Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

Remarkable Dog Story.
We find the following in the N. York Spirit of the Times. It is rather tough;
Some years since, in the town of New Boston, New Hampshire, there was a family a, woman who was insane, a confirmed maniac. A partition was made by upright slabs secured in the floor of the room, which was the common living room of the family, and a piece of timber overhead. Here she was constantly confined. A shower coming up, all the members of the family, women as well as men, went out into the field adjoining the house to assist in raking and getting in hay. A window was left open, the dog was in the house-I believe a full or cross of the Shepard’s dog.
The family had been raking, and had thrown a large quantity of coals from the oven into the large fire place. The people in the field heard the dog barking and howling-saw him jumping up to the open window, in such apparent distress and want of assistance, that they concluded something was wrong in the house; they accordingly dispatched one of their number to see what the trouble was with the dog. The person came up and looking in at the window, witnessed the dog’s operations.
The mad woman had gone into the fireplace and thrown the coals around the room.-They set fire to the floor. The dog would get hold of the woman and pull her away from the fireplace; he would then brush the coals to the health with his paws, and put out the blaze on the floor; while he was doing this the woman would get to the fireplace, and scatter the coals again. Again he would pull her away, and then go to work and brush up the coals to the health again. He noticed the person at the window and gave notice for assistance. The person entered the house, secured the woman, swept up the coals, put out the fire and returned for haying.
Now instinct would have taught the dog to make his escape from a burning building; but knowing that the woman was crazy-knowing that she was doing mischief, knowing that she would burn the house, and finding that he could not manage the affair, but thinking that the sane folks could; calling for, their assistance and giving them notice of the danger looks very much like what these wise folks call reasoning, or would look like it if it had been done by a human being.