Chapter Four: Running Scientific Tests on Strawberry Ice Cream

It was Little Alfred who had just come out of the house. He was standing on the sidewalk in his jeans and T-shirt and boots, and he was calling our names:

“Here, Hankie! Here, Dwovoo!”

You know, there’s something special about a little boy calling his dogs. And it’s especially special if you happen to be a dog, as I happen to be. It makes a guy feel . . .

As I went trotting up to the yard gate, I was shocked to see that Little Alfred’s mouth was covered with BLOOD! Okay, some unspeakable villain had punched my little pal in the mouth and perhaps even knocked out several of his teeth, and anybody who’d punch a little kid around deserved just what he was fixing to get, and what he was fixing to get was the Head of . . .

On the other hand, he wasn’t crying, which was a little puzzling. You’d think a boy who’d just been slugged in the mouth by a bully would have . . .

I went streaking through the yard gate, vaguely aware that the yard was Forbidden Terri­tory but more than vaguely aware that Sally May had left the ranch. In other words, what she didn’t know she would never find out.

But even more important, if she had known that I was rushing into Forbidden Territory to defend her little boy against the attack of some heartless bully, she would have been the first to put a thorn in my crown.

I rushed to his side. I barked and wagged my tail, waiting for him to reveal the location of the brute. On the other hand, why was he laughing? And why did he pinch the end of my nose?

Well, the least I could do, it seemed to me, was to clean up his face a little bit, and so I . . . ketchup?

Okay, it appeared that we’d gotten ourselves all stirred up over . . . Drover had jumped to hasty . . . sometimes we get faulty readings on our instruments, don’t you know, and . . .

The boy had been eating ketchup, see, and a fair percentage of it had ended up on his face, is all. No blood, no violence, no bully to take care of. I’d sort of suspected ketchup from the very beginning, but a guy can’t really follow his hunch until he runs a more detailed analysis.

Don’t you see.

Well, that was a nice turn of events and I went ahead and cleaned him up, knowing that his mother would have done the same thing if she’d been around. Ketchup is pretty good stuff, and this little task turned out to be more pleasant than I had expected.

Yes, I just kept cleaning and cleaning until the boy pushed me away and said, “Quit wicking me on the mouff, Hankie!” At that point, I stopped wicking him on the mouff, so to speak, and returned all four paws to the ground.

Sally May would have been proud. The boy’s face was spotless.

It was then that he opened the screen door and called us over. And with a twinkle in his eyes, he said, “Come on, doggies, wet’s go in the house!”

I looked at Drover and he looked at me. “Did you hear what he said, Drover?”

“Who?”

“Whom do you think?”

“Well, I don’t know. Little Alfred?”

“Very good. Did you hear what he said?”

“I think he said the house is wet.”

“No. You garbled the translation. He said, ‘Wet’s go in the house.” In kid language, ‘wet’ means ‘let.’”

“I’ll be derned. What would he say if the house got wet?”

“He would say, ‘The house is moist.’”

“I’ll be derned. Do you reckon a pipe broke?”

“What?”

“I said, how’d all that water get in the house?”

I looked deeply into his eyes and wondered what kind of terrible injury had caused such a mess. “Drover, you’ve missed the whole point of this conversation. Little Alfred has invited us into the house.”

“Not me. I think I’ll pass.”

“Sally May is gone for the day and she’ll never suspect a thing.”

“Yeah, but you know about me and water. Just give me the good old dry land, that’s the place for me.”

I heaved a sigh and shook my head in despair. “Fine, Drover. You stay out here and snap at the flies. I’ll accept Alfred’s invitation and go inside. You’ll be sorry, of course, but you can’t help it that you’re a total moron.”

I turned my thoughts away from the depressing task of carrying on a normal conversation with Drover. Little Alfred was holding open the screen door and pointing the way inside. I didn’t know to what I owed this honor, but it seemed only decent to accept it.

I went through the door and sat down in the utility room. Little Alfred closed the screen, being careful not to let it slam. Oh yes, Slim must have been taking a nap and the boy didn’t want to disturb him.

That impressed me. A lot of these kids would just go slam-banging through the house and never give a thought to anybody else. Alfred had his flies . . . flaws, that is, but you could tell that his momma had tried to teach him some manners.

He gave me a wink and a smile and went tiptoeing into the kitchen. Exactly what the wink and smile meant, and why he chose to travel on tiptoes, I didn’t know. But I soon found out.

He sneaky-walked through the kitchen and pushed a chair up to the refriginator . . . frigeriginator . . . the icebox door. He opened the top door (there were two: a big one on bottom and a smaller one above it).

Very strange. Fog rolled out of the top compartment. Several clouds of fog. My goodness, the weather must have been changing or something.

He stuck his hand and arm into the foggy compartment and came out with . . . well, with a great big grin on his face, for one thing, but what was that carton in his hand? A round carton.

He left the door open and the fog continued to roll out. He climbed down from the chair and fetched a spoon out of one of the kitchen drawers. Then he sat down in the middle of the floor and told me to sit down beside him.

Okay, I could handle that. I sat down beside him and watched as he pried the lid off the top of the mysterious carton. The lid hit the floor and rolled around. I stared at the contents of the alleged carton.

It was pink. It was hard. It smelled like something a dog might want to, well, eat, so to speak. I scootched a bit closer and watched this procedure with a, uh, higher level of interest.

I mean, I take a special interest in these kids and their activities, whether they’re involved in church, school, 4-H, or . . . well, food. Food is a very important component in the development of a child, and it sure did smell good.

Kind of sweet, almost like strawberries and cream.

I watched as Little Alfred took the spoon in his fist and dug into the . . . whatever it was. I watched, with all the concern of a parent or guardian, as he moved the spoon to his mouth.

I moved my paws up and down and whined. I whapped my tail several times on the floor. I scootched even closer. Like any parent or guardian, I wanted to know what the boy was eating. I mean, these kids will put any kind of garbage into their mouths, and a guy sure wants to know . . .

“Want some ice cweam, Hankie?”

Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h, so that was it! Ice cream, huh? By George, it had been a long time since I’d tested any ice cream, and yes, I felt it was my duty to, uh, check it out.

He scooped out a big hunk and I gobbled it down. Strawberry ice cream, and pretty derned good. On the other hand, I’d never been one to leap to any scientific conclusions based on a single test, and I felt a certain craving . . . need, that is, to submit the ice cream to more rigorous testing procedures.

Hence, when he offered me a second bite, I did what had to be done—took it, chewed it up, and swallowed it down.

Boy, was that stuff good! But on the other hand, this was Sally May’s child and I sure didn’t want to take any chances . . . some kids are allergic to ice cream, see, makes ’em break out in hives and stuff, and they tell me that strawberry is the world’s worst about causing hives.

One more test run, just to be sure. I mean, if the boy had broken out in hives, I never would have forgiven myself. I took one last bite.

Then he took a bite, and then he took another bite and that didn’t seem fair, him taking two bites to my one, and I whined and thumped my tail until he came across with one last big scoop of, uh, test material.

Boy, was that stuff . . . headache? That stuff was delicious but for some reason it was giving me a headache. I pawed the spot above my eyes where the pain was centered, and after a bit it went away.

Hey, our tests had turned up a possibly dangerous side effect—it caused headaches! Well, you know me, when duty calls, I get with the program. This stuff needed to be tested and tested and TESTED, never mind the cost or sacrifice, and before I knew it, me and Little Alfred had tested the whole entire carton.