assing of a garbage cart.

"A female dog!" she reiterated. "Well, of all the chuckle-heads! A
nasty FEMALE dog, with your birthday money!"

"She's not one bit nasty!" flamed Dick, burying the grubby fingers of
his right hand protectively in the fluffy mass of the puppy's
half-grown ruff. "She's the dandiest dog ever! She--"

"Don't talk back to me!" snapped Mrs. Hazen. "Here! Turn right around
and take her to the cheats who sold her to you. Tell them to keep her
and give you the good money you paid for her. Take her out of my yard
this minute! Quick!"

A hot mist of tears sprang into the boy's eyes. Lass, with the queer
intuition that tells a female collie when her master is unhappy, whined
softly and licked his clenched hand.

"I--aw, PLEASE, Ma!" he begged chokingly. "PLEASE! It's--it's my
birthday, and everything. Please let me keep her. I--I love her better
than 'most anything there is. Can't I please keep her? Please!"

"You heard what I said," returned his mother curtly.

The washerwoman, who one day a week lightened Mrs. Hazen's household
labors, waddled into view from behind the billows of wind-swirled
clothes. She was an excellent person, and was built for endurance
rather than for speed. At sight of Lass she paused in real interest.

"My!" she exclaimed with flattering approval. "So you got your dog, did
you? You didn't waste no time. And he's sure a handsome little critter.
Whatcher goin' to call him?"

"It's not a him, Irene," contradicted Mrs. Hazen, with another modest
lowering of her strong voice. "It's a HER. And I'm sending Dick back
with her, to where she came from. I've got my opinion of people who
will take advantage of a child's ignorance, by palming off a horrid
female dog on him, too. Take her away, Dick. I won't have her here
another minute. You hear me?"

"Please, Ma!" stammered Dick, battling with his desire to cry. "Aw,
PLEASE! I--I--"

"Your ma's right, Dick," chimed in the washerwoman, her first
interested glance at the puppy changing to one of refined and lofty
scorn. "Take her back. You don't want any female dogs around. No nice
folks do."

"Why not?" demanded the boy in sudden hopeless anger as he pressed
lovingly the nose Lass thrust so comfortingly into his hand. "WHY don't
we want a female dog around? Folks have female cats around them, and
female women. Why isn't a female dog--"

"That will do, Dick!" broke in his shocked mother. "Take her away."

"I won't," said the