Carolyn of the Corners Part 15

"Miss Minnie," she said breathlessly, "I don't see how you can say Prince is ugly. I think he is _beautiful_! And he is just as kind as he can be!"

She was so hurt and excited because her canine friend was so disliked that she did not even cry one tear! The teacher, remaining well out of reach of the dog, repeated her command.

"Take that dog straight home, and don't let him get in this schoolhouse again! I will not allow the other children to be so frightened."

So Carolyn May's schooldays at The Corners did not begin very happily, after all. She had always loved and been loved by every teacher she had ever had before. But Miss Minnie seemed prejudiced against her because of Prince.

The little girl felt bad about this, but she was of too cheerful a temperament to droop for long under the pressure of any trouble. The other children liked her, and Carolyn May found plenty of playmates. She would never loiter with them, however, in the schoolyard at noon or after school. Instead, she would hurry home and release poor Prince from duress.

It had been found impossible to keep the dog on a chain. He had almost choked himself once, and again had torn his ears getting his collar off.

So the strong chicken coop under the big tree in the back yard which had first been his prison was again his cell while his little mistress was at school.

"Of course," Carolyn May said to Aunty Rose, "we mustn't let poor Princey know it's because of Miss Minnie that he has to be shut up. He might take a dislike to her, just as she has to him; and that would be dreadful! If she'd only let him, I know he'd lie down right outside the schoolroom door while I was inside, and be just as good!"

But Miss Minnie remained obdurate. She did not like any dogs, and in her eyes Prince was especially objectionable.

One of the bigger girls made up a rhyme about Carolyn May and Prince, which began:

"_Car'lyn May had a mongrel dog, Its coat was not white like snow; And everywhere that Car'lyn went That dog was sure to go._

"_It followed her to school one day, Which made Miss Minnie sore; But when Car'lyn tied the mongrel up, It was bound to bark and roar._"

There were many more verses; the big girl was always adding new ones.

"I don't mind it-much," Carolyn May confessed to Aunty Rose, "but I wouldn't like Prince to hear that poetry. His feelings might be hurt."

It was on the last Friday in the month that something happened which quite changed Miss Minnie's att.i.tude towards "that mongrel."

Incidentally, The Corners, as a community, was fully awakened from its lethargy, and, as it chanced, like the Sleeping Beauty and all her retinue, by a Prince.

The school session on Friday afternoons was always shortened. This day Mr. Brady, one of the school trustees, came to review the school and, before he left, to pay Miss Minnie her salary for the month.

Carolyn May had permission from Aunty Rose to go calling that afternoon.

Freda Payne, whom she liked very much, lived up the road beyond the schoolhouse, and she had invited the little city girl to come to see her. Of course, Prince had to be included in the invitation. Freda fully understood that, and Carolyn May took him on his leash.

They saw Miss Minnie at her desk when they went past the schoolhouse.

She was correcting written exercises. Carolyn May secretly hoped that her own was much better than she feared it was.

Not far beyond the schoolhouse Prince began to growl, and the hairs stiffened on his neck.

"Whatever is the matter with you, Prince?" demanded Carolyn May.

In a moment she saw the cause of the dog's continued agitation. A roughly dressed, bewhiskered man sat beside the road eating a lunch out of a newspaper. He leered at Carolyn May and said:

"I guess you got a bad dog there, ain't ye, little girl?"

"Oh, no! He's us'ally very polite," answered Carolyn May. "You _must_ be still, Prince! You see," she explained, "he doesn't like folks to wear old clothes. If-if you had on your Sunday suit, I'm quite sure he would not growl at you."

"He wouldn't, hey?" said the man hoa.r.s.ely, licking his fingers of the last crumbs of his lunch. "An' suppose a feller ain't got no Sunday suit?"

"Why, then, I s'pose Prince wouldn't _ever_ let you come into our yard-if he was loose."

"Don't you let him loose now, little girl," said the fellow, getting up hurriedly, and eyeing the angry dog askance.

"Oh, no, sir. We're going visiting up the road. Come away, Prince. I won't let him touch you," she a.s.sured the man.

The latter seemed rather doubtful of her ability to hold the dog long, and he hobbled away towards the schoolhouse. Prince really objected to leaving the vicinity, and Carolyn May scolded him all the way up the road to Freda's house.

Carolyn May had a very pleasant call-Freda's mother even approved of Prince-and it was an hour before the two started for home. In sight of the schoolhouse Prince gave evidence again of excitement.

"I wonder what is the matter with you now," Carolyn May began, when suddenly she sighted what had evidently so disturbed the dog.

A man was crouching under one of the schoolhouse windows, bobbing up now and then to peer in. It was the man whom they had previously seen beside the road.

"Hush, Prince!" whispered little Carolyn May, holding the dog by the collar.

She, too, could see through the open window. Miss Minnie was still at her desk. She had finished correcting the pupils' papers. Now she had her bag open and was counting the money Mr. Brady had given her.

"O-o-oh!" breathed Carolyn May, clinging to the eager dog's collar.

The man at the window suddenly left his position and slipped around to the door. In a moment he appeared in the schoolroom before the startled teacher.

Miss Minnie screamed. The man, with a rough threat, darted forward to seize her purse.

Just then Carolyn May unsnapped the leash from Prince's collar and let him go.

"Save Miss Minnie, Princey!" she cried after the charging dog.

Prince did not trouble about the door. The open window, through which the tramp had spied upon the schoolmistress, was nearer. He went up the wall and scrambled over the sill with a savage determination that left no doubt whatever in the tramp's mind.

With a yell of terror, the fellow bounded out of the door and tore along the road and through The Corners at a speed never before equalled in that locality by a Knight of the Road.

Prince lost a little time in recovering his footing and again getting on the trail of the fleeing tramp. But he was soon baying the fellow past the blacksmith shop and the store.

The incident called the entire population of The Corners, save the bedridden, to the windows and doors. For once the little, somnolent village awoke, and, as before pointed out, a Prince awoke it.

Hiram Lardner, the blacksmith, declared afterwards that "you could have played checkers on that tramp's coat tails, providin' you could have kep' up with him."

When Prince came back from the chase, however, the tramp's coat tails would never serve as a checkerboard, for the dog bore one of them in his foam-flecked jaws as a souvenir.

CHAPTER X-A SUNDAY WALK

Really, if Prince had been a vain dog, his ego would certainly have become unduly developed because of this incident. The Corners, as a community, voted him an acquisition, whereas heretofore he had been looked upon as a good deal of a nuisance.

After she recovered from her fright, Miss Minnie walked home with Carolyn May and allowed Prince's delighted little mistress to encourage the "hero" to "shake hands with teacher."