Read Online The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon - Free Book Online Page A

of them, except for one corner that was full of being sorry for the Princess, that for some time he did not miss his Clumber Pup. But it was no longer gambolling about him, and even when he whistled did not come bounding and bouncing as usual; a thing any dog that loves his master must do when he hears the whistle, whether he wants to or not. So by then the pup must have got a long way off.
    However, half through the morning he appeared, in the highest of spirits, where Joe was working; though when they got home that evening he would not touch his supper. This would have worried Joe, if the pup had not been so unusually boisterous.
    That night Joe had a curious dream, as he lay stretched on the rug before the dying fire: one of those dreams we get when we are half awake, that seem to take place outside instead of inside us. In this dream, Joe saw, as plain as if he was waking, his Clumber Pup lying nose to nose with the spaniel his mother, who lay with her head sunk flat on the floor between her two silky paws, and opened one beautiful brown eye to look at her child. And in his dream Joe seemed to hear how dogs make known their thoughts to each other, and the talk went this way between them. The spaniel said:
    â€˜What’s the matter, son? Off your feed?’
    â€˜Not me, mother! I’ve had my fill today!’
    â€˜Where, then?’
    â€˜In the King’s yard.’
    â€˜What were you doing in the King’s yard?’
    â€˜Meeting a friend of mine.’
    â€˜What sort of a friend?’
    â€˜A cat.’
    â€˜Be ashamed of yourself!’
    â€˜Not me, mother! It was my foster-sister.’
    â€˜Oh, that cat.’
    â€˜Yes, the Princess’s cat.’
    â€˜What is she like now?’
    â€˜Gold as honey.’
    â€˜Does she spit?’
    â€˜Yes, secrets.’
    â€˜What secrets?’
    â€˜She tells me what the Princess is thinking.’
    â€˜How does she know?’
    â€˜The Princess cuddles her into her neck, and tells her in her ear.’
    â€˜Whose neck and whose ear?’
    â€˜The Princess’s neck and the cat’s ear.’
    â€˜Well, and what is the Princess thinking?’
    â€˜She’s thinking it’s time she had a love-letter.’
    â€˜Oh,’ said the spaniel, and suddenly went to sleep; and Joe’s own sleep must have deepened, for he dreamed no more.
    But in the morning he remembered his dream, and it seemed so real that he fell to puzzling. Was it a dream after all? His puzzle showed in his eyes, and Daddy from his couch asked, ‘What’s bothering you?’
    â€˜A dream I had,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t know whether to act on it or not.’
    â€˜Would it be a good thing to act on it?’ asked Daddy.
    â€˜It might save a damsel from a decline.’
    â€˜And would it be a bad thing to act on it?’
    â€˜Not that I can see,’ said Joe.
    â€˜Then act on it,’ said Daddy.
    So before he went to work that morning, Joe sat down and wrote a love-letter. He was not very good at writing, so he did not make it a long one, and therefore made it as much to the point as he could.
    He wrote:
    Â 
    â€˜M y L ove !
    â€˜I love you because you are lovely like my Pup.
    â€˜Joe Jolly.’
    It was rather straggly and blotted by the time he had folded it, but it was quite readable, which, after what is in it, is the best thing about a love-letter; so Joe, quite satisfied, took it with him to his work, and put it inside a bunch of pink campions which he tied to the Princess’s faggot. Then he thought no more about the matter till the First of July, when, going to the Forester’s, he found Betty taking her leave with these words:
    â€˜So that’s the end of it, thanks be! for when the folk came yesterday to say in Assembly what they thought she wanted, the Princess just laughed at them all and said, “No need to guess, because I’ve got it!” But what it was she still