Penny (11 page)

We had to go to the village to do some marketing, and I left Penny still tethered, not wanting her to take after the highway truck or the sweeper if they came back down the road while we were gone. Apparently they passed before we got home, probably without a yip out of her. She was sound asleep, the picture of innocence, when we arrived.

I let her off the leash and we came into the house. Before I had even set down the bag of groceries I heard an uproar, a typical Penny performance, out at the watering trough. Half a dozen cows were there drinking, and Penny was trying to frighten them off. It was the first time she had tried that. But the cows didn't panic. They drank their fill, then left the trough. She kept trying to put them to flight. I went out, tried to catch her, and couldn't. Since the cows weren't galloping madly away from her, I came back into the house, fed up with her antics.

I hadn't been in the house two minutes when the barking stopped. I went to the door, and there was Penny on the front porch, panting and acting innocent as a baby. I went back to the kitchen and said, “I begin to wonder just whom she is badgering, the cows or me.”

“Whoever she is badgering,” Barbara said, “I am getting very, very tired of it.”

But there wasn't another sound out of Penny the rest of the afternoon and early evening. The cows went home undisturbed to be milked. They came back without a yelp from Penny. She ate her supper and lay on the front steps for an hour while we sat on the porch in the dusk, counting fireflies and watching the first stars appear. Then it was her bedtime.

I called her and we started to the brooder house. Just beyond the back yard, in the home pasture, were the cows, grazing as usual and moving around in the dimness of late dusk. I could make them out as dark shapes with white markings, and I could hear them grunt and wheeze and hear their hooves click as they walked. Penny and I got halfway to the brooder house, and she yelped once, charged under the fence into the pasture and was off on another of her chase-the-cows sprees.

I followed Penny and the cows clear across the pasture, back toward the road, across the pasture again, a good half mile. Then, puffing with anger as well as exertion, I paused long enough to remember the uproar at the watering trough and how Penny stopped it when I stopped chasing her.

I turned around, right there, and came back toward the house. Penny was still barking madly and the cows were running with a rumble of hoofbeats when I turned, but before I had walked a hundred yards Penny's barking began to subside. I reached the gate and came into the back yard. Penny had stopped barking, seemed to be waiting for me to catch up. Then she barked again and I heard the cows running. I came to the back door and there was another pause, another silence. Then more barking. But not frantic. Now it was almost down to the level of token barking, the kind any dog does to hear the echo. I came into the house, started to tell Barbara what had happened, and before I had finished Penny was at the front door, where she always whined when she wanted to be let in.

That time I put a leash on her and took her to the brooder house without any trouble. When I came back, Barbara said, “That settles it.”

“What?”

“I've just about had it, with that dog.”

“It has been quite a day, hasn't it?”

“I don't intend to live in this kind of uproar.”

“It has its strenuous moments.”

But she wasn't just talking. “That dog,” she said, “demands excitement. She can't live more than a week or two without it. You and I can live very well with just the normal day-to-day excitement of ordinary living. Right?”

“Right. But Penny likes to be where the action is.”

“Penny insists on
creating
the action. The highway truck. The sweeper. Cathy's horse. The cows at the watering trough.
And
the cows in the pasture just now. All in one day!”

“She might have spaced things out a little.”

“Are you defending her?”

“Why should I defend your dog?”

“
My
dog?”

“She was a birthday present to you. She presented herself, but it was your birthday, just the same. And—”

“She is incorrigible! Worse than that car-chasing mutt down the road!”

“She feels the same way about thunderstorms—”

“Even an incorrigible child has a likable trait or two. But even with such a child, you have to do something eventually.… No, I've just about had it with her. Fun and games is one thing, but—” She shook her head.

“I thought she was beginning to settle down.”

“I
hoped
she was, but—” And suddenly she demanded, “Why? Why does she do these things?”

“Let's wait and see what happens tomorrow.”

“Want to bet?”

“No. But—she is your dog. Registered in your name.”

“I should be sentimental about her?”

