Aunt Hannah and Seth

Excerpt

CHAPTER I.

AN ADVERTISEMENT.

A small boy with a tiny white dog in his arms stood near the New York approach to the Brooklyn Bridge on a certain June morning not many years since, gazing doubtfully at the living tide which flowed past him, as if questioning whether it might be safe to venture across the street.

Seth Barrows, otherwise known by his acquaintances as Limpy Seth, because of what they were pleased to speak of as "a pair of legs that weren't mates," was by no means dismayed by the bustle and apparent confusion everywhere around him. Such scenes were familiar, he having lived in the city, so far as he knew, from the day of his birth; but, owing to his slight lameness, it was not always a simple matter for him to cross the crowded streets.

"Hi, Limpy!" a shrill voice cried from amid the pedestrians in the distance, and as Seth looked quickly toward the direction from which had come the hail, he noted that a boy with hair of such a vivid hue of red as would attract particular attention from any person within whose range of vision he might come, was frantically trying to force a passage.

Seth stepped back to a partially sheltered position beneath the stairway of the overhead bridge, and awaited the coming of his friend.

"Out swellin', are you?" the boy with the red hair asked, as he finally approached, panting so heavily that it was with difficulty he could speak. "Goin' to give up business?"

"I got rid of my stock quite a while ago, an' counted on givin' Snip a chance to run in the park. The poor little duffer don't have much fun down at Mother Hyde's while I'm workin'."

"You might sell him for a pile of money, Limpy, an' he's a heap of bother for you," the new-comer said reflectively, as he stroked the dog's long, silken hair. "Teddy Dixon says he's got good blood in him——"

"Look here, Tim, do you think I'd sell Snip, no matter how much money I might get for him? Why, he's the only relation I've got in all this world!" and the boy buried his face in the dog's white hair.

"It costs more to keep him than you put out for yourself."

"What of that? He thinks a heap of me, Snip does, an' he'd be as sorry as I would if anything happened to one of us."

"Yes, I reckon you are kind'er stuck on him! It's a pity, Limpy, 'cause you can't hustle same's the rest of us do, an' so don't earn as much money."

"Snip has what milk he needs——"

"An' half the time you feed him by goin' hungry yourself."

"What of that?" Seth cried sharply. "Don't I tell you we two are the only friends each other's got! I'd a good deal rather get along without things than let him go hungry, 'cause he wouldn't know why I couldn't feed him."

"A dog is only a dog, an' that's all you can make out of it. I ain't countin' but that Snip is better'n the general run, 'cause, as Teddy Dixon says, he's blooded; but just the same it don't stand to reason you should treat him like he was as good as you."

"He's a heap better'n I am, Tim Chandler! Snip never did a mean thing in his life, an' he's the same as a whole family to me."

As if understanding that he was the subject of the conversation, the dog pressed his cold nose against the boy's neck, and the latter cried triumphantly:

"There, look at that! If you didn't have any folks, Tim Chandler, an' couldn't get 'round same as other fellers do, don't you reckon his snugglin' up like this would make you love him?"

"He ain't really yours," Tim said after a brief pause, whereat the lame boy cried fiercely:

"What's the reason he ain't? Didn't I find him 'most froze to death more'n a year ago, an' haven't I kept him in good shape ever since? Of course he wasn't mine at first; but I'd like to see the chump who'd dare to say he belonged to anybody else! If you didn't own any more of a home than you could earn sellin' papers, an' if nobody cared the least little bit whether you was cold or hungry, you'd think it was mighty fine to have a chum like Snip....