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  “I’ll be giving this little feller a good home, if you decide to let me keep him,” the elderly man said with warmth. Then he added, “And mind, you can come and see him anytime you like.”

  Bethan’s face brightened. “That’d be the next best thing to keeping him myself, wouldn’t it?”

  “Sure would.” The old man lifted the excited little dog higher in his arms, letting the cold nose nuzzle under his chin. “And you’d be doing me a passel of good to boot. Everybody on this earth is in need of a friend.”

  Jodie nodded agreement, looking in wonder at Bethan. She had never realized how true that was. Until now.

  TWO

  WHEN BETHAN SAT UP in bed it was not yet six. Already the air was heavy with smells and dust and new sun. The smells always seemed stronger to her in the morning, sharp enough to smack her awake. She slid from her high four-poster bed, crossed to the window, pushed the white curtains aside, and reveled in the new day.

  Everything was bright and clean and fresh and waiting for her. Even the hog pen, which Momma often complained was too close to the house. To Bethan, it seemed perfect where it was, just as Daddy always said. She liked it when her folks talked about the hogs, which was a strange thing to say about listening to her parents argue. But Daddy always said Momma only talked about the hog pen when everything was right with the world. Momma never denied it, but instead would bustle about in the way she did when she was caught out and embarrassed about something, and say that it never paid to be content. Contentment was when trouble got ready to pounce. Complaining about the hogs was as close to perfection as Momma ever wanted to come.

  Bethan leaned on the windowsill and drew in deeply of the morning air. Turning back into her room, she filled herself with the odors of home—the fruit hanging heavy on the orchard trees, tobacco ripening in her uncle’s fields, the animals, and the promise of coming activities with a best friend. Today was the last day of freedom before school started again. Bethan had spent long hours planning out this final free day with Jodie. She leaned against the windowsill and said the words silently to herself, best friend. Sometimes she still had trouble believing it was so.

  She walked over and hopped back onto her bed. It had been her grandparents’, and had a high frame topped by a thick goosedown mattress and intricately carved posts. Bethan loved the feel of the grooved wood under her fingers and the springiness. She didn’t take the time now to enjoy the slight bounce but picked up the Bible from the nearby table and settled it on her lap. She had not told anyone, but she was trying to read the entire Bible, cover to cover, in one year. Reading did not come easy to her, especially now when she was struggling through Isaiah. But then she came to, “Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.” I’m not really blind, she mused, but I sure would like to see better.

  Bethan did not want anyone to know about her Bible-reading goal in case she could not finish on time. So she read alone, pronouncing with slowness and difficulty some of the long, strange words, one outstretched finger leading the way across the page.

  She closed the book and her eyes, praying as she did every morning for her new best friend.

  “Bethan!” Her mother’s voice drifted upward from the bottom of the stairs. “Come on down for breakfast, honey, your father’s about ready to leave.” Then with more urgency, “Dylan! If you make me come up these stairs one more time, you won’t sit down for a week!”

  Bethan scampered over to the door and called down quickly to keep the nearly inevitable from happening, “It’s okay, Momma, I can hear him—I think he’s up.”

  “Then your ears are better than mine, child. You’d best be right.”

  Bethan waited for her mother to return to the kitchen, then hurried to the end of the hall and entered her brother’s room. But it was not movement which she had heard, only the sound of Dylan snoring. Bethan quietly shut the door behind her and moved over to the bed. Dylan could sleep twelve hours and wake up tired. Their daddy often proclaimed that his son could sleep through the Second Coming and not even roll over. Momma always snorted at that and replied that her husband chose the strangest reasons to take pride in his family.

  “You’ve made me fib to Momma,” Bethan exclaimed in dismay. “I thought you were already up.”

  Bethan did what she often had to, which was pull the pillow out from beneath Dylan’s head, then bounce his shoulder up and down with both hands. If she didn’t have him up soon, their momma would be up the stairs for sure and they’d both be in trouble. “Breakfast is on the table,” she whispered hoarsely in his exposed ear.

