FIVE-O’CLOCK TEAS
Pinkie Scott’s cousin Dorothy came to spend a week with her, and the
two little girls planned to have an afternoon tea, not only for some
friends, but for their friends’ dogs as well.
Pinkie’s mother looked dubious when first approached about the matter,
but finally said that they might ask six people and six _young_ dogs,
thinking in this way to keep the festivities within handleable limits,
as young dogs, like young children, are not so apt to have the fixed
ideas and jealousies of their elders.
Pinkie Scott was Tommy’s nearest neighbour, though that does not mean
that she lived near enough for them to grow tired of each other’s
society, for the houses on the hillside of Dogtown were few and set
amid plenty of land. Pinkie had three dogs,--a stout black and tan
dachshund named Hans Sachs, and twin fox terriers called Luck and
Pluck, which names exactly describe their character.
Hans was an extremely amiable dog of the now fashionable “turnspit”
variety, and possessed a keen sense of humour, which he expressed by
a most wonderful scale of barks varying from a sub-cellar basso to
high _c_. When a particular bit of fun tickled him, he would plant his
bent fore feet, a joke in themselves, and whirl round and round like a
pinwheel.
He was Pinkie’s constant companion, followed her wherever she went, and
slept on a mat at her door. Luck and Pluck, though devoted by fits and
starts, were not nearly so reliable, often taking runs a whole morning
long quite by themselves; but then, unless fox terriers can run until
they are tired, they jump about like four-legged electric batteries and
make one nervous.
Wednesday would be Dorothy’s sixth birthday, so the tea-party was set
for that afternoon, and the day before, the two cousins, each carrying
her pet doll, walked up and down in the shade of the arbour playhouse,
trying to make up their minds whom they would invite and what they
should have to eat, for parties were very informal affairs among the
little folks, an invitation given a day in advance being considered not
only quite sufficient, but particularly desirable by their parents. It
takes a very grand affair indeed to withstand long anticipation.
“We’ll ask Sophie and Charlie Mayhew and Silvie their dog, of _course_;
that’s two people and one dog,” said Pinkie, counting on her fingers.
“And Tommy and Anne and all their dogs,” added Dorothy.
“Tommy and Jack Waddles,” corrected Pinkie. “Anne is too old, and of
course Mr. and Mrs. Waddles are.”
“But Waddles loves tea parties and things to eat, and cheers like
anything when he even smells five-o’clock tea biscuit,” pleaded
Dorothy; but Pinkie’s mind was made up; “He is too greedy,” she said.
“At Miss Jule’s dog party he ate nearly a whole box of ‘five-o’clock
teas,’ the lovely mixed ones, pink and chocolate and white, and mother
has only given me two boxes for the whole party. Of course we shall ask
Jessie and Jack Lane, and they’ve got two dogs, Toodles and Blackberry.”
“That only makes five people and five dogs,” said Dorothy, unable to
deny Waddles’s greed, especially where the crisp tea biscuit, his pet
delicacy, were concerned. “Who will be six?”
“Miss Letty and Hamlet of course,” replied Pinkie, with the air of one
announcing a star attraction.
“But she is very, very old,” objected Dorothy, “nearly as old as mamma,
and Hamlet is just as old as Mrs. Waddles; I heard Miss Jule say so.”
“You disunderstand,” said Pinkie, looking annoyed at having to explain.
“You see, if the people who come are nice, there is always somebody old
at a party to shampoorone it and see that people don’t eat too much or
do too many things they like. Mother is going to take Aunt May to the
Golf Club to-morrow, and so Miss Letty is going to shampoorone my tea.
She’s lovely for that, Tommy’s had her and Sophie, and she won’t do it
a bit hard, and Hamlet is going to be the entertainer and do all his
tricks, and Miss Letty says that if we put the samwiches and biscuits
in a basket with a handle, he’ll take it in his mouth and pass them
round to the other dogs.”
“My!” ejaculated Dorothy, opening her eyes very wide; “that’ll be
better than Punch and Judy, besides we’ve been having them everywhere
I’ve been all winter, and the man that unswallows the rabbit and the
bowl of goldfish and paper flowers beside. But why mightn’t Hamlet
run away with the basket and gobble the things himself?” added the
practical young lady.
