The Squire sat at a table to give away the prizes, and Mother Evans, who was almost beside herself with delight, stroked and patted me, and led me up to the table with her to receive the first prize.
“Here, my good woman,” said the Squire; and he was just going to hand the watch and the bag of money to the old woman.
“Please, your worship, it isn’t fair!” cried Bill and Andrew. “It isn’t fair! That donkey doesn’t really belong to Mother Evans any more than it does to us! Our donkeys really got in first, not counting this one. The watch and money ought to be ours. It isn’t fair!”
“Did Mrs. Evans pay her quarter into the bag?” said the Squire.
“Well, your worship, she did, but—”
“Did any of you object to her doing so at the time?” asked the Squire.
“Well, no, your worship, but—”
“Did you raise any objection when the donkeys were just going to start?”
“Well, no, sir, but—”
“Very well, then. It’s all perfectly fair, and Mrs. Evans gets the watch and bag of money.”
“Please, sir, it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair! You—”
When I heard this, I at once put my head down on the table, and taking up the watch and bag in my teeth, put them into Mother Evans’s hands. This intelligent action on my part made the people roar with laughter, and won for me thunders of applause.
“There!” said the Squire, “the donkey has decided in favor of Mother Evans; and,” he added, with a smile, looking at Bill and Andrew, “I don’t think he is the biggest donkey present!”
“Bravo, your worship!” “Good for you!” resounded on all sides. And every one began to laugh at Andrew and Bill, who went away looking cross and ill-tempered.
And was I pleased? No, not at all. My pride was hurt. The Squire had been very rude to me; he had actually put men, these stupid men, on a level with an intelligent and right-minded donkey like myself! It was too much! I declined to stay in a place where I was so insulted, and I turned tail and trotted away from such an ignorant set of people.
CHAPTER VI.
Presently I stopped. I was in a meadow. I felt tired and sad. I was just asking myself whether donkeys were not a great deal better than human beings, when a soft little hand touched me, and a soft little voice said:—
“Oh, poor donkey! How thin you are! Perhaps you’ve been badly treated. Come home and see my grandma! She’ll take good care of you.”
I looked round. There stood a nice little boy about five years old; his little sister, who was only three, was running by the side of their nurse.
“What’s that you’re saying, Master Jack?” said the nurse.
“Oh, nursie, I am telling him to come home with us to see grandma.”
“Yes, yes!” cried the little girl, whose name was Janie; “and let me ride on his back. Nurse, up, up!”
The nurse put the little girl on my back, and Jack wanted to lead me, but of course I had no bridle on, so he came up and stroked me softly and whispered in my ear:—
“Gee up, Neddy! Come along, dear Neddy!”
I was so pleased with this little boy’s trusting me, that I at once followed him all the way, occasionally touching his hand with my nose.
“Oh, nurse, nurse—look! He’s kissing me!” cried Jack.
“Nonsense, my dear!” said the nurse. “He does that because he smells the piece of bread you have in your pocket.”
I was so hurt at this unkind remark from the nurse, that I turned my head away all the rest of the time we were going to the house of the children’s grandmamma.
When we got there they left me at the door and ran in, and in a few minutes they returned with a kind-looking, pretty old lady with white hair.
“Look, grandma, isn’t he a dear donkey?” said Jack, clasping his hands. “And oh, grandma, may we keep him?”
“Let me see him closer, my dears,” said the old lady, and she came down and patted me, and felt my ears and put her hand into my mouth. I stood perfectly still, and was very careful not to bite her, even by mistake.
“Well, he does look gentle, my dears,” said the old lady. “Emily,” she added, to the nurse, “tell the coachman to make inquiries to find out to whom he belongs, and if he is not reclaimed, we will keep him, at any rate for the present. Poor creature, how thin and neglected he looks! Jack, go and call Robert; I shall have him put in the stable, with something to eat and drink.”
The stableman came and led me away, and Jack and Janie followed. I had two horses and another donkey for companions in the stable. Robert made me a nice litter of straw to sleep on, and then fetched me a measure of oats.
“Oh, Robert, give him more than that!” cried Jack, “it’s such a little, and Emily says he ran in the village race. He must be so tired and hungry. More, more!”
“But, Master Jack,” said Robert, “if you give him too many oats he will be too lively, and then neither you nor Miss Janie will be able to ride him.”
