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"What a perfectly horrid man he must be to give such heavenly dogs nothing but dog-bread and milk for their Christmas dinner!... Is he young? Is he old? Is he thin? Is he fat? However in the world did he happen to come to a queer, battered old place like the Rattle-Pane House? But once come why didn't he stay? And And And ?" "Yes'm," sighed the old Butler.
And as long as I have to pass right by the house anyway? There is a lady at the Rattle-Pane House! A A what Father would call a Lady Maiden! Miss " "Oh not a real lady, I think," protested her Mother. "Not with all those dogs. No real lady I think would have so many dogs. It It isn't sanitary." "Isn't sanitary?" cried Flame.
"Honk-honk!" urged the automobile. "For Miss Flora?" gasped her Mother. "Miss Flora?" echoed her Father. "Why, at the Rattle-Pane House, you know!" rallied Flame. "Don't you remember that I called there this afternoon? It it looked rather lonely there. I think I could fix it." "Honk-honk-honk!" implored the automobile. "But who is this Miss Flora?" cried her Mother.
And that Flame herself re-telephoned within the half hour to acknowledge her absurdity shows equally distinctly what stuff she was made of! It was from the summit of a crate of holly-wreaths that she telephoned this time. "Oh Mother-Funny," apologized Flame, "you were perfectly right. No lone dog in the world could possibly manage a great spooky place like the Rattle-Pane House.
Then quite abruptly she laughed aloud. "Oh you can't scare me any more, you gloomy old Rattle-Pane House!" she laughed. "You're not deserted now! People are Christmasing in you! Whether you like it or not you're being Christmased!" Very tentatively she puckered her lips to a whistle. Almost instantly from the darkness ahead a dog's bark rang out, deep, sonorous, faintly suspicious.
"You are always so horridly right! Lopsy and Beautiful-Lovely and Blunder-Blot are not Christmasing all alone in the Rattle-Pane House! There is a man with them! Don't tell Father, he's so nervous about men!" "A man?" stammered her Mother. "Oh I hope not a young man! Where did he come from?" "Oh I don't think he came at all," confided Flame. It was Flame who was perplexed this time.
Backs bristling! Legs stiffening! Wolf Hound, Setter, Bull Dog, Dalmatian, each according to his kind, hurtling, crowding! "Oh, dear me, dear me," struggled Flame. "Maybe a carol would calm them." To a certain extent a carol surely did. The hair-cloth parlor of the Rattle-Pane House would have calmed anything.
Even with the third start and the third arrival finally accomplished, the crafty cat stood waiting for her on the steps of the Rattle-Pane House, back arched, fur bristled, spitting like some new kind of weather-cock at the storm in the shed-yard, and had to be thrust quite unceremoniously into a much too small covered basket and lashed down with yards and yards of tinsel that was needed quite definitely for something else.
"If you'd turn the hems we could make yellow curtains for the parlor in no time at all!" "W we?" stammered Delcote. "M Mother," said Flame. "... It's a long time since any dogs lived in the Rattle-Pane House." "Rattle-Brain house?" bridled Delcote. "Rattle-Pane House," corrected Flame. A little bit worriedly Delcote returned to his seat.
Surely it was four o'clock before she was even ready to start for the Rattle-Pane House. And "starting" is by no means the same as arriving. Dragging a sledful of miscellaneous Christmas goods an eighth of a mile over bare ground is not an easy task. She had to make three tugging trips. And each start was delayed by her big gray pussy cat stealing out to try to follow her.
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