FUN AND NONSENSE
The next morning the girls were up with the sun. They were in hilarious spirits and made so much noise that Mrs. Danvers, busily getting breakfast in the kitchen below, smiled to herself and hugged a big collie that at that moment strolled leisurely into the room.
The big collie’s name was Bruce, and he belonged to Uncle Tom of the lighthouse. But although Uncle Tom was his master and was first in his dog’s heart, Connie’s mother was his very next best beloved and Bruce spent his time nearly equally between the lighthouse and Uncle Tom and the cottage and Connie’s mother.
Now he answered the woman’s hug with a loving look from his beautiful eyes and waved his brush gratefully.
“Bruce darling,” said Connie’s mother, as she lifted a pan of biscuits and shoved it into the oven, “it’s a perfectly gorgeous morning and a perfectly gorgeous world and you’re a perfectly gorgeous dog. Now don’t deny it. You know you are! How about it?”
To which Bruce responded by a more vigorous waving of his white tipped brush that very nearly swept a second pan of biscuits off on to the well-swept floor.
Connie’s mother rescued it with a quick motion of her arm and stared at Bruce reproachfully.
“Bruce, just suppose you had spoiled it!” she scolded, as she slipped the pan into the oven after its fellow. “Don’t you know that I have four hungry girls to feed, to say nothing of a great big husband——”
“Now what are you saying about me?” asked a man’s pleasant voice from the doorway, adding as Connie’s mother turned toward him: “Can’t I help, dear? You look rather warm.”
“Warm! Well, I should say I was!” said Connie’s mother, sweeping a stray lock of hair back out of her eyes. “But what do I care when it’s such a wonderful world? Haven’t I got my baby back again, and three others as well? They’re sweet girls, aren’t they, John? And Billie Bradley is going to be a beauty.”