Champ, Sojer and Little Big-Wig were all sleeping nicely and in straight lines. The girls must be behind some high screens. I could hear their gentle breathing, but could not see them.
I went on very quiet shoes to the veranda outside my young master's window. He was sleeping inside his room but the windows were wide open. He was lying flat on his back, not a bit of color in his fine young face. The white covers were drawn up close to his chin. Oh! I did hope that he would soon get brown and ruddy like the other kiddies—my own dear little lad, and I ventured to take a step into the room and stretched my head out longingly toward him.
"Now, Pony—you're not a dog," said someone, and I got a slight slap behind.
I started—there was the young mother of the household looking like a girl in her pretty dark bathing suit and white rubber cap.
She was not cross with me, for she was smiling kindly, so I followed her along the veranda to the front of the house where she went lightly into the living room and began to tidy chairs, tables and sofas.
She glided about so quickly that she reminded me of Cassowary.
"These bathing suits are fine for housework, Pony-Boy," she said. "Long skirts should be for dress-up occasions only. Now let's start the fire," and dancing out through one of the open glass doors of the room she hurried to the back of the house.
White-clad Bingi was bending over a cook book lying open on a glass-topped table, but occasionally he cast a glance at pots boiling merrily on the stove and sending out delicious odors. Oh! what a good breakfast the family was going to have.
It was the big wood stove instead of the gas one that was going this morning. It seemed to be shouting with glee. He had crammed it full of wood sticks happy to give up their lives for the dear human beings they were so fond of, for trees have much sentiment.