Part 3

But now all Pink's interest was centred in the changes that were taking place in the handsome old place adjoining her father's farm. The tall, gloomy fence in front was taken down, and the broad greensward, sloping to the road, carefully mowed. Where boughs were too dense they were pruned away. A gay striped awning appeared over the front door. Most interesting of all, some one was always to be seen moving about. It might be the motherly lady with gray hair and soft white lace upon it; it might be girls of different sizes, in dresses wonderful to Pink's country eyes; it might be only a workman making a flower bed. Altogether, Pink had never known so much excitement in her life as this.

Laura and her sisters used to notice how continually, when they were looking from their airy windows on the hill-top, the same rosy dot was to be seen, now flitting about, now resting quietly, and they often spoke of "little Pink," as they called her.

She took her piece of sewing as usual one morning out on the shady door-step, whence she could watch the great house. She saw Laura come listlessly out of the door and stroll off, as if she cared little where she went. Laura was "sick of everything," she had been declaring--sick of the country, sick of croquet, sick of all her books and trinkets. Her mother had reproved rather gravely the little girl's fretful discontent, and Laura, in no happy frame of mind, had chosen to roam off by herself.

She climbed a wall, followed a brook for a short distance, and then struck into a shady lane. Pink followed her with her eyes, reverently admiring the dainty white dress that shone in the sunshine. "I should like to have one dress as pretty as that," she thought; "but then I have my pink," she added, loyally, and turned back to her work as the gleam of white vanished from her sight.

It was not half a minute after that her quick ear caught a cry. She sprang up and listened. This time it was a louder one, and so full of terror that, without stopping to think, Pink ran toward the sound with all her might. She was swift-footed, and she minded little a tumble over the wall and a scramble through the blackberry bushes that could bring her by a short-cut into the lane. One sharp, loud whistle brought the great dog Shepherd to her side, and when Laura's third cry, hoarse and sobbing, escaped her lips, she saw the pink dress, as it seemed to her, flying through the air at her as though the wind blew it forward. "It's the ugly cow!--oh, it's the ugly cow!" panted Pink.

"Help! help!" cried Laura, faintly, as she ran on, wild with fright.

Pink seized her firmly, for the angry cow, tossing her horns sullenly, was plunging too near for escape. Using all her strength, she pushed Laura flat behind a great rock, the only shelter at hand, and quick as a flash had seized a stick and turned with Shepherd to face the cow.

Brave Shepherd was not afraid of anything; his little mistress had never been afraid either. They divided between them the honor of routing the enemy, and Pink hardly knew herself how it had been done, as she threw a stone after the clumsy heels of the beast that Shepherd still chased with angry barks, and then half lifted, half led Laura to the nearest stile. Laura herself, between the fright and the running, was quite exhausted, and could only get home with Pink's patient help.

When Laura had been laid on a lounge, and revived with camphor, she began eagerly to describe her adventure. She told of Pink's rescuing her in such words of praise that all the child could do was to stand still, her cheeks getting all the time more and more of a pink.

"Why, you brave, brave child!" cried Laura's mother, taking her hand, as Laura went on.

"Oh, you noble little Pink!" chorussed the girls, kissing her with enthusiasm.

"But my name is not Pink," said the child, trying to cover her hot cheeks; "my name is only Dolly Brown, and it wasn't me; it was Shep."

"Yes, it was you too, little Pink--I mean Dolly Brown," cried Laura, as willful as ever now that the faintness was gone; "and you shall be my best friend forever after--so there! and I shall write to Florence, and Ethel, and all the rest, and tell them so this very night. You're a perfect hero-wine, and you've saved my life, just like a book."

"There is no mistake about it, the name of Pink just fits her," said the older sisters to each other, "with her pink and white complexion, and her sweet, prim little mouth, and her dainty ways."

