retorted. "Anyhow,
we're going to have strawberry shortcake for supper to-night. I heard
your mother say so. And she made a special cake for you."

That news made Johnnie Green look a good deal less gloomy. In fact he
almost smiled.

"I _was_ going to give you that old fishing rod of mine if you'd help
carry in the wood," Farmer Greene went on. "And you _could_ take it now
and go fishing, if you thought you could be home in time for supper."

"Hurrah!" Johnnie Green suddenly jumped up and down. "Hurrah!" he cried.
"And thank you very much!"

And when, an hour later, old Spot came swimming across the creek and
joined Johnnie on the further bank, and shook drops of water all over
his young master, Johnnie Green only patted him and called him a "good
old fellow."

VII

SWIMMING

Old dog Spot liked boys. Somehow they always managed to have a lively
time; and usually they seemed glad to have him join them in their
sports.

He never could understand why Johnnie Green and the neighbors' boys
didn't want him to play baseball with them. Spot loved to chase a ball.
And sometimes when he was watching a game and somebody hit a slow
grounder he would rush out and grab the ball and run with it.

Then all the boys would run after him and try to catch him. That always
pleased Spot mightily. And the longer the chase lasted the happier he
was. But it was different with the boys. The harder they had to run
after Spot before they got the ball away from him the more out of
patience they became.

Whenever Spot took part in a ball game like that Johnnie Green usually
put an end to his fun, for the time being, by tying him to something or
other--perhaps a fence or a tree. But even that was better--so Spot
thought--than being sent home in disgrace.

Luckily there were other sports in which Spot could romp with the boys
as much as he pleased, without anybody's objecting. Nutting in the woods
in the fall; skating on the mill pond or coasting down the long hill
past Farmer Green's house in the winter; berrying in the summer--and
swimming! Those were only a few of the jolly times that Spot and the
boys enjoyed together.

Perhaps, of them all, both Spot and the boys liked swimming the most. As
for Spot, he didn't care _where_ he swam, so long as the water was wet.
Broad Brook, Swift River, Black Creek, or the mill pond--any one of
those places suited him as well as another. The boys, however, preferred
the mill pond. It was