darker and darker, and no Jimmie came, and then Alice
knew she must start for home, or her papa and mamma would be worried. But
she didn't like to go out in the black night, and she was almost ready to
cry, and didn't know what to do, when, all of a sudden, Sister Sallie
called out:

"Oh, mamma, I know the very thing! I'll run next door, to where Mrs. Bow
Wow lives, and ask her to send Jackie and Peetie home with Alice."

"Who are Peetie and Jackie?" asked the little girl duck.

"They are puppy dogs," replied Sister Sallie, "and the cutest ones you
ever saw! Oh, they are darlings! They'll go home with you through the
woods, because they are very brave. Some day they will grow to be big
dogs, and guard the house. I'll ask Mrs. Bow Wow, their mamma, to let them
take you home."

"That will be a good plan," agreed Mrs. Bushytail. "Run in and ask Mrs.
Bow Wow, Sister Sallie."

So Sister Sallie ran in next door, and pretty soon she came back with two
of the cutest puppy dogs Alice had ever seen.

"Which one is Peetie and which one is Jackie?" Alice asked, as they
tumbled about on the floor, getting up and falling down again.

"I am Peetie," answered one. "You can tell that because I am all white
with a black spot on my nose."

"And I am Jackie," said his brother. "I am all black, with a white spot on
my nose. So you see it is easy to tell us apart."

"Yes," agreed Alice with a laugh, "I see; that is, I would see if you kept
still long enough, only you don't, for you wiggle and tumble about so
much. But will you please take me home?"

"Of course we will," answered Jackie, rubbing the black spot on his
brother's nose with his paw. Just then, if those two puppy dogs didn't see
one of Papa Bushytail's boots, and, land sakes alive! if one didn't grab
one end and one the other end, and they began to pull and growl. Puppy
dogs always do such things, you know.

"Oh! Oh! You mustn't do that," cried Mamma Bushytail. "You must take Alice
home."

"We will," answered Peetie, rubbing the black spot on his own nose with
his little white paw. "We were only doing this for practice. Come on,
Alice! Bow-wow! Bow-wow!"

So pretty soon, after a while, oh, not so very long, Alice started for the
duck pen, with Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow tumbling over each other in their
eagerness to see which would walk at her right wing, and which at her
left. Well, weren't those puppy dogs brave, though, to go out in the dark
night? They never tho