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.