Sir Barksalot

The dog, a mongrel neither big nor small and of a mottled vanilla and chocolate coloring of no particular pattern, for six days had appeared on Mac and Bertie's back porch and barked.

On the first day, Big Bertha had put out some bones from a roast they had consumed the night before. The dog had cleaned each bone of every shred of meat and gristle and even cracked some and gotten the marrow. Delilah was away at a job interview and Little Mac on a substitute teaching assignment, so Bertha told Noah to go out and retrieve the dish. The dog growled and bared its teeth, though, as soon as Noah set foot on the porch, so the child went back in. The dog followed him and put its nose right against the glass door, so it and Noah were almost face to face. Then it began barking and Noah retreated. Bertha said not to worry, they would get the dish later.

On day two, the dog came to the bench where the dish had been placed and, finding no subsequent offering, came straightaway to the glass door and again barked and barked. Bertha said, "He's very pushy, your new friend." This made Noah wonder. "Is he really my friend?" Noah said. His grandmother, busy with her sewing, left the question unanswered.

On the third day, Mac was back. Delilah had gotten her job and so still was not there for the barking. Mac sat down with Noah on the floor and and watched and listened while the dog performed. "If he's my friend, why's he so angry?" Noah said. "Why does he bark a lot so much?" "We'll have to think," said his grandfather. "I'm sure we'll know if we just think. But it's strange. It may call for thinking caps. In the meantime, we'll put some more food out. As soon as it leaves, eh?"

On the fourth day, both Mac and Noah confronted the problem with thinking caps on. These being tea cozies, the sort of thinking cap Little Mac favoured, their appearance was somewhat unusual. From time to time, the dog interrupted its barking and tilted its head as if trying to place them. "It has beautiful blue eyes," Noah said. "Yes, I think I recognize them," Mac replied. "And I think I know why he's angry. I think this is Sir Barksalot, Noah, a knight of the Hound Table. He's mad because I stole his girlfriend in another life. He's here for me to make things right. So tonight we must put out a feast."

On the fifth day the feast was repeated, this time with steak instead of hamburger. The dog no longer barked continuously but occasionally peered inquisitively at them through the glass, now and again stroking the glass with a paw. "What do you think?" Mac asked his grandson. "Is Sir Barksalot satisfied?" That night as Delilah was tucking Noah in, she noticed he was clutching the paper cut-out of a dog that his grandfather had given him as a gift, that could be traded in for a real dog. "Well," she said, "Have you decided? You were down to a collie or a duck toller or a terrier, as I remember." In answer, Noah tugged his thinking cap down tighter, as he had seen Little Mac do, and solemnly allowed as how he might have changed his mind.

On day six, Bertha rose from her sewing to look for her grandson. She found him outside on the porch with the dog in his arms and his face being licked. The barking between licks was much softer, somewhere between a moan and a yodel. At supper that night, Noah sat with his cut-out in hand. "Ain't you hungry?" said Little Mac. "I want Sir Barksalot," said Noah, putting the cut-out on the table.

On the seventh day, Sir Barksalot stopped barking on the porch. In the house by the woodstove, curled up with Noah at his side, he seemed disinclined to make any disturbance at all. "Sir Barksalot forgives you," Noah said to his grandfather. "We'll see," said Little Mac. "He can't have steak all the time. And he might object to the visit to the vet we have to make." "He won't mind," said Noah. "He has me now."

4 March 2018
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia
www.granitecoast.ca