Part 5

One of the boys looked at him limping along in front and he said, “Look at that puppy. He looks exactly like Charlie’s Bingo, who does such wonderful tricks!”

The other boy said, “He does look like him. Let’s call him and see if he answers to the name Bingo.” So they called, “Bingo, Bingo, Bingo!”

You may be sure that when Bingo heard his name called _this time_ he did come running as fast as ever he could.

Bingo did not know the boys but they knew him. They had often watched him over the fence doing the tricks that Charlie had taught him, so they knew where he lived. Now that they were sure it _was_ Bingo, as he had come at once when they called him, they decided that they would take him back to his home; for they knew how unhappy Charlie must be because he had lost his dog.

But they were afraid that Bingo might run away again, so one of the boys held on to him while the others made a harness for him out of some string that one of them had in his pocket. Then they put it on Bingo and they tied a long piece of string to the middle of the harness for a leash.

So they started on their way--but you can think how funny Bingo did look in his rope harness! The boys could not help laughing at him, and Bingo did not like that at all. He had a feeling that he looked very ragged and untidy, as indeed he did; and all the dogs that he met and who wore beautiful collars, sniffed at him, as though to say, “What an extraordinary thing to wear, instead of a collar!”

Bingo wished very much that he had not lost his own collar, which was a very beautiful one. He wanted to stop and tell the other dogs all about it. But the four boys were in a hurry, and they pulled at his rope so that he had to follow them.

At last they reached the bottom of the hill that the boy had coasted down. It was ever so much harder to climb _up_ that hill than it had been running down it that morning. But at last they got to the top and Bingo began to feel very excited because he recognized the street that they were now walking along. Every single day he walked along that street with Charlie and Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie on their way to the park.

And--then at last they reached the garden gate and Bingo was home! He was so excited that he barked “Yap, yap, yap!”

Charlie was eating his supper in the dining room and when he heard it he said, “That’s Bingo’s bark!” and he and his Mother and his Auntie and his Daddy all jumped up from the table and ran to the front door. And--there were the four little boys holding Bingo by the rope!

Well, you may be sure that everybody was glad to see Bingo. Charlie grabbed him in his arms and hugged him while he thanked the boys for bringing him home, and Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie thanked them also. Then Charlie’s Daddy put his hand in his pocket and he brought out four beautiful new quarters and he gave one to each of the boys, so they were very happy, too. But the happiest of all was Bingo, he barked till he could bark no more because he was hoarse. He barked so loudly that he wakened Jane and Topsy from their nap and they came out to see what it all meant.

When Jane saw Bingo, what do you think she did? Why, she started to wash him! Yes, she did; she washed him all over and he needed it, I can tell you.

Then, when Bingo was nice and clean, Charlie gave him his dinner, and when he had eaten it he was so tired that he curled up beside Jane on the kitchen rug, just as if he was a baby puppy again, and went fast asleep. But always after that, Bingo would come when he was called. He came so quickly when Charlie called, “Bingo, Bingo, Bingo,” that everybody noticed it, and said to Charlie, “What a well-trained dog you have. Did you train him yourself?” And Charlie would say, “Yes, I did. He _is_ a clever dog; there isn’t _anything_ that Bingo can’t do!” And I don’t believe there was!

WHAT CHARLIE DID ON A RAINY DAY

One day it was a rainy day. The rain poured and it poured, and the wind blew. It was a very disagreeable day. It poured so hard that Charlie could not go out in the yard and play in his little house. His Mother and his Auntie both said that it was the kind of day when it is best to stay indoors.

Then Charlie’s Mother said, “As it is such a rainy day that I cannot go out, I shall make preserves all the morning. I shall make plum preserves and orange marmalade, and we will have some for supper to-night.”

And his Auntie said, “I shall sew all the morning; yes, I will make myself a nice new dress.”

Topsy and Bingo and Jane did not say anything. But they all three lay down on hearth rug and went to sleep. They had decided that, as it was such a disagreeable, rainy day that they could not go out and play, they would sleep all the morning, and, maybe, dream a nice dream about playing in the fields in the country.

As for Charlie--_he_ did not know _what_ to do. He stood at the window and he looked out at the rain pattering on the ledge and against the window pane--and he said, “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do!” And he said it again and again.

