Soon as a fine high piping through the nose announced that Miss Avery was sound asleep, Master Trip ticked quietly across the floor, jumped upon the bed, and settled himself in a comfortable little ball at her feet.
The next morning early, Miss Avery, feeling a remarkable warmth in the region of her feet, looked down and saw the foot-warmer that had established himself there.
The moment she moved, Trip frisked to the top of the bed, and kissed her face, and seemed so delighted and overjoyed to see her awake that she had not the heart to scold him.
“The cre’tur’s ben used to sleeping on somebody’s bed,” she said, “and he was lonesome, poor fellow! Well, Trippy, you’ve kept my feet beautiful and warm, anyhow.”
Miss Avery now began to reflect on the responsibilities she had assumed. Trip was certainly a lively, entertaining companion, and he had warmed quite a place in her half-frozen heart; but he was evidently a thoughtless, frisky, heedless fellow, that would be sure to fall into the enemy’s hands again if she didn’t look after him.
So, the first thing after breakfast, she did what she had so long vainly threatened to do, went to the policeman who had charge of her beat, — a good-natured man, who went to the same church with her, — and detailed to him with some warmth her persecutions from the boys of the neighboring alley; whereupon he took down their names, and assured Miss Avery that he would look after them; and then she went to a carpenter near by, and, as a consequence of this interview, her backyard before night was adorned along the top with a row of sharp, lively spikes, set points uppermost, so as to render it entirely ineligible as a mode of entrance or egress. So she began to feel herself fortified and defended in the possession of her new treasure.
After a week of seclusion, to make sure that Trip would not run away, Miss Avery took him with her whenever she went to market to look out her daily meals, to the stores, and along the constitutional walks which she maintained for the benefit of her health.
But Sundays and prayer-meeting evenings were seasons of heavy affliction to him. Trip wanted to go to church like a good Christian.
Twice he scandalized Miss Avery by jumping out of a window, and surreptitiously following her to church, appearing before her pew door with a joyous and confident air, as much as to say, “Why, you forgot to take me!” and Miss Avery, to her great mortification, was obliged to take him out, with boys and children looking on and tittering in a distressing manner.
Once, too, he got into prayer-meeting, nestling so discreetly and quietly under her skirts that she never saw him till the services were over. Then he was wild with delight at his success, and barked in a most disreputable manner all the way home.
Trip was always scurrying off after cats, or hens, or other dogs, in their daily promenades, to her poignant anxiety and affliction.
At last, while whirling across a crossing to speak to another dog who was running with a carriage, he got tumbled under the wheel, and broke one of his forepaws, and came back to Miss Avery crying and limping on three legs.
If Miss Avery could have been told a year before of the patience, the loving kindness, with which she was to nurse a dog through indiscretions like these, she would almost have said, with the Scriptural character, “Is thy servant a dog to do this?”
But the fact was, that Trip seemed only to win the more on her heart for having broken his paw.
Miss Avery bandaged it and wet it with camphor, held him in her lap, let him sleep on her bed; and two or three times in the night, when he cried, got up to wet his bandage, and to console and comfort him.
Poor Miss Avery! No more alone in the world, for there was this little silver-colored thing with dark eyes that adored her, worshipped her, depended on her, and that she thought and cared for and loved in return.
So wore the winter away; but in the spring, when the new leaves came out on the trees, a new leaf was turned in Miss Avery’s history.
CHAPTER V. BLUE EYES COMES TO SEE HIM.
“PLEASE, ma’am, may I come in and see your dog?” These words were spoken on a bright June day, when the lilacs were abloom in front of the old house. Miss Avery stood out on the stone flagging at the back side of her house doing some washing, and Trip was present helping her.
The words were piped up in a clear little voice that seemed to come from fairy land. Miss Avery was at first dazed and astonished, and turned round to look for the speaker.
A pair of great blue eyes were looking up at her out of a cloud of curly hair. A little cambric sunbonnet hung loosely back on the shoulders of a small maiden who seemed to have risen out of the flag-stones.
