“Keep it, little girl, as a gift from Bonny-Gay. It will delight her that you should have it. Quick now, coachman. Swift and careful!”
Then they were all gone and Mary Jane, bedecked in her unusual finery, stood leaning upon her crutches, crying as if her heart would break. Her mother glanced at her hastily but thought it best to let “her have her cry out. She cries so seldom it ought to do her good,” she reflected. Besides, there was the baby rolling on the floor, in imminent danger from a wash-boiler full of steaming water; and a whole hour wasted from her own exacting labors.
Presently, the hunchback felt something cold and wet touch her down-hanging hand and dashed the tears from her eyes to see what it might be. There sat a great black dog beside her, so close that he almost forced her crutch away. His eyes were fixed upon her face in a mute appeal for sympathy, and his whole bearing showed as much sorrow as her tears had done. Her first impulse was to shrink away from him, even to strike at him with the crutch, as she indignantly exclaimed:
“You’re the very dog did it! You jumped into the wagon and scared the horses. If it hadn’t been for you she wouldn’t have been hurt. Go ’way! Go away off out of sight! You horrid, ugly, mean old dog!”
Mary Jane’s vehemence surprised even herself and she shook her head so vigorously that the feather-trimmed hat fell off into the dust.
Then was a transformation. Max—it was, indeed he!—had already dropped flat upon his stomach and crouched thus, whining and moaning in a manner that betokened such suffering that it quickly conquered the cripple’s anger; and now, as the hat fell right before his nose, he began to smell of it and lick it with the most extravagant joy. A moment later he had sprung up, caught the hat in his teeth, and was gambolling all around and around Mary Jane, as if he were the very happiest dog in the world.
“My sake! How you act! And oh—oh—oh! I know you, I know you! You must be that Max-dog that she told me about. That she’d known all her life and wouldn’t be let come any more to her park! I guess I can see the whole thing. I guess you run away from that man the gardener gave you to. Maybe you went right back to where ‘Father George’ and the lion are; and maybe you saw Bonny-Gay and the Gray Gentleman come away; and maybe you followed them. Maybe it was because you were so glad, and not bad, that you jumped into the carriage and scared the horses. Oh! you poor doggie, if that is how it is!”
Which was, in fact, exactly what had happened; and it seemed that the intelligent animal, who had loved Bonny-Gay ever since she was first wheeled about the beautiful Place in her baby-carriage, had now a comprehension of the damage his delight at finding her again had done.
So Mary Jane hopped back into the house and called Max by that name to follow her. He did so, readily, and sat down very near to the foot of the bed on which she carefully placed his little mistress’ hat.
“Well, daughter, this has been a morning, hasn’t it? Now, these handkerchiefs are ready to iron and I’ve fixed your high seat right close to my tub, so whilst I wash you can iron away and tell me the whole story and all about it. Here comes father, too, and it’ll pass the time for him to hear it. And, oh! William! you never could guess whatever has happened right here in this very kitchen, this very morning that ever was! But, I must work now, and Mary Jane’ll talk.”