And good honest Cracker had given himself a shake, and said, “This’ll do famous,” then trotted off to do his duty and his work, which, to his credit be it said, every dog of this breed knows well how to get through.
Well, one sunshiny day, when the old friends, including even Chammy, who was lying in the limb of a dwarf holly, were assembled on Uncle Ben’s lawn, Ben himself and the Colonel blowing clouds in their straw chairs, and Lizzie lying with a book in Ben’s hammock, who should come through the gateway but towsy Cracker himself.
He was a brave dog this, and just as modest as brave, for the two good qualities always go hand-in-hand. So he advanced in a bashful, hesitating kind of way, as if he felt he ought to apologise for his presence on the lawn at all, but didn’t know exactly how to begin. He was smiling too, a very broad smile that seemed to extend halfway down both sides.
Vee-Vee and Warlock jumped up at once growling and barking, and ready to defend the family circle with their lives if there was any occasion, but seeing it was only Cracker, they ran to meet him, and give him a hearty welcome.
Then Cracker advanced, shaking his droll old stump of a tail, and Shireen herself arose and rubbed her back against his legs.
“No,” she said, “you certainly don’t intrude, Cracker, and we only wish you would come oftener than you do.”
“Well, seeing as that’s the case,” said Cracker, “I’ll make one this afternoon at your little garden party. But I’m not much used to refined society, I bet you. More at home in a stable than in a drawing-room; the riverside and moor or the forest is more in old Cracker’s way than fountain, lawn, and shrubbery. But, la! Shireen, whatever is that lying along that branch? It isn’t a big snail and it ain’t a large slug, sometimes grey and sometimes green. Well, of all the ugly—”
“It’s a friend of ours,” said Shireen, interrupting Cracker, “and, I assure you, Chammy won’t hurt anything or anybody except the flies and mealworms.”
“Well, well,” said Cracker, “wonders ’ll never cease, but if I had met a beast like that in the woods, I’d have bolted quick, you bet, and never turned tail till safe in my kennel again.”
“And now, Mother Shireen, let us have some more of your story,” said Vee-Vee.