Laura took delight in conducting her new favorite all over the house and premises. Pink trod timidly on the soft rugs that half disguised the floors; caught her breath over the rose-bud chintzes covering easy-chairs and quaint couches, or falling as curtains; touched awe-struck the piano, the pictures, and trinkets. Laura was half pleased and half surprised to see her so impressed.

It was not until a rainy day came that Laura found time to show Pink her most personal possessions. Then she strewed her room with countless pretty things that she had herself packed--her box of ribbons, her pet books, some of last year's Christmas presents, her new locket, her box of paints, her ivory brushes, her painted fan, the souvenirs she brought from Cuba last winter, the long white feather for her summer hat, the needles which she used in doing her pretty fancy-work, their patterns and crewels.

"Oh, what a quantity of things!" cried Pink; "are they all yours?"

"Yes, indeed," answered Laura; "everything in this trunk is my own, very own property, and next time I come to your house I want you to show me yours."

When Pink went home she looked soberly round, and surveyed everything by a new standard. The little house was clean, but it was bare. It contained things to live with, that was all; none of the lovely useless things to which Laura had always been accustomed; none of the separate possessions in which she abounded. Pink could not think what she in her turn was to produce and show to Laura as her own property. By this time Laura knew all about the strawberry patch in which Pink gloried, because it was bearing this year for the first time; all about the flower garden alongside of it, where mignonette, hollyhock, cockscomb, and marigold were flourishing so brightly. She knew about the pine parlor up in the wood, where Pink loved to play by the hour, and the birch bower with moss cushions, where vines had been trained, and where Pink liked to learn her lessons, or read the _Pilgrim's Progress_. She knew where Pink found cresses by the brook, her favorite places for picking berries, and many of the spots where particular favorites among the wild flowers always waited for Pink to come and get them. But, after all, none of these places belonged, as her property, solely to Pink.

"And my tame robin died last fall," mused Pink, "and my lamb grew so large he had to be sold. But I know--oh, I do know, after all."

Pink clapped her hands softly; she had arrived at the answer to her question. She opened the corner cupboard, and took down the darling of her heart--an old sugar bowl, fat, low, and also appropriately pink.

"You dear old thing! I haven't looked at you for ever so long," said Pink.

Nobody knew, so Pink's mother said, how old this sugar bowl might be. It had been in the family when great-grandmother Brown was a little girl, and they called it old then. It had come down through the Aldens. Grandmother Brown was an Alden.

"It's no great for beauty," Mrs. Brown had said, when Pink was a little thing. "I'll give it to you, Dolly, and you may keep it for your own."

And Dolly had been ever since proud and happy to claim it. It had always been beautiful in her eyes from the very days of her babyhood, when, at rare intervals, her mother rewarded her for being a good girl with one of the square lumps of white sugar hoarded in its bulging sides.

"Yes, I know Laura will like to see this," remarked Pink, in a satisfied tone, "and I hope she'll come to-morrow."

Laura did come to-morrow; and when, with innocent glee, her friend paraded before her the old pink sugar bowl, which she dignified by the name of her "property," somehow a lump rose in the spoiled child's throat that kept her silent. Suddenly a vision of the countless costly things she herself owned rose up before her. She had been proud of them, perhaps, but never really grateful, as now she began to see. She had fretted at any imperfections in them, and complained in the midst of them if her will was disregarded, as, for instance, about coming into the country for this summer. She stood abashed before the little pink sugar bowl, and its owner with her happy, satisfied smile. She began for the first time to understand the wise things her mother often said to her lately about being contented with such as we have.

Pink was sure that Laura had been suitably impressed by the sugar bowl, and she felt entirely pleased with the effect it had produced upon her. It pleased her still more when, after a few days, Laura asked to borrow the sugar bowl to show to her mother.

When Laura had told the story of Pink's property it had touched the heart of the soft-hearted mother as well as the child herself, and she had said, "I should like to see the sugar bowl myself."

