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Nello and Patrasche were friends in a friendship that had grown day by day, until they loved one another very greatly.
Their home was a little hut on the edge of a small village a league from Antwerp, set amidst flat pastures and corn-lands.
It had about a score of houses, with shutters of bright green or sky-blue, and walls whitewashed until they shone in the sun like snow. In the center of the village stood a windmill, a landmark to all the level country round.
The little hut on the edge of the village was the home of old Jehan Daas, who had been a soldier, and who had brought from the wars nothing except a wound, which had made him a cripple.
When the old man was eighty years old, his daughter had died and had left him her two-year-old son. He could hardly support himself,but he took the child uncomplainingly, and it soon became welcome and precious to him. Little Nello—a pet name for Nicolas—grew rapidly, and the old man and the little child lived contentedly.
It was a very plain little mud-hut, indeed, but it was as clean and white as a sea-shell, and stood in a small plot of garden ground that yielded beans and herbs and pumpkins.
They were very poor, terribly poor. But the old man was very gentle and good to the boy, and the boy was a truthful, kindhearted child, and they were happy together.
Patrasche was their helper and their friend. Patrasche was hands and feet to both of them. Without Patrasche where would they have been?
For Jehan Daas was old and a cripple, and Nello was but a child;and Patrasche was their dog. He was a dog of Flanders—yellow of hide, large of head and limb, with wolf-like ears that stood erect,and legs bowed but muscular.
In his thirteenth month Patrasche had been sold to a hard-hearted peddler, who heaped his cart full of pots and pans and buckets, and other wares of crockery and brass and tin, and forced Patrasche to draw the load as best he might. He himself walked along lazily by the side of the cart, smoking his black pipe.
Happily for Patrasche he was very strong. So he did not die, but managed to live on under burdens, hunger, thirst, and blows.
One day, Patrasche was going as usual along one of the roads that lead to Antwerp. It was midsummer, and very warm. His cart was heavy, piled high with goods of metal and earthenware. His owner walked on without noticing him except by the crack of the whip.
Thus the dog struggled along on a scorching road, having eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and, which was far worse for him,not having tasted water for nearly twelve. Blind with dust, sore with blows, and weary with the weight of his load, Patrasche, for once,staggered and fell.
He fell in the middle of the white, dusty road, in the full glare of the sun. His master gave him kicks and blows, which had been often the only food and drink, the only reward, offered to him. But Patrasche was beyond the reach of any torture. He lay, as if dead,in the white summer dust.
After a while, finding his blows useless, the peddler, thinking him dead, struck off the leather bands of the harness, and kicked his body aside into the grass. Then he pushed the cart lazily along the road, and left the dying dog.
It was a busy road that day, and hundreds of people, on foot and on mules, in wagons and in carts, went by. Some saw the poor beast;most did not even look; all passed on. A dead dog more or less—it was nothing in Flanders; it would be nothing anywhere in the world.
After a time there came a little old man who was bent and lame,and very feeble. He was poorly clad, and he dragged his way slowly through the dust.
He saw Patrasche, paused, wondered, turned aside; then kneeled down in the grass and weeds of the ditch, and looked at the dog with kindly eyes of pity.
There was with him a little, rosy, fair-haired child, who pattered in amidst the weeds, that were for him breast-high, and stood gazing upon the great, quiet beast.
Thus it was that these two first met—the little Nello and the big Patrasche.
Old Jehan Daas was a man with a kind heart, so with much labor he drew the sufferer to his own little hut, which was a stone’s throw away. There he tended him with so much care that the sickness,which had been brought on by heat and thirst and exhaustion, with time and shade and rest passed away. Health and strength returned,and Patrasche staggered up again upon his four strong legs.
Now for many weeks he had been powerless, sore, near to death;but all this time he had heard no rough word, had felt no harsh touch, but only the pitying sounds of the little child’s voice and the soothing caress of the old man’s hand.
In his sickness they had grown to care for him—this lonely old man and the happy little boy. He had a corner of the hut, with a heap of dry grass for his bed; and they had learned to listen for his breathing in the dark night, to tell them that he lived.