“Because--because he’s twained--he wouldn’t _think_ of such a thing,”
stammered Pinkie, such an objection never before having entered her
brain.
The guests being arranged, food was the next question. “There’ll be
ice cream and sponge cake and chocolates, and real tea to pour out of
a tea-pot for us,” said Pinkie, readily, “and five-o’clock teas, and
samwiches with sausages between for the dogs, and buttermilk, and a
bone each to take home with them. Mother told cook yesterday to collect
nice strong bones that won’t chip up and hurt their insides. Then
there’ll be cookies, too. You make dog cookies with lard. Miss Jule
invented them, ’cause dogs love lard.”
The guests being duly invited before luncheon on Tuesday, all promptly
accepted before dinner time of the same day, and Pinkie and Dorothy
went to bed very early, intending to rise with the sun and begin their
preparations, for Dogtown mothers were very sensible and insisted that
when little entertainments were given, the children should do as much
as possible of the preparation themselves, instead of casting the
burden upon the servants, and then spending the intervening time in
fault-finding.
Pinkie’s mother purposely darkened the room, however, so that they
might have a good long sleep, for after breakfast was quite soon
enough to begin.
Pinkie discovered the very first thing that it wasn’t churning day, and
was about to wail at the lack of buttermilk, which was a much esteemed
beverage of at least five out of the six dog guests.
“Oi’ve crame enough for the shmall churn the day, and if ye’ll bate
it for me I’ll make out to give ye the buttermilk, for wid the ice to
freeze and cake and cookies I’ve me hands full,” said the good-natured
Irish cook, wiping Pinkie’s tears away with the corner of her gingham
apron, one of the peculiarities of the helpers in Dogtown being that
were they native or foreign, black or white, they were as fond of
children and dogs as their employers.
Dorothy wished to churn the butter, but as Pinkie said, “The first time
you do it, you splatter it all about, and nobody gets any buttermilk
but the floor,” adding, “but I’ve done it more’n seven times, and I
know how.” So Dorothy was persuaded to cut out the cookies instead,
and chose a plain round cutter, saying wisely, “I’d best not make cat
and rooster cookies ’cause it might teach the doggies to eat what they
shouldn’t.”
While Dorothy worked away at the table close inside the kitchen
window, enveloped in an all-over white apron, on the other side of the
lattice, Pinkie, sitting on a small bench in the corner of the back
porch, delved away at the churning, while they exchanged reports of
progress that were rather discouraging to the butter maker.
It seemed to Pinkie that she had only fairly begun when Dorothy called
out, “First pan gone in the oven.”
“Ker-chunk--ker-chunk, ker-chunk,” answered the dasher in the churn,
saying by the tone of its voice as plainly as any words, “Only cream
yet, and thin at that.”
[Illustration: “_Butter’s come!_”]
Pinkie stopped for a moment and brought out Julia Minnehaha, her
favourite doll, whom she stood close beside her for company.
“First panful baked, and they are lovely. Crisp and good if the butter
in ’em is lard,” called Dorothy, in a mumbling voice that proclaimed
that she was eating.
“You mustn’t eat them, they are for the _dog_ company,” expostulated
poor Pinkie.
“I’m only eating the broken ones,” said Dorothy.
“Was there more’n one?”
“Yes, three; you see when I help cook cut cookies at home I gener’ly
make two or three broken ones out of the edge pieces on purpose to
eat, so that’s why there’s three now, and next pan there’ll be four.”
“Won’t you bring me one and put it in my mouth?” coaxed Pinkie. “‘Cause
if I stop plunking this butter, it will what cook calls, ‘go back.’”
Presently Luck and Pluck appeared on the scene, drawn by the smell of
the baking cookies and the sound of the churn, and stood licking their
lips, looking alternately at their little mistress and backward toward
the kitchen window with a wistful gaze.
“Ker-swish--ker-swash!” said the buttermilk, as it separated from the
butter with a watery splash.
