Penny Read Online Free Page A

pranced out to the car. Her car. There were three cars parked there, and she picked the right one the first time. I opened the door and in she went and onto the back seat. And so we came home. It was still snowing, light, slushy snow. Somehow a snow like that in mid-March doesn’t seem proper, possibly even illegal.
    At home we got old towels and rubbed the dog virtually dry, then let her lie on the rug in front of the hot air register in the front hall. Half an hour there and she came and found me and insisted that she wanted to go outdoors. I put on a jacket and cap and went out with her. She barked at the falling snow and went dashing up the road. I ran after her, calling, ordering, demanding. She ran a hundred yards, turned and came back past me, turned again and was off up the road once more. Games, still playing games with me. I didn’t want to play games in that snow. But I followed her a couple of hundred yards. Then she darted off, headed for the woods on the mountainside. I hurried after her, got my shoes full of snow, used all my strongest words and after five minutes decided to let her go. I turned and came back to the house, breathless and angry. And started to tell Barbara what an impossible dog that little bitch was, and how little I cared whether she ever came back. I had barely started my recital when the whining at the front door indicated that she was back. Barbara let her in, told her that she was a very thoughtless dog, chided her for getting all wet and getting her feet and legs and belly muddy, right after having a bath. The dog didn’t even bat an eye. She allowed herself to be wiped off again and went to her refuge under the bench in the living room.
    We ate lunch, a roast pheasant that we had saved in the freezer for such a special occasion, and when we had finished, right through the angel food cake and ice cream, we played a couple of new records and decided to go for a walk, since it had stopped snowing. So we went, the three of us. This time I put the dog on the new leash, and Barbara tried to hold her in check. It was like trying to check a headstrong ox—she almost pulled Barbara’s arm from its socket. How so small a dog managed so much pulling power was a mystery until I began trying to calculate the strength of those stocky legs and the leverage she had in their short length. Finally I took the leash, and she almost dragged me off my feet before I slowed her down. At last she tired of that game and walked at our pace, and when we turned back after half a mile up the road she was content to walk with us, not try to break any speed records.
    Home again, we read a while. And Barbara called the woman in Monterey. That time she got an answer. “We hear,” Barbara said, “that you have a basset hound. A female.”
    â€œThat’s right,” the woman said. “She is right here beside me this very minute.”
    Barbara exclaimed, “Oh, thank goodness!” And went on to tell her about the dog we had.
    They talked for half an hour, about basset lore, food, habits, temperament, sickness—everything one could imagine. Before they had finished they were on a friendly first-name basis. And when she finally hung up, Barbara said, “Sybil says that bassets are just about the best dogs in the world. Gentle and loving and sturdy and healthy. They do tend to be wanderers, she says, but they come home. Her basset is ten years old and pretty well over the wandering stage. Sybil has four dogs, but her basset is her favorite, apparently. She said to call her any time a problem comes up.”
    And a few minutes later she asked, “What would be a good name for her?”
    So we discussed names, everything from the facetious to the pontifical. Pain-in-the-Neck to Queen Elizabeth. Ariadne to Chloe. Birthday Girl to Iris March. None of them seemed quite right. We took a recess from the naming and I built a fire in the Franklin stove. The dog stood and