“Eh! What? What do you say?” said Miss Avery.
“I said, ‘Please let me see your Carlo, ma’am,’” said the little girl, making movements towards Trip.
“His name isn’t Carlo; it’s Trip,” said Miss Avery, shortly.
“Oh, is it? I thought it was Carlo. Mayn’t I play with him, please, ma’am?”
Trip, meanwhile, had run to the little girl, and was investigating her character, applying his nose seriously to her shoes and dress, and, apparently satisfied, jumped up and fawned upon her.
“He’s just like a dog T had once that we called Carlo,” said the little voice. “That’s the reason I wanted to see him.”
“But he is my dog, child,” said Miss Avery, with a withering frown, “and I don’t want anybody to come toling him away.”
“Oh,” said Blue Eyes, in the most conciliatory tones, “I know he’s your dog. I didn’t mean to say that he was my Carlo, only that he was like my Carlo, and that was why I wanted to play with him. I love dogs. I won’t tole him away, and I won’t make any trouble, not a bit. I just want to stroke him and play with him a little, he’s such a dear little doggie; and see, he loves me,” and Trip, springing up, kissed the little face with tumultuous caresses.
“Well, well, child, there’s no harm in your stroking him as I know of, but you mustn’t try to get him away,” said Miss Avery, but half pleased with the intimacy that she saw was beginning.
“Oh, I shan’t, indeed I shan’t; you can see. I’ll just play with him here a few minutes, — it’s our recess now, and I can’t stay long, — and I’ll be very careful not to trouble you He looks so much like my Carlo that I lost. He run away last fall, and we never could find him.’’
Now Miss Avery felt a severe twinge of conscience. She was, in fact, the most ultra-conscientious person in all that respected the right of property.
She couldn’t help the uncomfortable reflection, “What if this were in fact somebody else’s dog?”
It was a question she did not wish to have opened for discussion.
She did not mean to believe any thing of that kind, and was determined to make good her right in him.
But she compromised with her conscience in thinking she would let the little girl come and enjoy his society under her own auspices.
So when the child said, —
“I guess it’s time to go back to school now, but if you’ll let me, I’ll come next recess,” Miss Avery responded graciously, —
“If you’ll be a good little girl and not make any trouble, you may come and play with the dog whenever you like,”
“Oh, thank you, ma’am. I’ll try to be as good; I’ll be very quiet, and do just as you tell me,” and the little puss gave a parting kiss and hug to Trip, and then made a courtesy to Miss Avery, and ran off to her school.
“It isn’t — it can’t — it shan’t be her dog,” said Miss Avery to herself. “I saved his life; he’d have been dead before now if it hadn’t been for me. Who has the best right, a little careless chit like that, that never ought to be trusted with a cre’tur, or one that knows how to take care of ‘em! Besides, Trip loves me: he wants to stay with me, and cre’turs have some rights; they know who they want to stay with, and they ought to stay where they are taken care of. Trip is happy here, and he ought to stay here.”
Thus Miss Avery reasoned while stirring about her housewor
k sweeping, dusting, and scouring on the immaculate keeping-room.
“You love me, don’t you, Trip?” she often asked, stopping for a moment in her work, and Trip frisked and jumped and licked her face and hands, and in every possible inflection of dog dialect professed his undying fealty and devotion.
“What nonsense! What a fool I am to worry,” she said; “jest for that little chit who don’t know one dog from another. Suppose she did have a dog run away. Does that prove that this is the dog? Of course not. The city is full of dogs; one dog looks just like another. Besides, her dog was named Carlo, and this one was named Trip. I knew his name was Trip; he knew his name the first time I called it. Don’t tell me!” and Miss Avery shook her head threateningly at an imaginary opponent, and as she had an old red handkerchief tied over it with flapping ends, her head-shaking appeared really formidable and convincing. Trip barked at her once or twice, she looked so very belligerent.
CHAPTER VI. THE WOMAN WHO HATES DOGS.
