Nancy was somewhat peculiar, quite an odd character, but she loved her little brothers, until they displayed rude manners, then, she would get after them. I’m sure the boys knew what Nancy did not like, but even still, you know how rowdy little boys can be, and every once in a while, they’d slip up and Nancy would be on their trail … or tail.
A good “for instance” is that she didn’t like to see the boys naked. In our house, the little ones might walk out of their diapers, but they had better not let Nancy see them. Boy, she’d chase them as though they had a prize that she desperately wanted, and the only way they got away from her was to jump up on the bed that was a little too high for her. That is the only thing that put an end to their being chased.
I think the boys got a kick out of being chased by a girl, because they would just be running a-giggling, trying their best to keep Nancy on their trail but not close enough to jump up on their backs. And on second thought, I believe that sometimes they would deliberately run around in the house naked just to be chased. And of course, normally, we wouldn’t tell our little brothers to put on clothes (unless they were going out of the house), but we also couldn’t stop Nancy from trying to “arrest” them for their lack of clothing.
We kids loved Nancy too much. She was just the joy of our lives. Something definitely would have been missing had Nancy not been a part of our family, and I think she knew it too. When you love someone (or something) so much, you dread the thought that one day, it may not be around. Well, that sad day came.
One day Nancy went missing, and after looking all over creation for her, finally, someone thought to look under the house. There she was, lodged a little too far from the edge for anyone to crawl under that low area. And unfortunately, she had a rope (that was way too tight) tied around her neck. After struggling for some time, eventually we dragged Nancy out, but it was too late. We all cried, and by the way we cried, you would have thought a member of our family had died, but Nancy probably would have considered herself one of us, and while she was alive, we kids made her feel right at home.
All country folks that I knew had a dog. It was sort of an extra protection – from what, I’m not sure, because crime was unheard of in our parts, so dogs may have been a part of the household for some other reason like hunting or accompanying the children and lady of the house when they ventured into the forest, went foraging for wood or food or taking a short cut to a neighbor’s house.
Anyway, most country folks don’t allow dogs in the house, of course, and unless it’s a small, domesticated pet suitable for companionship for the youngsters. Well, that’s the kind of little dog Nancy was, and she was a darling. Her coat was shiny and jet black, and she was the friendliest dog I’ve even seen and by far the tiniest and the feistiest. How she got her name … your guess is as good as mine. I just know that at some point she became Nancy and that was her name until that fateful day. After we mourned our little, beloved friend, we buried her under the big tree in the corner of the yard … our pet cemetery.
Photo: Fotolia/pio3
