Dogtown / Being Some Chapters from the Annals of the Waddles Family Set Down in the Language of Housepeople

CHAPTER XIV THE BARBED WIRE FENCE

Mr. Hugh’s promised field day with supper at Robin Hood’s Inn had, for various reasons, been postponed so often that, as Anne remarked, “first it was to have been a hazel-nut party, then a hunt for hickory and chestnuts, but now both are over, so if it doesn’t happen soon, it will have to be a skating party, which won’t be a bit of fun for the dogs.”

The delay was nobody’s fault, however, for it had taken some time to clear the old farm and woodlots of briers and thorny bushes, so that it was fit for people to explore either afoot or on horseback. Then Mr. Hugh had to go away to meet some other wise chemists who also spent their time, as Anne once said of her friend, “in mixing queer things together that were of no use to make something that was,” and tell them of a perfectly new smell he had discovered.

Next, Tommy had a bad sore throat, which, knowing they usually lasted a week, he concealed for two days, though swallowing hurt him pitifully, lest he should be housed and so miss the festivity, and if Mr. Hugh himself had not discovered the state of the case, he might have been very ill indeed.

It was toward afternoon of the second day of the discomfort that Mr. Hugh, riding slowly up the road, was stopped by Tommy, who came out of the back gate, looking anxiously behind him, as if he was afraid of being followed. Mr. Hugh halted with a half amused, half questioning expression on his face, well knowing that Tommy wanted something of him, and called, “What’s up, little chap?” by way of greeting.

Tommy clung to a leather stirrup and rested his cheek against it, for his legs were beginning to feel tired to the bone, which is one of the many bad things that a sore throat does to people, and asked in a voice that was so hoarse that it instantly attracted Mr. Hugh’s attention, “Please, if Miss Letty is hurt or sick Saturday, will you have the riding and the clay pigeon shoot and all the rest of the party?”

“No, of course not. Has anything happened to her?” asked Mr. Hugh, anxiously.

“No, not yet; but there may, you see, ’cause this is only Tuesday.”“Nonsense!” ejaculated Mr. Hugh, feeling astonished at the sense of relief that came over him; for, without realizing it, he was depending more and more upon the companionship of Miss Jule’s pretty niece, in spite of the fact that as he ceased teasing her and treating her like a child, she was taking her revenge, and had turned tables by always laughing at him and never seeming serious for a moment.

“If—if Anne was sick, would you wait for her?” continued Tommy, more slowly.

“Of course I would.”

“Well, if I was sick, really, truly sick, with a lumpy sore throat, I suppose—you wouldn’t stop the party for only me?” There was a quaver to the last words, and though the child kept his face hidden, Mr. Hugh noticed for the first time that his cheeks were flushed, and the whole thing flashed across him.

“Of course I’ll wait,” he said heartily. “It would never do to have the party a man short; besides, what would your sweetheart, Miss Letty, do? You know you promised to show her how to shoot, and lend her your gun. Is the poor throat very sore? Come up here and we will have a ride home round through the front gate, and tell that nice mother of ours all about it, and have it cured.”“Yes, it’s sore, and it’s getting pretty tight, too, and I’m dreffle sleepy,” said Tommy, falling unconsciously into the trap, and leaning comfortably against Mr. Hugh, who had pulled him on to the saddle before him. But his anxiety had passed, so long as he did not miss the party; a sore throat, in the nice sunny room that had been the nursery and was now set apart for illness, with a big open fire to watch, picture books, mother to sit by and read, or father to make up stories, and a dog or two for company when they went away, was indeed luxury.

This, however, was the last delay, and the black frost kindly kept away, leaving the last week in October as beautiful and suitable as heart could desire.

Beside the Hilltop and Happy Hall people, who were all intimate friends, Mr. Hugh had invited some of his own and Squire Burley’s men friends, also a handful of the village young people. In addition there was a Miss Varley stopping at the Scotts’. Her brother was a college chum of Pinkie’s big brother, and they were all three invited, as they were fond of sport, and good riders.

The Varleys, who came from the south, where they hunt foxes altogether on horseback, suggested to Mr. Hugh that he should put corn-stalk or brush hurdles in some of the gateless gaps in his tumble-down stone fences, and have a drag-hunt over the course to break in the young hounds, who all told numbered a pack of twenty.

