ly and enviously. When
Benjamin had mentioned hesitatingly his doubts about his grandfather,
Sammy had pricked up his ears.

"Say, Ben, you give him to me if your grandfather won't let you keep
him," he had whispered, with a nudge. "Father said I might have a dog
soon as there was a good chance, and Mr. Dyer won't want it back. He's
giv away all but this, and he wants to get rid of 'em. They're common
kind of dogs, anyhow. I heard him say so."

Benjamin had looked at him stiffly. "Oh, I guess grandsir'll let me keep
this puppy, he's such a smart one," he had answered, with dignity.

"Well, you ask him, and if he won't, I'll take him," said Sammy.

But Benjamin had not asked his grandfather. He had not had courage to
run the risk. He had waited the three weeks which the store-keeper had
said must elapse before the little dog could leave its mother, and then
had gone over to the village and brought it home, without a word to any
one, trusting to the puppy's own attractions to plead for it. It had
seemed to Benjamin that nobody could resist that puppy. But Grandfather
Wellman had all his life preferred cats to dogs, and now he was
childishly fond of Seventoes. Benjamin's mother often said that she
didn't know what grandsir would do if anything happened to Seventoes.

Benjamin, going out of the yard with the puppy under his arm, could see
Seventoes sitting on the shed roof. That and the ledge of the old well
behind the barn were his favorite perches. Grandfather Wellman thought
he chose them because he was so afraid of dogs. Benjamin looked at him,
and wished Caesar was big enough to shake him. He had named the puppy
Caesar on his way home from the village. There was a great mastiff over
there by the same name. Benjamin had always admired this big Caesar, and
now thought he would name his dog after him. It was the same principle
reduced on which Benjamin himself had been named after Benjamin
Franklin.

Benjamin trudged down the road, kicking up the dust with his toes. That
was something he had been told not to do, so now in this state of mind
he liked to do it. The sun beat down fiercely upon his small red cropped
head in the burned straw-hat, and his slender shoulders in the calico
blouse. The puppy was large and fat for his age, and made his arms ache.
The stone-walls on both sides of the road were hidden with wild-rose and
meadowsweet bushes; the fields were dotted with hay-makers; now and then
a loaded hay-cart lo