Laura's father looked it over carefully. "This could really be turned into property," he pronounced, "for it is a valuable ancient piece; and if your little friend would like to sell it, I can find a buyer for her."

At first Pink could not find it in her heart to sell the keepsake she had been so fond of; but mother Brown reasoned with her, and father Brown said, shrewdly, "Sugar's just as good to us out of any other bowl, Dolly; and with the money, don't you see, you can buy things you would have to go without, and maybe lay up a mite besides." So the sugar bowl never came back to its place in the corner cupboard, but, true-hearted as Dolly was, she really never missed it, for its place was more than filled.

Laura, her sisters, and her mother, having begun to love the sweet-natured, healthy Pink, pleased themselves with heaping up the cup that had thought itself quite full before. They were always finding a pretext for bestowing some fair and fit gift upon her. The skillful fingers of Laura's sisters even shaped for her a white dress like Laura's own, and they said that it was well worth while to take a little trouble for the sake of seeing real gratitude for once.

When the frosts came, Pink's friends returned to the city. But the marvels of that surprising season were not yet all told. The little house under the hill was closed, and Pink's father moved up into the homestead to take charge of everything there until summer should come again.

"I want Pink to have my room, and take care of it," Laura had said. And it was from the window of Laura's room, with Laura's books left in it for her use, Laura's canary chirping in its cage, and Laura's gifts about her, that Pink watched for the last wave of her friend's handkerchief as the carriage disappeared.

"The dear! Anyhow, she has more now than one old sugar bowl for property," said Laura, sinking back after the final glimpse of Pink's bright face.

"She is one of the people that are naturally rich," her mother added, "in having for her property a sunny, healthy content, and a happy, humble disposition. We shall all be glad to see her when she comes for her visit by-and-by. A spirit like hers brings its own welcome wherever it goes."

SPICE.

BY MATTHEW WHITE, JUN.

He was nothing but a little yellow dog to the world at large, yet Harry and Edith Farr regarded him as the greatest treasure they possessed. His very name indicated the gentleness of his nature, as his entire lack of any snappish qualities had required that this deficiency should be made up in the matter of christening him, and Spicebox had never since given cause to have anything dropped from that name except the last syllable.

He was, as has been said, yellow, and his curling, silky hair was soft as flax, with "silver threads among the gold" about the neck and breast. His liquid brown eyes were "just too sweet," as Edith declared, while his inquisitive little nose, although not as black as it should be for beauty, was nevertheless eloquent with expression; and his tail, mere stub of a one as it was, did duty for a whole alphabet of sign language between Master Spice and his owners.

But space fails me to further describe the charms of this wonderful dog, who was as good as he was beautiful, and whose skill in leaping over canes and umbrellas was only equalled by the firmness with which he sat up on his hind-legs and held a penny on his nose.

At the time of which I write, the children--Harry was eleven and Edith nine--had owned Spice for two years, and in all that period he was never known to snap or snarl at man or beast. Growl he frequently did when a stray cat or a wandering dog chanced to cross his path, but this was never in malice--only for fun; and although he was once laid up for a day and a half from the wounds inflicted by a quarrelsome tabby, Edith is convinced that he never even attempted to bite back.

He slept every night at the foot of Harry's bed, had his little bowl of water (with a piece of yellow sulphur in it) in the corner, and in one compartment of Edith's bureau was a stock of ribbons of all colors and widths, designed to increase doggie's natural attractions on festive occasions.

One of these latter occurred on a bright day in the spring, when the Townsend family, the Fans' next-door neighbors, came over to lunch.

There were four of them: the mother, a pale, sickly lady, who only went out on pleasant days; Win, a tall youth of fifteen; Clara, the only daughter, and of Edith's age; and last, but by no means least, the baby, who was still so young that his first name was not yet decided upon, but who nevertheless fairly ruled the great house next door.

