Читать книгу Rover - Barry Blackstone - Страница 7

When you live on a potato and dairy farm for nearly twenty years, you come to enjoy harvesting, long summer evenings in the hay field, and the companionship of a dog. Though there were many dogs on the homestead in my boyhood, Rover was the most memorable of them all. Lady and Lassie come to mind, but Rover lives on in the sweet memory of a boy’s best friend!

The intimacy I had with that dog goes back to some of the earliest of my childhood reflections. I can’t remember when we got Rover, for he always seemed to be there in every boyhood MEMORY. I still see in my mind’s eye, half-scrambling, half-leaping upon his back in the middle of the kitchen floor. At other times, I see myself laying peacefully beside him next to the big register in the living room. My first reflection of him is walking together beside the small stream that crossed the road just above the house. As I threw rocks into the water, Rover would bark with very splash. I can still see him impatiently setting in front of the chicken coop door wanting to come in, but not being allowed too. Rover was everybody’s dog, but deep down I imagined him to be my dog, despite the fact he would walk with my sister Sylvia, and play with my cousin Clayton. Rover liked Dad and was often found with him in the barn.

Whether he was running after cats, or romping through the fields, Rover’s favorite season was summer. Summer was filled with more places to go, and more activities for a farm dog. Winter was more of a vacation to the corner of the kitchen. I don’t ever remember Rover liking the cold. Mother would never allow a cat into her house, but Rover must have won her heart. I see Rover now running through the tall grass on a warm summer day trying to catch butterflies, or grasshoppers. Rover chased anything that moved, even automobiles. We tried to break him of the bad habit, but we never did. He was one of the few dogs who managed to live to a grand old life without making a fatal mistake, though once I remember he came tragically close.

Rover was always caught up in the fragrance of the farm. With the nose being one of a dog’s great senses, Rover was constantly sniffing out something. He loved to sniff out groundhogs in the pasture. He tracked rabbits in the woods. A cat couldn’t come within a mile of his sensitive nose that he wouldn’t be on the trail. I must have had an odor as well, for he always seemed to be able to find me even when I was hiding in a mount of hay. I think he like the challenge, for his nostrils were always moving in search of his next prey. Even when fall would come and the smells of summer changed, Rover kept up his pursuit of alien creatures invading his territory that is until the first snow can down. Then and only then would Rover retreat to the pantry or kitchen, where no doubt he slept dreaming of the smells of spring! These are just some of the things I remember of a boyhood, barnyard, backyard dog. My Dad taught me very early this concept from the pen of Job: “But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee . . . Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing (including dogs), and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:7, 9-10)

In my boyhood I never looked to Rover to teach me anything, if anything I tried to teach him a few dog tricks. Despite the fact my father pointed out this precept in Job in my youth, it has not been until adulthood that I have applied this principle to Eddie, my cat. It is now time to ask Rover again what instruction he was trying to share with me in the encounters and experiences we share in the boyhood of my youth!