“Butter’s come!” cried Pinkie. “Now listen, doggies, you are going to
have company this afternoon, so now you can only have two drops of
buttermilk apiece.”
“The cream is frozen and the dasher is ready for us to scrape, hurry
up,” called Dorothy, coming to the window armed with a plate and two
spoons, “and it’s all pink with fresh stwaberries, too, the very last
in the garden.”
When this new excitement had subsided, and the frosting of the sponge
cake hearts and rounds for the two-footed company had been closely
inspected, with many remarks of regret that not one of these delicacies
could, by any stretching of conscience, be called even damaged, it
still lacked an hour of luncheon time, and the party was not to begin
until half-past four.
“Let’s set the table and fix the seats, and have everything ready,”
suggested Dorothy, who was the leading spirit of the two. “I’ll bring
out the table and you get the cups and saucers.”
They put the little table under the arbour, close to the entrance where
it would be shady in the afternoon, and covered it with Mrs. Scott’s
best fringed tea-cloth, that she let them have only on the promise that
they would be very careful, and not let the dogs put their paws upon
it.
They filled one little jug with flowers and left the other empty ready
for the cream.
“This table won’t hold anything but the tea things,” said Pinkie,
thoughtfully, “we will have to put the refweshments somewhere else and
pass them.”
“Here, on the stone wall behind the arbour, is a nice place,” said
Dorothy, “and no one can see the things. Let us play tea-party now,
I’ll pour the tea and say ‘cream or lemon, one lump or two, please?’
And you can say ‘no tea, thank you, I _never_ take anything between
meals.’ Then I sha’n’t be ’barrassed ’cause there really isn’t any tea.”
“Yes, I will,” acquiesced Pinkie, readily, “only I think first I’ll
get Julia Minnehaha and some bread and butter ’cause I’m really, truly
hungry.”
Then the two sat down at either end of the table, while Hans Sachs and
Pluck, believing it to be a real party, waited for their share, which
proving to be only bread crumbs sent them off in a huff.
Miss Letty came to take luncheon with the two mammas and brought a
large box of mottoes for the party. “They have paper caps in them, I
know,” whispered Pinkie in delight, “and we can put them on us and the
dogs and have a fancy dwessed ball.”
[Illustration: “_One lump or two, please?_”]
“Be sure not to forget the basket with a handle for Hamlet to play
waiter with,” said Miss Letty, as she went into the dining room. Pinkie
meant to get it at once, but she stopped to count the mottoes and so
forgot all about it.
* * * * *
When the mammas started for the Golf Club at four the little girls left
the piazza where they had been told to sit still and keep their dresses
clean, and took their station upon the gate posts, unseen by Miss
Letty who was busy in the dining room making some sausage sandwiches
about two inches square, so that each represented a dog mouthful, and
disputes and untidy eating might be avoided.
Tommy was the first guest to arrive. He came on his wheel and looked
very hot and tired, for it seemed that Waddles wished to come with
him while Jack Waddles did not. The dispute ended in his bringing
both, though when Waddles saw that he was not welcome, he obeyed the
order “go home” as far as going out of the gate and disappearing,
but before he went he raised his nose in the air and gave a long and
searching sniff, which caused Tommy to say, “Now he knows all about the
’freshments.”
Jack Waddles, Luck, Pluck, and Hans Sachs had a fine game of tag round
and round the lawn, in which Hamlet refused to join, sitting sedate and
silent on the very step of the porch where his mistress had left him.
This behaviour was probably owing to the fact that it was the first
time that he had worn an ornamental collar with a large bow on it since
the day of his disgrace and clipping, and he did not seem quite to know
himself, or be sure who he really was, like the little old woman in the
story who had her petticoats “cut all round about.”
His closely clipped hind quarters told of freedom and the life of
his ancestors, who, as everybody knows, were one of the most ancient
water-dog families of France, being wonderful retrievers and renowned
swimmers. But the clanking collar and great bow of wide rose-pink satin
ribbon tickled the back of his neck and made his head feel as if it
was tied on. It also reminded him of the days in Paris when he went to
a dog dancing-master to learn to waltz, and to the barber to have his
wool clipped in as many useless devices as the tattoos of a savage, so
that he might be sold for a great price to be the clown of some lady of
fashion. Fortunately for him, however, the lady who bought him was Miss
Letty’s aunt Marie.
