Tattine | Page 4

stole as stealthily away as
though stepping upon eggs, and Tattine never knew that they had gone.
It was no stealthy treading very long, however. No sooner had they
crossed the roadway than they made sure of the scent they thought they
had discovered, and made one wild rush down through the sumach and
sweet-fern to the ravine. In a few moments it was one wild rush up
again right to the foot of Tattine's apple-tree, and 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