more company came after that. it was in the fall, when the leaves were turning to beautiful colours and falling off the trees and when the mornings and nights were quite cool and the best place to take a nap was in the stable doorway where the sun shone warmly on the floor. freya and i were about six months old then and were getting to be pretty big for puppies. we weren’t as big as father or mother, but when we romped with either of them freya and i together could do just about as we pleased with them. lots of times mother used to run away from us because we were so strong that we could roll her over on her back and bite her and shake her until she yelped.
others had grown up, too. all the fluffy little yellow chicks that freya and i used to watch through the chicken yard wires were quite big, almost as big as their parents. and all the little ducklings had grown up into ducks and could say “quack!” just like their mothers and fathers. in the garden the flowers had gone, all but a few, and it was a great relief to me. i was always very fond of flowers and liked to pick them and eat them, but william didn’t like me to and would get after me whenever he caught me at it. i got a lot of cuffings on account of my love for flowers. i couldn’t understand why it was they were so selfish with them when they had so many. it seemed to me that one or two more or less would not have made any difference. but two-legged folks are peculiar in many ways. they aren’t nearly so sensible as dogs.
even the baby was getting bigger and older. she could talk quite nicely by fall, although you had to listen very closely to understand all she said. you see, she talked very quickly and ran her words together. it was the baby who told me about the company coming. it was one morning on the piazza. the screens had been taken off then and the baby and i were in the hammock together. freya didn’t like the hammock. she said it made her feel funny inside when it swung. i did, though. it was full of nice soft cushions and i was very proud when i found one day that i could jump up on it all by myself and didn’t have to be lifted up or pulled up any more. well, the baby and i were there together, swinging, and she was pulling my ears the way she liked to do, and chatting all the time. i wasn’t paying very much attention to what she was saying because i was a little bit sleepy. it always makes me sleepy to have my ears pulled. well, pretty soon the baby said:
“booful little boy’s coming to play wiv mild’ed. all way f’om city. coming to-day, i dess.”
i pricked up my ears then. at least, i pricked up one of them, the one that wasn’t being pulled. i had never seen a little boy very near, but i had heard mother speak of them and from what she had said i didn’t think i should like them. so i didn’t look very pleased at what the baby said. perhaps she saw it, for she went on:
“is very nice little boy. is coming all way f’om city to play wiv mild’ed. little boy’s name is a’fed.”
i thought afed was a very silly name for any one, even a boy. i found out afterwards that his name was alfred, but i didn’t like it much better. i hoped he would be nicer than his name. the baby talked on about him for a long time and i pretended to listen. finally i got tired hearing about him and jumped down and went away. i made up my mind that i wasn’t going to like a’fred, and when i told freya she made up her mind she wasn’t going to like him either. we decided that we would bite his legs when he came.
william drove to the railway station to meet alfred and his mother, and freya went along. william was very partial to freya and used to take her with him quite often. he took me once and said he would never do it again because i barked at everything i saw and fell out of the carriage. i didn’t mean to fall out, though, and it hurt a good deal. anyhow, he took freya with him that day and i found a warm place on a flower bed beside the house and waited for them to come back. william didn’t like to have us lie on the flower beds, even after the flowers were through blooming, but i knew he wouldn’t see me and i meant to go away when i heard the carriage coming up the drive.
but it was so warm there and the earth smelled so nice that i fell asleep. when i woke up the first thing i did was to howl and the next thing to run. because william had come back without my hearing him and had crept over to me, and what had wakened me up was the carriage whip! i thought it was rather a mean thing to surprise me like that. when i had stopped hurting and running i looked back and there was the little boy with freya in his arms going into the house. and, would you believe it, freya was actually licking his face! isn’t that like a girl-dog, to break her promise the very first thing? just pat freya and she thinks you are perfectly lovely and follows you all around. for my part, i’d have more self-respect and pride. folks can’t make friends with me by just patting my head and saying “nice doggie!” no, sir!
i was quite disgusted with freya and i told her so later.
alfred’s mother was a very sweet looking lady and i knew right away i should like her. i did, too. not two hours afterwards she came out to see us and fed us peppermint drops. i am very fond of peppermint drops because they make your tongue feel sort of cold and tingley, and i liked the lady at once. oh, not just because of the candy, of course, but because she was nice to look at and understood dogs and loved them. we can tell right off whether a person likes us. alfred came out with his mother, and the baby followed alfred. she wouldn’t let him out of her sight and paid almost no attention to me. alfred was really rather nice looking, for a boy, with golden hair, dark eyes and a sun-burned face. he was older than the baby. when he saw me he cried:
“oh, there’s another of them! come here, puppy! what’s your name?”
of course i paid no heed to him. i meant to show freya that i had more sense than to grovel to folks just because they whistled to me and paid me a little attention! when he saw that i didn’t mean to come to him he started after me, and i showed my teeth and growled. he stopped then and made a face at me. “you’re not as nice as the other one,” he said. then he picked up a pebble and threw it at me and i growled again. “what’s this one’s name, mildred?” he asked the baby.
“he name f’itz. him booful dogums!”
alfred laughed. “fits! that’s a funny name, isn’t it? does he have them often?”