Well, this sunshiny day in the spring was Saturday, so the children on both sides of the hedge had plenty of time to visit and receive, and while the two ladies remained in the sitting-room with the French nurse and the American baby, Harry and Clara, Edith and Win, flew up and down the garden, playing colors, I-spy, and tag, with Spice at their heels barking furiously, little thinking of the tragic scenes in which he was soon to become the principal actor.

When lunch was announced, Mrs. Farr, Mrs. Townsend, and the four young people gathered about the well-spread table, while nurse, Baby Townsend, and Spice kept one another company in the sitting-room.

It must be confessed that the latter was not overpleased at the arrangement, but as Harry had told him to stay, and as he was a very obedient little dog, he determined to do as he was bid with the best possible grace, so he meekly allowed Baby to rub his coat the wrong way, pull his hair, and twist his tail to its little heart's content.

"Marie! Marie!" Mrs. Townsend's voice was suddenly heard calling from the dining-room, and in response the French nurse hastened to ascertain her lady's commands, leaving Baby in his corner on the sofa, where he had been securely fenced in by his careful mamma.

Now all that Mrs. Townsend wanted of Marie was to ask her if she was positive that the French word for ink was of the feminine gender, and in that instant's absence of the faithful maid something awful happened; for she had scarcely returned to the sitting-room, when she gave a piercing scream that at once brought everybody from the table, some with napkins pinned around their necks, others flourishing knives and forks in their hands, and all endeavoring to swallow as quickly as possible whatever they happened to have in their mouths.

And what a sight they saw! Baby Townsend lay back among his pillows, serenely sucking the middle finger of his left hand, which was bleeding, and the blood was spreading itself over the infant's face in a manner shocking to behold, while Spice sat gravely by looking on with curious eyes, and the French nurse stood wringing her hands in helpless horror.

For a moment they all stood as if rooted to the carpet, and then Mrs. Townsend, with one hand snatching up her baby, and with the other pointing to Spice, cried, "There! that dog did it, and he'll--that is, my child will--oh!" and the poor lady began to cry hysterically, while Edith rushed to gather up Spice in her arms, and Harry hastened to make an examination of the accused.

"See, Mrs. Townsend," he exclaimed; "there's not a particle of blood about his mouth. Besides, you all know Spice--our Spice. Why, he--"

"But how, then, came Baby in this condition? You can see for yourself there wasn't a thing within his reach by which he could have cut himself."

"Perhaps he bit his finger," Harry then ventured to suggest, which idea was greeted by as near an approach to a smile as the tragic nature of the circumstances would permit, as Mrs. Farr reminded her son of the fact that the child was scarcely four months old.

"No, I see no help for it, sorry as I am, and good friend to Spice as I've always been," continued Mrs. Townsend; "but hydrophobia, you know, is now so bad, and my nerves are still so weak, that really Win must bring over his gun and--"

"Shoot Spice?" cried both the Farr children in a breath, while their mother hastened to put forth every possible plea in his behalf.

But the harder Mrs. Farr begged for mercy to the dog, the more determined did Mrs. Townsend become that he ought to die; and between the firm, vehement demands of one family and the tearful, urgent pleadings of the other, the noise in the room became so loud and confused that Baby began to cry, and Spice to bark.

In vain Harry quoted newspaper paragraphs to the effect that Scotch terriers were seldom or never known to go mad; useless were Edith's affirmations that she was sure Spice had not so much as sniffed at the baby; and all for naught went Mrs. Farr's entreaties that they would at least stay proceedings until the gentlemen came home at night. Mrs. Townsend was resolved, and Win went over the hedge in triumph to bring his gun, but presently came back, rather crest-fallen and empty-handed, to say that his father must have locked it up in the wardrobe, and carried off the key.

In that case there was nothing to do but wait until that gentleman returned from the city; so the Townsends filed out of the Farrs' front door and into their own in a dignified procession, Mrs. Townsend having first bound over Mrs. Farr by a solemn promise not to allow Spice to leave the grounds.