  “Five minutes,” came the mumbled reply.

  Bethan shook harder, hearing the measured tread begin the climb. “I can hear Momma on the stairs,” she said anxiously.

  With a speed that belied his inert position of the moment before, Dylan exploded from the covers. He reached blindly for the trousers hanging from the back of his chair, pulled them up and tucked his nightshirt’s long edge in as far as he could, snapped on the suspenders, and scrambled to the door.

  Moira’s foot hit the fourth step, and in her final-warning voice she called, “All right, Dylan—”

  “I’m up, Momma, I’m up,” he called back breathlessly.

  The footsteps stopped, paused for a moment, then retreated.

  “Tell your sister to hurry up, too.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Dylan allowed himself to lean against the wall as he dragged the hair out of his face. “That was too close for comfort,” he breathed in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “She’s gonna catch you one of these days,” warned Bethan.

  “Not so long as I’ve got me a guardian angel living just down the hall.” Sleepily he searched the front of his trousers. “What’s the matter with these pants?”

  “You might try putting them on the other way around,” Bethan said with a giggle, then turned to hasten back down the hall to dress.

  In a matter of minutes Bethan appeared in the kitchen looking reasonably calm and decently attired.

  “Well, finally. What took you so long, child?” her mother asked. Moira Keane, Welsh, was the practical one of the family. Her parents had brought her to America when she was still a child, but Moira had never completely lost the lilting accent of her first homeland.

  Before Bethan could venture a reply, the woman hurried on, “Never mind. Come let me look at your eye.”

  Bethan gave a silent sigh as she stood before her mother for the daily inspection. This was the hardest moment of every day. Moira turned from the stove, bent over, and looked hard at her left eye. The lazy one, so the doctor said. Though how anything could be lazy when everyone made her work it so hard was beyond Bethan.

  “Looks all right,” Moira said, holding up one finger. “Close the other eye.”

  Bethan cupped her right eye, and with her left eye began following her mother’s finger as it moved purposefully back and forth before her face. Dylan chose that moment to step quietly into the kitchen. He raised a finger behind his mother’s back and started waving it all around the room. Bethan could not help but giggle. Without looking up, Moira said crossly, “That’s about enough out of you, young man. You already are skating on thin ice this morning.”

  As Dylan slid into his seat, Moira finished her morning ritual and reached forward to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “It looks fine this morning. No patch for you today.”

  “Thank you, Momma,” Bethan replied in quiet relief. The eyepatch was the bane of Bethan’s existence. She had to wear it every evening, when the left eye had the greatest tendency to wander. By covering the right eye Bethan was forced to consciously bring the left one into focus. But every couple of weeks or so the eye wandered even when she woke up, and then she had to wear the patch all day long. Much to her relief, it had not yet happened on a school morning.

  “The last day before school starts,” her father said, leaning over and accepting Bethan’s peck with a smile. “Going to spend it with Jodie?”

 
; “Chalk and cheese, that pair,” her mother said, setting a steaming plate of oatmeal down in front of Dylan. “Different in every way. Never seen the like in all my born days.”

  “Well, now,” Gavin said, which was about as close as he ever came to arguing with his wife. And strangely enough, those two words, even when mildly spoken, were enough to subdue Moira’s somewhat contentious ways. “It only seems so, the way I see things. Down deep, that pair are similar as two peas in the same pod. Not so different, when you take a closer look.”

  Moira said no more.

  “Thank you, Momma,” Bethan said when the plate was set down in front of her. She did not know exactly what her father meant by his statement that she and Jodie were alike, but she hoped with all her heart that what he said was so.

  Moira settled her own plate on the table and took her chair. Gavin bowed his head with the others and prayed, “For all your many blessings, Father, most especially this family, do I give thanks. Guide us and bless us all this day, and bless this food to our bodies.”

  “Keep us on your path, and bring us all home safely at day’s end,” her mother closed, as she always did. “In Jesus’ precious name, amen.”

  Her father opened his eyes, surveyed the plate before him, and said what he always did before every meal, “This looks fit for a king, Momma.”