Squire Burley was one of the few Hillside folk who owned a hunter, because in this section all the fox-hunting was a necessity, done in earnest, and afoot, with a swift death by bullet for the hen-roost robbers. The Squire opened his land for the drag-hunt, likewise Miss Jule and several small farmers, for all the crops were in but the stacks of corn stalks. A drag-hunt, as Anne explained to Miss Letty, “is when you put seeds that smell like a fox in a bag and drag it round early in the morning when the dew is heavy and holds the scent down. Then the dogs think it is a fox trail, and run like anything, and never find that there isn’t any fox until it’s too late to back out, and before the next time they forget all about how they were cheated.”

“You will be the only woman to follow,” Mr. Hugh had said to Miss Varley, when the arrangements were completed. “Only two or three of our girls ride, and they never take fences, though Diana here is beginning to train for a huntress.”

Anne had laughed softly at this, and glanced slyly at Miss Letty, for Mr. Hugh had caught them one morning when Anne was trying to coax her father’s horse, Tom, over an improvised hurdle composed of a rake handle set upon two small boxes, which collapsed upon the slightest provocation; but he had not come in time to observe that Miss Letty, who was mounted on Miss Jule’s Brown Kate, could handle a horse very well, and already managed three of the four pasture bars; neither did he know that several years back, when at school in England, she had spent her holidays with the daughters of a farming squire to whom cross-country riding was as familiar a doing as eating breakfast.

When the time was finally set, it chanced to fall upon the very last day of October.

“Surely, the night is Hallowe’en, and so we can have apple and nut sports, and the like,” exclaimed Mrs. Carr, when Mr. Hugh went up to make the arrangements for the supper party which would fill two long tables, one in the dining room and another in the kitchen, making it necessary that one of Mr. Hugh’s maids as well as Mary Anne and Miss Jule’s Anna Maria should help the old lady.

Mr. Hugh’s brake and the bus from the village were to transport the people to and fro, and there would be a picnic lunch on the rocks by the old mill-dam at noon; one of Mr. Hugh’s first improvements having been to repair the broken-down wall, so that the pond would be in good condition for skating, and he had, likewise, put up a small log shelter for the skaters.

Tommy was the only small child invited; but Mr. Hugh knew that he could be trusted to amuse himself and curl up in any corner and go to sleep if he grew weary before going-home time came. Likewise, as such a field day was almost as rare as Christmas that “comes but once a year,” his mother said that he might stay up with the others—that is, if he was able.

When the day came, it was one of those wonderful forerunners of Indian summer; cool in the morning, warm, with a light breeze at noon, and at night clear with a piercing electric brightness rayed from the north.

Most of the trees in the woods were bare, except a few oaks, the dead leaves were crisp to the tread, and witch hazel was in its strange yellow bloom in the hollows, but the leaves still clung in the orchards, and the honeysuckles on farmhouse porches were green and showed sprays of flowers.

Anne and Tommy went to Hilltop with the very first load, which was compounded partly of dogs and partly of the “extras” that Mrs. Carr needed. Neither, of course, were to follow the drag-hunt, but they wanted to be on the spot, and Mr. Hugh had solemnly promised Tommy that if he followed a certain safe wood-path leading round about in a circle, that he should meet a rabbit face to face. While Anne, who delighted in Mrs. Carr’s kitchen, was to have the honour of making a batch of the celebrated seed cakes all by herself. Waddles, his wife, and his son Jack, leashed together for a wonder, rode up with their mistress, for it was not thought best to let them take their chances so early in the day with the rough-and-ready foxhounds; but as they were leaving the brake, Jack Waddles managed to slip loose and bolted off, much to Anne’s worriment.

Tommy shielded his pockets carefully that morning, for in them was concealed a secret that made him feel alternately important and then very guilty; for he had a bag full of shot in each pocket, the blacksmith’s boy not only having shown him how to use it, but supplied him with it as well, in return for two enormous pumpkins that he had coveted for lantern making.

When Anne went indoors, Mr. Hugh, who was riding about collecting forces and telling Martin, who had volunteered, exactly where to trail the drag, passed down the road on his way to meet the Varleys and show them the cut to Squire Burley’s, for the hounds were gathered there, as the start was to be from his orchard.

Miss Varley certainly looked very well on a horse, and was perfectly aware of it. She wore a black skirt, a tight-fitting red coat and a small continental hat looped up with a cockade—a costume in which artists and illustrators had painted or sketched her; and she kept her horse continually curvetting and champing at the bit, as she made somewhat cutting remarks about what she termed “mere baby business,” and derided the local habit of shooting foxes, in contrast to the cross-country riding to which she was accustomed.

