She was pleased if she had a bone, or equally pleased with a dog biscuit, happy to go to walk, happy to stay at home; her face wore a perpetual smile, and her tail a ceaseless wag.
“Let us call her something different from that old kennel name, even if she can’t hear it,” said Anne, one day six months later, as they stood watching Cadence tending her first children, the fascinating twins, Jack and Jill, and teaching them to lap milk.
“Yes,” assented Tommy, who stood by, pondering as to how soon the pups might be harnessed to a toy cart; “let’s call her Happy, she is always so glad.” And Happy it is—Mrs. Happy Waddles of Happy Hall.
“Now there’s something else between us besides not understanding things when we are shut up,” said Anne, making the hound stand up and put both paws in her lap. “We are both named one thing and called another; for you probably don’t know, my dear, unless Waddles has told you, that my true name is Diana, after the hunting lady, and really I think some night this fall I’ll live up to it and go out with you and Waddles to hunt rabbits.”
So this is the annal of the coming of Happy, wife of Waddles, Mayor of Dogtown.
CHAPTER II
MISS LETTY AND HAMLET
Spring always brought many arrivals at Miss Jule’s farm, so that Anne and Tommy found some new animal at every visit: either an awkward, frolicsome colt, a fawn-eyed Jersey calf, or a litter of pups; for Miss Jule was so successful in rearing healthy animals that those she could not keep met with a ready sale everywhere.
The children went up nearly every afternoon in fine weather, riding their bicycles all but the steepest part of the way, and having a safe and easy coast back, for the road was broad, smooth as a floor, and there were no cross-roads the entire length of the slope, cross-roads being very bad things for coasters either on wheels or sleds.