“Couldn’t you stay all night, my dear?” asked Sister Sallie’s mother.

“No, I’m afraid my mamma would worry,” replied Alice.

“Perhaps Jimmie will come for you pretty soon,” suggested Sister Sallie, and then she hummed that little verse about going hippity-hop to the barber shop to buy a lolly-pop lally.  You remember it, I dare say.

“Maybe he will,” agreed Alice, so she and Sister Sallie played another game, but it got darker and darker, and no Jimmie came, and then Alice knew she must start for home, or her papa and mamma would be worried.  But she didn’t like to go out in the black night, and she was almost ready to cry, and didn’t know what to do, when, all of a sudden, Sister Sallie called out: 

“Oh, mamma, I know the very thing!  I’ll run next door, to where Mrs. Bow Wow lives, and ask her to send Jackie and Peetie home with Alice.”

“Who are Peetie and Jackie?” asked the little girl duck.

“They are puppy dogs,” replied Sister Sallie, “and the cutest ones you ever saw!  Oh, they are darlings!  They’ll go home with you through the woods, because they are very brave.  Some day they will grow to be big dogs, and guard the house.  I’ll ask Mrs. Bow Wow, their mamma, to let them take you home.”

“That will be a good plan,” agreed Mrs. Bushytail.  “Run in and ask Mrs. Bow Wow, Sister Sallie.”

So Sister Sallie ran in next door, and pretty soon she came back with two of the cutest puppy dogs Alice had ever seen.

“Which one is Peetie and which one is Jackie?” Alice asked, as they tumbled about on the floor, getting up and falling down again.

“I am Peetie,” answered one.  “You can tell that because I am all white with a black spot on my nose.”

“And I am Jackie,” said his brother.  “I am all black, with a white spot on my nose.  So you see it is easy to tell us apart.”

“Yes,” agreed Alice with a laugh, “I see; that is, I would see if you kept still long enough, only you don’t, for you wiggle and tumble about so much.  But will you please take me home?”

“Of course we will,” answered Jackie, rubbing the black spot on his brother’s nose with his paw.  Just then, if those two puppy dogs didn’t see one of Papa Bushytail’s boots, and, land sakes alive! if one didn’t grab one end and one the other end, and they began to pull and growl.  Puppy dogs always do such things, you know.

“Oh!  Oh!  You mustn’t do that,” cried Mamma Bushytail.  “You must take Alice home.”

“We will,” answered Peetie, rubbing the black spot on his own nose with his little white paw.  “We were only doing this for practice.  Come on, Alice!  Bow-wow!  Bow-wow!”

So pretty soon, after a while, oh, not so very long, Alice started for the duck pen, with Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow tumbling over each other in their eagerness to see which would walk at her right wing, and which at her left.  Well, weren’t those puppy dogs brave, though, to go out in the dark night?  They never thought anything about it, really; any more than you mind going to bed in the dark.