United States or Lebanon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When they reached her they considerately came to a sudden stop, else there is no doubt whatever but she would have been tumbled over. "Well, you are a team," laughed Tattine, and they laughed back, "Yes, we know we are," and sat down on the step on either side of her.
But there was one little family of whose whereabouts she knew nothing, nor anyone else for that matter, until "Hark, what was that?" Mabel and Rudolph and Tattine were running across the end of the porch, and it was Rudolph who brought them to a standstill.
Still Tattine succeeded in making her way across the lawn back to the door, although she had four puppies in tow and was almost weak from laughing. She knew perfectly well what a funny picture she must make, with the wrapper that was so much too large for her, only kept in place by the big puff sleeves: and with the puppies pulling away for dear life, it the train.
At last Rudolph was at his wits' end, for what did Tattine and Mabel do but commence to cry.
"Well, no, miss; she don't do that, for, tin to one, nobody'd come if she did. We belongs to the workin' classes, Molly and I, and we has no time for the doing of the loikes of city people." "I'm sorry she hasn't a day," said Tattine, "because because "
They were riderless and driverless, and if there had been any harness, there was not a vestige of it to be seen; still, they kept neck and neck, which means in horsey language side by side, and on they came in the maddest fashion. Tattine stood on the front porch and watched them in high glee, and not a bit afraid was she, though they were coming straight in her direction.
"Very well," Tattine called back, with her usual instant acceptance of the inevitable, "but I know what," and then she was off in a flash, with Mabel following closely to find out what WHAT might be. It was Joseph the gardener whom Tattine wanted, and she found him where she thought she would, killing potato-bugs in the kitchen-garden. "What do you think, Joseph?
And they were dear; as prettily marked as their beautiful grandmother Tadjie, and too cunning for words. "You have made us a great deal of trouble, Betsy," said Tattine, "but they are such beauties we forgive you," whereat Betsy looked up so affectionately that Tattine added, "and perhaps some day I'll forgive you about that rabbit, since Mamma says it's natural for you to hunt them."
"Now," panted Tattine, for it was her turn to be breathless with running, "I'll break the sugar if you two will make the fire, but Rudolph's to light it and he's the only one who is to lean over it and put the wood on when it's needed.
"But, Joseph, this puppy cry comes from another place way over here, it seems to me," and Tattine ran to a spot on the porch several yards from that under which the others had been found. "I believe it must have been a cleverer little puppy than the others, and crawled away by itself to see what the world was like, and that is why Rudolph missed finding it."
Word Of The Day