NOW little Blue Eyes had the fullest conviction in her wise young heart that this was her own dog — her lost Carlo. Her father had bought for her in New York a little silky silver-colored Scotch terrier, and given fifty dollars for him, on purpose that Blue Eyes might have him for a playmate and confidential friend while her mother and he were gone.
But, unfortunately, Mrs. Symons, in whose house and under whose care the little one was placed, was one of those good women who hate dogs of every degree. She never would have one in the house if she could help it, and Carlo was sedulously kept outside of the house at all times, except when his little mistress was at home. If he happened to stray into the parlor or dining-room, the good lady seemed to feel that the place had been polluted, — his hair, she declared, would come off on the sofa or chairs, or he would be sure to do some mysterious mischief, and so he was broomed out ignominiously as soon as Bright Eyes’ back was turned.
Carlo naturally didn’t like this state of things. He became despondent and timorous, and would make frequent excursions into the street in the forlorn hope of looking for his young mistress. In one of these excursions he fell into the hands of the rabble of boys that infested Miss Avery’s back lane, and for six months had been lost to the sight, though dear to the memory, of poor little Blue Eyes.
So, the first day she had seen him at Miss Avery’s, she went home and announced that she had found Carlo. The news was received with very active opposition on the part of Mrs. Symons.
“Why, no, child! you can’t have found Carlo! How do you know? There are dozens of dogs of that sort. Carlo has been gone these six months, and for my part I am glad of it; he was nothing but a plague.”
“Well, at any rate, Miss Avery says I may come and see him, and play with him at her house,” said Blue Eyes, “and that’s better than having him here, because Miss Avery likes him, and is kind to him.”
“What! that old cross Miss Avery?”
“She isn’t cross; she’s just as good as she can be to Carlo. She calls him ‘Trip,’ she thinks everything of him, and she says I may come to see him as often as I’ve a mind to; and I shall go and see him every day, and all Saturday afternoon,” said the little one, resolutely, as she went up stairs.
“Wife,” said Mr. Symons, who had been listening to this talk from the next room, “did she say it was Miss Avery she was visiting?”
“Yes;” said his help-meet.
“Well, let her go there. But what is the attraction? Not Miss Avery’s personal charms, I’m sure.”
“No; it’s a little dog that the child thinks is like hers that ran away. For my part, I think like enough it is hers. But I’d rather Miss Avery would keep it than have it back in the house here. I hate dogs, and I was glad when it ran away. But just to think that the child should go right to the house of her own aunt!”
Now Mr. Symons was the friendly lawyer to whom Eben Avery had committed the management of his property. The little girl had been left with him this summer, while the parents were away attending to some necessary business. In the fall they were to come back, and then there was to be an attempt at a final settlement of the Avery estate.
Eben Avery had become a stout, cheery, well-to-do man of forty, had come back from California, and was desirous now to return to Hindford and build a house on the old place.
Miss Avery’s life-right in the ancient ruinous dwelling was all that stood in the way of the plan, and Mr. Symons had long been searching for acceptable words wherewith to break to her the news of her brother’s return, and of his plans.
He had mentally surveyed her as a fortress to be carried, and had not known where to effect an entrance. When, therefore, he heard what the little one had done, he put his hands in his pockets, and gave a contented whistle.
“Well,” he said, “the old woman’s such a crotchety, crabbed old thing, I didn’t know how to go to work with her; and there was no saying whether she’d take to Eben, or whether she’d rake up the old grudge. There’s never knowing what folks will do in their family quarrels. But there’s a soft streak in the old lady, it appears. Better let Patty Coram work on her. She’ll bring her round, if anybody can. Of course, she don’t know whose child it is?”
“Oh no; I don’t think she does.”
“Well, tell Patty Coram not to tell her. There’s never any saying with these crotchety people. It might spoil all the fun if she knew whose daughter she was. She’d get going over the old story of the quarrel between her and Eben, and maybe it would set her against the girl.”