When he was well enough to try a low, weak bark, they laughed aloud, and almost wept for joy at such a sign of his recovery. Little Nello, in delight, hung chains of daisies around his neck.
So, when Patrasche arose, big and strong again, his great eyes had a gentle astonishment in them that there were no blows to drive him. And in his heart he felt a mighty love, which never changed.For Patrasche was grateful. He lay watching with grave, tender eyes the movements of his friends.
Jehan Daas could now do nothing for his living but limp about with a small cart, m which he daily carried into the town of Antwerp the milk-cans of neighbors who owned cattle. But it was becoming hard work for the old man. He was not strong, and Antwerp was a league off.
Patrasche watched the milk-cans come and go, that first day when he had got well, and was lying in the sun with a wreath of daisies around his neck.
The next morning, before the old man had touched the cart,Patrasche arose and walked to it and placed himself between its handles. He showed, as plainly as dumb signs could show, his desire to work in return for the kindness he had received.
Jehan Daas pushed him away, for the old man was one of those who thought it a shame to make dogs do hard work. But Patrasche would not be denied. Finding they did not harness him, he tried to draw the cart with his teeth.
At last the old man gave way to the persistence and the gratitude of the dog he had rescued. He made his cart so that Patrasche could pull it, and this the faithful dog did every morning of his life from that time.
When the winter came, Jehan Daas thanked the blessed fortune that had brought him to the sick dog in the ditch. For he was very old, and he grew feebler with each year. He would not have known how to pull his load of milk-cans over the snows and through the deep ruts in the mud, if it had not been for the strength of the grateful animal.
As for Patrasche, it seemed heaven to him. After the heavy burdens that his old master had compelled him to strain under, it seemed nothing to him but amusement to step out with this light cart and its brass cans, by the side of the gentle old man who always paid him with a tender touch and with a kindly word.
Besides, his work was over by three or four in the day, and after that time he was free to do as he would—to stretch himself, to sleep in the sun, to wander in the fields, to romp with the young child, or to play with his fellow-dogs. Patrasche was very happy.
Fortunately for him, his former owner had suddenly died, and so never disturbed him in his new and well-loved home.
A few years later, old Jehan Daas became so crippled with rheumatism that it was impossible for him to go out with the cart any more. Then little Nello, now grown to his sixth year, and knowing the town well from having gone with his grandfather so many times, took his place beside the cart. He sold the milk,received the coins, and brought back the change to the owners with a pretty manner that charmed all who saw him.
The little boy was a beautiful child, with dark, grave eyes and fair locks. Many an artist sketched the group as it went by him—the green cart with the brass cans of milk, and the great tawny-colored dog, with his belled harness that chimed cheerily as he went, and the small figure that ran be him, which had little white feet in great wooden shoes, and a soft, innocent, happy face.
Nello and Patrasche did the work so well and so joyfully together that Jehan Daas himself, when the summer came and he was better again, had no need to stir out. He could sit in the doorway in the sun, and see them go forth through the garden wicket, and then doze, and dream, and pray a little; and then awake again as the clock tolled three, and watch for their return.
On their return Patrasche would shake himself free of his harness with a bark of joy, and Nello would tell with pride the doings of the day. Then they would all go in together to their meal of rye bread and milk or soup, and would see the shadows lengthen over the great plain. After twilight the boy and the dog would he down together to sleep peacefully while the old man said a prayer.
So the days and years went on, and the lives of Nello and Patrasche were happy and innocent and healthful.
( Louise de la Ramée )
windmill : a large machine which is turned by the wind
weary : very tired
feebler : weaker
A) Answer the following questions.
1) How do we know that the old man was kind?
2) How were the old man and little boy able to be happy even though they were terribly poor?
3) Do you think the old man and the boy were good citizens? Give examples.
4) Can we judge the character of people by the way they treat animals? Explain.
5) How do we know that dogs are grateful to their owners?
B) What’s the word? Using the clues, write the correct words from the story.
1) a person who has trouble moving -c _ _ _ _ _ _
2) very powerful -m _ _ _ _ _
3) very light in colour -f _ _ _
4) a kind of grain -r _ _
5) very quietly -p _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
C) Summary—Write a short summary for this story.