Her skin was like rag ill-washed and rough-dried. Both skin and clothing of the woman were the texture of hydrangea blossoms-thin, sapless. On exaggeratedly high heels her papery structure tottered.
“I want a dog.”
“Work dog or companion?”
“One-o-them whatcher-callum–the kind you got.”
“Bobtail Sheep-dogs.”
“I ain’t got no sheep, jest a husband. Lots younger’n me. I tried to keep my years down to his–can’t be done,”–she shrugged.
The shrug nearly sent her thin shoulder blades ripping through the flimsy stuff of her blouse. She gripped a puppy by the scruff, raised him to eye-level, giggled, shook the soft, dangling lump lovingly, then lowered him to her flat chest. She dug her nose into his wool as if he had been a powder puff, hugging till he whimpered. She put him on the ground, rummaged in a deep woollen bag.
The money was all in small coin, pinches here and pinches there hoarded from little economies in dress and housekeeping. When the twenty-five and fifty-cent pieces, the nickels and the dimes were in neat piles on the garden bench, she counted them three times over, picked up her pup and went away.
The silly heels tap-tapped down the garden path. She gave backward nods at the little piles of coin on the bench, each coin might have been a separate lonesomeness that she was saying goodbye to, grateful that they had brought her this wriggling happy thing to love.
A year later I was working in my garden and the little hydrangea person came again. Beside her lumbered a massive Bobtail. When he saw his brethren in the field his excitement rose to a fury of prances and barkings.
“Down, Jerry, down!”
No authority was in the voice. The dog continued to prance and to bark.
“Must a dog on the show bench be chained?”
“Most certainly he must be chained.”
“That settles it! Jerry, Jerry, I did so want you to will the blue!”
“He is fine,” I said.
“Couldn’t be beaten, but Jerry will neither chain nor leash!”
“He could easily be taught.”
“I dare not; Jerry is powerful. I’d be afraid.”
I took a piece of string from my pocket, put it through Jerry’s collar, engaged his attention, led him down the garden and back. He led like a lamb.
“See.” I gave the string into her hand. The dog pulled back, breaking the string the moment her thin uncertain grasp took hold.
“Leave Jerry with me for half an hour.”
She looked dubious.
“You won’t beat him?”
“That would not teach him.”
Reluctantly she went away. Jerry was so occupied in watching the dogs in the field he did not notice that she was gone. I got a stout lead, tied Jerry to the fence, then I took Flirt and Loo to the far field and ran them up and down. Jerry wanted to join in the fun. When he wanted hard enough I coupled him to Flirt. We all raced. Jerry was mad with the fun of it. Then I led him alone.
By the time the woman came back Jerry understood what a lead was. He was reluctant to stop racing and go with his mistress. I saw them head for home, tapping heels and fluttering drapes, hardly able to keep up with the vigorous Jerry.
Jerry took his place on the show-bench and chained all right, but, in the show ring, his mistress had no control over him. He and his litter brother were competing, having outclassed all entries. Bob, Jerry’s competitor, was obedient, mannerly. The Judge turned to take the red and the blue ribbons from the table, the frown of indecision not quite gone.
Blue ribbon in right hand, red in left, he advanced. Jerry was flying for the far end of the ring, leash swinging. His mistress was dusting herself after a roll in the sawdust. The Judge handed the blue ribbon to Bob’s master, to the hydrangea lady he gave the red. Bob’s master fixed the blue to Bob’s collar, the red ribbon dangled in the limp hand of Jerry’s mistress. She did not care whether its redness fell among the sawdust and was lost or not–her Jerry was beaten!
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