, when he got tired of lying in one position.

It was raised a little from the ground, and it had a thick layer of
straw over the floor. Above was a broad shelf, wide enough for him to
lie on, and covered with an old catskin sleigh robe. Jim always slept
here in cold weather, because it was farther away from the ground.

To return to this December evening. I can remember yet how hungry I was.
I could scarcely lie still till Miss Laura finished her tea. Mrs.
Morris, knowing that her boys would be very hungry, had Mary broil some
beefsteak and roast some potatoes for them; and didn't they smell good!

They ate all the steak and potatoes. It didn't matter to me, for I
wouldn't have gotten any if they had been left. Mrs. Morris could not
afford to give to the dogs good meat that she had gotten for her
children, so she used to get the butcher to send her liver, and bones,
and tough meat, and Mary cooked them, and made soup and broth, and mixed
porridge with them for us.

We never got meat three times a day. Miss Laura said it was all very
well to feed hunting dogs on meat, but dogs that are kept about a house
get ill if they are fed too well. So we had meat only once a day, and
bread and milk, porridge, or dog biscuits, for our other meals.

I made a dreadful noise when I was eating. Ever since Jenkins cut my
ears off, I had had trouble in breathing. The flaps had kept the wind
and dust from the inside of my ears. Now that they were gone my head was
stuffed up all the time. The cold weather made me worse, and sometimes I
had such trouble to get my breath that it seemed as if I would choke. If
I had opened my mouth, and breathed through it, as I have seen some
people doing, I would have been more comfortable, but dogs always like
to breathe through their noses.

"You have taken more cold," said Miss Laura, this night, as she put my
plate of food on the floor for me. "Finish your meat, and then come and
sit by the fire with me. What! do you want more?"

I gave a little bark, so she filled my plate for the second time. Miss
Laura never allowed any one to meddle with us when we were eating. One
day she found Willie teasing me by snatching at a bone that I was
gnawing. "Willie," she said, "what would you do if you were just sitting
down to the table feeling very hungry, and just as you began to eat your
meat and potatoes, I would come along and snatch the plate from you?"

"I don't know what I'd _do_" he said, laughingly;