North of Boston

THEY aint much happened sence the last riting. I was puttering around the place wun Saddy morning when they is a squeal of brakes in our long drive. There is our big Labrador retriever dying with his head in my wife's lap. Truck driven by a good friend got him. Just wun of them things.

The tall hard Trooper what is a neighbor come over and helped me dig the grave. When we got the big dog into the ground and was ready to close things up he says "I'll handle this detail from now on. I've cried as I buried my own dogs and I know what the score is. Now you folks go elsewhere. " He blowed his nose and scowled. We went.

We raised him from a pup and he really knowed more than sum folks. He rode many thousands of miles with me. Sometimes he would sleep with his head on my thigh. Sometimes he would stand in back with his head on my shoulder. When I stopped to a drug store I always lugged him out an ice cream cone which he would lap down and then thank me.

Come daylight each morning he woke me and I'd let him nap on my big bed till I got up. He minded his own business, had a good sens of humor and worked for the interests of his family.

You cant get a character like that out of mind. He bothers my sleep now and then, for I dream that I hear him pounding at the front door to be let in (a big dog dont scratch, he pounds). When I open the door, he grins at me and then runs off across the big lawn, back into the shadows.

I'm glad none of you fellers aint in on the deal, for you wouldn't like it.