“Oh, he is such a kind donkey, I’m sure he will go quietly for us. Do, Robert, do please give him some more!”
So Robert gave me another measure of oats, a large pail of water, and some hay. I made an enormous supper, and then lay down on my straw, and slept like a king.
The next day I had nothing to do but to take the children for an hour’s ride. Jack brought me my oats himself, and, paying no heed to what Robert said, he gave me enough for three donkeys of my size. I ate it all up, and was delighted at having so many good things.
But on the third day I felt very ill. My head ached. I had indigestion. I was very feverish. I could eat neither oats nor hay. I couldn’t even get up, and was still lying stretched on my straw when Jack came to see me.
“Why, Neddy is still in bed!” cried Jack. “Get up, Neddy, it is breakfast time. I’ll give you your oats.”
I tried to lift up my head, but it fell heavily back on the straw.
“Oh, he’s ill, Neddy’s ill!” cried Jack, in a great fright. “Robert, quick, quick! Neddy’s very ill!”
“What’s the matter?” said Robert, coming in at the stable door. “I filled his manger early this morning. Ah,” he added, looking at the hay in the manger, which was quite untouched, “there must be something wrong.”
He felt my ears; they were very hot, and my sides were throbbing. He looked serious.
“Oh, what is it? what is it?” cried poor Jack, almost in tears.
“He’s got the fever, Master Jack, from overeating. I told you how it would be if you would give him all those oats. And now we shall have to send for the vet.”
“What’s the vet?” said Jack, looking still more scared.
“The veterinary surgeon, the animals’ doctor,” replied Robert. “You see, Master Jack, I told you not to do it. This poor donkey has lived very poorly all the winter, as any one can see from his thinness and the state of his coat. Then he got very hot in the donkey-race. He ought to have had cool grass to eat and a very few oats, but you gave him as much as he could eat.”
“Oh, poor Neddy, poor Neddy! He’ll die, and it’s all my fault!” and poor little Jack burst out crying.
“Come, Master Jack, he won’t die this time; but we shall have to bleed him and then turn him out to grass.”
Robert sent for the veterinary surgeon, and told Jack to go away. Then he took a lancet, and made a little hole with it in a vein in my neck. It bled, and I began to feel better. My head wasn’t so heavy, and I fetched my breath more easily; I was able to get up. Robert then stopped the bleeding, and in about an hour took me out, and left me in a fresh cool meadow.
I was better, but not yet well, and it was a whole week before I could do anything except rest in the meadow and crop the grass. Jack and Janie took the greatest care of me; they came to see me several times a day. They picked grass for me, so that I shouldn’t have to stoop my head down to get it for myself. They brought me cool juicy lettuce from the kitchen garden, and cabbage-leaves, and carrots; and every evening they came to see me home to my stable, and there filled my manger for my supper with what I liked best of all, potato-peel and salt. Jack wanted to give me his pillow one night, because he thought that my head was too low when I was asleep; and Janie wanted to fetch the counterpane off her bed to cover me up with, and keep me warm. Another day they came and put bits of cotton-wool round my feet, for fear they should get cold. I was quite unhappy at not knowing how to show them my gratitude for such great kindness; but, unfortunately, though I could understand all they said I was unable to say anything myself.
At last I was well again, and with Janie and Jack and some cousins of theirs who also came to stay with their grandmamma, I passed a very happy summer.
CHAPTER VII.
When the summer was nearly over, several of the children’s fathers and mothers came to stay at my mistress’s house, and the next day it was arranged that the gentlemen were to go out partridge shooting. Two of the bigger boys, who were thirteen or fourteen, and whose names were Teddy and Dick, were to be allowed to go shooting with their fathers for the first time, and a gentleman of the neighborhood, with his son Norman, who was nearly fifteen, was also to join the party.
The next morning Teddy and Dick were up before anybody else, and marched proudly about with their guns in their hands, and their game-bags slung across their shoulders, talking of all the game they were going to bring home.
“I say, Teddy,” said Dick, “when our game-bags are quite full, where shall we put the rest of the game we shall shoot?”
“That’s just what I was wondering,” said Teddy. “I know, we’ll put Neddy’s panniers on, and take him with us.”
