Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs

Peace on Earth, Good-will to
Dogs, by

Eleanor Hallowell Abbott This eBook is for the use of anyone
anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You
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Title: Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs
Author: Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
Release Date: December 29, 2006 [EBook #20213]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Peace on Earth,
Good-Will to Dogs

By
Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
Author of "Old Dad"

New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
681 Fifth Avenue

COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
First printing October, 1920
Second printing October, 1920
Third printing October, 1920
* * * * *

CONTENTS

Part I
Part II
* * * * *

PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TO DOGS

PART I
If you don't like Christmas stories, don't read this one!
And if you don't like dogs I don't know just what to advise you to do!
For I warn you perfectly frankly that I am distinctly pro-dog and
distinctly pro-Christmas, and would like to bring to this little story
whatever whiff of fir-balsam I can cajole from the make-believe forest
in my typewriter, and every glitter of tinsel, smudge of toy candle,
crackle of wrapping paper, that my particular brand of brain and ink
can conjure up on a single keyboard! And very large-sized dogs shall
romp through every page! And the mercury shiver perpetually in the
vicinity of zero! And every foot of earth be crusty-brown and bare with
no white snow at all till the very last moment when you'd just about
given up hope! And all the heart of the story is very,--oh very young!
For purposes of propriety and general historical authenticity there are
of course parents in the story. And one or two other oldish persons. But
they all go away just as early in the narrative as I can manage it.--Are
obliged to go away!
Yet lest you find in this general combination of circumstances some
sinister threat of audacity, let me conventionalize the story at once by
opening it at that most conventional of all conventional Christmas-story
hours,--the Twilight of Christmas Eve.
Nuff said?--Christmas Eve, you remember? Twilight? Awfully cold
weather? And somebody very young?
Now for the story itself!

After five blustering, wintry weeks of village speculation and gossip
there was of course considerable satisfaction in being the first to solve
the mysterious holiday tenancy of the Rattle-Pane House.
Breathless with excitement Flame Nourice telephoned the news from
the village post-office. From a pedestal of boxes fairly bulging with
red-wheeled go-carts, one keen young elbow rammed for balance into a
gay glassy shelf of stick-candy, green tissue garlands tickling across her
cheek, she sped the message to her mother.
"O Mother-Funny!" triumphed Flame. "I've found out who's
Christmasing at the Rattle-Pane House!--It's a red-haired setter dog
with one black ear! And he's sitting at the front gate this moment!
Superintending the unpacking of the furniture van! And I've named him
Lopsy!"
"Why, Flame; how--absurd!" gasped her mother. In consideration of
the fact that Flame's mother had run all the way from the icy-footed
chicken yard to answer the telephone it shows distinctly what stuff she
was made of that she gasped nothing else.
And that Flame herself re-telephoned within the half hour to
acknowledge her absurdity shows equally distinctly what stuff she was
made of! It was from the summit of a crate of holly-wreaths that she
telephoned this time.
"Oh Mother-Funny," apologized Flame, "you were perfectly right. No
lone dog in the world could possibly manage a great spooky place like
the Rattle-Pane House. There are two other dogs with him! A great
long, narrow sofa-shaped dog upholstered in lemon and
white,--something terribly ferocious like 'Russian Wolf Hound' I think
he is! But I've named him Beautiful-Lovely! And there's the neatest
looking paper-white coach dog just perfectly ruined with ink-spots!
Blunder-Blot, I think, will make a good name for him! And--"
"Oh--Fl--ame!" panted her Mother. "Dogs--do--not--take houses!" It
was not from the chicken-yard that she had come running this time but
only from her Husband's Sermon-Writing-Room in the attic.

"Oh don't they though?" gloated Flame. "Well, they've taken this one,
anyway! Taken it by storm, I mean! Scratched all the green paint off
the front door! Torn a hole big as a cavern in the Barberry Hedge!
Pushed the sun-dial through a bulkhead!--If it snows to-night the
cellar'll be a Glacier! And--"
"Dogs--do--not--take--houses," persisted Flame's mother. She was still
persisting it indeed when