As Mrs. Lane had said, Bird was behind the shed. She was sitting on an old log, her face between her hands, as she looked across the fresh green grass to where the ragged spiræas and purple and white lilacs waved against the sky. Leaning against her knees was a queer little rough-haired, brown terrier with unkempt, lopping ears, his keen eyes intent on her face as if he knew that she was in trouble, and only waited for some signal that he might understand to go to her aid, while he vainly licked her hands to attract her attention.
As Lammy came around the corner suddenly, at first the dog gave a growl, and then bounding toward the boy fairly leaped into his arms in joy, for Twinkle, named for his keen twitching eyes, had once been Lammy’s best-beloved pup, that he had given to Bird for a companion.
“Hello, Twinkle, where’ve you been these days?” said the boy, holding the flowers at arm’s-length with one hand, while he tucked the little dog between his shoulder and neck with the other. “Seems to me you’ve got pretty thin wherever you’ve tramped to.”
Bird, Lammy, and Twinkle.
“He hasn’t been away,” answered Bird, looking up; “he was hiding all the time in Terry’s—I mean father’s room, and to-day, after they took him away, he knew it wasn’t any use waiting any longer, and he came out, and Lammy, you—know—he’s—all—I’ve—got—now,” and, burying her face in the terrier’s ragged coat, she broke into a perfect storm of crying.
Lammy felt like crying, too, and in fact a tear rolled so far down on his cheek that he had to struggle hard to lick it up, for Bird was his dear friend, the only girl in the village who had never laughed at him or called him “Nose-in-the-Air,” or “Look-up-Lammy,” and seemed to understand the way in which he saw things. At first he looked around helplessly, and then remembering that his mother had gone, and that he must get Bird down to his home before supper-time, he blurted out: “Say, don’t you reckon Twinkle’s pretty hungry by this? I guess we’d better get him some feed down to my house, and you can leave these red pineys over yonder as we go along if you like.”
Lammy could not have done better, for Bird sprang up instantly, all the pity aroused for the dog, and, turning toward the house, said: “How selfish of me; we’ll go in and get him something right away. Do you think the people have gone yet? ‘They mean kindly,’ Terry used to say. I must never forget that, but they talked so much I couldn’t seem to bear it.”