So there he sat and brooded and if Anne had been his mistress she would
have understood and been on the watch for some sort of outbreak.
[Illustration]
Sophie and Charlie Mayhew were the next to come. They were heralded by
much squeaking and creaking of wheels, for Charlie played horse and
brought his sister in state, sitting in her little canopy-top box wagon
with dainty Miss Silvie, an aristocratic Yorkshire terrier, beside her.
Miss Silvie wore a light blue satin bow, and her silver-blue locks had
been brushed until they hung in a glistening fringe. She also seemed
depressed by her dressed-up condition, refused to give a paw to either
Pinkie or Dorothy, and crawled on her stomach over to the porch, where
she gave Hamlet an apologetic lick and crouched close beside him, the
pair looking very much like bored human beings at an afternoon function
where they were perfect strangers.
“Hurrah! here come Jessie and Jack Lane, now the party can begin,”
cried Tommy, who had climbed a small tree the better to see down the
road, and up dashed a pony-cart containing a boy of nine, a girl of
seven, a lovely ruby spaniel, and the coloured groom Charles, while
behind followed a half-grown English setter pup.
“Mr. Lane directed me, miss,” said the groom, addressing Miss Letty as
evidently the one in command, “as how I’d better stay in the ’mediate
vicinity, miss, in case of trouble or a scrimmage between these yere
dogs, miss, it being not improbable they might, miss, ’specially ourn,
Ruby being most polight, miss, but that there Blackberry the setter
pup, miss, bein’ variegated in his disposition, miss, and uncertain
where he’ll break out, but he would follow.”
Miss Letty told the man to stay by all means, such a possible
complication not having occurred to her; so after taking the pony to
the stable, he discreetly lost himself in the shadow of the near-by
shrubbery.
“Shall we have tea or make the dogs do their tricks first?” asked Miss
Letty, to whom this free and easy sort of dog party was a novel affair,
the only previous one she had attended having been at her Aunt Marie’s,
upon her own birthday, when Hamlet had been presented to her.
At that party the ten dogs, all poodles, brown, white, or black, had
a table to themselves, around which they sat upon high chairs, with
napkins about their necks, while they were fed with chicken pâtés by
the maids of their several owners, and afterward did their tricks for
prizes of bonbons.
Only imagine Dogtown dogs eating bonbons! The very idea made Miss Letty
smile, though she did not know why candy was a forbidden thing in the
local dog law, the reason being this.
Long before, when Waddles was a half-grown pup, and Diana was
Tommy-Anne, and Obi the garden boy, Waddles had one day lingered in
the grocery store after his mistress had started for home. The clerk,
either for mischief or because he thought the dog might like sweets,
threw him a generous square of old-fashioned molasses candy in its
wrapping of oiled paper.
Waddles at first had played with it as a toy, not thinking it an
eatable, knocking it about with his paw, and then throwing it into the
air. During this performance he got a taste of the covering, and then
holding the bit between his fore paws he proceeded to gnaw the paper
off. The sweet taste pleased him, and he tried to nibble the candy, but
it resisted his teeth. Being somewhat piqued, he did a fatal thing,
he opened his mouth wide and threw the morsel backward, closing his
chewing teeth upon it, after the manner of eating refractory bones.
Waddles chewed and chewed, but he could neither swallow the candy nor
free his jaws from it. Sticky juice ran from the corners of his mouth,
and his eyes began to look wild. He tried all the muscular methods of
tongue and throat known to dogs that wish to uneat undesirable things,
but to no avail. He tried howling, but could not utter a sound, for he
was literally tongue-tied.
