Dogtown: Being Some Chapters from the Annals of the Waddles Family Set Down in the Language of HousepeopleWright, Mabel Osgood
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Dogtown: Being Some Chapters from the Annals of the Waddles Family Set Down in the Language of Housepeople
Wright, Mabel Osgood
Dogs -- Juvenile fiction
“No, it’s a good eye; father says so,” put in matter-of-fact Tommy, who
usually championed Anne and her possessions. “It just saw you that way
and put it down.”
“If other people see me that way, I don’t wonder that they always make
fun of me, and don’t like me,” said Mr. Hugh, looking unthinkingly
toward where Miss Letty was playing tennis with Anne and a good-looking
college fellow named Varley who was a chum of Pinkie Scott’s big
brother; for Mr. Hugh was too practical and slow to take a joke
quickly, which was the one defect that kept him from being altogether
charming.
“I don’t think looks matters much. If you just like things, you see
’em all right. I loved Lily dog, but she was really ever so homely,
Anne says, lots worse than your picture, and I kept Miss Letty for my
sweetheart all that week the poison ivy made her eyes little and buried
her nose,” he added, swelling with boastful pride at his fidelity.
Thus did Tommy manage to alternately warm and chill the friendship
between his two friends.
* * * * *
At three weeks the pups were not only fascinating from their baby ways
but for their intelligence as well; and in the matter of points, Squire
Burley pronounced them quite remarkable for their age, Miss Jule adding
that it was a well-known fact that beagles developed more quickly than
almost any other breed of dog; while the fact that they could lap milk
nicely was a great help to Happy in keeping her larder well filled,
for catering for one pair of twins was wholly different from supplying
three pairs.
They had just been frisking about their dish, rolling and playing,
when Anne and Tommy came out from breakfast, bent upon the important
business of naming them.
“Ouch! their teeth have come, and sharp as fishes’, too!” exclaimed
Tommy, who had experience both with fish-teeth and fish-hooks, quickly
withdrawing an inquisitive finger.
[Illustration: _Naming the Pups._]
“Don’t tease them,” cautioned Anne; “if we are to name them, it must
be done properly, so that they won’t feel sorry about it when they grow
up. I want to give them real names we can call them, and not have them
registered under one name, like Cadence, and always called another.”
“Try to call them something that you can shorten,” said Anne’s father,
stopping on his way to the dark house. He, too, had been lured from the
study many times to take pictures of the puppies; but he refused to
show the results until they were properly finished.
“We might call them after birds,” said Anne, who had been looking
through the trees down to the distant meadows, where many birds were
flocking before starting on their autumn travels.
“Yes, let’s,” agreed Tommy, quickly. “Jay’d be a first-rate name for
one,” he added, as one of those bold-talking sneak-thieves called
overhead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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