Meantime, while Patrick and his wife were thinking that the children had had plenty of time to reach home before the storm, there was great anxiety in the two homes where those three dear children lived. Patrick the coachman and Philip the groom had been sent with the wagonette by the main road to Patrick Kirk"s--Patrick to bring the children and Philip to take charge of Barney, but as the children were coming home, or rather trying to come home, by the ford, of course they missed them.
All the while the storm was growing in violence, and suddenly for about five minutes great hailstones came beating down till the lawn was fairly white with them, and the panes of gla.s.s in the green-house roof at Oakdene cracked and broke beneath them. "And those three blessed children are probably out in it all," thought Tattine"s Mother, standing pale and trembling at her window, and watching the road which the wagonette would have to come. And then what did she see but Barney, trotting bravely up the hill, with the geese still craning their necks through the laths of the cage, but the reins dragging through the mud of the roadway, and with no children in the little cart. Close behind him came the wagonette, which Barney was cleverly managing to keep well ahead of, but Mrs. Gerald soon discovered that neither were the children in that either. In an instant she was down the stairs and out on the porch to meet Patrick at the door.
"It isn"t possible you have no word of the children?" she cried excitedly.
"Patrick Kirk says they started home by the ford in time to reach here an hour before the storm," gasped Patrick, "but we came back by the ford ourselves and not a sign have we seen of them, till Barney ran out of the woods ahead of us five minutes ago."
And then a dreadful thought flashed through her mind. Could it be possible they had been drowned in the ford? But that moment her eyes saw something that made her heart leap for joy, something that looked drowned enough, but wasn"t. Rudolph was running up the hill as fast as his soaking clothing would let him, and, reaching the door breathless enough, he sank down on the floor of the porch.
"Oh, Mrs. Gerald," he said, as soon as he could catch his breath, "Mabel and Tattine are all right; they"re safe in the log play-house at the Cornwells", but we"ve had an awful fright. Is Barney home? When the hail came I tied him to a tree and we ran into the log house, but he broke away the next minute and took to his heels and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Barney"s an awful fraud, Mrs. Gerald."
But Mrs. Gerald had no time just then to give heed to Barney"s misdoings. Seizing a wrap from the hall, she ordered Rudolph into the house and to bed, as quickly as he could be gotten there, sent Philip to Rudolph"s Mother with the word that the children were safe, and then started off in the wagonette to bring Mabel and Tattine home.
"Mamma," said Tattine, snuggling her wet little self close to her Mother"s side in the carriage, "Rudolph was just splendid, the way he hauled Barney and us and the cart out of the water, but Mamma, I am done with Barney now too. He"s not to be trusted either."
Mrs. Gerald thought of two or three things that might be urged in Barney"s favor, but it did not seem kind even to attempt to reason with two such tired and soaking little specimens, so she only said, "Well, Barney can never again be trusted in the ford, that"s one sure thing."
"No, indeed," said Mabel warmly; "I would not give fifty cents for him."
"You can have him for nothing," said Tattine, with a wan little smile; "after this he can never be trusted in anything."
CHAPTER VI. "IT IS THEIR NATURE TO."
Tattine was getting on beautifully with her attempt to use Grandma Luty"s name at the proper time, and in the proper place, and she was getting on beautifully with grandma herself as well. She loved everything about her, and wished it need not be so very long till she could be a grandma herself, have white hair and wear snowy caps atop of it, and kerchiefs around her neck, and use gold eye-gla.s.ses and a knitting-basket. Grandma Luty, you see, was one of the dear, old-fashioned grandmothers. There are not many of them nowadays. Most of them seem to like to dress so you cannot tell a grandmother from just an ordinary everyday mother. If you have a grandmother--a nice old one, I mean--see if you cannot get her into the cap and kerchief, and then show her how lovely she looks in them. But what I was going to tell you was that Grandma Luty"s visit was all a joy to Tattine, and so when, just at daylight one morning, the setter puppies in their kennel at the back of the house commenced a prodigious barking, Tattine"s first thought was for Grandma.
"It"s a perfect shame to have them wake her up," she said to herself, "and I know a way to stop them," so, quiet as a mouse, she stole out of bed, slipped into her bed-slippers and her nurse"s wrapper, that was lying across a chair, and then just as noiselessly stole downstairs, and unlocking the door leading to the back porch, hurried to open the gate of the kennel, for simply to let the puppies run she knew would stop their barking. Tattine was right about that, but just as she swung the gate open, a happy thought struck those four little puppies" minds, and as she started to run back to the house, all four of them buried their sharp little teeth in the frill of Priscilla"s wrapper.
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. When she reached the screen door, she had a tussle with them, one by one, taking a sort of reef in the trailing skirt as each puppy was successfully disposed of, until all of it was clear of the sharp little teeth, and she could bang the door to between them.
I do not believe Grandma Luty ever laughed harder than when Tattine told her all about it as they sat together in the porch that morning after breakfast. She even laughed her cap way over on one side, so that Tattine had to take out the gold pins and put them in again to straighten it.
"But Grandma," said Tattine, when they had sobered down, "those puppies, cunning as they are now, will just be cruel setters when they grow up, killing everything they come across, birds and rabbits and chipmunks."
"Tattine," said Grandma Luty, with her dear, kindly smile "your Mother has told me how disappointed you have been this summer in Betsy and Doctor and little Black-and-white, and that now Barney has fallen into disgrace, since he kept you so long in the ford the other day, but I want to tell you something. You must not stop loving them at all because they do what you call cruel things. You have heard the old rhyme:--
"Let dogs delight to bark and bite, For G.o.d has made them so: Let bears and lions growl and fight, For "tis their nature to."
"Oh, yes, I know that," said Tattine, "and I don"t think it"s all quite true; our dogs don"t bite (I suppose it means biting people), bad as they are."
"No; I"ve always thought myself that line was not quite fair to the dogs either, but the verses mean that we mustn"t blame animals for doing things that it is their nature to do."
"And yet, Grandma, I am not allowed to do naughty things because it is my nature to."
"Ah, but, Tattine, there lies the beautiful difference. You can be reasoned with, and made to understand things, so that you can change your nature--I mean the part of you that makes you sometimes love to do naughty things.
"There"s another part of your nature that is dear and good and sweet, and doesn"t need to be changed at all. But Betsy and Doctor can only be trained in a few ways, and never to really change their nature.
"Setters have hunted rabbits always, kittens have preyed upon birds, and donkeys, as a rule, have stood still whenever they wanted to."
"But why, I wonder, were they made so?"
"You nor I nor n.o.body knows, Tattine, but isn"t it fine that for some reason we are made differently? If we will only be reasonable and try hard enough and in the right way, we can overcome anything."
"It"s a little like a sermon, Grandma Luty."
"It"s a little bit of a one then, for it"s over, but you go this minute and give Betsy and Doctor a good hard hug, and tell them you forgive them."
And Tattine did as she was bid, and Doctor and Betsy, who had sadly missed her petting, were wild with delight.
"But don"t even you yourselves wish," she said, looking down at them ruefully, "that it was not your nature to kill dear little baby rabbits?"
And Tattine thought they looked as though they really were very sorry indeed.