Dawg

As was his habit every afternoon in the sleepy little hamlet of Bloogerville, Little Billy was down by the pond. With the amber sun setting gently down in the shady vale, casting its light into soft hues that reflected off the mirror surface of the small pond, Billy sat on the shore contemplating the things he had brought. He had managed to get there with his cane pole, some worms, a hook, some line, something that used to be a sandwich in his back pocket, and a 50 gallon drum of confusion.

After some number of days of experimenting, Billy had managed to figure out that somehow the line AND the hook needed to be attached to the pole, but the exact order and sequence of these events was as uncertain to Billy as Shakespeare would be to his dog, and they both read at the same grade level. After some trial and error and a few painful hook extractions, Billy was pretty sure that the worm had to come next, but exactly how THAT was supposed to work was becoming frustrating. It seems that no matter how much Billy tried, he could not convince the worms to hang on to the hook.

"C'mon, yer dagummed dummy wurms!" He murmured between his teeth, which is how people murmur, unless they do not have teeth, like Billy's Uncle Tummy. "How do ya get anywhere's or hang onta anything when ya ain't gots no derned hands?"

"Now hang onta the dern hook!" he hollered.

Carefully dangling the worm over the hook he dropped another one.

"Ploop!" It landed next to the other five or six worms in the pond that had not yet sunk to the bottom.

Several fish popped to to the surface to happily enjoy a worm or two, and somewhere, in the foggy recesses of Billy's brain, another thought scrambled to get to the train of thought and connect the fish, the hook and the worms all together. Once again, the train was too short and Billy was not fast enough. What did arrive at the abandoned station was anger.

"That Uncle Tummy beens lyin' to me agin!! You cain't get wurms ta hang onta a dern hook! I orter take this here stick and an' wrap it aroun' his throat!" he screamed while throwing the remaining worms, kicking his feet in the dirt, and whipping the fishing line with the hook in it at blazing speeds around his head. With a sudden 'snap' the line quit moving while the hook lodged, once again, firmly into Little Billy.

"AAAAHHHHH! Gol-derned dummy hook's dun stuck me again!" he wailed, thrashing around and trying to see his back pocket, where the hook now resided.

On the far bank of the pond, Little Billy's dog, "Dawg" was carefully watching. Actually, Dawg was paying scant attention to Billy's distress, as this was nearly an hourly thing, and he was quite used to the commotion of being around Billy. What had caught Dawg's attention was the little girl in a sunday dress that had wondered down by the pond, and there were seemingly no adults to be seen. She was a very young girl, and she was singing a happy song to herself as she picked a bouquet for her mother. With mounting horror, he watched the little girl edge closer and closer to the edge of the pond as she picked little flowers and little plants, singing about her mother and flowers.

Thinking quickly, Dawg decided that he had to do something, or the girl was going to fall in the water. Putting on his "happy puppy face" Dawg trotted near to her and gave a playful "Yip yip!" In puppy/little girl-speak, that means "Look at me! I am cute and cuddly and I want to play!" It worked. It worked way too well.

"Oh lookey!! A PUPPY!!" squealed the girl and she charged straight at Dawg. As she was charging, her foot caught on a root, she tripped, rolled, and then went straight down the embankment into the pond with a splash.

If Dawg had had the ability of speech, what he would have said was not for mixed company. Thinking about his options, Dawg knew immediately that he would need help to get the girl out in time. He heard no other people nearby, and the town was possibly too far away to get help in time. Slowly, and with great dread, Dawg turned his head towards the only other human at the pond besides the little girl.

Billy.

He had to get Little Billy to understand.

With the doggie equivalent of a sigh, Dawg let out a long howl and started to bark as loudly as he could. On the other side of the pond, Little Billy had managed to get the hook out of his backside, but in doing so he had tangled himself in the fishing line, and for a boy whose greatest challenge was untying his shoes at night, this  presented another travesty to waste his time.

Looking up at the commotion that Dawg was giving, he shouted "SHUT UP you mangey ol' houn'! Cain't you see I'm all twangled up over here?" Dawg looked down into the water at the desperately struggling little girl, and back over at Billy. Still barking at the top of his lungs, Dawg began running over to Billy.

Billy was unwrapping the last little bit of twine off of his ear as his dog reached his side of the pond.

"Bark bark bark, bark!" said Dawg.

"Whut in tarnation's gotcher all stirred up? Shuttup willya?" shouted Billy. Dawg looked at Billy and looked at the pond, and he began running in between Billy and the pond, trying desperately to get Billy to start following him.

"Oh," Billy grinned," I know! You is wantin' summa that there 'nanner, ketsup and onion sammich I dun made." Billy reached behind him and pulled out of his back pocket a great nauseating blob that immediately began draining between his fingers.

"Hmmmmm," he said,"I thinks I dun put too much ketsup onna dern thing."

Dawg rolled his eyes and practically screamed. Launching himself at Billy he used his teeth and grabbed a great chunk of Billy's pants and began trying to drag him around the pond.

"GOL-DERNED CRAZY MUTT!!" hollered Billy, "Let go a me! You gone nuts? If'n you wuz that hungry I could fedja a while back!"

Dawg stopped. He let go of Billy. This was the time, he knew, to pull out all the stops.

He got directly in front of Billy, and using his right paw he tapped the ground in front of Billy. As Billy's eyes grew wide, Dawg began by scratching a perfect oval in the sand. Then, in the middle of the oval, he carefully scratched a stick-figure of a little girl in the middle of the oval. Then, by dragging his paw in the sand and walking backwards, he made a line from the oval in the direction of the pond, and finished it by putting an "arrow tip" at the end of the line. Dawg walked back up to Billy and he barked twice, expectantly.

Billy, astonished beyond his wits, which was not a terribly far distance, said "I gots me a gol-derned artistical type dawg!"

He happily sat down besides the drawing and began sketching a stick picture of his house in the sand next to Dawg's map. In frustration, Dawg began to jump up and down barking and howling.

Billy said, "Yea! See? I kin dun draw things inna dirt jes like you kin!"

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On the far side of the pond, Dawg heard the shouts of adults and kids.

"Sherry! Sheeeerrrryyyyyy!! Where are you girl?"
"Sherry! Come here to Daddy! You aren't in trouble! Where are you?"

And finally: "Mom, I heard a dog barking down here by the pond, and Sherry is in the water!"

Dawg watched with horror, and then relief, as they dragged the body of the little girl out of the water, and then he heard the little girl sputter and cough, and she began to cry.

"Oh thank God," said a woman that was evidently girl's mother, "she is going to be ok." The woman began to weep. The men carefully wrapped the little girl in a blanket and they picked her up to take her home.

Dawg let out a couple of yelps for joy. One of the men across the pond said "That must be the dog that Tommy heard a minute ago."

"Why that's nothing, then," said another, "that's just Little Billy and that moron dog of his playing on the other side of the pond."

Dawg just looked at them. Then he hiked up his back left leg, and peed all over his map of the pond.