How often I have heard her go into the hall and say, "Please send me down a clean duster, Laura. Joe, you get it." I would run gayly up the steps, and then would come Billy's turn. "Billy, I have forgotten my keys. Go get them."
After a time we began to know the names of different articles, and where they were kept, and could get them ourselves. On sweeping days we worked very hard, and enjoyed the fun. If Mrs. Morris was too far away to call to Mary for what she wanted, she wrote the name on a piece of paper, and told us to take it to her.
Billy always took the letters from the postman, and carried the morning paper up to Mr. Morris's study, and I always put away the clean clothes. After they were mended, Mrs. Morris folded each article and gave it to me, mentioning the name of the owner, so that I could lay it on his bed. There was no need for her to tell me the names. I knew by the smell. All human beings have a strong smell to a dog, even though they mayn't notice it themselves. Mrs. Morris never knew how she bothered me by giving away Miss Laura's clothes to poor people. Once, I followed her track all through the town, and at last found it was only a pair of her boots on a ragged child in the gutter.
I must say a word about Billy's tail before I close this chapter. It is the custom to cut the ends of fox terrier's tails, but leave their ears untouched. Billy came to Miss Laura so young that his tail had not been cut off, and she would not have it done.
One day Mr. Robinson came in to see him, and he said, "You have made a fine-looking dog of him, but his appearance is ruined by the length of his tail."
"Mr. Robinson," said Mrs. Morris, patting little Billy, who lay on her lap, "don't you think that this little dog has a beautifully proportioned body?"
"Yes, I do," said the gentleman. "His points are all correct, save that one." "But," she said, "if our Creator made that beautiful little body, don't you think he is wise enough to know what length of tail would be in proportion to it?"
Mr. Robinson would not answer her. He only laughed and said that he thought she and Miss Laura were both "cranks."