“Why, yes—see—here it is.” Miss Parrott tapped it with a long hand, on which shone several ancestral rings.
“Oh, I forgot,” said Davie, looking down at the daguerreotype in her lap.
“Oh, Miss Parrott, what did you do?” begged Polly anxiously.
“Well, the man went out and told his little girl to come in. They had just been making some molasses candy, and she brought a piece. And he told her to hold it up, so that the dog could see it. And then he got back of his little black thing over the picture machine, and he stuck up his head, and said, ‘All right—sit still, children,’ and then something clicked, and we were all taken.”
“Towsle was good to sit still, wasn’t he, Miss Parrott,” cried Polly, with shining eyes.
“Yes, indeed. You see he knew it was candy that the little girl held. That was the way Sister and I always made him keep still before we gave him any. So he never took his eyes off from it.”
“And did he get the candy—did he?” cried David in great excitement.
“To be sure he did,” laughed Miss Parrott, “and it took him ever so long to eat it, for he got his teeth all stuck together. And Uncle John paid the man, and then he said, ‘Hasn’t that dog finished his candy yet?’ for there was Towsle whirling around, putting up first one paw and then another to his face to try to get his jaws apart. You see the candy was too soft.” Miss Parrott burst into a hearty laugh in which Polly and David joined.
“And Towsle wouldn’t take any molasses candy when Sister and I offered it to him after that,” said Miss Parrott, wiping her eyes. “Dear me, children, I don’t know when I have laughed so. Well, now I must put the daguerreotype up.”
When she came back to the big sofa, she looked at David, the book tightly clasped in his hands.