m: and though it was only "in words
of three letters," this brief chapter contained a terrible story, and an
excellent moral, which I remember well even now.

It was called "The Dog."

"Why do you cry? The Dog has bit my leg. Why did he do so? I had my bat
and I hit him as he lay on the mat, so he ran at me and bit my leg. Ah,
you may not use the bat if you hit the Dog. It is a hot day, and the Dog
may go mad. One day a Dog bit a boy in the arm, and the boy had his arm
cut off, for the Dog was mad. And did the boy die? Yes, he did die in a
day or two. It is not fit to hit a Dog if he lie on the mat and is not a
bad Dog. Do not hit a Dog, or a cat, or a boy."

Jem not only got through this lesson much better than usual, but he
lingered at my mother's knees, to point with his own little stumpy
forefinger to each recurrence of the words "hit a Dog," and read them
all by himself.

"_Very_ good boy," said Mother, who was much pleased. "And now read this
last sentence once more, and very nicely."

"Do--not--hit--a--dog--or--a--cat--or--a--boy," read Jem in a high
sing-song, and with a face of blank indifference, and then with a hasty
dog's-ear he turned back to the previous page, and spelled out, "I had
my bat and I hit him as he lay on the mat" so well, that my mother
caught him to her bosom and covered him with kisses.

"He'll be as good a scholar as Jack yet!" she exclaimed. "But don't
forget, my darling, that my Jem must never 'hit a dog, or a cat, or a
boy.' Now, love, you may put the book away."

Jem stuck out his lips and looked down, and hesitated. He seemed almost
disposed to go on with his lessons. But he changed his mind, and
shutting the book with a bang, he scampered off. As he passed the
ottoman near the door, he saw Kitty, our old tortoise-shell puss, lying
on it, and (moved perhaps by the occurrence of the word _cat_ in the
last sentence of the lesson) he gave her such a whack with the flat side
of _Chick-seed_ that she bounced up into the air like a sky-rocket, Jem
crying out as he did so, "I had my bat, and I hit him as he lay on the
mat."

It was seldom enough that Jem got anything by heart, but he had
certainly learned this; for when an hour later I went to look for him in
the garden, I found him panting with the exertion of having laid my
nice, thick, fresh green crop of mustard and cress flat with the back of
the coal-shovel, which he could barely lift, but with which he was still
battering my