Then there was Pixie, the pony, who would come whinnying up from the further side of a field to poke her soft nose into the children's pockets for pieces of bread or lumps of sugar; there were numerous cats who lived in the barns and stables, and Tabbyskins, the stately gray Persian, who usually sat sunning herself on the pigsty wall, keeping a strict eye on naughty Jack, who was wont to harry her if he got the chance.
Bobby had a pretty set of bantams, whose small eggs afforded him much delight and some slight profit, for Aunt Helen bought them from him at threepence a dozen—a transaction which he always recorded in chalk upon the hen-house door, the pennies being carefully put by towards the purchase of a pair of fantail pigeons, which was at present the summit of his ambition.
This spring, too, there was a pet lamb called Daisy. David had found it bleating beside its dead mother one bitter morning early in March, and had carried the poor orphan into the kitchen, where Nancy had reared it on a feeding-bottle like a baby. It returned her care by an affection which was quite embarrassing to the worthy girl, for however attractive a pet lamb may be, it becomes distinctly in the way when it insists upon following you into the dining-room with the dinner, or presses its attentions on you when you are engaged in cleaning the grate or scrubbing the floors.
It was not only outside that the children had treasures. Aunt Helen was very long-suffering with respect to hobbies, for she rightly thought that the more a child's life is filled with interests, the more chance it has of growing up an intelligent and broad-minded individual, and of escaping from that lethargy of boredom which swallows up the lives of many young people who ought to know better how to amuse themselves in God's beautiful world. 'I don't know what to do,' was an unknown expression among the young Vaughans, who had always so many projects on hand that the difficulty lay in finding time to carry them all out.
The Rose Parlour, as it was called, from the tangle of pink roses which framed the windows in summer-time, was especially given up to the children's use. It was a bright, cheerful room, with a view over the river to the sunset and the Welsh mountains, and had a French window which opened into the garden. Here was the old piano on which they practised, here the ink-pots and rulers for their home-lessons, with their paint-boxes, crayons, and drawing-books.
A cupboard in the corner was devoted to a kind of museum, where they kept their collection of birds' eggs, a few butterflies, moths, and beetles, Lilian's pressed wild-flowers, a box full of shells and fossils which they had brought home from their one never-to-be-forgotten visit to the seaside, a curious plaited basket filled with bone rings, shell bracelets, and other curiosities, sent by a sailor cousin from the South Sea Islands, and an odd assortment of stones, old coins, foreign stamps, crests and postmarks, which represented landmarks in the history of past fads.
Lilian's canary hung in the sunniest window, Peggy's silkworms lay in a box on the sideboard, and Bobby's white mice reposed in much comfort in a cage on the chimneypiece.
The walls were adorned with school drawings and prize maps, fastened up with tacks; a bookcase of much-read volumes filled the space between the fireplace and the window; and in the corner might be found a miscellaneous collection of cricket-bats, fishing-rods, tennis-racquets, bows and arrows, croquet-mallets, sticks, balls and ninepins, and other articles very dear to the children's hearts, but which Nancy generally classed impartially under the head of 'lumber.'
The black puppy proved a delightful addition to the already long list of pets. Lilian hunted up a piece of blue ribbon to tie round his fluffy neck; but he objected to decorations, and soon clawed it off, and chewed it into a soft, slimy pulp. He ran after the children with little short, sharp barks, worrying at their heels till Aunt Helen declared there would soon not be a whole stocking left in the establishment; he had a fray at once with Jack, but was much worsted by that worthy, returning to Peggy for protection with his scrap of a tail between his legs; he tore Bobby's cricket-ball to pieces, licked the polish off Father's boots, devoured Aunt Helen's goloshes, and nestled cosily down to sleep on the top of Nancy's best Sunday hat, which that luckless damsel had imprudently left in an open band-box on the kitchen settle.
On the first night of his arrival he howled so piteously on being left alone that Peggy insisted on taking him to bed with her.