As Mr. Hugh was explaining that the animals were so plentiful in this country of rocky caves that the farmers must keep them down in the easiest way, by locating the runs with the hounds and following afoot,—he glanced a bit ahead and saw, to his astonishment, Miss Letty mounted upon Brown Kate, waiting quietly opposite Squire Burley’s, Jack Waddles standing sentinel beside her; and as he came near, she greeted him with an amused sort of smile, as if such things as following a drag were of daily occurrence.Mr. Hugh felt angry, and rather showed it; but it was really a form that worry takes with some quite nice men. He was at heart afraid that she did not know how to ride, and might come to grief. He cared a great deal, but merely said, as if she had been fifteen: “What! are you going? Was your aunt willing? I thought you and Anne would keep each other company until luncheon.”

“Certainly, I am going,” she answered, flushing painfully at having what both she and Miss Jule had meant for a surprise taken in such a way; and added quickly, and rather at random: “Have you had that old barbed wire fence taken down in the middle lot? You asked me to remind you of it, but I quite forgot until this morning; and it may cripple some of the dogs.”“It’s rather late now,” said Mr. Hugh, annoyed to realize that he too had forgotten. “But no one with common sense need go anywhere near it, and if they do, they must take their chances.”

“Miss Letty was waiting with a smile.”

At this moment the hounds were put on the trail, and the party started off, Miss Letty, who looked very girlish in the white cloth shirt waist and white felt sailor hat that replaced the linen and straw of summer, rode with Pinkie Scott’s brother, who admired her exceedingly. “Follow me, and we will show them steel heels,” he said under his breath, cutting across the orchard, and Miss Letty, holding a firm rein and leaning slightly forward, followed.

Meanwhile Tommy and Waddles, whom, after much difficulty, he had coaxed to follow him, started from Robin Hood’s Inn to hunt on their own account, the way indicated by Mr. Hugh being very plain, and through the part of the land where the drag-hunt was not.

Tommy walked on in Silence.

At first Waddles moved about here and there, treeing squirrels, digging spasmodically for ground mice, who were travelling in the burrows of moles, while Tommy wandered down the bed of a dried-up brook, his gun held in a sportsmanlike grip, and his eyes searching the trees for the big owl he promised himself that he would shoot, and ask Baldy to stuff as full as life to grace the top of Miss Letty’s desk.But it often happens, when one goes a-hunting, that the birds, beasts, and fishes have engagements elsewhere. A hawk soared over toward the river, and crows were quarrelling up in their roost in the cedars, but the only birds that came near were a downy woodpecker, a nuthatch, and a chickadee, and Anne’s brother would not think of even aiming at these.

Tommy walked on in silence, a state to which he was quite a stranger, until he began to feel that not to speak even to a dog gave one a queer, chilly feeling; then he noticed that he had wandered out of the beaten path, and he stopped to look about, and whistled for Waddles. He was not afraid, for he was quite accustomed to taking care of himself, but he was disappointed about the rabbit, and angry with Waddles because he had gone off without finding a trail. Then he spied a quantity of hickory nuts lying on the rocks where a squirrel had evidently collected them, and he began to crack them with a stone, and pick out the meats very deliberately, which showed that Tommy was tired.

Presently he heard a sound close behind that reminded him of the noise the mother screech-owl had made when she snapped her beak. Getting up cautiously he looked about. There, in deep shade, perched on the gnarled root of a hickory tree that overlapped the rock, was a great owl with a smooth, round head, blue-black eyes, and brown, barred feathers. The bird sat still without blinking, watching a small hole under the root. Tommy stood still, scarcely breathing, in his wonder at the bird, hoping that it would not see him and flap in his face as the screech-owl had in Anne’s.Suddenly a young chipmunk, with back and tail striped like a garter snake’s, ran out of the hole. One of the hooked claws made a grab, snap went the beak, the little animal was secured, and the owl, spreading its broad wings, flew into a hemlock, where it began to eat at its leisure. Then only did Tommy remember his gun, and about his promise to Miss Letty.

“Never mind,” he said to himself; “father says owls are usefuller than most things they eat, and that they oughtn’t to be killed, so I’m glad I let him go; but rabbits eat lots of our garden things every year. I must look for that bunny, because it’s here somewhere, for when Mr. Hugh says so, it always happens.”