I didn't answer. She was being sentimental, and I knew it. She was practically saying to Penny:
Give me back my heart. I gave it to you, but now I must have it back. Give it to me before I have to take it
.

We waited. We went to bed to sleep on the Penny problem. When I let her out the next morning she was her very best self. She romped, rolled in the damp grass, raced around me. She came to the back door and came in for her breakfast. She ate as a dog should eat. She went out and barked once or twice at the morning, wandered down the road a little way, came back and lay down on the front steps.

Midmorning and I had to do some weeding in the vegetable garden. She went to the garden with me, lay in the path and watched me work for a time. Then she grew restless, left the garden, watched the road. But no truck or sweeper was coming. She turned toward the mountain, stood there as though pondering, then took off across the pasture. I heard her up there on the mountain the better part of an hour. Then she came back, tired and wet with dew from the tall grass and underbrush.

I was still weeding. She came into the garden again and lay in the path and licked herself clean and dry. Then she went out, restless, and wandered up the road. Ten minutes and I heard her barking. Two highway trucks had gone up while she was on the mountain, and now she had found them. She yammered at them for some time. Then they came back down the road, driving slowly and carefully. Penny raced alongside, barking madly, first at one, then at the other. The driver of the lead truck slowed up beside the garden and yelled at me, with a grin, “Call off your dog. She's getting laryngitis!”

“I hope it turns to pneumonia!” I shouted back.

He grinned and drove on. The second truck followed. Penny ran alongside, barking furiously, for a couple hundred yards. Then she stopped, looked back toward the garden—and me—barked another time or two and came trotting back home. She came into the garden, lay down in the path, panting, and watched me as though expecting either praise or censure. Some reaction. I ignored her. After a few minutes she got up and left, went around the house toward the barn and the watering trough. The cows had come up the pasture while she was chasing the trucks and were at the trough, drinking.

I heard the uproar start, Penny's frantic barking. Then the sound of running cows. They came around the barn and down the pasture, fifteen or twenty of them, with Penny at their heels. The chase was on. Penny was making enough uproar for a whole pack of dogs.

I continued weeding, hoping she would stop if I didn't chase her or order her to come back. But she kept on. After a few minutes I knew it was hopeless. I quit weeding and went to the house.

Barbara met me at the door. She had heard the uproar.

“All right,” I said. “You win the bet. How much was it?”

“A million dollars.… Shall I call Sybil?”

“Not until Penny tires of this nonsense for five minutes and I can get a leash on her.”

“I think she is stopping now.”

I listened. All was quiet in the home pasture. I got the leash, went to the front door and waited, perhaps another five minutes. Then here she came, panting, looking almost smug and triumphant. She came up the steps, saw me in the doorway, hesitated, then flopped down on the porch and looked up at me with what seemed an almost malicious, defiant grimace. I went out and snapped the leash on her collar, fastened the other end to the ring on the porch post.

I came back in and said, “First I want to call Tom or Carol.”

Carol answered. Tom was at work. I asked her if Pokey-Penny ever chased cars while they had her. Carol hesitated. “Well,” she finally said, “yes. Toward the end she began to chase cars and trucks. I thought she did it just to plague me, but Tom said she would get over it. He scolded her, but it didn't do much good. That's the main reason we tied her up. And then she began snapping at the kids.”

“Did she chase cows?”

“I don't think she ever saw a cow till she went over to your place.”

“Would you take her back?”

“No. Tom told you that.”

“I thought you might have changed your minds.”

“No.”

“We may have to give her away.”

“That's all right. I don't want her back, ever.”

“Thanks. Tell Tom what I said, will you?”

“I'll tell him.”

I hung up and told Barbara to call Sybil whenever she wanted to. She said, “Why wait?” and put in the call, got Sybil at once. Yes, Sybil said, her offer was still good. Bring Penny up and she would find a good home for her, where there weren't any cows or highway trucks. She gave directions for reaching her place.

It was almost lunchtime. Barbara started putting things on the table. I opened a can of dog food, put the contents in Penny's dish.