His Auntie said to him, “The very idea, Charlie, you have _heaps_ of things to do! Why don’t you play with your toys--with your train and with your blocks?”

But Charlie shook his head. “It’s no fun playing with my train--it just goes round and round, and I have built everything with my blocks that I know how to build. I want something _new_ to play! Something I have never played before.”

His Auntie thought hard for two whole minutes. Then she said, “Look here, Charlie, I have a splendid idea! You run up to my room and bring me a pile of typewriting paper that you will find on my desk. Also bring a paper of pins out of my top bureau drawer, and I will show you something new to play with.”

So Charlie ran upstairs and brought down these things. Then his Auntie told him to get his own scissors with the rounded tops and his box of colored chalks.

Charlie began to feel very interested and excited. He wondered _what in the world_ his Auntie was going to do.

Well, when he had brought his scissors and his crayons, his Auntie sat down at the table and she took a piece of typewriting paper and folded it this way and that way. Then she colored one part of it red with the red chalk, and she made three little green strokes with the green chalk, and with the scissors she cut along the creases, and folded it some more; _then_ she pinched it here and pinched it there, and she stuck a pin in at the back, and--there was a beautiful little white house with a red roof and green shutters, and a door that opened and shut!

Charlie was delighted. He said, “Oh, oh! _How beautiful!_ Show me how to make it. _Please_, Auntie, show _me_ how to make a little house.”

So his Auntie showed him _ex-act-ly_ how to make the little house--and you will see in the picture on this page _ex-act-ly_ how Charlie’s Auntie cut the paper, and where she painted it red for the roof, and where she put the windows with the green shutters, and where she cut the door so that it could open and shut, and where she put the pin in at the back to keep it together. Yes, Charlie’s Auntie used a pin instead of paste, because paste does not always stick very well and it often makes things look messy unless you are very skillful.

Well, after Charlie had tried several times and his Auntie had showed him every time where he had gone wrong, he _ac-tu-al-ly_ succeeded in making a paper house all by himself! And it was a beautiful house.

When his Auntie saw that Charlie could make paper houses just as well as she could, she said, “Now I must go upstairs and sew my dress, and _you_, Charlie, can make a whole, big village of little houses, and I am sure that you will think of some nice game to play with them.”

Well, Charlie did go on making his houses until he had made a whole lot of them--yes, he had made a _tre-men-dous_ number of houses; maybe he had made _fifteen_ houses out of paper, with red roofs and green doors and shutters. Then he thought that he had made enough and that he would like to play with them--and so he did.

I will tell you how Charlie played with the houses. First he went over to a corner of the room where there was no furniture to get in the way and there he set up some of his houses and made a village of them. Then he had a _grand_ idea--and the idea was that he would like to have some trees in his village, and he knew _ex-act-ly_ how to make them!

He ran into the kitchen where his Mother was making delicious preserves and he said, “Oh, Mother, I want some branches off the bush near the back door--and it is _very important_. Can I go out just for a minute and pick some?”

And his Mother said, “Yes. If you put on your rubber boots and your slicker and your sou’wester, you can go out for just a minute, even though it is raining, and pick the branches you want, but you must not be long.”

So Charlie did so--he put on his rubber boots and his sou’wester and his slicker and he picked all the branches that he wanted. When he brought them into the house he had to shake them over the sink because they were so wet.

Now I suppose you will wonder how Charlie made those branches stand upright on the floor to make them look like trees?

I will tell you. Charlie went to his box, where he kept the old toys that he used to play with when he was a very little boy, and there he found a whole lot of spools. When he was a baby he used to like to string spools together and his Mother and his Auntie always gave him their spools of thread when they were bare, so Charlie had _dozens_ of spools and he sometimes let Bingo and Topsy play with them.

Well, Charlie got these spools and he stuck a small branch in the end of one of them and stood it upright. It made a beautiful tree! So he made a dozen trees and set them all along the streets of the village.

But there were no people in the village. Charlie thought hard for two whole minutes--then he went and found his old Noah’s ark and his box of lead soldiers. Of course, Noah and his wife and his family were the people who lived in the village, and so were some of the soldiers. The animals of the ark he stood up in the fields behind the houses and he pretended that they were all cows--yes, he pretended that the elephants and the giraffes and the lions and the tigers were all cows.