Tommy found his way back to the path, and met Waddles hurrying along; he also had found poor hunting, and was now willing to follow. After walking some distance, and having several false alarms (for when on the watch a couple of beech leaves or a tuft of wild grass take fanciful shapes), Tommy actually saw a pair of long ears held erect, and a pair of bright eyes glistening around the corner of a rock just before him. His first fear was that Waddles should see the prize and chase it away before he had a chance to aim and cock his trigger, which was quite a feat, the spring was so strong. For once, Waddles neither scented nor suspected anything, but kept close to Tommy’s heels, nosing about in the moss.

One step more, the child raised his gun, shut his eyes, and fired, and then a reaction came, and he didn’t like to open them again, so sure he was of having killed the pretty creature. Finally he peeped a little, then stared, for there sat the rabbit as round-eyed and placid as before; it had not even moved!Tommy’s impulse to fire again was stopped by the thought that it would be very mean to shoot such a tame animal, and that it must be some one’s pet, though it was not Pinkie Scott’s, for everybody in Dogtown knew her rabbits by heart, they had carried them home to her so many times, when they had strayed off gardening on their own hook.

Tommy meets the Rabbit.

Waddles sauntered slowly forward, saw the rabbit, and making a spring, knocked it over with one blow of his paw; but still it did not move. Then Tommy saw that it was a stuffed beast mounted on a little wooden platform, to which moss and dead leaves were glued. When he had recovered from his astonishment he was ready to cry with rage. “It was too mean of Mr. Hugh,” he muttered. “He promised—he promised, and then he didn’t do it.” Then the exact words of the promise came to him; it was that he was to “meet a rabbit face to face.” “I s’pose I have,” he continued; “only he didn’t say its insides would be stuffing instead of real.” But when he picked up his gun, which he had dropped, and looked it over, and felt the bag which sagged his pocket, he remembered that he had forgotten to put any shot in the gun. Then he walked along, leaving the poor stuffed rabbit resting on one ear, wondering which was the worst, to have shot at a real rabbit with no shot, or to have been fooled by a stuffed one, and at the moment that he made up his mind that the first would be the most aggravating, he turned into the low meadow that was divided from its neighbour by the old barbed wire fence, and from which the lane led to Robin Hood’s Inn.

A yelping of dogs sounded afar off in the rear, with straggling cries on both sides of him and in front. Off started Waddles, quickly disappearing in the bushes, and Tommy followed as fast as his legs could carry him, for he heard a voice and the trampling of hoofs, and if the run was over, it must be luncheon time.

All unknown to him the drag-hunt had split in two, deaf Mrs. Happy being the innocent first cause. She had gone to Robin Hood’s Inn with Anne, and had curled up contentedly in the sunny porch in company with old Laddie, when presently an odour reached her nose that caused her to spring up, sniff the air, and start headlong down the lane to the road, where, on crossing the stone fence, she struck the trail of a skunk, startled from his daytime lodging by the hounds who had recently passed close by. Nose to ground, she gave tongue and followed the skunk, who had zigzagged about the fences for a time before making off to another hiding-place he had by the river. Further down, the hounds in doubling crossed this new trail, and some of the young ones, hearing Happy’s cry, were drawn off upon it, part of the riders following, only to come upon impassable rocks by the river cut.

The barking came nearer, and Happy, Waddles, and Jack dashed past Tommy and up the lane; at the same time he saw a riderless horse in the outer field, and something seemed to move near the barbed wire fence that ran between.

“It’s one of those poor hounds, and that wicked wire has caught him,” cried Tommy, running toward the spot with his eyes flashing and his little fists doubled up, for, like Anne, he could not bear to have animals suffer pain.

But when he got near he saw that it was not a hound that was caught by the wire, but Mr. Hugh! For an instant Tommy was frightened, but as soon as he saw that his friend was not hurt, but merely held fast by the clothes in a dozen places, the fun of the situation struck him, and he capered about shouting, and making comments, and asking questions, all in one breath.

“Ah, Mr. Hugh, you do look so funny! If only Anne were here with her camera to take a picture! If you’ll wait long enough, I’ll go fetch her, for you’re hooked up just like when Pinkie Scott reached after lilies and fell in the pond, and they pulled her out from behind with the hay-fork. Did the horse tumble you in like that?”

