Little Sally Waters

by Ethel Calvert Phillips

At this good news Andy stood still and stopped screaming.

In the quiet the Doctor called again, ‘Keep him away from other children for a few days and tell him to forget that he has chicken-pox. Tell him to play with that nice little dog standing there at his feet.’

Then the Doctor disappeared, and Andy’s mother followed him into the house.

Andy looked down at Tippy and Tippy looked up at Andy, and that is how Andy and Tippy knew one another.

Next, Andy sat down on the steps, and after Tippy had barked two or three times just to show that he was friendly, he snuggled up close to Andy’s side.

‘Good doggie!’ said Andy, patting Tip. ‘Good doggie! Good dog!’

This was very pleasant for Tip to hear. Sally surely would not call him ‘good doggie’ this morning, if he were at home.

So wagging his tail as hard as ever he could, Tip made up his mind that he would pay Andy a little visit.

‘I won’t stay too long,’ thought Tip to himself, ‘just long enough to make Sally glad to see me when I do go home.’

Now Tippy meant only to spend the afternoon. He didn’t have a notion, I am sure, of staying all night and sleeping out of his little basket, lined with a shawl, that stood on Sally’s back porch. If you had told him that it would be four whole days before he would see Sally’s friendly, rosy little face again, he would have been the most surprised little brown dog that ever wagged a tail.