“she means fritz, dear,” said his mother. “here, fritz, come and see me.”
so i went, but i wouldn’t let alfred touch me, and he didn’t like it a bit. he fed candy to freya and she fairly licked his shoes! girl-dogs have no pride. it so disgusted me that i turned right around and went down to the stable and crawled behind the flower-pots.
even father and mother seemed to like alfred, and they and freya played with him and the baby a lot. i didn’t. i stayed away. it was pretty lonesome, though. now and then alfred would try to make friends with me. he begged cake from cook and tried to get me to take it, but i wouldn’t. i’m fond of cake, too. i spent a good deal of time behind the flower-pots those days. you see i was afraid that some time when i was fearfully hungry alfred would offer me cake and i’d take it. and i didn’t want to, for i had made up my mind not to be friends with him. one morning he and the baby came out of the house when we were having breakfast at the back door and called to us. of course father and mother and freya trotted right over to them, but i stayed and made believe i had found something more to eat in the dish. when freya saw that she came back, but i growled at her and she went off again.
“come, f’itz!” called the baby. “come f’itz, booful dogums!”
and alfred called me too, but i wouldn’t go, and finally alfred said: “oh, come on. we don’t want him anyway!”
so they went off toward the orchard to hunt squirrels. of course i felt pretty lonesome and wanted to go with them very much. hunting squirrels is awfully exciting, even though we never catch any. i licked the breakfast dish quite clean and then went to the corner of the house and peeked around. they were all over in the orchard and father was barking at a great rate, making believe he had found a fox’s nest or something, and freya was trotting behind alfred and trying to lick his hand. the baby was toddling along, laughing, and mother was barking at a bird. it looked very jolly and i crept along after them, keeping out of sight.
they didn’t find any squirrels. i never saw but one in the orchard and he wasn’t much to look at, having almost no hair on his tail. but we always pretended the trees were full of them. after they had been all around the orchard they climbed the wall on the other side, which they were not allowed to do, and went into the thicket over there where the ground is all soft and squishy. i could have told them that they would soon find themselves in trouble, and i came very near barking and warning them, but i didn’t. it was no affair of mine.
after a bit i heard alfred shout and then mother barked and the baby began to cry and i knew just what had happened. i went back to the house and sat on the lawn and waited, and pretty soon they came back looking very sorrowful. the baby had fallen down in the swamp and she was covered with black mud from head to toes. alfred was leading her with one hand and trying to wipe off the mud with the other, and freya, who never knows when she isn’t wanted, was getting in the way and barking and acting perfectly stupid. father and mother stayed behind, trying to look as if nothing much had happened. when they all passed me i just looked at them without a word and i can tell you they felt silly! the mistress saw them from a window and came hurrying out to meet them, and alfred’s mother came out, too.
“oh, mildred, what have you done?” cried the mistress. “just see that nice clean dress i put on you not half an hour ago!”
“she—she fell down in the mud over there,” said alfred. “we—we were hunting indians.”
did you ever hear anything so foolish? just as though there were any indians around there! even if there had been freya and i would soon have scared them away. well, the mistress led the baby into the house and alfred’s mother said: “alfred, come with me, please,” and alfred said “yes’m,” in a voice that seemed to come from his shoes. father and mother went down to the stable in a hurry and freya came over and sat down beside me.
“a nice thing you did,” i said.
“it wasn’t my fault,” said freya with a whine.
“you should have watched out for the baby,” i said sternly. “you’ll catch it when the mistress finds you.”
so freya suddenly remembered that she had left a bone behind the stable and trotted off after it, looking back now and then at the front door. presently alfred came out all alone. he had one arm over his eyes, but he couldn’t fool me. i knew he was crying. i guess his mother had whipped him, or maybe just scolded him, for letting the baby fall in the mud. he didn’t see me and he went around the house and sat down on the back door-step and sniffled. i followed him. if you don’t like a person you enjoy seeing them cry. at least, you ought to, i think. but alfred kept on crying kind of softly, just as though his heart was broken, and i couldn’t stand it. i wanted to go away and leave him there, but—but somehow i couldn’t do that either.
so after a bit i crept over to him and got up on the step beside him and licked his face. he peeked out and saw it was me and was so surprised that he forgot to cry for a minute. then he put his arm around me and i licked his face some more and—and, oh, well, after that we liked each other a lot.
mother said afterwards that it was just jealousy that had kept me away, and i guess it was. alfred stayed a whole week after that and we had some fine times together. when he went back to the city i missed him a great deal. the place seemed very lonely. i think i missed him almost as much as the baby did, and the baby cried all one day. i tried my best to comfort her and i licked her nose and her cheeks and her ears, but it didn’t do much good. she kept right on saying that she wanted her “booful a’fed.” the mistress told her that she would see him again very soon because they were all going to the city to stay a long, long time. but that didn’t help me any, because i was quite sure they wouldn’t take me.
and they didn’t. they all went off, bag and baggage, about a week later, and only william and cook and delia were left. mother and i were very sad and lonesome at first. i don’t think father minded so much, because he and william were great chums, and as for freya, why, as long as she had enough to eat and some one to say “good dog” to her, she didn’t care what happened. but mother and i missed the baby a whole lot, and the mistress too, and the master not so much because[84] he was busy a good deal of the time and we saw less of him.
and then one day we woke up and the world was all white, and mother said it had snowed in the night. and william picked up some of the white stuff and made a ball of it and threw it at delia at the back door. and delia squealed and ran inside. william said: “well, well, winter’s here at last!”
i think i have told you enough for now. you have almost fallen asleep two or three times. besides, it is time for my nap. i always like a short nap before dinner. and really i have talked an awful lot. i hope you liked my story.
