Tattine | Page 4

Tattine looked down to see Doctor--oh, could she believe her two blue eyes!--with a dear little rabbit clinched firmly between his teeth, and his mother (think of it, his mother!) actually standing proudly by and wildly waving her tail from side to side, in the most delighted manner possible. As for Tattine, she simply gave one horrified little scream and was down from the tree in a flash, while the scream fortunately brought Maggie hurrying from the house, and as Maggie was Doctor's confidential friend (owing to certain choice little morsels, dispensed from the butler's pantry window with great regularity three times a day), he at once, at her command, relaxed his hold on the little jack-rabbit. The poor little thing was still breathing, breathing indeed with all his might and main, so that his heart thumped against his little brown sides with all the regularity of a Rider Engine. Tattine's first thought was for the rabbit, and she held it close to her, stroking it with one little brown trembling hand and saying, "There! there! Hush, you little dear; you're safe now, don't be frightened! Tattine wouldn't hurt you for the world." Her next thought was for Doctor, and she turned on him with a torrent of abuse, that ought to have made the hair of that young M.D. stand on end. "Oh, you cruel, CRUEL dog! whatever made you do such a thing as this? I never dreamt it of you, never." At this Betsy's tail dropped between her legs, for she was a coward at heart, but Doctor held his ground, his tail standing on end, as his hair should have done, and his eyes all the while fairly devouring the little rabbit. "And the worst of it," continued Tattine, "is that no matter how sorry you may feel" (Betsy was the only one who showed any signs of sorrow, and she was more scared than sorry), "no matter how sorry you may feel, that will not mend things. You do not know where this baby lived, and who are its father and mother, and like as not it is too young to live at all away from them and will die," and Tattine raised one plump little hand and gave Doctor a slap that at least made him "turn tail," and slink rather doggedly away to his own particular hole under the laundry steps. And now it was time to find Mamma-- high time, for it seemed to Tattine she would choke with all the feelings, sorrowful and angry, welling up within her. Mamma was not far afield--that is, she was very near, at her desk in the cosy little alcove of the upstairs hall-way, and Tattine soon found her.
"Now, Mamma," she asked excitedly, "did you know that Betsy or Doctor would do such a thing as this?"
The trembling little rabbit in Tattine's hands showed what was meant by THIS.
Mrs. Gerald paused a moment, then she said reluctantly, "Yes, Tattine, I did."
"Have they done it before, Mamma?"
"I am sorry to say they have."
"Have you seen them bring struggling rabbits dangling in their mouths right up to the house here, Mamma?"
Mrs. Gerald merely shook her head. She felt so sorry to have to own to such a sight.
"Why did I never know it, Mamma?"
"You have never chanced to be on the spot, dear, when it happened, and I was in no hurry to tell you anything that I knew would make you sad."
"I think it would have been better to tell me. It's awful to find such a thing out suddenly about dogs you've trusted, and to think how good and gentle they look when they come and put their heads in your lap to be petted, just as though they would not hurt a fly; but then, of course, anyone who has eyes knows that they do lure flies, snapping at them all day long, and just for the fun of it too, not because they need them for food, as birds do. Mamma, I don't believe there's anything meaner than a Laverack setter. Still, Tadjie would never have done such a thing, I know." Mrs. Gerald was silent, and Tattine, expecting her to confirm what she had said, grew a little suspicious. "Would Tadjie, Mamma?" with a directness that would not admit of indirectness.
"Yes, Tattine; Tadjie would. She was trained to hunt before ever she was given to Papa, and so were her ancestors before her. That is why Doctor and Betsy, who have never been trained to hunt, go wild over the rabbits. They have inherited the taste."
"Trained to hunt," said Tattine thoughtfully. "Do you mean that men just went to work to teach them to be so cruel?"
"Well, I suppose in a way setters are natural hunters, Tattine, but then their training has