I didn’t like this at all, because I knew these young sportsmen would fire at everything they saw and would be quite as likely to shoot me as they would a partridge. But there was no help for it, and so when the party assembled at the front door, I was there too, harnessed and ready.
“Bless me!” said Norman’s father, when, after a mile or two, he joined us with his son, “what’s that donkey for?”
“That’s to fetch home the young gentlemen’s game, sir,” said the keeper, touching his hat, with a grin.
The partridges rose in great numbers. I stayed prudently at the rear. The gentlemen and the boys formed a broad line across the field; shots resounded all along the line; the dogs pricked up their ears, watched to see where the game fell, and fetched it in. I kept an eye on those young boasters; I saw them shoot, and shoot, and shoot again, but they never hit anything, not even when the three of them aimed at the same partridge at once, for it only flew all the better. At the end of two hours the gentlemen’s game-bags were full, and those of the boys still empty.
“Dear me!” said one of the gentlemen, as they passed me on the way to a neighboring farmhouse, where they had left their dinner; “are the panniers still empty? Ah, I suppose you have stuffed all your game into your game-bags. My dear boys, if you fill them so full, they’ll burst!” and the gentleman looked at the other sportsmen and laughed.
Dick, Teddy, and Norman got very red, but they said nothing, and presently they were all seated round a capital basket of provisions under a tree,—a chicken-pie, ham, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and cake. The boys were ravenously hungry, and ate enough to frighten the people who passed by.
“Well, boys,” said Norman’s father, “so you’ve not been very lucky. Neddy doesn’t walk as if he were over-burdened with the game you’ve shot.”
“No,” said Norman; “you see, father, we had no dogs to fetch in the partridges we shot. You had all the dogs.”
“Oh, you have shot some, have you? Why didn’t you go and fetch them in yourselves?”
“Well, father, we didn’t see them fall, and so we didn’t know where they were.”
At this all the gentlemen, and even the keepers, roared with laughter, and the boys reddened angrily.
“Well, then, boys,” said Teddy’s father, “we will stay here and rest for an hour, and you shall go with one of the keepers and all our dogs, and see if you have better luck this time in finding the partridges you shoot, but can’t see fall.”
“Oh, how jolly! Thanks, father. Come on, Dick; come on, Norman; now we shall have our bags as full as theirs.”
The gentlemen told the keeper to keep close to the boys, and not let them do anything rash. They started off with the dogs, and I followed some way behind, as usual. The partridges rose in numbers, as they did in the morning; the dogs were on the watch, but they brought in no game, because there was none to bring.
At last Norman grew impatient at having as yet shot nothing, and seeing one of the dogs stop and prick up her ears, he thought a partridge must be just going to rise, and that it would be much easier to shoot it while it was still on the ground than when it was flying. So he took aim and fired.
There was a yell of pain, the dog made a leap into the air, and then rolled over quite dead.
“You stupid fellow!” shouted the keeper, as he ran to the spot, “you’ve shot our very best dog! Here’s a pretty end of your fine sport!”
Norman stood speechless from fright. Dick and Teddy looked scared out of their wits. The keeper restrained his anger, and stood looking at the poor dog without saying another word.
I went up to see who was the unfortunate victim of Norman’s stupid recklessness. Judge of my horror when I recognized my old friend Jenny! I had known Jenny as a puppy, when she lived at the dog fancier’s at the corner of the market to which I used to carry vegetables in bygone days. Poor old Jenny! she and I had been such friends! To think she should have come to this! That wretched, conceited boy!
We turned back towards the farm, a sad procession. The keeper put Jenny’s body into one of my panniers, and walked along by my side; the boys followed, with hanging heads and downcast looks.
The sportsmen were still sitting under the tree, and were surprised when they saw us coming. Seeing that something was wrong, and that one of my panniers was hanging heavily down, they got up and came quickly towards us. The boys hung back; the keeper went forward.
“What have they shot?” asked one of the gentlemen. “Is it a sheep or a calf?”
“It’s nothing to laugh at, sir,” replied the keeper; “it’s our very best dog, Jenny. That young gentleman shot her, thinking she was a partridge.”
“Jenny! Well! Catch me taking boys out shooting again!”
