The Sixlets.
At any rate she stumbled about in a most unusual fashion, forgot that Jack Waddles had slept indoors for the first time and must be let out early, until Waddles came in and literally dug her out of bed as if she had been a woodchuck in its hole, and ran baying in front of her to the hall door. Next she almost overflowed the bath-tub by filling it so full that there was no room for the bather, and finally found herself sitting by the window wondering whether putting your stockings on wrong side out was, as Mary Ann said, a sign of good luck, or merely stupidity on the part of the wearer. Just as she had decided that she would leave them on to see what happened, and securely tied her tan colored shoes, Tommy came running up and began to dance and shout under the window in a state of wild excitement.
Now Tommy was a confirmed “lie a-bed,” and to see him out before breakfast was a cause of wonder in itself; but when Anne heard the words, “Happy—tiny little puppies—bit Jack Waddles,” she simply jumped into her petticoats and nearly fell out of the window as she fastened her collar, calling, “Puppies! Where? Whose?”
“In the nursery kennel, ours and Happy’s, of course. Jackie Waddles wants to lick them and she won’t let him, and Baldy wouldn’t let me have but one look because he says light isn’t good for them and they’re ever so little and queer like Pinkie’s Guinea pigs.”
“How many are there, twins like Jack and Jill?” asked Anne, again nearly popping out of the window, while she tied a blue ribbon at the top of her hair, and a pink one at the end of her braid in her excitement.
Tommy darted off to consult Baldy who was bringing in the vegetables, and returned holding up to his sister’s view one hand and the thumb of the other as he counted—“One—two—three—four—five—six—there’s sixlets, Anne, and Baldy says that three’s girls and three’s boys!”
“Then there are three pairs of twins,” said Anne, coming out of the side door. “Of course Jackie’s nose is broken, the poor dear! See him look in my face as if he didn’t understand why his mother should turn him off so. Never mind, when little brothers grow up you will have great sport playing with them, and seeing they don’t get in mischief, and meantime you shall be assistant house fourfoot, sleep on the front door-mat, and ‘watch out’ for your living with papa Waddles.”
After breakfast the entire family, augmented by Miss Jule, who had stopped in on her way to the village, went to see the pups, and though Happy was evidently pleased at the attention, she would not let any one but Anne come very near, and kept herself between the visitors and the precious “sixlets.”
“If you take my advice,” said Miss Jule to Anne, “you will have Baldy sweep all that loose straw out; it is hard for the pups to move about in, and by and by, when their eyes begin to open, the sharp ends will stick into them. I’ll send you down a barrel of prepared sawdust. If you sprinkle it an inch thick on the floor of the bedroom part, and then lay a breadth of clean old straw matting on top, it will make the nicest sort of a bed, and if it grows cold of nights before they are old enough to live in the cow barn, I’ll lend you one of my little kennel stoves with a protector around it.
