CHAPTER VI.

TOMMY TOMPKINS' YELLOW DOG.


"I have a letter to read to you this afternoon, girls," said Miss Ruth;
"also the story of a yellow dog. The letter is from a friend of mine who
spends her summers in a quiet village in Maine, in a fine old mansion
overlooking green fields and a beautiful lake with hills sloping down to
it on every side. Here is the letter she wrote me last June:--

"'We have come back again to our summer home--to the old house, the
broad piazza, the high-backed chairs, and the blue china. The clump of
cinnamon roses across the way is one mass of spicy bloom, and soon its
fragrance will be mingled with that of new-mown hay. There is nothing
new about the place but Don Quixote, the great handsome English mastiff.
Do you know the mastiff--his lion-like shape, his smooth, fawn-colored
coat, his black nose, and kind, intelligent eyes, their light-hazel
contrasting with the black markings around them? If you do, you must
pardon this description.

"'I am very fond of Don, and he of me. He belongs to our cousin, whose
house is but one field removed from ours; but he is here much of the
time. He evidently feels that both houses are under his protection, and
passes his nights between the two. Often we hear his slow step as he
paces the piazza round and round like a sentinel. He is only fifteen
months old, and of course feels no older than a little dog, though he
weighs one hundred and thirty pounds, and measures six feet from nose to
tail.