Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1876 — The Boy, the Beetle and the Dog. [ARTICLE]

The Boy, the Beetle and the Dog.

The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument which was so proey that t>any a head by and by began to nod—and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone, and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving. Tom counted the pages of the sermon; after church he always knew how many pages there had been, but he seldom knew anything else about the discourse. However, this time he was really interested for a little while. The minister made a grand and moving picture of the assembling together of the world’s hosts at the Millennium, when the lion and the lamb should Jie down together and a little child should lead them. But the pathos, the lesson, the moral of the great spectacle were lost upon the boy; he only thought of the conspicuousness of tlie principal character before the on-looking nations; his face lit up with the thought, and he said to himself that he wished he could be that child, if it was a tame lion. Now he lapsed into suffering again ns the dry argument was resumed. Presently he bethought himself of a treasure he had, and got it out. It was a large black beetle with formidable jaws—a “ pinch-bug” he called it. It was in a percussion-cap box. Tlie first thing the .beetle did was to take him by the finger. A natural fillip followed, the beetle went floundering into the aisle and lit on its back, and the hurt finger went into the boy’s mouth. The beetle lay there working its helpless legs, unable to turn over. Tom eyed it, and longed for it, but it was safe out of his reach. Other people, uninterested in tlie sermon, found relief in tlie beetle, and they eyed it too. Presently a vagrant poodle dog came idling along, sad at heart, lazy with the summer softness and die quiet, weary of captivity, sighing for change. He spied the beetle; die drooping tail lifted and wagged. He surveyed the prize; walked around it; smelt of it from a safe distance; walked artftmd it again; grew bolder, and took a closer smell; then lifted his lip, and made a gingerly snatch at it, just missing it; made another and another; began to enjoy the diversion; subsided to .. his stomach with the beetle, between his paws, and continued lite experiments; grew weary ,at lastejutd (hen abHis head nodded, and little by little his chin descended awFtouched the enemy, who seized it. There was a sharp yefp, a flirt of the poodle’s head, and the beetle fell a couple of yards awuy, and lit on its back once more. The neighboring spectators shook with a gentle inward joy, several faces went behind fans and handkerchiefs, and Tom was entirely happy. The dog looked and probably felt so; but there was resentment in his heart, too, and a craving for revenge. Bo he went to the beetle and began a wary attack on it again; jumping at it from every point of a circle, lighting with his forepaws within an inch of the creature, making even closer snatches at it with his teeth, and jerking his head till his ears flapped again. But he grew tired once more, after a while; tried to amuse himself with a fly, but found no relief; followed an ant around, with his nose close to tlie floor, and quickly wearied of that; yawned, sighed, forgot tlie beetle entirely, and sat down on it!* Themthere wSfe- a*’wild yelp of agony, and the Boodle wanfrMhingup the aisle; the and so did the dog; he crossed the house in front of the altar; he flew down the otheraisle; he crossed before the doors; he clamored up the homestretch; an-jmsii grew with hls progress,' fill tfl was a woolly comet, moving in ffs orbit with the gleam and the speed of light. At last the frantic sufferer sheered from its course and sprang into its master’s lap; he flung it out of the window, and the voice of dis-, tress quickly thinned away and died in the distance. . . - Tom Sawyer went home quite cheerful,.thinking to himself that there was some satisfaction about divine service when there was a bit >of variety in it. He had but one marring thought; he was Ailling that the dog should play witli Ins pinch-bug, butne did not think it was upright to cany it off— Murk Twain, in “Tom Sawyer."