“There is a lovely western sparrow, with a yellow vest and black cravat, that I’ve seen in the museum, and its name is Dickcissel. I’ll name him that, and we can call him Dick,” said Anne, after several more minutes spent in thinking. “That makes four after birds, so we might name the others for something else. This one that’s all white but one ear spot, we could call Blanche, only it’s hard to say.”
“Lily’s nicer. I’ll let you call it after my dear old doggie,” said Tommy, as if conferring a great favour.
“I don’t think she’s going to stay so very white,” replied Anne, after examining the pup’s coat critically. “I think she will have black and brown tick marks like her grandmother.”
“Then call her Tiger Lily, they are all spotted,” cried Tommy, triumphantly, which tickled Anne so that she hugged him for his wit; and Tiger Lily the pup was, and lived to be a great hunter.
“Now for the last, the soft, fat, dark one. Somehow she reminds me of a comfortable coloured person. I know, we’ll call her Dinah, the very thing! and Di will do for short.” So the last pup was duly named and put down, and Anne proposed that they should rest their heads by wheeling up to the Hilltop Kennels to tell Miss Jule about the names, when Tommy, who was looking after the pups who had scampered away on being released, grasped Anne’s arm and pointed after them. Wonder of wonders! Phœbe was holding Bob by the hind leg, while fat Dinah played leap-frog over his back in a clumsy but perfectly serious manner, doing it not once but many times, and she was only three weeks old!
In the matter of training and education it makes a deal of difference to the mother as to whether her family consists of few or many, and Anne learned many new points in dog law during the next few weeks.
Happy continued to feed and wash the sixlets until they were about two months old, but she did not play with them, as she had with Jack and Jill, except upon rare occasions, but left them to teach each other and learn by experience, while she took a nap, near by enough to hear if anything went wrong, wearing when awake the expression of being good-naturedly bored.