“Come here, Norman,” said his father. “Just see to what a pass your conceit has brought you! Say good-by to your friends, sir, and go straight home at once! You will put your gun in my room, and you will not lay a finger on it again till you have learned to have a more modest opinion of yourself!”
“But, father,” said Norman, trying to look as if he did not care, “everybody knows that all great sportsmen sometimes shoot their dogs by mistake!”
His father looked at him for a moment, and then, turning to the others with an air of disgust, he said:—
“Gentlemen, I really must apologize to you for having ventured to bring with me to-day a boy who has so little sense of decent behavior. I never imagined he was capable of such silly impertinence.” He then turned towards his son, and said severely:—
“You have heard my order, sir. Go at once!” Norman hung his head and departed in confusion.
“You see, boys,” said Teddy’s father, “what comes of conceit, of thinking you are so much more clever than you really are. This might have happened to either of you. You were so very sure that nothing was easier than shooting, and this is the result. It is quite clear that you are too young to be allowed to go shooting, so you can go back to your gardens and your childish games, and it will be better for all concerned.”
Dick and Teddy hung their heads without a word. The party turned sadly homewards, and, after tea, the boys buried my poor friend in the garden.
CHAPTER VIII.
A few days after this there was a fair in the next village, and my mistress’s grandchildren were to be taken there by their fathers and mothers. There were fifteen of them altogether, or sixteen including myself, for little Jack and his cousin Harry rode on my back, and the rest walked or drove.
When we got to the fair we heard some people talking about a wonderful performing donkey who was said to be very clever, and who would begin his tricks in ten minutes at the other end of the meadow where the fair was being held.
“Oh, father, we must go and see him,” said Teddy. “Please, may we?”
“Certainly, my boy; we ought to see this performing donkey, though, for my part, I don’t believe he could beat Neddy, there, for intelligence and sagacity.”
I was much pleased to hear the gentleman’s good opinion of me, and I headed the little procession to the other end of the field. Jack’s mother lifted him and Harry off my back and stood them upon a bench, close to the path that was left open for people to come into the enclosure, which was surrounded with seats. I stood outside, just behind my two little friends.
In a few minutes the showman appeared, leading in the donkey that was supposed to be so clever. He was a poor dismal-looking creature, who looked as if he wanted a good meal.
“Jack,” said little Harry to his cousin, loud enough for me to hear, “I don’t think that donkey looks very clever. I’m sure he’s not nearly so clever as our dear old Neddy.”
I agreed with him, and was very much pleased to hear what Harry said; so I thought to myself, “I’ll let them all know it before long, or my name’s not Neddy.” I left the place where I had been standing, and took my position near the entrance.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” began the showman, “I have the honor to introduce to you Mr. Muffles, the wonderful performing ass. This ass, ladies and gentlemen, is not such an ass as he looks. He knows a great deal, a great deal more than some of you. He is an ass without an equal. Come, Muffles, show the company what you can do. Make your bow, and let these ladies and gentlemen see that you have learned manners.”
The donkey went forward two of three steps, and bent his head in a most melancholy fashion. I was indignant with the showman; I thought to myself, “It’s quite easy to see that this poor Muffles has been taught his tricks by means of a rope’s end;” and I made up my mind to be revenged on that man before the performance was over.
“Now, Muffles, take this nosegay, and give it to the prettiest lady here.”
Muffles took the bunch of flowers in his teeth, walked sadly all round the ring, and at last went and dropped the nosegay into the lap of a very ugly, fat woman. She was close to me, and I could see that she had a piece of sugar concealed in her hand. “What a fraud!” I thought. “Of course, she’s the showman’s wife.” I was so disgusted with what looked like the donkey’s bad taste that, before any one could stop me, I leaped clear into the ring, seized the nosegay in my teeth, and trotted round and laid it at the feet of little Janie.
The crowd all clapped vigorously. They wondered who I was. “So intelligent!” they said to each other. Muffles’s master, however, did not seem pleased. As for Muffles himself, he took no notice whatever. I began to think he must really be rather a stupid animal, and that isn’t common with us donkeys.
When the audience was quiet again, the showman said:—
“Now, Muffles, you’ve shown us the prettiest lady here. Now go and point out the silliest person present,” and so saying he gave him a big dunce-cap made of colored paper and adorned with rosettes.
