“Then until they are two weeks old, when their eyes will not only be opened, but they can really see with them, you must care for Happy entirely yourself, give her food and water, see that the door of her yard is open so that she can get in and out at will and keep herself clean, and do not let anybody handle the pups, for as soon as the news gets about, Pinkie, Jessie, Sophie, Charlie, and Jack will be here in a flock, and it’s as uncomfortable for pups to be loved to death as to die any other way.”
Miss Jule thoughtfully asked Tommy to ride on to the village with her, and then go home and help her pick crab-apples for jelly that Miss Letty had promised to make. It was almost impossible for him to keep his hands off the little creatures, and the chance of climbing and shaking the crab-apple trees and picking up the shining red fruit would hardly have been a counter attraction if it had not been capped with the idea of helping Miss Letty with the jelly. The skimmings of a jelly pot are very good when spread thick on thin bread, and the idea flashed through Tommy’s head that as it was Miss Letty’s first jelly-making she would be very apt to skim deep, and the results would be plentiful.
Baldy arranged the house as Miss Jule suggested, that afternoon, also making a little window at the top of the bed corner for ventilation, and Anne established the “dining room,” as she called it, in the front half, where the food and water dishes could have a place clean and apart. Here for two weeks dwelt the “sixlets,” having no separate names or identity, except in the eyes of Anne, who knew them apart before they were anything but six insatiable mouths.
Middle September brought some very warm days with it, and with all the doors wide open Happy moved to the dining room, where the air was better, and was at home to any admiring friends who chose to call, though she did not yet care to have the puppies touched, and had much more confidence in grown people than in children.
The pups were a source of endless wonder to Anne, for though she had watched Jack and Jill grow up, she had not seen much of them during the first two or three weeks of their life, as they had been born in the barn at a time when she was very busy with her lessons, and had not been brought to live in the nursery kennel until their eyes were open. The sixlets, moreover, were smaller, seemingly of a daintier build, and gave promise of being true beagles, and not taking after their unacknowledged grandfather, the foxhound.
At first their faces were blunt and heavy, and their rounded ears too thick to turn over and droop; but their fur was of exquisite softness, and the prettily rounded paws and fore legs looked as if they were encased in silky mousquetaire gloves, while the pads on the soles were full and pink, and seemed by far too delicate to be used as shoes. Cleaner, sweeter little things it would be impossible to imagine, for as soon as Happy finished feeding and polishing number six, she would begin again with number one.
When they were two weeks old Happy gradually took more exercise. The pups gained their footing and began to shuffle about, so Baldy devised a day nursery where they might have a change and sunlight, as well as give the nursery kennel a chance to be aired and swept every day. This day nursery consisted of four wide boards, about four feet long, nailed together to form a bottomless box. It was light enough for Anne to move it about easily, according to whether a sunny or a shady spot was desirable; this also secured a fresh grass carpet at all times, when the ground was dry.
No sooner were the pups allowed to leave the kennel than Jack Waddles came from the south piazza, where he had been moping and showing all the symptoms of a severe case of that painful but not fatal disease called “nose out of joint,” and made himself not only their guardian, but almost foster-mother. At first Happy seemed to suspect his motives, but they soon came to an understanding, and it was a regulation thing for her to go for her morning exercise as soon as he came from the house. Not only would Jack get into the pen and quiet the pups if they felt lonely, but he often gave them their morning bath as well; and Anne had both Miss Jule and Mr. Hugh as witnesses to the fact that he once washed the whole six, one by one, moving each into a different part of the enclosure as he finished it, then collected them, and cuddled them to sleep, when their mother had remained away over long, and they were yelping.
One pup, a serious looking little chap, with the longest ears of all, and a quaint, old-fashioned hound face, was his favourite, and he would nose him out of the day nursery, take him to a sunny place, and there mount guard over him, lying nose to nose, with an expression of mingled love and pride, so that in these days Jack was always called Big Brother.