So Mrs. Symons warned the little one, with many a head-shake, that old Miss Avery was very queer indeed, and she better not tell her name to her — it might make the old lady cross, and she wouldn’t let her come; but that if she were careful she might go and see Carlo as often as she liked. And Mrs. Symons congratulated herself that the dreadful dog was thus taken care of in a way to both satisfy his young mistress and keep him out of her own way.
CHAPTER VII. BLUE EYES PURSUES HER ADVANTAGE.
THE next day the little girl came again, and this time the interview was accorded in the house.
It was bright June weather, and the “keeping-room” windows were open, and the smell of lilacs came pleasantly in, and Miss Avery sat with her sewing. “Oh, how pleasant it is here,” said Blue Eyes. “I’m so glad you let me come. I do love Trip so, and Trip is glad to see me, ain’t you, Trip?” Trip responded to this with his usual effusion, expending so many caresses on the little face that Miss Avery began to feel a twinge of jealousy.
“What is your name, little girl?” she said.
“Oh, I’ve got lots of names. Papa calls me Pussy and Daisy; and Mr. Symons calls me Patty Coram, and Aunty Symons calls me Pet, and I don’t know which is my name.”
“Do you live with Mr. Symons?”
* “Yes, I’m staying with them now till my papa and mamma come; they’re gone on a journey now, and Aunt Symons takes care of me while they re gone, and I go to school to the school-house on this street, — that’s where I go to school, and it’s so near I can come in at recess; but it’s time to go now,” said the little maid, running for her bonnet.
“Please, Miss Avery, may I come here to-morrow afternoon? To-morrow is Saturday, and I can stay a good long while.”
Miss Avery looked intently into the great wide earnest blue eyes that were looking up from her knee, — it was as if a blue violet were talking to her, — and the little rosy mouth quivered with earnestness.
She said, “Yes, my dear,” in a voice softer than she was in the habit of using. The Little one, with an impulsive movement, threw her arms round her neck and kissed her.
“Oh,” said Miss Avery, half-pleased, half-shocked, “you shouldn’t kiss such an old thing as I am.”
“Yes I should, because you are good to me,” said Blue Eyes, as she kissed her again, and then tripped lightly away.
Miss Avery sat in a sort of maze. Those kisses had roused a commotion in her dry old heart.
“What a dear little t
hing it is!” she said. “Strange she should want to kiss me, — my poor old withered face! Well, if she’s coming to-morrow,—”
Miss Avery here rose and went to her pantry. As it inspired by a new thought, she changed her dress immediately, and put on one devoted to cooking, and went to work with flour and sugar and spices to compound some cakes such as she remember Ebon used to love. She sifted, she grated, she pounded, she beat eggs, to Trip’s great amazement.
“Yes, Trippy,” she said, “you and I are going to have company to-morrow, and we must get ready, Trippy, mustn’t we?”
Trip responded vigorously to the suggestion, and flew about in a very active manner to express his pleasure in the proceedings.
Miss Avery cleared her fire, and put down her tin baker, and soon the cakes rose clear and light, and browned to her heart’s content.
“I’ll frost them,” she said, meditatively. “Children always like frosting. Oh, if I had only some caraway sugar-plums to put on top! O you Trip, if you were good for anything, I could send you over to get some caraways.”
But as Trip, with all his activity, could not compass this errand, Miss Avery changed her dress again, and went across to a confectioner’s, and bought an ounce of caraway sugar-plums of divers colors most brilliant to behold, wherewith, on her return, she adorned the frosting of her little cakes.
Then Miss Avery remembered an upper drawer in which there was a china image of a little white lamb standing in a very green china hedge of very pink and blue flowers, and this lamb she now drew out of his hiding-place.
It was given to her when she was a little girl, and as she looked at it, her thoughts travelled back to the days when she was no higher than this little one, and when Saturday afternoon was a paradise of untold brightness for her.
She set it on the mantel-piece between the candlesticks, and in front of the snuffer-tray.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 572