The truth was that Mr. Hugh had dismounted to let down some bars for the people who had gone astray, and his horse, feeling fresh, galloped off. In trying to head him off by a short cut, Mr. Hugh had met the barbed wire fence, seen a gap between the strands, dashed at it, only to be caught by a couple of slack wires when halfway through, in such a position that if he let go the only hold he had upon a half rotten post, he must fall upon a rusty coil that guarded the tumble-down stone fence below. Barbed wire at best is cruel stuff, and when it is old and rusty every scratch it gives means danger.

“Stop bawling so, for pity’s sake, and see if you can help me out of this mess before the others come; try to pry the wire with a stick,” said Mr. Hugh, in so hoarse a whisper that Tommy instantly obeyed, or rather tried to, but the sticks at hand were either too small or rotten, and at every twist the poor man made the hooked wire seemed to take new hold.

At this moment the snapping of twigs and the padding sound of hoofs on grass made Mr. Hugh give a painful writhe to look over his shoulder; his discomfiture was complete, for there was Miss Letty.

She slipped quickly to the ground, and tethering Brown Kate to a branch, came forward, looking, as Tommy told Anne that night in the privacy of his little bed, “the colour you feel when you’ve waited too long for your breakfast.”Seeing that Mr. Hugh had not been thrown, but was merely snared, she pulled herself together and hesitated for a moment; while he, putting on an air of bravado which was very funny under the cramped circumstances, said: “Yes, here I am, and having parted with my common sense I’m taking the consequences, and you have your revenge. When all the party have had a good look at me, I suppose some one will help me out.”

Miss Letty did not answer though she was afraid he would hear her heart beat it was thumping so loudly, but looking about with a swift glance spied Tommy’s gun that had fallen unnoticed in the grass. Seizing it, she slipped it between the two furthest apart wires, managing to catch a barb in the muzzle, and pried, while with the handle of her riding crop she pulled back the two loose strands with all her strength. There was a sound of tearing cloth, a pocket burst open, throwing its contents in among the leaves, and Mr. Hugh crawled out on his hands and knees, literally at Miss Letty’s feet. Just as she stretched out her hand to help him, lest he slip backward, one of the papers that Tommy was cramming back into the letter-case caught her eye; it was the picture of herself that Anne had taken, and which had disappeared as if by magic. Mr. Hugh, if it was possible, turned redder than he was before he was released; but Letty, with quiet tact, quickly unfastened Brown Kate and, scrambling into the saddle by the aid of a stone at the fence corner, cantered off in the opposite direction to where Mr. Hugh’s horse was now quietly grazing.

For a minute the big man and the little one stood eying each other curiously. Then Tommy broke the pause: “Now isn’t Miss Letty common sensible and useful enough to be your sweetheart, Mr. Hugh, even if she is pretty? And wouldn’t that red and black girl have shouted if she’d seen you in the fence?”

“Yes, Tommy,” said Mr. Hugh, quietly; “you are a better judge than I was; but Miss Letty does not wish to be the sweetheart of an old bear like me.”

“No,” said Tommy, candidly, “I guess not, for I’ve heard her say you were a bear, and so has Anne.” And though Tommy handed back the letter book containing the picture without further comment, he had seen, and when one has seen a thing, one can hardly unsee it again. Mr. Hugh secured his horse and regained the road, Tommy riding in front of him, before he overtook the others; and the beseeching look that the big man gave the little one as he swung him to the ground kept him quiet concerning the barbed wire episode, at least for some hours.

At the end of an afternoon spent in archery, and shooting clay pigeons, winding up with a great game of hide and seek, in which old and young, men and women, joined, the last one to be found receiving a prize of the beautifully painted head of a foxhound, supper and the fire warmth made the party good-naturedly drowsy.

Miss Varley, who won the prize, had hidden herself beyond finding by dropping into the hollow trunk of an old chestnut tree; but the agility that took her in did not get her out again, which was only accomplished by a long, strong pull by two of the most muscular men of the party, engineered by Mr. Hugh. This, however, did not count, and being much elated and in high spirits, she gradually stirred the company into story-telling, camp-fire fashion, with the difference that no one was to talk for a longer time than the faggot he or she threw on the flames should burn. This caused more than one tale to break off before the climax, and the guessing and merriment that ensued soon made every one wide awake again, with the exception of Tommy, who was destined to finish the evening under the blue and white curtains of Mrs. Carr’s ample four poster. So, as he said he had a story to tell, he was given the next turn. Liking quick results, he picked a handful of white pine cones from the basket instead of a stick, and as they flashed into a juicy flame began deliberately:—

