DINGFORD’S BABY.

That little brother of Hetty Dingford was the funniest baby on the coast; and there were a good many of them, right around the river mouth.

Flora thought so too, or rather she looked upon him in the light of a puppy, as she had just raised a small family herself, and the baby had associated so much with the little dogs, that she thought she owned him too. She seemed to regard him as her especial charge, and used to rush between him and cattle on the roads, and bark away strollers from the door-yard; but she seemed to love it most on the beach.

Whenever she thought of it, she would leave the other children, in whose charge the baby had been placed, and rush up to the little one, and lick its face all over, and bark with a very funny sound. The baby would pick up a handful of gravel and throw it at the dog, but it never hit him, and then they would both laugh together.

One afternoon, Tony Dingford said he was going a crabbing, and then Hetty and Polly and Janey and the baby all wanted to go and see him off. Janey took a lovely little boat, that had been made for her by her uncle, and Polly took her spade and pail to dig for shells. Hetty took the baby, and she had to carry him every step of the way, and she was only eight years old; he was a year and a half old and couldn’t walk very steady, but he could creep. Oh, how he could get over the ground! He could go sidewise and backwards, like a crab, Tony said. He thought he could talk, too, and such a lot of curious sounds as he used to make. He looked very odd, winking his eyes and sticking his tongue between his four little teeth, and he was up to all sorts of tricks.

After awhile they came to the beach, right opposite the light-house—a most delightful spot, and Hetty proceeded to deposit the baby on the ground, when he came to the conclusion that he didn’t want to be put there, and he caught hold of her curly locks and held on for dear life, and screamed like a sea-gull.

This made Hetty cry out, but nothing could induce that baby to let go, until a pail with some shells changed the current of his thoughts. Hetty jumped away, and ran with the children, a few steps, to see Tony’s boat.

He threw in his basket and crabbing net and then, getting in himself, he pulled out into the bay. The children wandered along, watching Tony as he grew a lessening speck out in the sunshine. It was such fun to jump on the stones, over the water; the shells looked more beautiful here, because they were wet.

They staid longer than they thought, and on going back, they found the pail and the shells, but no baby! They called, they looked about, but the baby was gone! Every one of them cried bitter tears; they searched behind rocks and under bushes; his little pink, spotted cap could not be seen, but the marks of his hands and feet showed plainly in the sand, and they led down to the water!

“Oh, baby,” said Hetty in her agony, “you may pull out all my hair if you like—where are you?”

“Oo may whack my boat all to pieces, baby—come back to Janey!” said her sister. No sound answered, and the gulls sailed over them, and the blue waters lapped the stones. The tide was rising, as it was past the middle of the afternoon. Nothing was to be done, but to carry the dreadful news to mother.

As the children approached the cottage, they saw their father returning with the dog, Flora, and as the father caught sight of them he saw that something had happened. Hetty approached, and, with heart-broken sobs, told her story. The mother cried and wrung her hands.

“Husband, he’s drowned! he’s drowned!” she cried. The father brushed his hand roughly across his eyes, for the tears would come; and the dog staring from one to the other, looked painfully alert and interested.

“I’ll go to the beach and search all night; maybe he’ll be washed up at the bend,” he said.

“Father,” said the weeping wife, “maybe he has not been drowned; oh, let us hope he has not! Let us take Flora; perhaps she will find the baby.”

The father looked at the dog, which seemed to understand every word, and went into the house and picked up a little Indian moccasin that the child had worn, and calling Flora, gave it to her. She looked at it, smelled of it, and throwing her nose into the air, rushed toward the beach.

The short, sharp barks of the dog guided them to the different spots to which the child had crept. But he was not found. The dog bounded away again, this time in the direction of some holes that had been worn in the face of the rocks by the tides. The water was fast coming up to them, and they would be entirely filled before the tide turned. The despairing mother was about returning with her children when the father caught a distant sound, a joyful barking that Flora always made when she had been successful in a hunt. He bounded over the rocks that were bathed in the red light of the setting sun. He found Flora barking and wagging her tail, at the mouth of the first little cavern; he stooped and looked in, and there on the white sand lay the baby, asleep. Its little cap was gone, and it dress torn and soiled with seaweed.

The father reached for his little treasure, and hugged him to his heart. The baby laughed, and made most frantic efforts to talk, and immediately twisted both hands tight in his father’s hair. This was the baby’s way, you know, when he wanted to be carried. You would have cried for joy, to have seen the baby’s mother when she snatched him from his father and covered him with kisses, and the little girls clinging to their mother, trying to get a look at him.

They went home very happy, to find Tony with his basket full of crabs, and when he heard the story, he said,—“Flora shall have a new brass collar, if I have to earn it for her.” There was one little girl that learned a serious lesson. Hetty says,—“I never will neglect my duty again.”