They wouldn't want to come and face Dick again, and they wouldn't
know but what he was mine, and always living here."
A bright idea came to Huldah. "Would you like me to let Dick out
into the garden again. He'd see that nobody came into it.
Nobody wouldn't dare touch anything with him there, I know!"
The suggestion evidently pleased Mrs. Perry, and relieved her
greatly. "Now that would be a comfort," she said, gratefully.
"I'd feel ever so safe then. On a warm night like this he can't
hurt, can he?"
Huldah laughed. "Dick doesn't know what 'tis to sleep in," she said.
"The most he ever had was a sack thrown down under the van, unless
when Charlie was put in a stable, and they'd let Dick go in too, but
Uncle Tom liked best to have him about, to guard the van."
All the time she was talking she was laying in the fire quickly and
deftly. Mrs. Perry watched her interestedly. She felt the comfort
of having someone cheerful to speak to; and when she remembered that
but for this little stray waif she would have been alone now, and her
hen-house robbed, her heart was very full of gratitude.
"Miss Rosamund will blame me when she hears about it," she said,
presently. "She was always telling me I ought to have a strong lock
on the hen-house door. She said it was tempting folk to be
dishonest,--not to have anything but just the latch, and me known to
keep good fowls always.
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