“Once there was a barbed wire fence on top of a stone wall. It ought to have been taken down, ’cause it was rusty and wicked, but it wasn’t, ’cause somebody forgot.”—Seeing signs of agitated interest in at least two of his audience, Tommy spoke faster—“This old fence was very cruel indeed, and it caught things tighter than spiders and flies, but the things were bigger. First it caught a dear little dog named Jill, and Mrs. Carr, when she was the Herb Witch, pulled her out and mended her. The next thing that barbed wire fence caught was bigger and funnier—a—great—big—” “Time’s up,” called Mr. Hugh, before Tommy could say another word, at the moment that the blaze vanished in blackness, after the fashion of pine-cone fires; and if you said even a single word after time was called, you must pay a fine.However, as Anne led Tommy away, fairly stumbling with the sleep that was in his heels if not in his head, he turned, hung back, and said to Mr. Hugh, in a piping voice that could be heard above all the babble, “You needn’t have looked so scared, I wasn’t going to tell it just zackly the way it was—nor about that picture Anne took of Miss Letty—nor—” but the closing door kindly shut Tommy off, and though the entire party suspected a joke of some kind, only one beside the conscious pair saw through the whole affair. This was Miss Jule, who had seen Mr. Hugh slip the photograph into his pocket that afternoon long ago, before the sixlets were born. She had also chanced to see from a distance the barbed wire fence episode, and for some reason known to herself a motherly smile of content lighted her plain features, until Letty, glancing shyly at her aunt, wondered why she had never before thought her fine looking.

Mrs. Carr’s various combinations of apples, nuts, candles, rings, flour, and pails of water, that go to make up Hallowe’en tricks, produced more good-natured fun, especially when Miss Letty, after swinging it thrice over her head, threw the apple paring over her left shoulder, causing Anne to exclaim at the initial it made, which was promptly eaten by Tip, who loved fruit, before any one else could decipher it.

Then the stage and brake came up, and there was a search for wraps, while Anne was astounded and mystified to find Miss Letty hugging poor Happy and stuffing her with cold chicken. She had been shut up supperless in a back passageway because she had been disobedient and spoiled the hunt, and had also gone too near the skunk.

Mr. Hugh’s horse had been put up in Miss Jule’s stable, so he rode that far in the brake with the others, and stopped off to get him. As there was no reason why he should wait outside in the cold, he went in with Miss Jule, who hurried off to make some coffee (Anna Maria having retired), as she said, to “settle their wits, after too much supper and too much laughter,” leaving the two standing before the hall fire, feeling equally awkward. Colin and Hamlet, who had stayed at home, hearing voices, came racing from the kitchen hall and greeted Letty with an unfeigned joy that tumbled her hair down on her shoulders, while Tip, not to be outdone, sprang upon the back of a near-by chair and, paws on her shoulder, gave her a kiss on the tip of the nose.

“Love me, love my dog,” quoted Miss Letty, struggling with her pets, and, after the fashion of flustered people, meaning nothing in particular by her words.

“I do,” answered Mr. Hugh, promptly, having found himself at last.

“Ah!” was what Miss Jule said, when she returned with the coffee fifteen minutes later.

That night Miss Letty wrote a long letter to her Aunt Marie, telling her that she liked American customs so much that she had decided to remain in the country. The letter also said other things which prevented Aunt Marie from accusing Aunt Jule of unfair influence, which was quite fortunate.

Before the week was over everybody had heard the news, and everybody was glad, which was quite wonderful, and Tommy had the honour of being the messenger. This office he filled most thoroughly, adding details from time to time to entertain his hearers, that were certainly not a part of his commission.

Presently, one rainy day, Miss Letty herself came down, as Anne said, for a good talk, and before seating herself with the children and dogs on the hearth rug, she pulled a round bundle from her ulster pocket and tossed it to Anne, who exclaimed upon opening it, for out fell two beautiful silver bands, lined with chamois, upon which letters were engraved.

“Why, they are dog collars! Who are they for?” she exclaimed, holding them toward the light to read the letters.

“For Mr. and Mrs. Waddles, and they are from us, because,—because, you see, we think that if Happy had not mixed up the drag-hunt we might have kept on misunderstanding and wandering around Robin Hood’s barn always.”

“They are perfectly lovely, and too good for every day,” said Anne, fastening one on Happy, but having to coax Waddles, who was always suspicious of new-fangled things. “But don’t you really, truly think, dear Miss Letty, that the poor old barbed wire fence deserves a silver collar, too?”

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