Well, William taught us all sorts of things that Spring. It was a good deal of a bother, but the thought of being taken to the dog show helped me to be patient and go through with it. After we had been in training for a month or more I asked Mother when the show was to be and she said she didn’t know; that maybe it wouldn’t come for a long time. I didn’t like that and I had made up my mind that there wasn’t any use in going through with so many lessons if nothing was to come of it when, one morning, the Master came down to the stable.
“Well, how are they getting on, William?” he asked.
“Fair, sir,” said William. “Freya takes to it like the lady she is, sir, but Young Fritz is slower. He’s as stubborn as his father, sir.”
Now I thought that very unkind of William after all the trouble I had taken to please him, and just to show that my feelings were hurt I sneaked off and got behind the flower-pots. But I could hear what they were saying in the carriage room, and pretty soon the Master said:
“Well, I think we’ll try them out at the Oak Cliff Show in June. It’s nearby and there’s only one day of it. They’re bound to be nervous the first time and a small show is a good one to start them with.”
I pricked up my ears at that, because it was already the last of May, and crawled out from back of the flower-pots.
CHAPTER IV
A VISIT TO JACK
“Freya won’t mind it a bit, sir,” William was saying. “She’s the sort that loves a bit of fuss and excitement. She’ll show well, she will, sir.”
William always thought whatever Freya did was all right. I made up my mind to show them that I could behave just as well as she could, and so I went back to the carriage room.