UNA'S PET.
"Another secret? Oh, Tom!" said Una.
"It's a nice one, too," said Tom. "Guess what I've got here, Una."
Una looked hard at the handkerchief for some moments; then she slowly
shook her head.
"I can't, Tom," she said, wondering if Norah would have been able to
guess, and fearing that Tom must think her a very stupid little girl
indeed.
But Tom only laughed gleefully.
"I knew you couldn't," he said; "and I don't expect you'll know what to
call it, even when you've seen it."
He knelt down on the moss and opened the handkerchief, exhibiting a
funny-looking, spiky ball.
"Oh, Tom, what is it?" asked Una. "A ball made of pine-needles?"'
"_Pine-needles!_" laughed Tom. "You touch the point of one, and see!"
Una pressed one of the spikes gently with her finger, and gave a little
cry as the ball moved slightly and became half unrolled; then curled
itself up as before.
"Oh, Tom, it's alive!" she cried.
[Illustration: "'Oh, Tom, it's alive!' cried Una."]
"Yes, it's alive," said Tom. "It's a hedge-hog, Una. The little
gipsy-boy found it this morning under a gorse-bush, among some leaves.
Hedgehogs go to sleep all the winter, rolled up like this in a ball;
and they store up a lot of food somewhere near in case they wake up and
get hungry during the winter; and when the spring comes they wake quite
up, and begin to move about. That is why this one is really awake now,
only he has rolled himself up, and pretends to be asleep, because he's
frightened."
"Oh, the funny little thing!" said Una, bending down to see if she
could catch a glimpse of the hedgehog's bright little eyes.
"What do you think I'm going to do with it?" asked Tom.
"Keep it?" suggested Una.
"No," said the boy, "I'm going to give it to you."
"Oh, Tom--what for?" asked the little girl, trying to look very pleased
and grateful, but wondering whatever she was to do with such a prickly
present.
"What for? Why, for you to have as a pet," said Tom. "You're not half
such a silly girl as I thought you were; and, of course, you can't help
not being English," he added magnanimously. "And, you know, I do think
it is awfully dull for you, shut up in that big garden, when we're not
there to play with you: and now you'll have the hedgehog to play with."
"So I shall," said Una. "What--what shall I do with it, Tom?"
"Why, feed it," said the boy, "and teach it to know you and to come
when you call. You'll have to name it, Una, and teach it tricks and
all sorts of things," and poor Tom gave one big sigh as he thought how
he would have liked to keep that hedgehog for himself instead of giving
it to Una.
Una was too polite, however, to say she did not want the little animal.
She knew that it was very kind of Tom to have given it to her, though
she had no idea how much he wanted it himself; and she asked him to
come home with her that afternoon and make a house for it in the
garden, so that it should not run away and get lost in the woods.
After all, Tom's present turned out a great success. It was the first
time Una had ever had a pet in her life, and she became so fond of the
little creature that she would spend hours playing with it in the
garden, tickling its little head with the tip of her finger, and
feeding it with dandelion flowers, which it loved.
It was through the hedgehog that rather a queer thing happened one day
in the garden.
I think I told you that Una's father went away somewhere by train once
a week, and usually came back either the next day or two or three days
later, but I don't think I told you that sometimes he brought back
gentlemen to stay with him; and occasionally these gentlemen stayed
until Monsieur Gen went away again the next week, though more
frequently they remained only one night at the Grange and went away
again the next day. Now and then, however, they stayed much longer
than that--for weeks together indeed; and Una noticed that the ones who
stayed longest always looked very pale and thin, and very, very sad, as
if they had had much trouble.
But she did not see very much of any of her father's visitors--only
coming across one or another of them sometimes on the stairs or in the
garden; and the little Carews had never seen any of them, for when they
were playing there with Una the strange gentlemen did not come into the
garden.
Una used to wonder sometimes what made all the gentlemen who came to
her father's house look so sad. All men did not look sad, she knew,
for the baker's man who came to the house looked quite jolly, and had a
round, red face which seemed always laughing; and Mr. Carew, her little
friends' father, looked quite cheerful, too, quite different from her
own grave father.
Poor little girl! It was sad for her, this mystery which hung about
her life; and I think she would have grown into a very quiet, grave
little maiden in those days if she had not had the little Carews to
play and be merry with.
One day the children had been having a game on the terrace in the front
of the house. It was a new game which Tom had made up, and which they
all liked very much. One of them stood, blindfolded, in front of a
heap of little sticks at one end of the terrace, and the others all had
to hop on one leg and try to get the sticks, one by one, without the
blindfolded one catching them; the fun of the game being that it was
very difficult not to make a noise hopping on the gravel, and the
"blind man" usually pretended not to hear, and then made a dash at the
hopping thief just as he or she was carrying off a stick.
They had been playing so long at this game that they had made
themselves quite tired and hot, and had sat down on the lawn to rest;
and then it was that Una remembered that she had forgotten to shut up
"Snoozy," as she had named the hedgehog, after she had given him his
breakfast that morning, and now she could not think what had become of
him.
The hedgehog had got so tame now that he would follow his little
mistress about the garden, and come when she called or whistled; and
Una generally let him have a run in the garden every morning, and then
shut him up again when she went in to lessons.
To-day, however, although she called and whistled, and looked in all
the little animal's usual haunts, she could not find him, and they had
almost begun to think that he must have run away into the wood, when
Tom thought of the drooping ash-tree at the end of the lawn, and
wondered whether "Snoozy" might have hidden himself in there.
"How silly of us," cried Norah. "Why, of course, he must be there.
Fancy not thinking of looking there before!"
"I don't know," said Una, "he has never hidden there before; but we can
go and look," and they all raced across the lawn, and pushed their way
through the drooping branches of the tree.
Yes, there was the hedgehog, curled up into a little ball against the
trunk of the tree--thinking, no doubt, that evening had come round
again; for the branches and leaves were so thick that it was quite dark
under the ash-tree--and beside the hedgehog, leaning carelessly against
the trunk of the tree, with folded arms and a scowl upon his face, was
a tall, pale-faced, black-haired young man.