Read Ebook: Dogtown Being Some Chapters from the Annals of the Waddles Family Set Down in the Language of Housepeople by Wright Mabel Osgood

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Ebook has 1104 lines and 79092 words, and 23 pages

"Here, take a leader," called Miss Jule, as Anne darted off full of the new idea, "she's as likely to bolt off to the next county as to go home with you."

Anne took the leather leash and hurried to open the door of the compartment in the kennel yard where Cadence sat looking wistfully out. After fastening the snap in the collar she tried to lead her out; but Cadence flattened herself to the floor in an agony of fear, no coaxing, no gentle calling of her name produced the least effect, she squatted there motionless as a stone.

Anne crouched upon the door-sill quite in despair, then she saw that Cadence's eyes were fastened upon her face, so she smiled, chirruped to her, and tried what patting her back and smoothing her long ears would do.

The effect was magical; the little hound stopped cowering, looked up, gave a spring, touching Anne's finger-tips with her tongue, and walked off after her new mistress without further objection.

In fact, as they took the downhill path toward home, Cadence led as if she was quite well aware where she was going, and she tugged and strained so on the leash when she came in sight of the house as to make Anne fairly trot.

Then for the first time Anne thought of the objections that Waddles might make; for though he had chummed with Lumberlegs until recently, their relations were not wholly satisfactory, and as for Lily--well, he never interfered with her, but then also he never asked her to walk with him.

As it chanced Waddles was standing in the middle of the walk sniffing the air, with a very sentimental expression on his mobile face.

Anne slipped the leash, as it does not lead to friendliness when strange dogs meet to have one run free and the other chained. Before Waddles fully realized what had happened, before he could give a sniff or a growl, Cadence evidently captivated by his looks had bounded up, given him the coyest lick on the nose and sprung back again, her tail wagging in a complete circle and an unmistakable smile on her face.

Thus taken by surprise Waddles surrendered, and by way of making the newcomer feel at home he raised his head, gave a bay, and then putting his nose to the ground found the trail he had been trying to locate, gave a short bark and started off in full cry, Cadence following and yelping madly.

"She knows how to pick up a trail if she is stupid," said Anne to herself; "but I wonder if she will come back here or go up to the Kennels. I think I will just go in and explain about her to mother while she has her run."

The explanation was fortunately satisfactory; but then Anne's father and mother seldom objected to anything unless it was unkind, dangerous, or too expensive.

In a quarter of an hour or so back came the pair, evidently the best of friends, Waddles allowing Cadence not only to drink from his dish, but to take a nicely ripened beef bone that he had partly buried under the big apple tree. This was a wonderful bit of condescension, as it is against the rules of Dogtown to dig up another's bone, at least when the other is looking, and the offence is punishable with a ki-yi-ing and a real bite.

"Mistress," said Waddles, behind his paw as it were, "that is a very beautiful young lady; I will gladly share my bones with her, and that is something that I have never done before," which was perfectly true; for Waddles, besides being very strict about food etiquette, thought a good deal about what he ate.

The next morning when Anne came downstairs Cadence was lying on the steps with her back to the house. Anne called her and clapped her hands together, but she did not stir, yet the moment Anne's footsteps jarred the boards Cadence turned and came to her side.

Then the truth flashed upon Anne, the little hound was neither stupid nor disobedient, but almost stone deaf. She could not hear the voice, but felt the sound as it were from the footstep.

Truly, then, Cadence understood once and for all, and when puzzled always looked in her mistress's face.

When Miss Jule heard the story, she questioned all at the Horse Farm and about the Kennels closely, and found that once, when Cadence was a pup of less than a year, a gun had burst quite close to her head.

"Now," said Anne, triumphantly, "you see why she was gun shy, and deaf, and everything. You know, Miss Jule, animals are hardly ever bad; it's mostly something what we've done ourselves, and it's being a kennel dog, too. You see you can never be really intimate with them, and know their troubles as I do Waddles."

Miss Jule sighed, for she knew it was true.

From that day onward Cadence was a new dog, no longer sad eyed, though she knew mighty well how to plead for what she wanted with those golden brown eyes, but the most joyous thing alive.

She was pleased if she had a bone, or equally pleased with a dog biscuit, happy to go to walk, happy to stay at home; her face wore a perpetual smile, and her tail a ceaseless wag.

"Let us call her something different from that old kennel name, even if she can't hear it," said Anne, one day six months later, as they stood watching Cadence tending her first children, the fascinating twins, Jack and Jill, and teaching them to lap milk.

"Now there's something else between us besides not understanding things when we are shut up," said Anne, making the hound stand up and put both paws in her lap. "We are both named one thing and called another; for you probably don't know, my dear, unless Waddles has told you, that my true name is Diana, after the hunting lady, and really I think some night this fall I'll live up to it and go out with you and Waddles to hunt rabbits."

