@ip.
“Here lies entombed beneath this sod,
Watered with tears,
The dearest, wisest, high old dog
For many years
The country ever knew—

Tippecanoe!
Died, March 3, 1862.”

   

VHIS was the inscription. We boys had spent a half-holiday
> carving it with our jack-knives on a pine slab, and when the last
“7” had been dotted with a gimlet, and the last period made,
Tom laid it down and surveyed his work a moment.

“Can't you think of something more to put at the bottom?”
he said. “I don’t feel so badly when I am at work for the old
fellow.”

Tom had already worked within half an inch of the notch cut to show how
‘deep the slab must be sunk.

“Think of something more!” said Phil, indignantly. “It would take all the
pine slabs that ever grew in Maine to say all that ought to be said about him!”

This made a happy diversion, for, used as Tom and I were to Phil’s exag-
gerations, we felt the corners of our mouths giving way.

One evening last summer father exclaimed:

“This is too hot! Let’s fill the lunch baskets to-morrow and take the
steamer for the islands.”

This was a favorite trip with us boys, down the harbor to the bay, and the
very mention of it sent us off into ecstacies.

“And take Tip?” was the chorus, as heads came uppermost.

“No,” said mother, “three boys are all [can manage! I let Tip go last
‘time, and he made so much trouble I cannot take him!”

Tip had risen eagerly at the sound of his name, but as the last sentence
was finished he dropped his head and slowly left the room.

‘‘Now you have hurt Tip’s feelings,” we cried.

‘He'll have time to get over it, for I don’t think we can get off before day
after to-morrow. Phyllis will want one day to make cake and sandwiches for
‘so many.”

Where was Tip? Noone had seen or heard him since the night before,
cand he never left the premises unless with one of us. Had someone stolen him?

\?