On this October day we found Mr. Wood hard at work under the fruit trees.  He had a good many different kind of apples.  Enormous red ones, and long, yellow ones that they called pippins, and little brown ones, and smooth-coated sweet ones, and bright red ones, and others, more than I could mention.  Miss Laura often pared one and cut off little bits for me, for I always wanted to eat whatever I saw her eating.

Just a few days after this, Miss Laura and I returned to Fairport, and some of Mr. Wood’s apples traveled along with us, for he sent a good many to the Boston market.  Mr. and Mrs. Wood came to the station to see us off.  Mr. Harry could not come, for he had left Riverdale the day before to go back to his college.  Mrs. Wood said that she would be very lonely without her two young people, and she kissed Miss Laura over and over again, and made her promise to come back again the next summer.

I was put in a box in the express car, and Mr. Wood told the agent that if he knew what was good for him he would speak to me occasionally, for I was a very knowing dog, and if he didn’t treat me well, I’d be apt to write him up in the newspapers.  The agent laughed, and quite often on the way to Fairport, he came to my box and spoke kindly to me.  So I did not get so lonely and frightened as I did on my way to Riverdale.

How glad the Morrises were to see us coming back.  The boys had all gotten home before us, and such a fuss as they did make over their sister.  They loved her dearly, and never wanted her to be long away from them.  I was rubbed and stroked, and had to run about offering my paw to every one.  Jim and little Billy licked my face, and Bella croaked out, “Glad to see you, Joe.  Had a good time?  How’s your health?”

We soon settled down for the winter.  Miss Laura began going to school, and came home every day with a pile of books under her arm.  The summer in the country had done her so much good that her mother often looked at her fondly, and said the white-faced child she sent away had come home a nut-brown maid.

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CHAPTER XXXIII

PERFORMING ANIMALS

A week or two after we got home, I heard the Morris boys talking about an Italian who was coming to Fairport with a troupe of trained animals, and I could see for myself, whenever I went to town, great flaming pictures on the fences, of monkeys sitting at tables, dogs, and ponies, and goats climbing ladders, and rolling balls, and doing various tricks.  I wondered very much whether they would be able to do all those extraordinary things, but it turned out that they did.