Ah, how long that dreadful afternoon lived in the Farr children's memory! To know that their own dear little doggie was to die would have been bad enough, but to feel that he was to be shot as a criminal for an act so terrible, that--that was too hard, and Edith's tears fell fast, while even Harry was obliged to wink persistently in order to keep his own cheeks dry.

As for Spice, he had never seemed so gay and full of life, frisking lightly about the children whenever Edith's trembling hands would let him go, and twirling himself round and round so swiftly as to fairly make one dizzy to behold.

When Mrs. Townsend observed this, she had taken it as a sign of hopeless depravity, but to Harry it was a convincing proof that Spice had not done the deed charged to him.

"You know, Edith," he would say, over and over again, "how he hangs his head, puts his tail between his legs, and tries to slink away whenever he's done wrong, and I'm sure he knows it isn't proper to bite Mrs. Townsend's baby. Oh, why did she ever bring it over here?" and Harry groaned dismally as he realized the impossibility of bringing their neighbor to look at the affair in the light he did.

Well, the time of respite passed all too quickly away, and when Mr. Farr came home at six, the case was laid before him in all its bearings; but what could he do?

"You've no positive proof that Spice did _not_ bite the baby," he said, when Harry and Edith called upon him to avenge them of their wrongs, "whereas Mrs. Townsend thinks she has pretty sure evidence that her baby was bitten. Besides--" But just then the door-bell rang, and Mr. Townsend and Win were ushered in, the latter carrying a gun, at sight of which Edith first shuddered, and then began to cry.

After a few words with Mr. Farr, Mr. Townsend suggested that, as it was a cruel duty he had come to perform, they had better go through with it as quickly as possible; so a rope was produced, tied to the dog's collar, and then, having received a last tearful embrace from each one in the family, Spice was led out into the back yard by their neighbor, Win following close behind with the gun.

Mrs. Farr at once stuffed her ears with cotton; her husband went to the furthest corner of the library, and took down the most absorbing book he could find; Harry fled to his room in the third story, and Edith buried her face in the sofa cushions; while the girls in the kitchen clattered tin pans about at a terrific rate for a few moments, and then, frightened at their own noise, stopped to listen.

For five minutes there was a dead silence both inside the house and out, when suddenly Edith screamed loud and long, and leaping up from the lounge, rushed out into the yard, wildly waving a pair of button-hole scissors covered with blood.

"Stop! stop! oh, stop!" she cried. "The baby cut himself with these. Oh, Spice! Spice!" and running to the clothes-line post, to which the poor little fellow had been tied, she fell down beside him and sobbed for joy.

When matters were all made clear, it seemed that Edith, in her misery, had pushed and worked her hand down the back of the sofa, felt the scissors, and on drawing them forth, noticed the blood on them, and then it flashed across her mind that it was Baby Townsend's blood, and that he must have wriggled his hand down behind the cushions in the same way.

Mrs. Townsend was quickly summoned, the discovery explained to her, and on examining closely the cut in Baby's finger, the innocence of Spice was fully established.

Win made haste to put away his gun, and the little yellow dog enjoys life to this day.

BARRANQUILLA, UNITED STATES OF COLOMBIA.

Many of my correspondents have asked me for a little description of my country and of the tropic zone. I have been thinking that I can answer them all at once by writing another letter.

We live eleven degrees north latitude from the equator, near the mouth of the Magdalena River. It is very hot here, and the medium temperature in the dry season is 85°; in the rainy season it is higher. The dry season begins in November, and lasts till April; through this month we have rain, and the next month we expect it every day, and so onward. Many of the inhabitants are Indians, and about one-fifth of the population are negroes. The people in our city and in most places are divided into six classes. To the first or highest class belong the educated white people; and to the lowest, those folks who wear all the year only one pair of breeches or one dress, no shirt, and no shoes. Poor boys under four and five years wear no clothing, but they learn how to smoke.

The water in the river is so warm all the year that people can bathe in it at any time.