A Friend in Need
Brownie and Spotty were neighbor dogs who met every day to play together. Like pairs of dogs you can find in most any neighborhood, these two loved each other and played together so often that they had worn a path through the grass of the field between their respective houses.One Walkie Talkiesevening, Brownie's family noticed that Brownie hadn' t returned home. They went looking for him with no success. Brownie didn't show up the next day, and, despite their efforts to find him, by the next week he was still missing.Curiously, Spotty showed up at Brownie's house alone. Barking, whining and generally pestering Brownie's human family. Busy with their own lives, they just ignored the nervous little neighbor dog.Finally, one morning Spotty refused NHL JERSEY to take "no" for an answer. Ted, Brownie's owner, was steadily harassed by the furious, adamant little dog. Spotty followed Ted about, barking insistently, then darting toward a nearby empty lot and back, as if to say, "Follow me! It's urgent!Eventually, Ted followed the frantic Spotty across the empty lot as Spotty paused to race back and bark encouragingly. The little dog led the man under a tree, past clumps of trees, to a desolate spot a half mile from thehockey jersey house. There Ted found his beloved Brownie alive, one of his hind legs crushed in a steel leghold trap. Horrified, Ted now wished he'd taken Spotty's earlier appeals seriously. Then Ted noticed something quite remarkable.Spotty had done more than simply led Brownie's human owner to his trapped friend. In a circle around the injured dog, Ted found an array of dog food and table scraps which were later identified as the remains of every meal drop shipSpotty had been fed that week!Spotty had been visiting Brownie regularly, in a single minded quest to keep his friend alive by sacrificing his Brownie's leg was treated by a veterinarian and he recovered. For many years thereafter, the two families watched the faithful friends frolicking and chasing each other down that well worn path between their houses.
Once upon a time there was a forester. He went into the woods to hunt, and after entering the woods he heard a sound of crying, as though it were a little child. Following the sound, he finally came to a tall tree, at the top of which a little child was sitting. His mother had fallen asleep under the tree with the child. A bird of prey had seen him in her arms, flown down, picked him up in its beak, and then set him on the tall tree.The forester climbed the tree, brought the child down, and thought, "I will take the child home kids apparelwith me, and bring him up with my Lenchen.So he took him home, and the two children grew up together. The child whom he had found on the tree was called Foundling-Bird, because a bird had carried him away. Foundling-Bird and Lenchen loved each other so much, ever so much, that whenever they did not see one another they were sad.Now the forester had an old cook. One evening she took two buckets and began to fetch water. She did not go out to the well just once, but many times.So Lenchen said that she would not tell anyone, and then the cook said, "Early tomorrow morning when the forester is out hunting I will heat the water, and when it is boiling in the kettle I will throw Foundling-Bird into it and cook him.The forester got up very early the next morning and went out hunting. When he left, the children were still in bed.Then Lenchen said to Foundling-Bird, "If you will never Investment castingleave me, I will never leave you either.Then Lenchen said, "Then I will tell you that last night old Sanna carried so many buckets of water into the house that I asked her why she was doing that. She said that if I would not tell anyone she would tell me. I said that I would be sure not to tell anyone, and she said that early tomorrow morning when father was out hunting, she would boil a kettle full of water, throw you into it, and cook you. But let us hurry and get up, get dressed, and run away together.When the water in the kettle was boiling, the cook went into the bedroom to get Foundling-Bird and throw him into it. But when she went to their room and to their Flower Girl Dressesbeds, both the children were gone.Then she became terribly frightened and said to herself, "What will I say when the forester comes home and sees that the children are gone. I must hurry and follow them and get them back again.
My grandfather died when I was a small boy, and my grandmother started staying with us for about six months every year. She lived in a room that doubled as my father's office, which we referred to as "the back room." She carried with her a powerful aroma. I don't know what kind of perfume she used, but it was the double-barreled, ninety-proof, knockdown, render-the-victim-unconscious, moose-killing variety. She kept it in a huge atomizer and applied it frequently and liberally. It was almost impossible to go into her bridesmaid dresses room and remain breathing for any length of time. When she would leave the house to go spend six months with my Aunt Lillian, my mother and sisters would throw open all the windows, strip the bed, and take out the curtains and rugs. Then they would spend several days washing and airing things out, trying frantically to make the pungent odor go away.This, then, was my grandmother at the time of the infamous pea incident.It took place at the Biltmore Hotel, which, to my eight-year-old mind, was just about the fancies place to eat in all of Providence. My grandmother, my mother, and I were having lunch after a morning spent shopping. I grandly ordered a salisbury steak, confident in the knowledge that beneath that fancy name was a good old hamburger with gravy. When brought to the table, it was accompanied by a plate of peas.I do not like peas now. I did not like peas then. I have always hated peas. It is a complete mystery to me why anyone would voluntarily eat peas. I did not eat them at home. I did not eat them at restaurants. And I certainly was not about to eat them now.Eat your peas," my grandmother said."Mother," said my evening dresses mother in her warning voice. "He doesn't like peas. Leave him alone.My grandmother did not reply, but there was a glint in her eye and a grim set to her jaw that signaled she was not going to be thwarted. She leaned in my direction, looked me in the eye, and uttered the fateful words that changed my life: "I'll pay you five dollars if you eat those peas.