Muffles took it in his teeth, and going straight to a heavy-looking fat boy, with a face exactly like that of a pig, put it on his head. The fat boy was so like the fat woman that it was quite easy to see he must be the showman’s son, and of course in the trick.
“Good!” said I to myself, “my time has come!”
Before they could think of stopping me, I had taken the cap off the boy’s head, and was chasing the showman himself round and round the ring. The crowd roared with laughter, and clapped till they were tired. All at once the showman tripped, and went down on one knee; I profited by this to put the cap firmly on his head, and to ram it down till it covered his chin.
The showman shouted, and danced about trying to tear the cap off, and I stood on my hind legs and capered about just as he did until the crowd nearly died from laughing. “Well done, donkey! Bravo, donkey! It’s you that’s the real performing donkey!” they shouted.
There was no doing anything more after this. Hundreds of people crowded into the ring, and were so anxious to caress me that I was afraid they would tear me to pieces. The people from our own village, who knew me, were more than proud of me, and before very long all the people in the place were telling wonderful tales of my intelligence and my adventures.
They said I had once been at a fire, and worked a fire-engine all by myself; that I had gone up a ladder to the third story, opened my mistress’s door, awakened her, picked her up, and jumped off the roof with her in safety to the ground. They said that another time I had, all alone, slain fifty robbers, strangling them so cleverly one after the other with my teeth when they were asleep, that not one had time to wake up and give the alarm to the others; that I had then gone into the caves where the robbers lived, and had set free a hundred and fifty prisoners whom the robbers had captured. At another time, they said, I had beaten in a race all the swiftest horses in the country, and had run seventy-five miles in five hours without stopping.
The crowd grew thicker and thicker to hear these wonderful tales, until the crush was so great that some of the people could hardly breathe, and the police had to come to the rescue. It was with the greatest difficulty, even with the help of the policemen, that I was able to get away, and I was obliged to pretend both to bite and to kick in order to clear a path; but of course I didn’t hurt anybody.
At last I got free from the crowd and into the road. I looked about for Jack and Harry and the others, but they were nowhere to be seen; for as soon as the crowding became dangerous, their parents had hurried them away. Losing no time, I took the road home. Before I had gone a mile I overtook them, fifteen people packed into the two carriages; and by tea-time we all reached home safe and sound, everybody delighted with my remarkable sagacity.
But after it was all over, I began to think of the unfortunate showman, and I felt very, very sorry for the unkind trick I had played him.
CHAPTER IX.
I never could like that boy Norman; I thought him both cowardly and conceited. I could not forget that he had killed my friend, the poor dog, Jenny. One day, when he came to my mistress’s house on a visit, he insisted on riding on my back. “Now,” thought I to myself, “I’ll have my revenge.”
Just beyond the garden there was a wood, and beyond the wood there was a very deep and dirty ditch, generally full to the brim with mud. Norman had been boasting what an excellent rider he was, and invited the others to come with him through the wood to see him jump the ditch. They all came, though they did not believe he could do it.
Scarcely had they started, Norman on my back, and the others running by my side along the path through the wood, when I threw up my heels and dashed aside from the path into the bushes. “All right,” shouted Norman, “you run on by the path as far as the ditch, and see whether I don’t jump it before you get there.”
“Oh, you will?” I said to myself. I went quietly along for a little way, where the bushes were thin and fairly far apart, and then, without any warning, I plunged right into a thicket of brambles. My skin is tough, so I didn’t mind them, but Norman’s face and hands and stockinged legs were scratched, and the thorns stuck into his clothes from head to foot. He was a nice object by the time we got to the ditch: he had quite given up his boastful idea of jumping over it, and did all he could to make me stop and let him get off my back.
“Not if I know it,” thought I. “I shall never get such a chance again of punishing you for shooting Jenny;” so I galloped along the edge of the ditch, and when I had reached a very steep and slippery place, I suddenly stopped short, and jerked Norman off my back. He was unable to gain his footing, and pitched headlong into the thick, black mud.
Just then the other children came racing down the path; but what was their surprise and alarm to find me looking into the ditch, and Norman nowhere to be seen.
“Norman! Norman!” they shouted, “where are you?”
“Here—oh, help!” said a half-stifled voice at last. They looked into the ditch, and there was Norman, half drowned in mud; he was on his feet again, and was standing on the bottom of the ditch; but it was nearly five feet deep, and the mud was up to his neck. “Help me out! oh, help me out! I shall be drowned!”
