amed the collie David.
She had no question whatever about the name, for had he not been
delivered out of the hands of the Philistines? She was patient with him
when he paused to make the acquaintance of other dogs, and even once
when he succeeded in winding the cord tightly about her ankles.
Nevertheless it was a relief to get him home, and to tie him to the post
of her front porch, where he established himself with entire
willingness, and promptly dropping asleep, forgot alike his perils and
his great escape.

The first care of his new friend on arriving home was to secure the
license upon him. He was collarless, and she was a good deal "put to it"
to supply the lack. At last she resolved to sacrifice her shawl-strap
in the emergency. She might miss it, to be sure, when she came to go
home, but then, she reflected, if she were once on her way home, she
would not care about any little inconvenience. So as soon as she and
David had had a good dinner, she got down the old strap, which had hung
on a certain nail for five long years, and taking a kitchen knife,
ruthlessly chopped it off to the right length. Then she bored a new hole
with her scissors for the tongue of the buckle to pass through, and,
going to Willie's tool box, found a short piece of wire with which--it
seemed but the other day--he had been tinkering something about the
house. With the wire she fastened the license securely to the collar.
But before David could be found worthy of such decoration, he was
subjected to a pretty severe bath in an old tub out in the back yard.

Poor David! This was a novel and painful dispensation, and he submitted
only under protest. But his new mistress was firm, and arrayed in her
oldest calico gown, with spectacles on her nose, she applied herself,
with the energy and determination of all her New England grandmothers,
to the task of scrubbing and soaping and squeezing and combing the dirt
out of the long, thick hair. Three tubs of water were barely sufficient
for the process, but finally David emerged, subdued but clean, looking
very limp and draggled, and so much smaller because of his wet,
close-clinging coat, that for a moment Mrs. Nancy thought, with a pang,
that she might have washed away a part of the original dog. Later,
however, when the sun had dried the fluffy hair, and when she fastened
the new collar about the neck of the spotless animal, she let him lick
her very face, so delighted were they both with the resul