“Yes,” said Leigh, with a smile; “I mean to get to something like that some day. But driving with reins this way is how they often begin with young horses, isn’t it, Mellor?”
“To be sure it is!” the coachman replied, as he went off, smiling to himself at the funny notions children take up. “The very idea of harnessing a puppy.” For Mellor had never been in Flanders, you see, nor in Lapland.
Chapter Twelve.
Leigh’s Plan.
Ever since the day the children had waited for their father outside the Lavender Cottages—the day when it was settled that they were to have Fuzzy—the idea of training the dog to be driven, and making him draw the perambulator as he had seen Ned drawing the Perrys’ old wicker carriage, had been in Leigh’s head. That was why he was so interested about the new carriage for his little sister.
He was sensible in some ways. He knew it would be no use harnessing the dog into a cart or anything till he had accustomed him a little to being driven. That was what had made him think of buying reins. He had waited a good while too, till the dog was nearly full-grown and had grown pretty obedient to his voice and call. But when he heard that the perambulator was really to be bought, he thought to himself that it was quite time Fuzzy’s “breaking-in” should begin.
For it was now late September. Baby Dolly was close upon her fifth “month-day,” as the children called it, and growing so big and lively that nurse could scarcely manage to carry her any distance without feeling rather tired, as Dolly was very fond of sitting straight up and looking about her and giving little jumps and springs when Mary or the boys ran up to her. And “Fuzz,” as Leigh generally called him—for he thought “Fuzzy” rather a girl’s name—was a very big puppy indeed—so big and playful that, when he came galloping over the lawn to the children, Mary used to run behind nurse, if she was there, for fear of being knocked over.
It was fun and affection, of course, and when he stood still Mary would pat him and call him “dear Fuzzy,” “poor old Fuzzy,” quite bravely, but at the bottom, of her heart she was a little afraid of him. And though she did not like to say so to the boys, she often wished that he had stayed a roly-poly, soft, tumbling-about creature, as he was when she had first seen him—only a few weeks old.