"'Tom Jonah,'" murmured Agnes. "What a funny name!"
When Ruth came home the younger girls bore her off at once to see Tom Jonah sleeping comfortably on the porch. The old dog raised his grizzled muzzle, wagged his tail, and beamed at her out of his soft brown eyes.
"The dear love!" cried Tess, clasping her hands. "Isn't he beautiful, Ruthie?"
"Beautifully dirty," said Ruth, doubtfully.
"Oh, but Uncle Rufus says he will wash him to-morrow. He's got some insect--insecty-suicide soap like he puts on the henroosts----"
"Insecticide, Dot," admonished Tess. "I wish you wouldn't try to say words that you _can't_ say."
Dot pouted. But Ruth patted her head and said, soothingly:
"Never mind, honey. We'll let the poor dog stay till he rests up, anyway. He looks like a kind creature."
But she, as well as the adults in the old Corner House, did not expect to see Tom Jonah the next morning when they awoke. He was allowed to remain on the porch, and despite the objections of Sandyface, the mother cat, and the army of younger felines growing up about her, Tom Jonah was given a bountiful supper by Mrs. MacCall herself.
Dot and Tess ran to peep at the dog just before going to bed that night. He blinked at them in the lampshine from the open door, and thumped the porch flooring with his tail.
It was past midnight before anything more was heard of Tom Jonah. Then the whole house was aroused--not to say the neighborhood. There was a savage salvo of barks from the porch, and down the steps scrambled Tom Jonah. They heard him go roaring down the yard.
Then there arose a great confusion at the hen house--a squawking of frightened hens, the loud "cut, cut, ca-da-cut!" of the rooster, mingling with which was the voice of at least one human being and the savage baying of Tom Jonah.
Uncle Rufus was too old and too stiff to get out of bed and down from his third-story room in the old Corner House, to be of any assistance at this midnight incident. But the girls were awakened the moment Tom Jonah began barking.
"It's a hen thief!" squealed Tess, leaping out of her own warm nest.
"I hope that dog bites him!" cried Agnes, savagely, from the other room.
She ran to the window. It was a starlit, but foggy night. She could see only vaguely the objects out of doors.