petting on
these occasions. He sat in the pew beside the deacon through the
sermon as decorously as befitted a dog come to years of discretion
long since, and wagged his tail in a friendly manner when the minister
came down and patted him on the head after the benediction. Outside he
met the Sunday-school children on their own ground, and on their own
terms. Jack, if he didn't have blood, had sense, which for working
purposes is quite as good, if not so common. The girls gave him candy
and called him Jack Sprat. His joyous bark could be heard long after
church as he romped with the boys by the creek on the way home. It was
even suspected that on certain Sabbaths they had enjoyed a furtive
cross-country run together; but by tacit consent the village
overlooked it and put it down to the dog. Jack was privileged and not
to blame. There was certainly something, from the children's point of
view, also, in favor of Jack's conception of Sunday.

On week-day nights there were the church meetings of one kind and
another, for which Deacon Pratt's house was always the place, not
counting the sociables which Jack attended with unfailing regularity.
They would not, any of them, have been quite regular without Jack.
Indeed, many a question of grave church polity had been settled only
after it had been submitted to and passed upon in meeting by Jack. "Is
not that so, Jack?" was a favorite clincher to arguments which, it was
felt, had won over his master. And Jack's groping paw cemented a
treaty of good-will and mutual concession that had helped the village
church over more than one hard place. For there were hard heads and
stubborn wills in it as there are in other churches; and Deacon
Pratt, for all he was a just man, was set on having his way.

And now all this was changed. What had come over the town Jack
couldn't make out, but that it was something serious nobody was needed
to tell him. Folks he used to meet at the gate, going to the trains of
mornings, on neighborly terms, hurried past him without as much as a
look. And Deacon Jones, who gave him ginger-snaps out of the
pantry-crock as a special bribe for a hand-shake, had even put out his
foot to kick him, actually kick him, when he waylaid him at the corner
that morning. The whole week there had not been as much as a visitor
at the house, and what with Christmas in town--Jack knew the signs
well enough; they meant raisins and goodies that came only when they
burned candles o