When Charlie had finished making one village, he started right away and made two more, so that he had _three_ villages, and each village had a railway station. Then he arranged his railroad track so that it went between the different villages, and he made his train run up and down between them. He put some of the lead soldiers in the coaches. And every time that his train came to a station Charlie blew his whistle and called out, “All out for Stony Hollow! All out for Pine Hill! All out for Ford’s Crossing!” and some of the soldiers got out at every station and others got in.

My goodness! but Charlie did have a good time playing with his train and with his villages. He had such a good time that the morning only seemed five minutes long!

When his Mother and his Auntie came in to see what he had been doing with himself all the morning, and to tell him that it was time to get ready for dinner, they _were_ surprised and de-light-ed when they saw the beautiful villages that Charlie had made.

Well, the very minute that Charlie had finished his dinner he went back to his villages, because he had thought of several new ideas while he was eating his dinner.

Yes, he remembered a little tiny horse and wagon that his Mother had given him. When his Mother had given it to him there was some candy tied to the wagon, and of course Charlie had eaten the candy long ago; but he had kept the horse and wagon because it was so cunning and little, though he thought that it was too little to play with. But now Charlie was going to use it for his village.

I wonder if you can guess what he was going to use it for? I will tell you. Charlie decided that the little wagon should be the stage, and he put a lead soldier in it and pretended that he was the stage driver. Then he loaded the stage with little parcels made out of paper which he pretended were sacks of apples that the farmers of the villages were sending to the city; and he loaded them on to the train, and blew his whistle--and off it started!

Charlie played all the afternoon with his train and his stage and his villages; he played with them for hours and hours. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining but Charlie did not notice that--until he heard a little hoarse “Wow-wow!” outside the door.

It was Bingo. Yes, Bingo had wakened and wanted Charlie to come and play with him. So he opened the door and Bingo came jumping into the room, and the very first thing he did was to knock over three houses in Charlie’s village. And Topsy came chasing after Bingo and _he_ knocked over four more with his tail. They would have knocked all the houses over if Charlie had not stopped them. But Charlie took Bingo and Topsy out of the room and he shut the door behind him so that they should not spoil his village.

Then Charlie’s Mother called to him and she said, “Why don’t you and Topsy and Bingo run out and play in the yard? The sun is shining, but you must put on your rubber boots, as the grass is still wet.”

Charlie thought that it would be fun to run around a little as he had been so busy all day. He called Topsy and Bingo, and they had a grand time chasing each other around the garden and in and out of Charlie’s little house that he had built of the bricks that the builders had given him. Sometimes Charlie would catch Bingo, and, when Bingo was caught, _always_ he rolled over on his back and stuck his four legs in the air--so that he looked ridiculous!

But Charlie never _could_ catch Topsy. Whenever he nearly caught him, Topsy would just climb up a tree, and he’d climb _way_ up and peek down at Charlie through the branches.

So Charlie and Topsy and Bingo played together in the garden till Charlie’s Daddy came home. Then, of course, Charlie had to show his Daddy the beautiful villages he had made, and the way each one had a railway station, and how his train ran up and down the line between the stations, just like a real train, and carried packages and mail and passengers.

His Daddy was _most_ interested and de-light-ed. He was _so_ interested and _de-light-ed_ that he sat straight down on the floor, and began to play with the villages himself. But Bingo and Topsy had to be left in the garden while Charlie and his Daddy were playing with the villages, because they wanted to play also, and _their_ idea of playing with the villages was to knock down _all_ the houses and _all_ the trees!

Well, Charlie and his Daddy played together till supper was ready. Then Charlie’s Mother said, “I have been making preserves all day, and now we will eat some for supper. I have made plum jam and orange marmalade.” Charlie and his Daddy tasted the plum jam and the orange marmalade--and they both were _delicious_.

And what do you think? Charlie’s Auntie had finished her new dress and she wore it down to supper--and it _did_ look beautiful.

So Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie all had a nice day after all, even though it was such a rainy, disagreeable kind of a day. And Topsy and Bingo and Jane had enjoyed the day too!

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.