So this is the annal of the coming of Happy, wife of Waddles, Mayor of Dogtown.

MISS LETTY AND HAMLET

Spring always brought many arrivals at Miss Jule's farm, so that Anne and Tommy found some new animal at every visit: either an awkward, frolicsome colt, a fawn-eyed Jersey calf, or a litter of pups; for Miss Jule was so successful in rearing healthy animals that those she could not keep met with a ready sale everywhere.

The children went up nearly every afternoon in fine weather, riding their bicycles all but the steepest part of the way, and having a safe and easy coast back, for the road was broad, smooth as a floor, and there were no cross-roads the entire length of the slope, cross-roads being very bad things for coasters either on wheels or sleds.

Anne, however, did not care about wheeling as much as for riding horseback. During the past two years Miss Jule's old brown horse Fox, though well on in his twenties, had been a safe mount for her, as well as an intelligent companion. Of course she never rode very fast, and was always careful to walk him down hills; as old horses, no matter if they are thoroughbreds, sometimes kneel at the wrong time. But he was very clever at taking narrow paths through the woods, and keeping clear of the trees, walking up the little brook which was one of Anne's favourite pastimes, without pawing the water and soaking her skirt.

Anne's father had a beautiful young horse Tom, which he both rode and drove, but who did not like side-saddles, and did not intend wearing one. So one day when Anne had ridden him up through the orchard pasture to look for the cows that had gone astray, he first tried to scrape her off by squeezing against the tree trunk, and then, when she dismounted to see if the saddle or girths could possibly gall him, he took a roll in the spring, saddle and all, and galloped home, leaving Anne to walk.

So Fox remained her pet, and all she had to do to make him come when she wanted a ride was to go to the pasture, where he spent his days luxuriously shod with rubber tips, or to the barnyard, where he was watered, and say "Fox!" ever so softly, and he would come trotting up, to be either petted or saddled, eager to nibble the bit of sugar, carrot, or bunch of clover that she always brought him, putting back his ears meanwhile in pure mischief, and pretending to bite her fingers, while his nostrils seemed to quiver with laughter at the joke.

In the middle days of this particular spring, the one that came before the summer when Waddles and Lumberlegs had their great fight, it was neither Fox nor the new calves that drew Anne so often to the Hilltop Farm, but Miss Letty and Hamlet: Miss Letty being neither calf, colt, nor puppy, but a very pretty girl, and Hamlet a worldly-wise French poodle.

Miss Letty was the orphan niece of Miss Jule, the child of her only brother who had lived abroad for many years, married a French lady, and died there. Miss Letty had been sent to an English and then a French school by another aunt, her mother's sister; now as her father had willed it, she had come on a visit to America, so that she might see his country and choose with which aunt she preferred to make her home.

When Anne heard that Miss Jule's niece was coming to make a visit half a year long, and that she had a pet dog, she was very much excited, for Anne was beginning to long for a companion of her own age. She only hoped that Waddles would like the dog visitor, and then they four could take lovely excursions together afoot and on horseback, that is, if a girl from a French boarding-school knew how to manage horses; if she didn't, of course she could ride Fox until she learned.

At first Tommy had not been interested. "If it was a rather big boy with a real gun that was coming, we could go hunting together and have some fun next cold weather when the bunnies come out. Girls aren't much good excepting Anne, and even she don't seem to care for guns either," he said.

Tommy's latest treasure was a spring shot-gun that went off with an alarming pop, but for which he had no ammunition, so as yet he went about, cocking, aiming, and firing at imaginary big game,--real squirrels and crows,--quite content to see them scurry away in alarm; at the same time being careful, as his father had charged him, never to point it at people, for this is a "mustn't be" of a real gun, which a boy must learn by heart before he can even dream of owning one.

When one Saturday morning Martin, who lived at the Hilltop Farm, came with a note saying that Miss Letty and Hamlet had arrived, and that Miss Jule would be happy to have Anne and Tommy come up to dinner, Tommy forgot his poor opinion of girls in general and was as eager as Anne herself.

Miss Jule kept to the country habit of a one o'clock dinner, and had a hearty but movable tea at the end of day, when for six months of the year one begrudges spending much time indoors. As the note came before nine o'clock, it was too much to expect that the children should wait until nearly dinner time before accepting the invitation.

"Of course," said Anne, in explanation of starting at ten o'clock, "at most places it doesn't do to go until a few minutes before you are asked, because the people may be busy, or making the dessert, or not dressed; but Miss Jule is always busy, has fruit for dessert, and is never dressed, so she's quite as ready one time as another," which somewhat startling statement of Anne's did not mean that Miss Jule was a clothesless savage, but simply that, without the useless state of fuss and feathers known as "being dressed," she was always ready to have her friends come and take her as they found her, which was usually doing something interesting.

