Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs | Page 3

what is the lady's name?" questioned her Mother a bit
weakly.
"Her name is 'Miss Flora'!" brightened Flame. "The Butler has just
gone to the Station to meet her! I heard him telephoning quite
frenziedly! I think she must have missed her train or something! It
seemed to make everybody very nervous! Maybe she's nervous! Maybe
she's a nervous invalid! With a lost Lover somewhere! And all sorts of

pressed flowers!--Somebody ought to call anyway! Call right away, I
mean, before she gets any more nervous!--So many people's first
impressions of a place--I've heard--are spoiled for lack of some
perfectly silly little thing like a nutmeg grater or a hot water bottle!
And oh, Mother, it's been so long since any one lived in the Rattle-Pane
House! Not for years and years and years! Not dogs, anyway! Not a
lemon and white wolf hound! Not setters! Not spotty dogs!--Oh Mother,
just one little wee single minute at the door? Just long enough to say
'The Rev. and Mrs. Flamande Nourice, and Miss Nourice, present their
compliments!'--And are you by any chance short a marrow-bone? Or
would you possibly care to borrow an extra quilt to rug-up under the
kitchen table?... Blunder-Blot doesn't look very thick. Or--Oh Mother,
p-l-e-a-s-e!"
When Flame said "Please" like that the word was no more, no less, than
the fabled bundle of rags or haunch of venison hurled back from a
wolf-pursued sleigh to divert the pursuer even temporarily from the
main issue. While Flame's Mother paused to consider the particularly
flavorous sweetness of that entreaty,--to picture the flashing eye, the
pulsing throat, the absurdly crinkled nostril that invariably
accompanied all Flame's entreaties, Flame herself was escaping!
Taken all in all, escaping was one of the best things that Flame did....
As well as the most becoming! Whipped into scarlet by the sudden
plunge from a stove-heated store into the frosty night her young cheeks
fairly blazed their bright reaction. Frost and speed quickened her breath.
Glint for glint her shining eyes challenged the moon. Fearful even yet
that some tardy admonition might overtake her she sped like a deer
through the darkness.
It was a dull-smelling night. Pretty, but very dull-smelling. Disdainfully
her nostrils crinkled their disappointment.
"Christmas Time adventures ought to smell like Christmas!" she
scolded. "Maybe if I'm ever President," she argued, "I won't do so
awfully well with the Tariff or things like that! But Christmas shall
smell of Christmas! Not just of frozen mud! And camphor balls!... I'll
have great vats of Fir Balsam essence at every street corner! And

gigantic atomizers! And every passerby shall be sprayed! And stores!
And churches! And--And everybody who doesn't like Christmas shall
be dipped!"
Under her feet the smoothish village road turned suddenly into the
harsh and hobbly ruts of a country lane. With fluctuant blackness
against immutable blackness great sweeping pine trees swished weirdly
into the horizon. Where the hobbly lane curved darkly into a meadow
through a snarl of winter-stricken willows the rattle of a loose
window-pane smote quite distinctly on the ear. It was a horrid, deserted
sound. And with the instinctive habit of years Flame's little hand
clutched at her heart. 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. With a little chuckle of joy she crawled through the
Barberry hedge and emerged for a single instant only at her full height
before three furry shapes came hurtling out of the darkness and toppled
her over backwards.
"Stop, Beautiful-Lovely!" she gasped. "Stop, Lopsy! Behave yourself,
Blunder-Blot! Sillies! Don't you know I'm the lady that was talking to
you this morning through the picket fence? Don't you know I'm the
lady that fed you the box of cereal?--Oh dear--Oh dear--Oh dear," she
struggled. "I knew, of course, that there were three dogs--but who ever
in the world would have guessed that three could be so many?"
As expeditiously as possible she picked herself up and bolted for the
house with two furry shapes leaping largely on either side of her and
one cold nose sniffing interrogatively at her heels. Her heart was very
light,--her pulses jumping with excitement,--an occasional furry head
doming into the palm of her hand warmed the whole bleak night with
its sense of mute companionship. But the back of her heels felt
certainly very queer. Even the warm yellow lights of the Rattle-Pane

House did not altogether dispel her uneasiness.
"Maybe I'd better not plan to make my call so--so very informal," she
decided suddenly. "Not