Suddenly he bolted from the store and tore up the road, the
clerk following pale and frightened, for he feared the dog was
choking, and no one in the whole village would have hurt a pet
of Tommy-Anne’s for worlds. Meantime, missing Waddles when she
reached the house, Tommy-Anne turned back to look for him, and to
her terror met him coming in the gate, yellow froth on his lips,
the clerk following, panting and having only breath enough to say,
“He--isn’t--mad--it’s--molasses candy!” Meantime Waddles had cast
himself into his mistress’s arms, thereby knocking her over, while he
rubbed his throat frantically in her dress. Anne, always prompt in an
emergency, called for Obi to come and bring a blunt kitchen fork. In a
trice the sticky mess was pried and twisted off and the dog freed, but
he never forgot the experience, and later on, when as a fully grown dog
he was admitted to the council of Dogtown, and made chairman of the
committee for the revision of laws, he caused the eating of candy to be
declared _oban_, or a “_must not be_,” which rule holds there to this
day except among the degenerates.
* * * * *
The children agreed that the tricks had best come first, because, as
Dorothy said, “You can’t tell but what the dogs will run away after
they’ve got their motto caps on and had their tea.” So the children,
under Miss Letty’s instruction, drew up in line on the lowest step of
the long side piazza, each having his or her dog in charge.
Jack Waddles’s only trick was wrestling, but as he would not do it
except with his mother, now that Jill had gone, he was excused, and
Pinkie stepped forward with Hans, who obediently did the routine taught
by her elder brother,--made a pinwheel of himself, sat up, saluted with
his right paw, cheered for the Kaiser, and died for the Vaterland in so
realistic a manner as to cause Sophie to shed tears, which, however,
she soon wiped away, using the top of Silvie’s head for a handkerchief.
Luck and Pluck were less conventional and more animated in their
performance. They played leap-frog beautifully, stood and sat erect on
their hind legs, and caught a handkerchief made into a ball in a very
graceful way.
Next Silvie tiptoed forward, and after two trials sat up in a most
comical and tipsy manner, and held a stick as if it was a gun, thereby
so delighting her dear little roly-poly mistress that every one
applauded loudly.
Blackberry the setter, being young and timid, was also excused, but
when Jessie and Jack Lane, who had disappeared for a minute, returned
with Toodles the spaniel, dressed in a cocked hat, Toby frill and sash,
and made him tumble about like a clown in the circus, finally walking
up between them to make his bow while they did jig steps, every one
cheered.
Hamlet, of course, was the star performer, but then he was more like
a professional appearing at amateur theatricals. This day he was
extremely contrary, however, and his mistress had to give him two or
three scoldings in rapid French, which sounded very mysterious to the
others. But when it came to the dancing he threw himself into the
spirit of it at once, and waltzed to Miss Letty’s whistling until she
grew tired. Next he did his greatest feat, a sort of sailor’s hornpipe,
in which he was obliged to stand erect and keep in motion, while he
jerked his body forward continually as if he was pulling in rope.
This dance came to an abrupt ending because the tune which accompanied
it struck Jack Waddles’s musical sensibilities, and caused him to bay
in comic imitation of his father, thereby setting the others off in
various keys, and causing such pandemonium that the Lanes’ groom rushed
from the shrubbery, thinking “the scrimmage” had come.
Under cover of the noise Pinkie slipped into the house at a signal
from Miss Letty to tell the waitress that it was high time to make the
“real tea” and carry the eatables to the pantry on the stone wall
behind the arbour. Then she remembered that she had forgotten to ask
her mother for a basket for Hamlet’s waiter trick. “It’s too bad,”
she muttered to herself behind the pantry door. “Miss Letty says it’s
his queerest trick, and now it’s all spoiled.” As she looked up, the
crack of the door gave her a glimpse into the dining room, and her eye
rested upon the mahogany sideboard at the exact spot where, safe and
high and out of reach, rested a pair of openwork silver cake baskets
with hoop handles that had belonged to her great-grandmother, and were
consequently much treasured by the family.
“The very thing,” she said, dropping her voice unconsciously to a
whisper, “and a silver basket is lots properer than a straw one for a
tea-party.”
It was evident that at this moment Pinkie’s guardian angel and her
conscience had taken a walk together to the farthest end of the garden.
