“Sure, ma’am, they’ll eat anything at all,” said William, and the lady laughed some more and said:
“I know one thing they won’t eat.”
“What’s that?” asked William.
So she went back into the little store and came out with something that looked like a lemon but wasn’t. “Let me see them eat that,” she said to William.
“A pickled lime, is it?” said William. “They’re that fond of ’em, ma’am, I can’t keep enough of ’em on hand, but they’re bad for dogs, ma’am.”
The lady laughed again. “That’s a fib,” she said. “You know they wouldn’t touch it.”
“Won’t they then,” said William. “Just watch ’em, ma’am.” So he took the pickled lime and looked at us, trying to make up his mind which of us to give it to. I hoped he wouldn’t give it to me, but he did. “Eat it, Fritzie,” he said coaxingly. “Good dog.”
Well, William was a friend of mine and I wanted to help him out of his fix, and so I took it and laid it down on the seat and ate it. It was quite the worst tasting thing I ever had. It was sort of sour and sort of salt and full of puckery juice. But I ate it, and when it was all gone I tried to make the lady think that I wanted more, and William was so pleased with me that afterwards he stopped at the butcher’s and brought out a piece of meat for each of us. I’m sure that meat saved me from being a very sick dog. Even as it was I felt quite unhappy for awhile and didn’t bark once all the way home.
A few days after that the Family came back and maybe I wasn’t glad to see them again. William brought them from the station in the big sleigh, and as soon as they were in the house William called to us dogs and we all went running in to see them. And the Master said how well we all looked and how Freya and I had grown, and the Baby sat down on the floor and we all jumped about her and licked her face and I ran off with one of her fur mittens and took it under the couch and chewed it a little. It was a very happy time. William told the Master how I had eaten the pickled lime for him in the village and the Master and Mistress laughed and laughed about it and said I was a fine dog, and after that for a long time the Master called me “the limehound”!
It was wonderful the way the Baby had grown in such a short time. I had to jump now when I wanted to lick her face! She was awfully glad to see us and cried a little when William took us back to the Kennel.