Waddles had an extra brushing in honour of going out to dine, for he also had several friends at the Hilltop Kennels with whom he exchanged very pleasant calls. In fact, they belonged to his particular hunting-club, that admitted only the most discreet citizens of Dogtown, and had a limited membership.

With the regular kennel dogs Waddles had only a sniffing acquaintance, which is the same as a mere bowing acquaintance among house people. But besides these dogs that were bought and sold, trained for hunting and sent travelling about to shows and held trials, Miss Jule had four who were pets and house fourfoots, even though two were rather large for this purpose.

These were Mr. Wolf, whose registered name was Ben Uncas, a long-coated St. Bernard, with beautiful silky hair, and a very gentle face that belied the fact that he was a mighty hunter, who seemed to have a little wolf blood in his veins; Quick, the most agile and impertinent of fox terriers; Tip, a retrieving spaniel, in size between a field and a cocker, who wore a coat of wavy golden red hair, and rivalled even Waddles in wisdom; and Colin, an Irish setter, big for his breed, and as clumsy and affectionate as a well-bred dog could be.

Colin could boast a Dogtown record almost as free from fighting as Waddles, but for a different reason. He was handsome, but not over valiant, and when some indiscretion of his aroused the ire of another dog, Colin would immediately roll over on his back and kick his four legs so fast that his confused opponent could get no grip whatever, and usually found that he had urgent business on the other side of the street.

Anne and Tommy rode up the long hill very slowly, partly because it was rather early, and partly because they had on fresh wash suits for the first time that season, and wash suits look best before they are withered. At least Anne thought of this, for she had heard that Miss Letty had money enough to buy all the pretty clothes she wished, and likely as not she might wear muslin shirt waists and lots of pretty ribbons. Though Anne did not bother much about her dresses, and had not worn her best frock, lest she might wish to play, she felt more comfortable to know that her cambric gown with its plain, turnover collar was clean, and that her cherry-coloured hair ribbons were new and had not been "retrieved" by the whole Waddles family in turn.

"I know it's rather early," said Anne, after greeting Miss Jule, who for a wonder was sitting in idleness amid an unusual number of vases that waited for flowers on the side porch that overlooked the prim, old-fashioned garden; "but I thought we could see the new setter pups if Miss Letty was busy or tired or anything; and if she wasn't, we could play hide-and-seek with her and Mr. Wolf and Waddles up in the corn-field. Some of the last year's stacks are there yet, and we can creep into them finely. Her dog may not know how to play, and we can teach him."

Miss Jule gave a queer little short laugh, started to say something, stopped with a very funny expression on her plain, jolly face, and said: "It's not at all too early. Letty is over there in the garden beyond the hedge, getting me some flowers for these big jars. You can introduce yourselves, and ask her to play hide-and-seek, only I'm afraid that Waddles will not like Hamlet. Tip was so rude that I've had to tie him up."

Anne called Waddles, who was talking to Mr. Wolf in his day retreat under the steps, and went down the path with Tommy, not noticing that Mr. Wolf, Quick, and Colin were following, or that Tip joined the trio as soon as they were past the lilac hedge, showing by his collarless condition that he had broken jail.

As the children looked about they did not see any little girl. Ah, yes, there was a flutter of white the other side of the bulb beds, so they turned in that direction to find a young lady standing among the borders, dressed in such dainty, lovely, flower-coloured clothes as they had never seen before, at least, never in a garden. One slender white hand hung by her side, while the other grasped the iris stalks. They could not see her face because of the lace that drooped from her hat, but her hair was light brown, and as fluffy as thistle-down.

Could this be the little girl companion that Anne had longed for? Her heart fell in disappointment. Yes, it must be, for there was no one else in the garden.

"She is a grown-up young lady, with gowns that wiggle on the ground, and all our fun is spoilt," said Anne, softly, checking Tommy who was about to call out.

Tommy, however, was not so sure that he was disappointed; the pretty girl attracted him, and he walked directly toward her. At that moment Waddles, catching sight of a strange-looking dog, partly hidden in the grass, gave a bark, and the face under the broad hat turned toward them, opened its mouth and spoke, setting their doubts as to its being Miss Letty at rest.

"This is Anne I know," said a delightful, laughing voice, that spoke every word distinctly, with hardly a bit of accent, and yet had an intimate sound, "and Tommy, too. Ah, yes, I know you very well, and if you'd not come to see me this morning, I should have called upon you this afternoon. I suppose that dear dog with the long ears is Waddles, come to be introduced to Hamlet," and she raised an odd silver whistle that hung from her belt by a chain and gave two short calls.

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