She pushed one of the big arm-chairs toward the sideboard, climbed from
the seat to the back, secured the nearest of the precious baskets, flew
to the pantry, emptied a box of five-o’clock teas into it, and covering
the whole with a napkin, ran and placed it on the fence with the cakes
and sandwiches, then sauntered back to her friends with a suspicious
air of unconcern.
“It is of no use for _us_ to have our tea until the dogs are served,”
said Mistress Dorothy, picking her words, and speaking in manner and
tone in perfect imitation of the way that some one of her elders might
have said, “give the children their supper, and then we shall have ours
in peace.”
The sausage sandwiches formed the first course; these were followed
wisely by the saucers of buttermilk, for sausages are rich, thirsty
things, and buttermilk both quenches thirst and is good for dog
stomachs. The cookies were next in order, each one making four
mouthfuls, though Jack Waddles and Silvie both tried to bolt theirs
whole, and choked so that they had to have their saucers refilled.
“Now let us give them their mottoes,” said Pinkie, forgetting the
basket for the time. “Will you please snap them and give each one their
cap, Miss Letty?”
This caused a great deal of fun, for the snapping affected the dogs
very differently, frightening some, and merely adding to the spirits of
the others, while the paper caps changed the dogs’ entire expressions
for the few moments that they consented to wear them; meanwhile Luck
and Pluck, seizing on a motto that had been dropped, played tug-of-war
with it to such good effect that the snapper exploded in their very
jaws, causing them to stampede in terror, while the children rolled on
the grass in fits of laughter.
“Now for the basket of five-o’clock teas,” said Miss Letty, who saw
that the dogs had about reached the end of their good behaviour,
and the children were also growing restive, and needed the soothing
influence of ice-cream. “Is it ready, Pinkie?”
Miss Letty then fastened Hamlet’s cap, which chanced to be a white
Normandy bonnet with strings, firmly under his chin, pinned a napkin
around his waist to imitate a waiter’s apron, and made him stand erect.
“Here’s the basket,” said Pinkie, coming forward and thrusting the
quaint bit of silver suddenly at Miss Letty.
“But, Pinkie dear,” she protested, “I only wished a common straw
basket; this is too good. Hamlet may bend or break it.”
“I couldn’t get anything worse,” answered Pinkie, jerking out her words
half sulkily, “any way--it’s--only an--old thing--and--mother didn’t
say I mustn’t take it.”
“Yes, but old things are often very precious; yet after all it will
only take a moment, and I will wrap my handkerchief about the handle so
that Hamlet’s teeth may not scratch it.”
“Allons!” she cried to the patient dog, who came slowly forward, took
the handle between his teeth, and walked dutifully down the line of
waiting dogs. Each child gave a biscuit to its pet, because if the dogs
had been allowed to help themselves, poor Hamlet would surely have been
upset, for to walk in such a position, and carry a heavy basket, is a
great strain for any dog, no matter how clever.
All went well until Hamlet reached the fox terriers, when Luck made a
spring for the basket. This seemed to be a signal of revolt against
good behaviour, for instantly Hamlet dropped on all fours and began
careering wildly around, still holding the basket. Instantly all the
dogs were running about in a circle, barking and yelping wildly, the
little tea table was overturned, and cups, saucers, and cookies went
rolling down the walk together.
The Lanes’ groom flew out from ambush and tried to restore order, or at
least to catch his own dogs, but Hans Sachs ran between his feet and
upset him in the midst of the china.
At first the children had added their shouts to the general mêlée;
but when the table was overturned, Pinkie began to cry, and Ruby
having growled at Silvie, little Sophie added her tears. For a moment
poor Miss Letty was completely bewildered, then she tried to capture
Hamlet, who was evidently the ringleader; but Hamlet was no longer the
polite and obedient house dog. He would not even listen, and after
circling the lawn three or four times, the others following in a line
like a troop of circus dogs, he led them through the open back gate,
and across the fields, still holding the basket of five-o’clock teas
aloft, until all disappeared from view like a whirlwind in the tall
grass--Silvie, blue bow, and all.
“’Taint no mortial use followin’ on ’em that ways, miss,” said the
Lanes’ man, making for the stable. “I’ll take the pony and head ’em off
by the cross-road, or they’ll run to Pine Ridge shore.”
