Explorers of the Dawn

by Mazo De la Roche

Was ever little body so full of spirit and the pride of life? The kitchen became her own domain where the three of us fought for the position of her most abject slave. Even Mary Ellen could scarcely work for watching her antics with an old stocking, which she pretended was a rat. Once she caught a live mouse and set us all shouting. Mary Ellen, in her excitement, upset a gravy-boat of hot gravy, and The Seraph slipped and sat down in it, and Giftie gambolling, mouse in mouth, ran through it and tracked it over the freshly scrubbed boards. If she had been a tigress with her prey she could not have been more ferocious with the mouse. She snarled at it: she worried it: she threw it up in the air and caught it: she laid it on the scullery floor and rolled on it: and when, finally, it ceased to squirm beneath her, she lay quite still, gazing pensively up at us with liquid eyes, and only now and then twitching her hind-quarters to remind her victim that she was still on the job.

One never-to-be-forgotten day she rollicked into the kitchen proudly carrying Mrs. Handsomebody's solemn black shoe, which had been standing with its mate beneath Mrs. Handsomebody's bed. Before our horrified eyes, she worried it till the shoe-laces cracked about her head; threw it up and caught it, as she had the mouse; then taking it to her own bed in the scullery, she laid it there and rolled on it.

When Mary Ellen had wrested the shoe from Giftie, she crept upstairs, her heart in her mouth, and restored it to its place beneath the bed.

"It was a marvel," she said afterwards, "how the scallywag did what she did widout wakenin' her, for there was the mistress sleepin' on the broad of her back, and her two shoes, and her bed-socks scattered over the flure, and the pot of cold crame knocked off the chair at the head of her bed, and the half of it et. It's mesilf will dance for joy whin that little tormint gets took away."

Inquiries were made of all the errand boys, but not one had heard of a lost dog. We came to dread the sound of the door-bell lest it should herald some determined grown-up come to snatch our treasure from us. Mr. Watlin, the butcher's young man, and Mary Ellen's favoured "follower" of the moment, took a lively interest in the affair. He was of the opinion that if Mrs. Handsomebody once saw the dog nothing would induce her to send it away. And he brought offerings of raw meat in his pocket to make her plump and glossy. Giftie grew plumper and glossier every day.

Then, when two weeks had passed, she achieved the crowning triumph of her stay with us. It was a heavy morning of dense November fog, and the gas was still burning in the dining-room when we came down to breakfast. Mary Ellen did not bring us our porridge, as usual, neither did Giftie run in to greet us; so, after a moment's impatient wriggling in our chairs, we went to the kitchen to investigate. Giftie was nowhere in sight. Mary Ellen sat in an attitude of complete abandon, by the dresser, her apron over her head, her arms hanging loosely at her sides. Was Giftie dead? Had her owner come to fetch her? What horror had overcast the sun? We deluged her with questions, pulling the apron off her head, and dragging her from the chair.

"Och, it's a terror she is," Mary Ellen said, at last. "Come wid me to the scullery an' ye'll see what she's got in the bed wid her."

There was not much light in the scullery so we could not at first distinguish what lay on the mat beside Giftie. It moved; it snuffled; no—they moved; they snuffled. There were three of them. All at once it burst upon us that they were puppies—her puppies—our puppies—one apiece! We flopped on the floor beside her. She darted from her bed—licked our hands—snapped at our ankles—ran back to them—and, finally tremulous with excitement, allowed us to take them in our arms (The Seraph wrapped his in the skirt of his fresh holland smock) and sit blissfully in a row.

We stroked the soft licked fur of their glossy coats; we examined their tiny sharp black nails; their blindness only endeared them the more to us.

There we were found by Mr. Watlin.