Peak and Prairie | Page 5

long years, and taking a kitchen knife, ruthlessly chopped it off to the right length. Then she bored a new hole with her scissors for the tongue of the buckle to pass through, and, going to Willie's tool box, found a short piece of wire with which--it seemed but the other day--he had been tinkering something about the house. With the wire she fastened the license securely to the collar. But before David could be found worthy of such decoration, he was subjected to a pretty severe bath in an old tub out in the back yard.
Poor David! This was a novel and painful dispensation, and he submitted only under protest. But his new mistress was firm, and arrayed in her oldest calico gown, with spectacles on her nose, she applied herself, with the energy and determination of all her New England grandmothers, to the task of scrubbing and soaping and squeezing and combing the dirt out of the long, thick hair. Three tubs of water were barely sufficient for the process, but finally David emerged, subdued but clean, looking very limp and draggled, and so much smaller because of his wet, close-clinging coat, that for a moment Mrs. Nancy thought, with a pang, that she might have washed away a part of the original dog. Later, however, when the sun had dried the fluffy hair, and when she fastened the new collar about the neck of the spotless animal, she let him lick her very face, so delighted were they both with the result of her labors. The rest of the afternoon they passed amicably together on the sunny porch. She would look up occasionally from her sewing, and say, "Good doggy!" and David would immediately wag his tail in delighted response. He was extremely mannerly and appreciative of the slightest attention--always excepting his enforced ablutions--and he seemed to approve of the kind eyes of his little protectress as warmly as she approved of his cool leather nose and speaking ears. As often as he moved, his license, hitting against the collar buckle, made a safe, cheerful sound, and Mrs. Nancy felt quite overcome with joy and gratitude at having been the chosen instrument of his preservation. When she lighted the lamp in the evening and began her regular game of backgammon, David curled himself up at her feet in a most companionable manner, and pricked his ears with interest at the fall of the dice.
But for her backgammon it would be difficult to imagine what Mrs. Tarbell would have done with her evenings, for her eyes were not strong enough for reading or sewing. She had got the habit of playing backgammon with Willie, after he became too weak for more active occupations, and they had kept the score in a little green blank-book. After he died she had missed the game, and she had found it pleasant to take it up again, and to play for both herself and Willie. The score, too, had been continued in the old book. At the top of each new page she wrote in her precise old-fashioned hand, "Mother," "Willie," and under her name all the victories of the "whites" were scored, while those of the "blacks" were still recorded to Willie's credit. After a while her eyesight began to fail still more, and it became necessary to lift the dice and examine them "near to." Then gradually she found that the black checkers occasionally eluded her, and that she was straining her eyes in her efforts to see them in the shadowy corners of the board. When at last she found that by an oversight she had committed a flagrant injustice to Willie's interests, she felt that something must be done. Being fertile in resource, she presently bethought herself of the bright colored wafers she had played with in her childhood, and to her joy she found they were still to be bought. Having possessed herself of a box of them, she proceeded to stick a glittering gilt star upon each side of each checker, both black and white, after which the checkerboard took on a showy theatrical appearance.
Mrs. Nancy rarely felt lonely when playing backgammon. The click of the dice sounded cheerful and sociable; the checkers, with their shining eyes, seemed to take a real interest in the game; and when she scored the result to "Willie" or to "Mother," the old familiar every-day relation seemed restored between them.
To-night Willie was having all the luck, and that was sure to put his mother in the best of spirits. She played on and on, much later than her custom was, till at last the luck turned, and looking at her flat, gold-faced watch, she found, with a shock, that it was ten minutes after ten o'clock.
"My sakes!" she cried. "I