Freckles

Freckles

There are two questions every parent has to face;  "Can I have a dog?" and, "When can I drive?"

Lee and I wanted a dog.  Mom kept saying no.

"But Mom, a dog would nice, and we'll take care of it."

"No, I'll end up feeding it and taking out for a walk every night.  Besides, we don't have room for a dog."

"Yes we do, it can sleep in our room.  Please?"

"Absolutely not.  You never even fed the goldfish I got for you."

"But Mom, a dog is different.  We promise to take care of it, you won't have to do a thing."

After weeks of nagging, she finally gave in.  "But a small dog," she said, "I don't want a big dog in this house."

Dad was going to take us to the pound on Saturday.  We could hardly wait.  We told all our friends we were getting a dog.  None of the 'gang' had a dog.  In fact, Lee and I would be the only kids in the neighborhood with a dog.

Saturday morning, right after breakfast, we climbed into Dad's old Reo and drove down Van Ness to the other side of Market where city animal shelter was.

I fell in love with an old  yellow junk-yard dog that had freckles on his nose.  I named him on the spot.  Freckles.

Dad said, "Mom wanted you to get a small dog."  

"This is a small dog, Dad."

"I don't know."

"Yeah, he is," I replied.  After all, a Saint Bernard is a large dog.  Anything smaller than that is a small dog.  Freckles was about the size a small Lab.
Dad relented.  In some ways he was easier than Mom.  He signed the papers, bought the license, paid the fees, and we took Freckles home.

Mom almost had another fainting spell.  "I said a small dog, look at the size of that thing!"

"It is a small dog," I said.  "There were a lot of bigger dogs there."

"Well, just keep him out of the kitchen and out of my way."

We tied a rope to Freckles' collar and Dad took us to Woolworth's on Polk Street.   We tied him up to a lamp post and went inside to buy a leash and a dog dish.  When we came out, Freckles started barking and straining at the rope.  He already knew us and loved us.

I snapped the leash to his collar and untied the rope.  Lee carried the dog dish.  We went by the grocery and asked Mr. Bassinio for some dog food.  "Dog food?" he asked.  Then he saw Freckles and chuckled.  He handed Dad a couple of cans of dog food he carried for the old ladies in the neighborhood who had small dogs.  "You're going to need more than cans for that dog," he said, and then he told Dad where to buy bags of kibble.
Lee and I took Freckles for a long walk around the neighborhood.  Then we took him to Rich's house.

We walked up the marble steps and rang his door bell.  Rich's mom answered the door.  She took one look at the dog and said, "Don't bring that thing in my house."

"We won't."

"Richard," she yelled, "your friends are here."

Richard came out, impressed that Lee and I had a dog.  We picked up Bob and Ron on our way to the park.  Freckles was in heaven.  He probably got more attention that day than he'd ever had in his entire life, however long that might have been.

Lee and I fed him on the back porch that evening and took him for a walk.  Mom made a pallet of blankets on the porch for him to sleep on.  She wasn't about to let him sleep in our bedroom with us.

The next morning we let him out into the back yard to run around.  Mama, the little old Italian lady who lived upstairs, and who owned the house we lived in, was peering through the curtains in her back window.  She wasn't smiling at us like she usually did.

An hour later there was knock on the front door.  Mom opened it.  It was Mama.  She wasn't happy about the huge dog in her back yard.  Mom assured her that the boys ( Lee and I) would clean up any mess he made back there.  The dog would sleep on our porch, and we would keep him quiet and out of her sight as much as possible.  She wasn't happy, but she didn't say anything as she went back to her own front door.

About three weeks had passed.  We just finished desert, and Lee and I were about to start clearing the table.  Mom said, "Sig, that dog has to go.  I can't do this.  I can't keep doing the washing and the ironing and shop for food and cook and take care of that dog too."

"I thought you boys were going to take care of the dog," he said, looking at us.

"We do," I replied, "most of the time."

Mom told him that we were pretty good about taking care of Freckles most of the time, but when we were in school all day, or at our Boy Scout meetings, or at our friends home's, she was the one stuck with dog.  Besides, it was too big for the house and Mama didn't want it in her back yard.

Dad went to the phone and dialed a number.  Lee and I were crushed.  What was going to happen to Freckles?  We didn't want to lose him.  I felt the lump start to grow in my throat.

Dad hung up the phone and said, "Your Aunty Mit and Uncle Bob will take him."  They had six acres of land in the country and no dog.  "You can still play with him whenever you go to Salinas."

Saturday morning we all got into the Reo.  Mom and Dad in the front; Lee, Freckles, and I in the back.  This would be the last trip we took to Salinas in the Reo, It was not worth repairing so Dad sold it to a junk yard a few months later, and we would not get another car.  From now on Lee and I would be going down there on the bus or the train.

Freckles was excited when we got out of the car.  Uncle Bob scratched his chin and looked at him.  Aunty Mit came out of the house and looked him and smiled.  Freckles was going to have a nice home.

Lee and I took Freckles to all of our secret hide-outs and generally showed him around the ranch.  He drank water out of the water pit by the well and started sniffing out gopher holes in the front yard.  Yes, Freckles was going to like it here.

Freckles was the perfect playmate for Lee and I when we went to Salinas.  He became our hunting companion when I got my first gun and we started hunting alone.  After all, as Uncle Bob always told us, he was still our dog.  I think Freckles knew that too.

Noel