IT chanced one day that Lucy came into the kitchen just as Fido, her
Aunt Mary’s little dog, was eating his dinner.
He had a good dinner, and he was making a great fuss over it, growling
with pleasure, shaking his ears and wagging his tail.
His tail was a very funny one, with a little black bunch at the end of
it, and it wiggled and waggled this way and that way.
“Fido,” said Lucy, “I don’t think you ought to wag your tail when you
are eating. Mamma says we must sit very still at the table. To be sure,
you are not sitting, and you are not at the table, but, all the same, I
think you had better not wag your tail.”
Fido paid no attention to these sensible remarks, but continued briskly
to wag the offending tail.
“Do you hear me Fido?” said Lucy. “I say, _don’t wag_ it!”
Fido gave a short bark of protest, but took no further notice.
“Then I must hold it for you!” Lucy continued, severely. “Mamma held my
hands once when I would not stop cutting holes in my pinafore; but I
was young then, and I thought the spots ought to be taken out. But you
are not young, Fido, and I wonder at you, that I do!”
Then Lucy took hold of the tail, and tried to hold it; but Fido danced
about, and pulled it away, and then wagged it all the harder, thinking
she meant to play with him.
“Indeed!” said Lucy, “I am not playing, Master Fido. Now you shall see!”
So she got a piece of stout twine, and tied Fido’s tail to the leg of a
chair.
“There!” she said, “now finish your dinner, like a good little dog, and
don’t give me any more trouble.”
But Fido would not eat his dinner with his tail tied up. He threw back
his head, and gave a piteous little howl. Lucy sat down on a stool
beside him, and folding her hands, as she had seen her mother do,
prepared to give the naughty pet “a good talking to,” as nurse used to
say.
At that moment, however, her mother’s voice was heard, calling “Lucy!
Lucy! Where are you?”
“Here, Mamma!” cried Lucy. “I am coming! I meant to pick them up before
dinner, anyhow! yes I did!” And she flew up stairs, for she knew quite
well that she had set out all her doll’s dishes, tea-set and dinner-set
and kitchen things, on the nursery floor, and left them there.
And now nurse had come in with baby in her arms, and had walked right
over the pretty French dinner-set, and there was very little of it left
to tell the tale.
Dear! dear! it was not at all nice to pick up the pieces, even if nurse
had not been scolding all the time, and Mamma standing by with that
grave look, waiting to see that it was properly done.
But how about Fido? Oh, Lucy had quite forgotten about Fido. But Fido
had not forgotten himself, and a very hard time the poor little fellow
was having.
He ran round the chair several times, till he brought himself up close
against it; then he tried to unwind himself again, but only became
more and more entangled. He pushed the hateful chair backwards till it
struck a little table on which was a tray full of dishes. Over went the
table, down went the tray, crash went the dishes!
“Yow! yow! yo-o-o-_ow_!” howled Fido.
“Oh! oh! oh!” shrieked Bridget, the cook, who came in at that moment;
and then—whack! whack! whack! went the broomstick over the poor
doggie’s back.
The noise was so great that Mamma came flying down, and nurse and Lucy,
too, with the broken soup tureen in her hand.
“Oh, don’t beat him!” cried Lucy, “don’t beat him, Bridget! It was my
fault, for I tied him to the chair, and then forgot about him.”
“And why, for the pity’s sake, miss, did ye tie the baste to the
chair?” said Bridget, still angry. “Look at every dish I have in the
kitchen all broken in smithereens!”
“He _would_ wag his tail while he ate his dinner,” faltered Lucy, “and
I wanted to teach him better manners; and so—and so—” But here poor
Goosey Lucy broke down completely, and sat down among the shattered
dishes, and hugged Fido and wept over him.
And Fido, who had the sweetest temper in the world, wagged the poor
abused tail (which had been quickly released by nurse), and forgave her
at once.
And Bridget and nurse laughed; and Mamma kissed her little foolish
daughter, and bade her not cry any more.
But Lucy had to go to bed, all the same, for Mamma said it was the only
proper place for a child who had broken (or caused to be broken, which
amounted to the same thing), _seventy-two_ dishes, large and small, in
less than half an hour. And I suppose Mamma was right, don’t you?