"You goin' to chain me up, Mother?" he inquired affectionately,
nestling up to her.
"Yes," explained his mother, hardening her heart, "little boys who run
away from home like little dogs have to be treated like little dogs."
"Oh, _I'll_ be a little dog," replied Philip, entering
agreeably into the idea, and backing up to be chained. "No, I'll be
a big dog. I'll run around an' jerk my chain an' say 'Woof! Woof!'
like the Hewitts' setter. And Foxy 'n I'll have bones together!" His
small Velasquez face lighted rapturously at the prospect. "Here,
Foxy, Foxy!"
The black French bull whose chain Philip was using dashed up at the
summons. He was middle-aged, but he had a young heart still, and his
tail vibrated madly as he bounded between Phyllis and her son.
"Oh, he's _got_ a bone!" exclaimed Philip, gleefully dropping
on all fours.
Phyllis stood up from chaining her child, and turned appealingly to
her husband, coming down the steps of the little bungalow with
two-and-a-half-year-old Angela on his shoulder.
"You look like a colored illustration from the _Graphic_," she
said irrelevantly. "You're just in time to assist discipline.
_Look!_" she pointed tragically to her victim.
He would have been happily disputing the opportune bone with Foxy, had
not that faithful animal's devotion led him to hand it over at once.
"Faver, make him take it away from me!" he demanded. "Faver, I'm all
chained up! I'm a little dog!"
Little Angela, who looked like a slim, tiny Christmas-card
_Christ-kind_, and was as fascinating a little demon as ever
coquetted with the world at large, struggled to get down, and
demanded to be chained up and be another little dog.
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