“Oh, look at that dog! Let’s throw a stone at him!”
Don looked around quickly to see who had spoken. He saw two boys standing at the corner, near where that good smell of meat came from, for which Don was so hungry. One of the boys had stooped to pick up a stone.
“Come on, Bill,” said this boy. “Get yourself a stone and we’ll see who of us can hit that dog first.”
“Oh, I don’t want to,” answered the other boy. “What’s the good of hitting him?”
“No, I don’t want to. What’s the use of hurting a dog? I like dogs. I wonder if I could take that one home with me?”
Don had two kinds of feelings just then. One was sort of an angry feeling at the boy who wanted to throw a stone at him, and the other feeling was a kind, glad one, toward the other boy.
“That boy looks something like my little master, Bob,” thought Don. “I’d like to go to him, for I think he would give me something to eat. And oh! how hungry I am.”
Don wagged his tail. This was for the good boy. Then Don growled, the least little bit. That was for the bad boy. It was as if Don had said to the good boy:
“I like you. I want to be friends with you. You and I can have good times together.”
And when Don growled, it was as though he had said to the bad boy:
“Come now! None of that――no throwing of stones. That isn’t nice. I can’t be friends with you if you throw stones at me.”
Of course neither of the boys understood Don’s kind of talk. The dog was just going to go closer to the boy who did not want to throw a stone at him, when, all of a sudden the “bad” boy, as I call him, threw the piece of rock, and it hit Don on the leg.
“Wow! Ouch! Yelp!” cried poor Don, as he limped away.
“Ha! Ha!” laughed the boy who had thrown the stone. “Look at him go! I knew I could make him run!”
“Aw, what’d you want to go and do that for?” asked the other boy, quickly. “Now I can’t get him.”
“Well, he wasn’t much good,” spoke the boy who had thrown the stone. “Let him go.”
“Guess I’ll have to,” said the good boy. “But I wish you hadn’t hit him.”
“So do I,” thought Don, who heard this talk as he limped away. “I don’t see why he wanted to throw a stone at me.”
And I do not see why myself, except that some boys do things without thinking. I do not believe boys ever want really to be cruel and mean, as they are when they stone dogs and cats. It is just that they do not think.