Miss Letty had packed her Paris finery away in Miss Jule’s big garret, excepting a few pretty things for evening wear, and went about in white duck skirts and dainty white shirt waists, belts and ties, for as she said, “If you are much with dogs and horses, it isn’t enough to have gowns that will wash, you must have things that are boilable.”
So Tommy changed her name from Flower Lady to White Lady, and doubled his devotion, recklessly buying three cookie cutters at the ten-cent store in town,—a heart, a rabbit, and a rooster,—that his offerings of ginger cakes and jumbles coaxed from cook might not lack variety. The heart and rooster cookies were sure to be in good condition when Miss Letty received them, but the rabbit offered greater temptation to Tommy in transit. It was a queerly built rabbit, and stood very high on its legs. Tommy discovered that if the legs were nibbled off carefully and evenly, bunny looked as if he was lying down, so if the cookie was particularly crisp, and temptation overcame him, he soothed his scruples by telling Miss Letty that “to-day the rabbit is tired.”
As for Anne, she had found a companion after her own heart, for Miss Letty was as happy in her newly found freedom as a young house-bred animal having its first taste of liberty. Anne offered to give up Fox, but it was not necessary, for Miss Letty could control Miss Jule’s own mount Kate by merely a pat on the neck, and together the two girls—for at this time Miss Letty was as young as Anne—explored every wood path in the vicinity, having an escort of Dogtown police in the shape of Mr. Wolf, Quick, Tip, and Waddles to protect them, with Colin as a sort of clown to amuse them when they rested.
At first Miss Letty spoke in French to Anne, because her mother asked it and it was really her own tongue, but she soon stopped, saying frankly that it seemed as much out of place in New England wood and farm life as her lace frills or Hamlet’s long curls and bracelets, while Anne’s Indian names for beasts and birds caught her fancy, and Miss Letty was as quick as Anne in detecting an unusual bird note, even though she might not know the name of the bird.
In fact, she was rather slow in learning to name birds by sight, and came galloping down so often to tell Anne that there were some great strange birds in the meadow, with green and blue feathers, when they were only crows, or perhaps grackles seen in the bright sun, that it came to be quite a joke. But if she once learned a bird’s name from hearing its song, she never forgot it.
It was Miss Letty also who discovered that Tip and Colin had musical ears, and could be made to sing. Waddles had always been a musician of ability, being so sensitive to vocal sounds that Anne was obliged to shut him up in the farthest away barn if her mother had a musical evening.
Jolly piano music seemed to annoy him, and he would get up and walk away of his own accord, with an injured air; but if Anne in practising chanced upon a minor scale, then from under sofa, bush, or remotest spot, where the sound carried, Waddles appeared tiptoeing along with tail erect and wonderful dilating eyes.
If he happened to be indoors, he would come within two or three feet of the piano; if outside, to the nearest door or window, and sitting down, throw back his head and let the sound well forth, high and in key with the scale, only dropping to a throaty gurgle when he had to take breath. On and on he would sing until the scale stopped, and then he crept away to seclusion, as if quite exhausted, and lying quite still, gave an occasional little bay that sounded like a sob.
This singing was entirely different from the baying and full cry of hunting hounds, and after a while Anne discovered that there were three other sounds than her minor scales that produced it,—the call of the whip-poor-will, the quavering of a screech owl, and a French horn that one of Mr. Hugh’s stable men played, which, in spite of the distance, sounded quite clear and true when the windows were open on summer nights.
Tip, Quick, and Colin’s singing was of a different order, but quite remarkable, for setters and spaniels are not credited with the voices that belong to all hounds, and when, during one of their lessons, as Miss Letty, with finger raised, whistled the tune that started them, Mr. Wolf’s sombre, deep-barking St. Bernard voice suddenly joined, counteracting the fox terrier’s double high c. The effect was astounding. Mr. Hugh, who was riding up the wood road, stopped short in sheer amazement, muttering to himself, “It’s odd that such a little butterfly creature should have so much influence with dogs.” Then, as the lesson ended, and Quick, having scented him, came bounding across the lawn, showing that he had a paper frill round his neck and a small red cigar ribbon bow on his tail, he said something about “more circus tricks,” and gave his horse a quite unnecessary cut with his whip and galloped away, Quick following much to his chagrin. If he had looked back he would have seen Miss Jule standing at the road edge laughing until the tears ran down her cheeks, while Miss Letty danced along the piazza holding Hamlet’s paws, saying: “We’ve shocked the Great Bear again. I wonder what he will say when he sees you ride Fox, all dressed in your red jacket.”