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"Poor dog!" said he, "I don't want to disturb you, I wouldn't burn your house down for the world. You and I are somewhat alike. And see how the poor dog whines now! He seems glad that I won't hurt him. Perhaps the dog knows me! Wonder if he's heard my thoughts! Dogs, they say, are knowing." And then a rooster on the beam overhead crowed, and the hens rustled as though disturbed; and another dog in the neighborhood set up a piteous, moaning bark. Jims was startled. He cast the match into the snow, and pulling his cap over his face, and his loose roundabout closely to his body, rushed out into the open air, and as fast as possible made his way to the poor-house.

Arrived there, he threw himself panting on the rude bed in the kitchen, by the side of Bill, and rolling himself all up that no body might see him, after a long, long time, in which he vowed he would never do anything so wicked again if he lived a thousand years, he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIII.
FIRE. Water is the natural element with which to oppose fire. The circumstances must be quite unfavorable, therefore, when it remains unextinguished even in the presence of this agent.

"What do yon think the town of Crampton 's coming to, when a poor tax of two per cent. isn't enough to keep the paupers, eh?" inquired Mr. George Shire of his neighbors, Mr. Peter Newcombe and Timothy Smith.

"For my part," said Mr. Newcombe, "I say it's a plaguy shame. If two per cent, on the grand list of Crampton ain't enough to support the wretches, let them get their living elsewhere, or beg or starve -- two per cent.! Why that's enough to buy a farm. It raises eight hundred dollars, and I regard it all as about so much thrown away."

"Yes," said Mr. Smith, "all them folks down thar is a pack of scamps. They's had good times once, and now 'cause they're poor the town of Crampton must jest fork over and pay expenses. It's darned hard for poor and honest citizens to pull out their own eye teeth for sich stuff."

"Well, they say," continued Shire, "that we've got to come to it and pay more."

"Who says so?" inquired Smith.

"There's Haddock, you know" --

"Haddock! Go to thunder," said Newcombe.

"Haddock and Phillips are always grumbling," said Smith.

"The women are wide awake, they say," said Shire.

"Blast the women, I say," said Newcombe.

"They're always meddling about things they don't understand," said Smith. "But I can tell you of one woman who don't go for more charity to paupers, that's Mrs. Smith."

"Good!" said Newcombe. "But my wife has got indoctrinated some how or other, and thinks it's a sin (!) to show charity to any body else under the sun before we look out for our own poor."

"Pshaw! pshaw! Got that notion at the sewing society. These sewing societies, I begin to think, are bad things," said Shire. "They lead the women to 'go it blind' into benevolence, and if any body says a word to the contrary, why he's little better than an infidel, even if he belongs to the church."

"You can't get along now-a-days," said Smith, "without running every thing into religion. The minister and the church take it up. I shouldn't wonder if our minister got hold of this thing next, and went to preaching on it."

"Why, he has already got hold of it," said Shire, "my wife tells me that he and Squire Ben had the warmest talk on it, at the sewing society there, she ever heard."

"Well, ministers had better let such things alone," said Newcombe. "What business is it to them?"

"It ain't gospel preaching," said the other, "to find fault with the town about paupers, ha! ha! ha!"

(ALL.) "Ha! ha! ha!'

"No, by thunder," said Smith. "Guess he's a man of too much sense, to bring it into the pulpit, any how."

"If he does bring it into the pulpit, my word for't the town won't stand it," said Shire. "I kept the poor one year myself, you know? Glad enough, was I to get rid of them. They're a squalid, dirty, profane, drunken, broken-down set of old c---s, as ever trod the face of the earth. As for deserving more help and a world of pity, now I know better. And I'm the last man that'll vote another cent to keep them."

"I'm another," said Smith.

"And I, ditto," said Newcombe.

"There goes that little scamp, Jims Tucker," said Shire. "He's off now on some plundering excursion, I'll bet you a dollar. Hulloa! Jims. How goes the times at Captain Bunce's, eh?"

Jims, a poorly dressed tall boy of twelve years of age, with a slouching hat, and a hanging look about him, drew up at this address, and feeing Mr. Shire, looked him straight in the eye, and answered, "First rate, sir, got a flogging this morning."

"Got a flogging, did you, what's that for, eh?"

"Oh, for grumbling and sauce."

"Then you think you deserved it, eh? Well, it's half to own up, Jims. Who flogged you?"'

"Well, Captain Bunce ended it."

"'Ended it,' who began it, pray?"

"Mistress Bunce herself, said she'd teach me to hook chickens, ha! ha! ha! good."

'"Hook chickens?'"

"Yes-- Why?"

"You don't steal chickens, I hope?"