On the patch of drying green a goat was tethered, lying down in the rain, reflectively chewing a cud. He bleated when he saw the girls, but did not offer to rise; the rain did not disturb him in the least.
"Billy Bumps likes the rain," Dot said, thoughtfully.
The dog outside the gate did not seem to be enjoying himself. He had dropped down upon the narrow strip of sward between the flagged walk and the curbing; his sides heaved as though he had run a long way, and his pink tongue lolled out of his mouth and dripped.
"My!" Dot murmured, as she saw this, "the rain's soaked right through the poor doggy--hasn't it? And it's just dripping out of him!"
Tess, more practical, if no more earnest in her desire to relieve the dog's apparent misery, ran down to the gate through the falling rain and called to him:
She opened the gate temptingly, but the strange dog merely wagged his tail and looked at her out of his beautiful brown eyes. He was a Newfoundland dog, with a cross of some breed that gave him patches of deep brown in his coat and very fine, long, silky hair that curled up at the ends. He was strongly built and had a good muzzle which was powdered with the gray hairs of age.
"Come here, old fellow," urged Tess, "_Do_ come in!"
She snapped her fingers and held the gate more invitingly open. He staggered to his feet and limped toward her. He did not crouch and slink along as a dog does that has been beaten; but he eyed her doubtfully as though not sure, after all, of this reception.
He was muddied to his flanks, his coat was matted with green burrs, and there was a piece of frayed rope knotted about his neck. The dog followed Tess doubtfully to the porch. Billy Bumps climbed to his feet and shook his head threateningly, stamping his feet; but the strange dog was too exhausted to pay the goat any attention.
The visitor at first refused to mount the steps, but he looked up at Dot and wagged his tail in greeting.
"Oh, Tess!" cried the smallest girl. "He thinks he knows me. Do you suppose we have ever seen him before?"
"I don't believe so," said Tess, bustling into the woodshed and out again with a pan of broken meat that had been put aside for Sandyface and her children. "I know I should remember him if I had ever seen him before. Come, old fellow! Good doggie! Come up and eat."