Norman’s screams attracted the attention of two farm-hands who were passing near at hand, and they ran up to see what was the matter. In a few minutes they had got a long pole and had let one end down into the ditch so that Norman could catch hold of it. Then the men pulled slowly at the other end of the pole, and at last Norman managed to scramble out. He was covered with mud, and his teeth were chattering with cold and fright. I began to be sorry for what I had done, and kept behind the children, who were hurrying Norman home as fast as he could go.
I heard the next day that Norman was very ill; he was obliged to stay in bed. The doctor was afraid he was going to have a bad fever, and be ill a long while. He shook his head when the children went to inquire after Norman, and advised my mistress not to let the children ride me at present, until Norman was better, and could tell them how the accident had happened.
I knew it was not an accident, and began to be much afraid in consequence of what I had done. When Norman got well enough to tell them all about it, and how badly I had behaved, they all looked at me very seriously.
The next morning, when Robert, the stableman, came as usual to fetch me to be saddled, and to take Jack and Janie for a ride, he said nothing to me, but, to my great alarm, groomed and saddled the other donkey that lived in the stable. In a few minutes Jack came in at the door, his face very sad, and his eyes full of tears.
“Neddy,” he said, “I’m very, very sorry, but grandma won’t let me ride you any more. She’s afraid you’ll be naughty again, and kick me off, as you did poor Norman. Oh, Neddy dear, how could you do it?”
I was dreadfully upset by this, and wanted to explain to Jack that it was because I hated Norman, and that I shouldn’t think of doing it to him, or Janie, or anybody else whom I loved, and who was kind to me. But I didn’t know how to say this to Jack, so I only drooped my head, and touched his shoulder with my nose.
“Mind, Master Jack,” said Robert, “don’t let that vicious donkey touch you. Perhaps he’ll bite you. Come away, my lad, directly,” and Robert seized Jack by the hand, and pulled him away.
“Yes, the horrid brute!” said Teddy, who, with the others, had come to the stable door. “Of course, Norman isn’t always nice, but Neddy had no business to try to drown him. I’ll take good care that I have nothing more to do with such a donkey.”
“And I, too,” said Dick, and so said all the others. Jack looked very sorrowful, but as Robert put him on the other donkey’s back and led him away he looked round and said to me in his usual kind little voice:—
“Poor, poor Neddy! Never mind, I’ll always love you just the same, though I mustn’t ride you any more, and perhaps some day you’ll be good again, won’t you, dear Neddy?”
I could have cried when I heard this. It was more than I could bear. As soon as Jack was gone, I crept out of the stable, and made my way into the fields. Then I lay down and thought of all the wicked things I had done in my life: how I had knocked my first mistress down, and broken her nose; how I had deceived the farmer, and how revengeful and evil I had been when he punished me for my deceit. I thought of all the happy life I had led in my present home, and how very, very kind they had all been to me until I had done this wicked thing to Norman. Norman had killed poor Jenny, it is true; but then he didn’t do it on purpose, and his father had punished him for it; what business had I to give way to feelings of revenge? I thought of dear little Janie and Jack, and how good and kind they had been to me when I was ill; and when I remembered that, owing to my wickedness, they were not to be allowed to ride me any more, I felt so unhappy that I could not keep still any longer. I began to run as hard as I could, trying to run away from myself, but the faster I ran, the more miserable I was, until at last I ran my head right up against a stone wall, and fell down senseless.
When I came to myself it was late in the afternoon, and I couldn’t tell where I was. Three people were sitting a little way off by the roadside, but as their backs were turned they didn’t see me. What was my astonishment to recognize in them the owner of the performing donkey Muffles, with his wife and son! They looked unhappy and hungry, and I learned from what they said that poor Muffles had been badly hurt by the crowd that day at the fair, and that they had been obliged to leave him for a time with a kind farmer who offered to turn him out to grass in his field, while they went about looking for a little work to keep them alive until Muffles was once more well enough to perform at fairs.
