts to obtain more room; to the rising wind that shook the drooping boughs of the big elm outside. It was very pleasant to listen to these sounds from his comfortable bed in the harness-room, and, while listening to them, Jack fell asleep. He had acquired the habit of sleeping with one ear open during his old life in the engine-house, and the habit was so firmly rooted that it would never leave him. This night he awoke every few minutes, starting at every sound. Once he jumped to his feet, dreaming that he was in the old engine-house, and that the gong had just struck.
