Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 1.djvu/79

65 Nathalie fairly flew back to the top of Mr. MceAllister’s board fence. The good man did not have to ask her the verdict. When he had lifted her to the ground, he placed Prinnie in her arms. Then he told her she must listen very carefully to the directions for Prinnie’s care. He showed her just how to prepare his food, and warned her not to allow him to eat between meals, for he said that was as bad for wee doggies as for lassies.

“And,” he concluded, “if you 're forgetting anything, come back and ask Sandy McAllister; and you might be coming down now and again to show me how the little fellie ‘s prospering. 1 have n't any wee Tassies of my own now.”

From that day, it was a different Nathalie in the little house on the street, or, rather, not in the little house, for Nathalie did little but eat and sleep in the house except when it rained. Prinnie must have his long tramps every day.

“Little dogs must take a great deal of exercise to keep well,” Mr. McAllister had said.

What fun they had together! Prinnie chasing chipmunks and barking furiously at their antics, while Nathalie picked flowers and joined him in mad scampers over the fields. He would go into bushes and come out fairly bristling with sticks and leaves and sometimes burs. Then what a brushing there had to be when they got home!

Prinnie would sit sadly but patiently while Nathalie combed out the hateful tangles and told him never, never to go into such places again. Prinnie would listen solemnly, but the very next day, perhaps, he would find a still more “burry” place.

Nathalie's doll family was quite neglected that summer, for one could scarcely hold even a well-behaved doll-child, and be ready to dart after an excited dog at any moment. Nathalie's largest doll, Baby Griselda, or Grizzie, had most cause for complaint. Unfortunately for Griselda, her clothes just fitted Prinnie. Part of every day's program was to dress Prinnie in Grizzie's white dress, and tie her dainty baby cap over his long ears, and to hold him tightly in her arms as she paced the yard singing a soft lullaby. Prinnie would lie meekly quiet; he would even close his eves lazily; but let Nathalie lower him gently into Grizzie's cradle, and relax her hold but a moment, and two brown eyes would open wide, four black legs would make a wild dash across VoL. XLI.—9.