Read "The Well in the Wood" by Bert Leston Taylor online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
If a dog were to speak to you, Little One, in "really talk," I dare say / you would jump a foot -- unless you happened to be sitting on a fallen / tree at the time; then, very likely, you would do as Buddie did, jump / to both feet.
"Why, Colonel! " she cried; "I didn't know you could talk."