And now I want to tell you what was happening at home. A little girl called Ruth, who was very fond of the puppies, came to see them on her way home from a party. She loved playing with them, and the first thing she said when she ran in was, “I am just going to say good-night to Timette and Ann,” and was off into the garden to find them.
But, alas! there were no puppies to be found. There was the india-rubber ball and the stick and the bit of rag, all looking very lonely, but no sign of the puppies. Ruth was very puzzled. “What have you done with them?” she asked Tim, who was sitting up looking rather worried. He gave his tail a flop and his brown human eyes seemed to say, “It really wasn’t my fault; they ran away without asking me.”
Ruth felt sure they couldn’t be so very far off, as they were too babyish to be able to stray a great distance, and that with Tim’s help she would be able to find them. She ran back to tell us the news and that she and Tim were going out as a search party to look for the lost ones.
“Don’t be long,” we called after her, “remember your bedtime.”
“As if I could go to bed while the darlings are lost!” we heard her say.
We watched them go into the wood, Tim barking round Ruth most excitedly. He seemed to know there was serious business on hand, for instead of dashing off to chase rabbits, he kept near her and often put his nose to the ground. “We’ve got to find those puppies,” Ruth told him. Soon he gave a sharp bark and ran ahead of her, looking round and saying as plainly as he could, “You just follow me.” Ruth understood dogs as well as she loved them, and she trusted Tim and followed where he led.
In a few minutes they had reached the hole. The puppies woke up to see Ruth and Tim standing looking down on them. Oh, what a noise they made! I can’t tell you how delighted they were. It seemed like waking up from a bad dream. You couldn’t have heard yourself speak, for there was Tim barking, Ruth calling them all the pet names she could think of, and the puppies themselves simply shrieking with joy. Ruth soon jumped down into the hole, and when we came up there she was hugging the puppies who were covering her face with their wet sticky kisses, giving little sobbing cries as if they wanted to tell her over and over again how glad they were to be found, and to thank her for getting them out of the nasty hole. Ruth carried them home in her arms, talking to them all the way, while Tim stalked along by her side with a proud and injured air that plainly said, “Well, after all, it was really I who found them and I think you might make a little more fuss with me.”
“This they say is not quite right;
But who can keep still in the midst of a fight?”