“She had her morning meal,” Barbara said.

“The condemned prisoner always gets a last meal.”

“This isn't an execution, for goodness sake!”

“Just banishment. But she gets that last meal, just the same.”

“Now who's being sentimental?”

We ate, and Penny ate. I got out the car. Penny loved to ride in the car. She was eager to get in, but I kept her on the leash, tethered. I didn't want her kiting off and making me chase her for half an hour.

“All set,” I called from the front door.

“I'll be another ten minutes.”

“Why?”

“I'm getting the dog food together. We're going to take it along, every bit of it, and give it to Sybil.”

So I waited, and I took the carton of canned and kibbled dog food out and stowed it in the car trunk. Then I put Penny in the car. Barbara was ready. We headed up the road.

Penny was as excited as a child going to the circus. She watched the roadside, sniffed at the dogs we passed, perked her ears and wrinkled her nose at the cats.

“I feel,” Barbara said, “like a—a scapegoat. Or whatever it is that leads the sheep to slaughter.”

“The Judas goat. But I believe you reminded me just a little while ago that Penny isn't going to be slaughtered. She is going to a brand new home where she can show off and get everybody's attention. For a while, at least.”

After a moment Barbara said, “She
is
a lovable dog.”

Penny sat there on the back seat, long ears pendulous, eyes innocent, sturdy legs braced, and seemed to be listening to every word. Barbara turned and put out a hand to pat her head, and Penny licked it with a slobbery tongue. Whatever lay ahead, she obviously had no qualms.

Ten

Sybil's place was a gray farmhouse set well back from the road. There was a modest sign, “Antiques,” at the foot of the driveway. The farm had about two hundred acres of meadow and woodland, which was managed but not farmed, and Sybil dealt in antiques more as a hobby than a business.

We drove in and parked, and I went to the side door, rang. After a moment a dark-haired, youngish middle-aged woman came to answer. She wore dark horn-rim glasses, a pink pullover sweater, dark slacks. She invited us in, said yes, she was Sybil.

Barbara came, and I got Penny, still on the leash. At the door Sybil said, “Let her off the leash. Let her go where she wants to. She'll smell my dogs.”

The entry room was a display room with low tables loaded with antique dishes and glassware. A fine place, I thought, for an exuberant dog to romp! Sybil held the door open and Penny went in, looked around, moved carefully, didn't touch a table or disturb anything. She crossed the room ahead of us to the far door. There Sybil led the way along a short hall to the living room. Dogs elsewhere in the house sensed a stranger and began to bark. Penny perked her ears, paused to look and listen, but didn't answer. But she was so excited that she spilled in the hallway. Sybil said, “It happens with any dog. Nervous, excited, in a strange place.” She brought a couple of paper towels, wiped up.

Her dogs, she said, were safely in the other part of the house. Four dogs. An old female basset, a very old cocker, an old dachshund, and a young Cairn. “We'll let Abby, my basset, in pretty soon. But first we'll let Penny look around, find out where she is. After all, this is a totally strange place to her.”

Barbara and I sat on the sofa, Sybil sat in a chair, and Penny looked inquiringly at an empty upholstered chair, remembered her manners and came and lay down on the rug in front of us.

“You can get in the chair, Penny,” Sybil said. Then, to us, “In this house dogs can do whatever they want to. Get into any chair, go into any room, eat when they are hungry. Yes, I know it's against the rules, but that's the way we live around here. Mine aren't show dogs. They live with us, not out in kennels. We do have a big run, on the far side of the house, and it's well fenced. That's where I'll put Penny for a few days, till she gets used to the place.”

“You'll find a home for her?” Barbara asked.

“Well, yes.” Sybil looked at Penny, who looked back with her most appealing air. “Four dogs is plenty, even for us! My husband said just the other day that when one of the old dogs dies we won't replace it. He's away for the day. He'll be home tonight. I think I'd better put Penny out in the run before he gets home. He's a sucker for bassets.” She laughed.