fortnight!"

And he took the twig which Moses was gnawing out of his hands, and
whipped him with it, until he made the poor fellow cry out with pain
and mortification.

"There, you thief!" he said, after flogging him to his heart's
content, "that will teach you to steal my birch, I guess."

From that day the selfish farmer began to be called _Birch_, in that
section of the country; and it was not many months before his name was
almost as effectually changed as if he had applied to the legislature
of the state to have that body change it for him.

CHAP. V.

A PAIR OF THIEVES.

About that dog of Billy Birch. Have I not promised to tell you
something about him, and the accident that happened to him, which
accident Mike Marble might have prevented, if he had made the attempt?
I have a good mind to tell you about these matters, at any rate,
whether I have made such a promise or not.

Mind now, reader, that, in telling this story, I don't mean to have it
understood that I think Mike did right. I'll grant that he did wrong.
But I mention the fact to show what sort of mischief Mike was up to,
and what sort of blemishes those were, which I confess he had in his
character; for, as I think I said before, this trick was about as bad
a thing as I ever heard of his being guilty of.

Caesar got to be a great hero in the sheep-killing business--a perfect
Nimrod of a dog. It sometimes happens, I fancy, that soldiers who
spend more of their time in war, actually shooting people and cutting
their throats, after a while, get to liking the trade, and take
pleasure in slaughtering human beings, just as a carpenter or a
printer might take pleasure in _his_ trade. Well, it got to be
somewhat so with Caesar, it would seem; for it often came to pass that
two or three sheep would be killed in one night, when, of course, a
single fat one would supply his appetite bountifully for several days,
at least. He must have liked the business, or he would have contented
himself with killing only a sufficient number of sheep to keep him in
food.

The neighbors who suffered from Caesar's favorite amusement,
complained, now and then, to his master. But it did no good. "They
must keep their sheep out of the way," the selfish man would say.
"Caesar is a capital family dog. I don't know what I should do without
him--he is so faithful." That was as much satisfaction as they could
ever get. Billy Birch would not shut up his dog at night, and a