  Bethan’s gray eyes opened, met and returned her father’s smiling gaze. Gavin Keane was, as far as his daughter was concerned, the most wonderful father on earth. His love of life spilled over everything like a full stream. When Bethan was alone, she liked to repeat to herself the favorite descriptions she had heard neighbors say of him. Words like a jolly soul, an easygoing fellow, and a truly contented man. She loved it when people praised him, loved how even her no-nonsense mother would reply with a gleam of pride. His work for the state farm board was respected. Farmers liked him because he was a farmer himself, one of their own who treated them fairly. Bethan loved him because he made her feel special, cared-for, secure in the home he had provided.

  Bethan loved their mostly country home on the edge of town. It stood at the border of the old Keane family homestead. Bethan’s uncle, her daddy’s older brother, lived in the old farmhouse and worked the larger fields. Her own family kept a few pigs and cows, had a prize brood of Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds, a vegetable garden, and a three-acre fruit orchard. Bethan doubted that her daddy could ever be content without a little bit of farming to begin and end each day. She couldn’t imagine him without a cow to milk or a litter of pigs to call to the feeding trough.

  Gavin looked fondly across the big country table at his daughter and asked, “Ready for school tomorrow, daughter?”

  “I’ll never be ready,” Bethan declared, and felt a cloud slip over her day.

  “Your little friend is ready,” her mother stated. “I asked her the same thing yesterday, and she told me she had already started reading some of her books.”

  “Jodie is a lot smarter than me,” Bethan said, not minding the truth because it was her best friend she described. “All the teachers say it. I heard Miss Charles say Jodie was the most remarkish student she’d ever taught.”

  “Remarkable, child, remarkable,” Moira corrected, then turned to her husband and said, “I wish a little of that smartness would rub off, I surely do.”

  “Don’t you worry about Bethan,” Dylan declared, pushing his empty plate away. Dylan was four years older, sturdy and pleasant. He possessed the best of both his parents, a strong sense of duty and a jolly eye for the ridiculous. Some felt he was far too handsome for his own good, but he never seemed to take his looks too seriously, one way or another. Life came easy to Dylan, but because he was both honest and kind, people forgave him for having it better than most. Mothers might consider him a threat to their daughters’ good names, until they realized that faith and convictions were not just words to him, but principles by which he lived. He often spoke up in defense of his little sister. She, in turn, loved her older brother to distraction.

  “A good heart is worth more than all the smarts in the whole world,” Dylan went on, giving Bethan a look that thanked her again for the morning wake-up that had spared him his mother’s wrath.

  “Maybe so, but it wouldn’t hurt to have her do better in school,” their mother replied candidly, then gestured at Bethan’s plate. “You’ll be cleaning that plate before you rise from the table, child. I declare, you don’t eat enough to keep a sparrow alive.”

  “He’s really growing, isn’t he?” Bethan said with her happiest grin, lifting her face beyond the reach of the eager tongue. One hand kept the puppy at bay while the other stroked the smoothcoated back. No spine protruded through the silky hair now. The puppy had filled out with daily feeding by Mr. Russel and generous scraps from the two girls. “He’s getting fat,” Bethan added with a pleased giggle.

  “Told you Mr. Russel would be good for him,” Jodie reminded her.

  Bethan turned her attention to Jodie. It was still difficult for her to believe that Jodie Harland was her very own, very best friend. But it was true. Their friendship had grown like the mongrel who had brought them together. It was a wonder to Bethan that Jodie, who could have just about any friend she wanted, seemed as pleased about their friendship as she was. “You sure did,” Bethan said. “And you were right.”

  Jodie reached out a hand to the puppy, and the two girls stroked the wriggling body. “He sure does squirm a lot.”

  “That’s cause he’s glad to see us,” Bethan replied.

  “Maybe he’s just glad to get our scraps,” Jodie, the realist, answered.

  But Bethan was quick to note, “He hasn’t even eaten the scraps yet, see? They’re still right where we put them. It’s us he’s glad to see.”

