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My Daddy’s
Hound Dog
by Neil Turner
My daddy was a country boy who grew
up in
Buster was a present to my daddy on
his tenth birthday and immediately became his constant companion. Buster would follow Daddy to school and wait
patiently in the shade or under the stoop in bad weather. As Buster grew, he began to show his natural
bent as a hunting dog, and when my daddy received his first shotgun on his
twelfth birthday, Buster was ready to be his hunting companion. Boy and dog formed a special bond and an
amazing ability to communicate. It was
almost as if they could actually speak to and understand each other. By the time my daddy was fifteen, he and
Buster had become small local legends due to their special hunting prowess.
In the summer of my daddy's
fifteenth year he was given the chore to clear the high weeds from a field near
the house. Of course, there were no
power tools so my daddy was using a scythe to cut the weeds. A scythe is somewhat of an ergonometric
anachronism considering its ancient lineage for it is a wondrous combination of
wood and metal designed to be the perfect cutting tool. A scythe's handle is shaped in a special way
that along with a two foot-plus blade it enables a man to cut a wide swathe
using the muscles of his arms and shoulders without placing strain upon his
back. As the sun rose, my daddy had
shucked his shirt, and Buster had taken to the shade of the nearby woods.
My daddy worked as that hot
Suddenly, the rabbit burst from the
woods and began running across the field in Daddy's direction with Buster hot
on his tail. Daddy couldn't believe that
the rabbit was running right toward him and was cussing the fact that he had
not brought along shotgun. That rabbit
continued to run in Daddy's direction and scooted, in the blink of an eye,
between Daddy and the scythe. Buster was
not so agile and ran straight into the blade of the scythe hitting the blade
right at his shoulder.
My daddy couldn't believe his eyes
when he saw that Buster's momentum had caused the sharp blade of the scythe to
slice him right through from shoulder to rump.
Buster fell to the ground in two pieces.
Any ordinary person would have panicked, but Daddy was used to seeing
all sorts of injuries while working around the farm, so without even having to
think, he picked up Buster, grabbed his shirt, wrapped him tightly together,
and ran with Buster to the house and my grandmother.
My grandmother was used to doctoring
all sorts of injuries and wounds to men and animals, but she had never seen
anything quite like what had happened to Buster. She couldn't believe that Buster was actually
still alive when my daddy came bursting into the house.
"Son, there is no way I can
save that dog. He's just hurt too
bad."
"Oh Lord, oh Lord! Please, Momma, you've got to fix him! Please, Momma, please fix him!"
My grandmother looked at her son's
tear-stained, anguished face and knew she had to try even though it was
useless. She told him to hold Buster
tightly together as she quickly prepared a poultice. All the while, Buster looked toward my daddy
with cloudy eyes slowly licked his hand.
When the poultice was prepared, my
grandmother was afraid to take the shirt off of Buster so she just packed the
poultice thickly all around Buster and then wrapped all of that in a clean
sheet. She got some old quilts and made
a bed for Buster in the corner of the kitchen where he could stay warm from the
heat of the iron stove when the evening chill arrived. My daddy put Buster into his bed and lay down
beside him. Afterwards, my grandmother
excused herself to her bedroom and quietly wept - not so much for Buster but
for the heartache she knew my daddy must face when Buster died.
That evening after my grandfather
had arrived home from his job in town, both he and my grandmother tried to get
my daddy to eat supper and sleep in his own bed, but my daddy insisted that he
was not hungry and was going to stay with Buster. They left my daddy there in the corner of the
kitchen knowing that the morning would bring the realization that Buster had
died.
After worrying throughout the night,
my grandmother and grandfather were up before dawn, lighting the stove, and
beginning preparations for breakfast. My
daddy, as is the wont of most teenagers, was still sound
asleep. My grandfather thought it was
best that he take Buster out and bury him before my daddy woke up. He was astounded to find that Buster was
still alive, and not only alive, but actually moving a little with eyes
slightly less cloudy.
As the days and weeks passed, Buster
began to move around in his cocoon of bandages more and more until it was
determined that he was well enough to have the bandages removed. As my grandmother lovingly removed first the
sheet and then my daddy's shirt a sight not to be believed was revealed. It appeared that, in his haste to grab up
Buster and wrap him in the shirt, my daddy had slapped him together with two
legs going up and two legs going down.
Nature had miraculously allowed Buster to live in that deformed state
and had created a dog that was a wonder to behold. For, you see, after that time, Buster was
twice the hunting dog he had been before because he could run on two legs for a
long time, and then when he got tired, he could flip over and run on the other
two for just as long.
Buster and my daddy became more than
just local legends. Buster lived to be
twenty years old and was even my companion when I was an infant. My daddy's hound dog was some dog!
Neil Turner’s Note:
In my tenth summer when we were visiting my paternal grandmother,
my father was driving me around the area and showing me some of the scenes from
his youth. He began telling me a version
of the above story in the same fashion as the other factual recollections he
had been expressing. As a youth, I
swallowed the story whole, and it took me a couple of minutes to realize I had
been duped. As an elementary school teacher
in my adult life, I would tell this story to my students in the same serious
manner my father had used. It was always
a thrill to observe the look on their faces when they realized I had duped them
in the same way my father had fooled me years earlier. I then used this story along with some
published “country tales” with humorous twists at the end to initiate a
creative writing assignment. Each year,
many of the students would create stories just as imaginative as those
published and entertain the class with their literary creations
Raconteur Neil Turner is a former school teach.
He is also the endlessly capable and helpful web guru who gets the Chickasaw
See: http://www.neilturnerconcepts.com/
--jig
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Chickasaw
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