That night after our late supper, Uncle Owen, Uncle Lone, and all their dogs left for home. They lived in their own cabin on the other side of Honey Island. It wasn’t far, but still I always marveled at how they could find their way in the dark.
Whenever I asked them how they did it, they said, “Same way the fish and the birds know their way ’round.”
It didn’t make sense to me. It had taken me three whole summers to learn my way around well enough to go out in Uncle Owen’s boat by myself. And even so, if I was planning to go far, I always took one of his dogs with me just in case. Now I’d be able to take my own dog.
Uncle Owen always used to joke that a dog makes a better partner than most men. “Yer dog always has yer best interest in mind. With people, ya never really know.”
Even though it was late, Grandma and Grandpa let me stay out on the front porch with my new dog for a long time after our supper. I scratched his head and rubbed his ears. After a while he rested his head in my lap, and I felt his lumpy scar press into my legs. I wondered what could’ve happened to him. I wondered if the scar had anything to do with why he didn’t bark or growl or yip, but it really didn’t matter to me. Even with his big, lumpy scar and no voice to bark or growl, I could already tell this dog was something special.
The long day and my full stomach made my body hum like the insects that filled the evening air. I rested myself on my dog’s back and felt my eyelids grow heavier and heavier. Finally, Grandma took me by the shoulders and guided me inside. And the same way Uncle Owen and Uncle Lone could find their way home in the darkness of the swamp, I found my way to bed. I was half-asleep, but I somehow climbed the ladder to the loft where the bed Grandma had made for me waited.
• • •
“Elsie Mae!” Grandma Sarah yelled. “Git on down here! Quick!”
I sat up in bed, first of all wondering where I was, and second of all wondering what in the world was going on. Once I remembered I was up in Grandma and Grandpa’s loft, I looked around for my overalls. Then I realized I still had them on. I must’ve been so tired that I slept in my clothes.
“Lord, have mercy! You go on, ya little rascal. Now git!”
Grandma Sarah was on a rampage. I couldn’t imagine what was going on.
I jumped out of bed and started down the loft ladder to see Grandma chasing my new dog around the table and swatting at him with a dishrag.
“How’d he git in here?” I exclaimed.
“Must’ve pried that screen door open and snuck in,” Grandma said, sounding out of breath.
I jumped off the loft ladder from the third rung and tried to cut my dog off at the pass by going around the table the other way, but he scooted under the table, escaping both of us. Once on the other side, he crawled under Grandma and Grandpa’s bed at the far end of the room. Then he peeked out from under the edge of the quilt that hung down and looked up at me with purple drool dripping off his snout. That’s when I noticed the empty pie tin in front of the stove.
“That darned dog ate every last crumb of the leftover pie,” Grandma said, using the dishrag to wipe her forehead.
“Sorry, Grandma,” I said, walking over to the bed to kneel by my dog. “He probly thought it smelled so good, he jus’ had to have a taste.”
“Oh, it’s all right, I suppose,” Grandma said, reaching down to pick up the pie tin. “No harm done, I guess, ’cept that yer grandpa’s gonna be lookin’ fer a piece of that pie ’round noon t’day.”
I knew Grandma was right. Last night after supper, as I sat on the porch with my dog, even though I was full to bursting with that extra piece of cornbread I’d eaten and that double-size piece of huckleberry pie Grandma had given me, I had thought to myself about how good a leftover piece of pie would taste after my dinner the next day.
“How ’bout I git ya more huckleberries t’day, and ya can make ’nother pie?” I offered.
“Yer a good girl,” Grandma said, ruffling my hair. “That’d be jus’ fine, but ya better git that dog outta this house ’fore yer grandpa comes in fer his breakfast.”
Grandma was so much quicker to forgive than Mama was.
“I will,” I said, “but ya know what?”
“What?” Grandma asked, wiping her forehead again before walking back over to the sink to wash out the tin.
“I’m gonna call ’im Huck,” I said proudly.
“Why that’s a perfect name, Elsie Mae,” Grandma said. “It suits ’im jus’ fine.”
Grandma Sarah was right. The name did suit him fine, especially with his huckleberry-stained snout.
“C’mon, Huck,” I said, leading him out the screen door. “Let’s go out on the porch and wait fer Grandpa.”