  “He needs a name,” Jodie announced. “We can’t just keep calling him Puppy.” She inspected the squirming mutt. “He’s growing so fast we’ll soon have to call him Dog.”

  “Do you think Mr. Russel will let us name him?” Bethan wondered.

  “Let’s ask.”

  “But he’s not here.” Mr. Russel was almost always home when the girls called. Sometimes he even had a treat to share. But today their knock had not been answered. “Maybe he went into town.”

  “He doesn’t like to go alone. He can’t see well enough. Last spring he tripped on a curb and took an awful fall. Needed six stitches, Daddy said.”

  “Well, then, he must be somewhere.” Bethan rose to her feet, the puppy doing a little dance about her gingham skirts.

  “Maybe he’s back in his garden. Momma says she doesn’t know what he’d do without his plants. He spends hours looking after them.”

  Bethan was puzzled. “If his eyes are so bad, how can he know the weeds from the good plants?”

  “He has a little hoe. It’s got this short handle, and he crawls along on his knees, right down the rows. He can see a little bit. But he has to get right down close and feel them with his fingers. Momma’s sure he has seeing fingers.” Jodie jumped up and hurried from the porch. “He smells them, too. I’ve seen him. He just leans right over and sniffs.”

  Jodie was on the path leading around the little house. But Bethan hated to leave. The puppy was kept on a short tether, and already it sensed their departure and started to whine.

  “What about—” Bethan started but halted at the sight of Mr. Russel shuffling around the house. He would have bumped into the scurrying Jodie if she had not jumped out of his way. Sure enough, he had a stubby-handled hoe in his hands. It looked like a child’s toy, except for the well-worn metal blade.

  “That you, gals?”

  “Yessir,” Jodie said, skipping along beside the old man. “We just brought the puppy some scraps.”

  Mr. Russel chuckled. “You’re gonna have that little fellow so fat he won’t even be able to waddle. Sherman don’t have the sense to know when to stop eating.”

  Both girls stopped cold. Jodie was the first to recover. “What did you say?”

  �
��I said we gotta be careful how much we feed little Sherman.” The old man mounted the steps to his porch, hand on the railing for guidance. He felt his way to his favorite chair and lowered himself into the shade. He reached into a rear pocket and retrieved a faded checkered square which he used to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Gonna have him waddling around here like a piglet, we don’t watch out.”

  The puppy pushed himself against the elderly man’s knee, his tail wagging so fiercely his whole body responded. Bethan felt a little pang at the realization that really and truly this was Mr. Russel’s dog. The puppy was showing first loyalty to the old man, who had even gone and named him. Bethan swallowed around her disappointment and said faintly, “Sherman’s a fine name.”

  “He’s taken a notion to chasing the alley cats,” Mr. Russel went on, clearly not having heard Bethan. “Haven’t you, boy? That’s why I have to tether him when I’m not right here with him. Don’t want him getting an eye scratched. Those cats can be mighty mean.”

  Jodie stirred. “I guess we better go, Bethan.”

  “Lots of good company, this here little pup,” Mr. Russel went on, lifting the wiggling bundle onto his lap. “You couldn’t have brought me a nicer gift, little lady. No. siree. Don’t know what I’d do without him. He’s gonna make a fine dog, too. Aren’t you, Sherman?”

  “Today’s our last day before school starts,” Jodie said, pitching her voice louder. “We’re gonna go have a little picnic.”

  “Best be off then,” said Mr. Russel, giving them a fine smile. “Sure is a grand thing, being young. You be sure and enjoy every minute of what God’s given you.”

  Bethan echoed Jodie’s goodbyes but could scarcely wait until they were out of range to demand, “What kind of name is Sherman for a dog?”

  “A fine name, just like you said,” Jodie replied firmly. “A war name from an old soldier.”

  “War name?” Bethan questioned.

  “Mr. Russel fought in The War between the States, remember?”

  “So?”

  “So Sherman was a general in the war. An important one.”