Tuffy

“Tuffy, can you smell that? It’s the smell of Fall in the air! Yipee! Fall means pumpkin pies, Halloween, and Christmas is getting closer!”

Don looked down at his faithful dog that was sniffing the air along with him. Tuffy was part Beagle and part who knew what? Don and Tuffy had been inseparable since Don’s Uncle Ben had found him three years ago, wandering around a dump looking for food.

“Don, this is your last call for supper,” came the summons from the front door.

“Aw gee, Mom. Tuffy and I aren’t hungry yet,” Don grumbled as he wiped off his feet and left Tuffy on the front porch. “Stay, boy,” he commanded his dog, who looked up with wagging tail, expecting a bowl of dog food any minute.

The conversation around the dinner table was as boring as usual, with Dad talking about work at the cement plant and Mom talking about her plans for a fall garden. To make life more interesting, Don started poking his little brother, Ron, under the table. Ron returned that with a kick to Don’s shins.

“Ouch!” yelped Don and returned the kick.

“Mom, Don kicked me. Hard!” tattled Ron.

“Don, how many times have I told you not to pick on your little brother?”

“But Mom, he kicked me first.”

“That was because you poked me. Just because you’re ten years old and I’m only six, you think you can poke me whenever you want.”

“Boys,” Dad interjected. “That’s enough! One more argument between you two and you’ll both go to bed early.”

Don knew not to argue with his father and decided he’d wait ‘til another time to pick on his brother. He put his head down and tried to concentrate on finishing supper.

“James, there’s been another burglary down the street. This one was only a block away.” Don’s mother sounded worried.

“What did they get this time, Rose?” Dad questioned Don’s mother.

“Mrs. White’s new TV set and all her jewelry. She woke up in the middle of the night when she heard the back door slam. She woke up to find she’d been robbed. They’d cut the screen on the back window to get in and then hurried out the door.”

“That’s the third one this month on our street. This neighborhood is going to Hell, Rose. It’s time we start looking for a safer neighborhood.”

“I’d love nothing better than to move to a safer neighborhood and better house,” sighed Don’s mother. “But you know that we can’t afford it. Not after I lost my job at the school cafeteria in the Spring.”

Don knew that Mom was the one who paid all the bills and seemed to worry about money even more than Dad.

“Well, we could save a little money if we got rid of that damn dog that your brother, Ben, left on our doorstep. He’s eating us out of house and home.”

Don knew that his dad didn’t have much use for Tuffy. How many times had he heard the speech that went something like this: “When we had a dog on our family farm, he kept the foxes away from the chickens and would even help herd the cows into the barn when it was time to milk them. But it doesn’t make sense to have a dog in the city. Nothing for a dog to do here –except bark at the neighbor cats, sleep the afternoon away, and eat us out of house and home. If your mother hadn’t put her foot down, we’d never have gotten a dog in the first place.”

Don excused himself and took the trash can out to the curb for the weekly pickup. Tuffy followed him, tail wagging. “Tuffy, I’m sorry that Dad doesn’t appreciate you. But Mom won’t let him get rid of you. Don’t you worry.” Tuffy just looked at Don with a quizzical look and wagged his tail some more.

Don’s family couldn’t afford one of those new-fangled TV sets, and there wasn’t much on the radio that interested him on Thursday nights. So he and Tuffy stayed outside trying to catch fireflies until Don’s mom called him in for bed.

The next morning, Don was eating his usual bowl of Wheaties (Breakfast of Champions) and thinking about meeting his friends at school, when his dad came through the front door with the morning paper. “Rose, that damn dog is just lying on the porch whimpering. Can you see what’s wrong with him? I’ve got to get ready for work.”

Don ran out with his mom and gasped as Tuffy struggled to get up, exposing a deep gash across the entire width of his back.

“Don, run get your Dad. This dog’s been hurt.”

When Dad came out and examined Tuffy, he exclaimed, “looks like he’s been slashed with a knife! Wonder how that happened? He’s been chained to the front porch all night, so it didn’t happen out in the neighborhood some way.”

Don’s folks gathered Tuffy up in the family car and Dad drove him off to the vet while Don’s mother got Don and Ron ready for school. “Mom, how can I go to school when Tuffy’s at the vet?” Don protested, as she shoved him out the door with his lunch box.

That afternoon when Don got home, Tuffy was back and moving rather stiffly with all the stitches in his back. And then Don heard the rest of the story. The police had arrested a Mexican immigrant who had been admitted to the county hospital that morning with multiple dog bites, after the hospital staff spotted a long bloody knife in his back pocket. When the police searched his rent house, they found Mrs. White’s TV and jewelry and numerous other stolen goods.

“Don, it looks like I was wrong about your dog. Tuffy not only protected our house from being burglarized, but probably saved us from harm ourselves,” smiled Don’s dad, patting the dog.