“Oh, that’s such a load off my mind,” Peggy declared. “He can go with you to-morrow, can’t he? And now there’s one thing more, and that’s his name.”
“Yes?” Jack looked a little puzzled.
“I named him myself, and I’ve been ashamed of it ever since. For he never was a tramp dog, really. He wanted a home all the time, and people of his own to love and protect and be faithful to. And, if you don’t mind, before he goes I’d like to change his name to Hero.”
The emphasis on the last word roused Hobo, who was sleeping in the next room. Perhaps his ear was not sufficiently trained to the niceties of the English language to distinguish between this name and the other by which he had been addressed all summer. Be that as it may, in an instant he was at Peggy’s elbow, looking up into her face, and wagging his tail.
“I believe he knows,” cried Peggy, while the table shouted. The new name was unanimously endorsed, and with his re-christening, Peggy’s canine protégé discarded the last survival of his life as a wanderer.
“And now about the chickens,” continued Peggy, whose face had lost its look of weariness in overflowing satisfaction. “I’m going to give them to you, Lucy. I’m sorry there’s only three of them, but–”
“Two,” Amy interrupted in a plaintive undertone from the other side of the table.
Peggy stared. “What! Has anything happened to Freckles?”
“No, he’s all right. And so’s the yellow hen, of course. But, Peggy, the other chicken has disappeared. Lucy noticed this morning that it was gone, and when all those people were here, she and I hunted everywhere. And the old hen keeps on scratching and clucking just the same.”
Peggy’s countenance reflected the disgust of Amy’s voice. “It isn’t much of a gift, Lucy. That yellow hen is really the worst apology for a mother I ever imagined. Freckles is a nice chicken, but he’s got some very bad faults. He will come into the house whenever the screen door is left open, and he seems to have a perfect mania for picking shoe-buttons and shoe-strings. I suppose it’s because of the way he’s been brought up, but he’s so fond of human society that he makes a perfect nuisance of himself.”