* * * * *
“Now I think we would better eat our ice-cream and sponge cake before
they come back or anything else happens,” said Miss Letty, as she and
the waitress rearranged the table, and the children agreed with her
vociferously, that is, all but Pinkie. She had her great-grandmother’s
silver cake basket weighing on her conscience, and even ice-cream
seemed odious.
Suddenly Miss Letty realized that Hamlet had carried off the basket,
and without knowing its value, she spoke of it to the waitress, who
grew pale with fright when she heard what Pinkie had done, saying
that the mistress would never allow any one even to clean the baskets
but herself. A man was hastily sent to follow the trail of the dogs
carefully, and two helpings of ice-cream and unlimited cake and mottoes
kept up the spirit of those who had clear consciences for more than
half an hour, when a yelping from the direction of Happy Hall orchard
told that the run was over and the runners returning.
This time they came in at the gate, Hamlet still in the lead, but
without the basket. All were dripping wet, with water-weeds, and ooze
clinging to their coats and tails, and Miss Silvie’s blue ribbon
stringing out behind her was merely a long rag. Hamlet had found
himself, however, he was once more the retrieving water dog of old
France, and he had led his friends to the mill pond and challenged them
to a swimming match. A water dog he remained, for from that day he
refused to do his taught tricks, and wore his hair only long enough to
clothe his skin, but he became a more intelligent companion than ever.
* * * * *
Supper time came, and with it the return of Pinkie’s mother and aunt,
but the cake basket could not be found.
“We will drag the pond for it to-morrow; it is probably as safe
from burglars there at the bottom as if it was on the sideboard,”
said Pinkie’s father, who hated a fuss. But then it was not his
grandmother’s basket.
“What would dear grandma have said to this?” asked Pinkie’s mother
of her sister. The idea was too appalling to admit of an answer, for
Pinkie’s great-grandmother belonged to that particular puritanic time
when children though seen were said to have _never_ been heard, and
dogs? Well, dogs were merely four-legged brutes, who were fed upon what
nothing else would eat. One custom of the far-away period, however,
happened to Pinkie that night--she was spanked.
* * * * *
Waddles, on returning from escorting Tommy to the party that afternoon,
threw himself down under the lilac bushes for a nap. He was in a huff,
as during his brief stay at Pinkie’s his keen nose had scented the
presence of the five-o’clock tea biscuits, which his heart craved. No
one had asked him to stay or given him a biscuit, and he felt himself
insulted both in his private capacity and as Mayor of Dogtown.
Toward sunset he awoke with a yawn; it was past the time to go for the
cows, he had slept and missed a trick for once. Suddenly a howling and
baying caused him to prick up his ears, and at the same moment the
procession of dogs cut cornerwise from the orchard across the garden
and away toward the woods and pond.
[Illustration]
Waddles started to follow them, but as he had nearly reached the corner
of the wall something glittering caught his eye, and a beloved smell
seized on his nose at the same time. There at the edge of the cobbled
gutter lying on its side was the precious cake basket with fully half
of the box of five-o’clock teas beside it on the ground.
Waddles’s eyes glistened. He sniffed with long sniffs of enjoyment, he
licked his lips, and looking round cautiously from time to time ate
up every biscuit and every crumb, then walked slowly off, head erect,
and tail held gaily as much as to say, “Some poor dogs have to go to
parties, others have the party brought to them.”
* * * * *
The next morning when Anne went out early to gather flowers for the
breakfast table, she found the silver basket still lying on its side.
Picking it up joyfully, for every one now knew of its loss, and finding
that it was unharmed, she sent it at once to its owner. Waddles, who
was with her, gave no sign of recognition, but tiptoed steadily along
on the other side of the walk.
“I wonder which dog ate the five-o’clock teas?” said Anne to herself.
“They were scattered through the fields, most likely.”
Only Waddles and Hamlet could answer this question, and--there is
honour among dogs. Anne noticed, however, that from the day of the
party Hamlet became an esteemed member of the Dogtown council--such is
political influence!
[Illustration]