When I heard all this, I felt still more unhappy, for it was all my fault that Muffles had been hurt, and the showman’s family forced to go hungry because they had no money to buy food. Then I suddenly remembered that little Jack hoped I would some day turn good again. “I can begin to be good again this very minute,” thought I. “I can follow these people to the next village, and earn some money for them by performing tricks.” So I jumped up, and trotted behind them until they stopped at the door of a little inn to ask the host if he would let them stay there that night. They said they had no money to pay for a night’s lodging, but perhaps he could give them some work to do instead. The host shook his head, and said that he had plenty of people in his house to do all his work, and that the showman must go somewhere else.
Just as they were turning sorrowfully away from the door, I trotted up, bowed to the innkeeper, and then stood up on my hind legs and began to dance. I did several of the tricks that Muffles was accustomed to do, and I did them so gracefully that quite a large crowd collected. At last I thought it was time to make the collection, so I picked up the showman’s hat in my teeth and took it round to everybody in the crowd. Before I had finished my round the hat was so full of money that I had to empty it into the showman’s hands, and when he came to count his gains there proved to be nearly ten dollars. So the showman and his wife and boy were able to have a good supper and a night’s lodging at the inn, and they gave me a supper and a night’s lodging in the stable.
In the morning I followed them to the next place, and we gave two or three performances in different parts of the town; so that before dinner-time I had earned for the showman no less than sixteen dollars, and then I thought I had atoned for my unkindness to him on the day of the fair, and that I would go back and try to show Jack that I was now good.
I soon found the right road, and reached the house in the afternoon when everything was quiet, and all the people indoors at tea. Just as I came up to the high wall of the kitchen garden, on my way to the stable, I saw a tramp trying to climb over it, doubtless intending to steal things out of the garden. I made a jump, caught the tramp’s foot in my mouth, and pulled him down. He called out for help, but in another moment he fell, hitting his head, and lay still. At this moment another tramp came running up; I gave him a kick as he passed me, and stretched him flat by his friend. The second tramp howled so loudly that all the servants came running out of the house to see what was the matter. I was still standing over the tramps, ready to kick them if they offered to get up. When they were questioned, their replies were so suspicious that they were taken into the house, and the police sent for.
So I had saved my good mistress’s garden, and perhaps several other people’s houses, from being robbed. They were all so pleased with my intelligence that they said I should be forgiven for my past wickedness, and that the bigger boys should ride me for a time; and if they found me always gentle and quiet, then perhaps they would let Janie and Jack ride me as before.
To crown all, I heard in a few days that Norman was nearly well again, and that he bore me no ill-will, for he said I must have seen something or other in the path, perhaps a toad, or a piece of paper, that frightened me and made me run away. How dreadfully ashamed of myself I felt when I heard this! After all, Norman seemed a much better and more generous boy than I had at first imagined him to be. At any rate, he was not revengeful.
CONCLUSION.
From that day onward I lived a very happy life. My kind old mistress said that I should never be sent away; that I should never want for anything, but should remain with the family as long as I lived, and that they would do all in their power to take care of me. Jack had loved me even when I was wicked and miserable, so I was always looked upon as Jack’s donkey, even when Jack was at home in London. He always paid his grandmamma a long visit every summer, until he was ten years old, and then he went away with Janie and his father and mother to Australia. After that I was considered to be Harry’s donkey, because Harry, of all her grandchildren, paid the most frequent visits to his grandmamma. Harry is not so good as Jack was, but he is a kind boy; he never treats me roughly, he always takes great care of me, and calls me his dear old Neddy.
A series of talks between Harry and his cousins made me think of writing my memoirs. Harry always said that I did not understand what I did, nor why I did it. His cousins and Jack admitted my intelligence and my desire to do good. I profited by a severe winter which did not permit my being much out of doors, to compose and write this account of some of the important events of my life. Perhaps they may amuse you, my young friends, and in any case they will make you understand that if you wish to be well served, you must treat your servants well; that those you fancy the most stupid are not always so stupid as they appear; that a donkey, as well as others, has a heart to love his masters and to suffer from bad treatment; a will to revenge himself or to show his affection; that he can, thanks to his masters, be happy or unhappy, be a friend or an enemy, poor donkey though he be. I live happily; I am loved by everybody, cared for like a friend by my little master Harry. I begin to grow old, but donkeys live long, and as long as I can walk and stand up, I will hold my strength and my intelligence at the service of my master.
Your affectionate friend,
Neddy.