"Ouch!" The yelp broke the warm silence of
the early morning stillness.
"I feel so harassed," Ralph was yelping. Two dragonflies rose up from
the tall grass near the road and darted away. A fat little rabbit turned
and looked, and then went back to nibbling the dark green leaves of wild
strawberries that grew in clumps near the barbed-wire fence.
"I feel so harassed!" Ralph was saying -- again -- for at least the
fifteenth time that morning. And just as he had been saying over and
over, most every day, all day long, for most of his young life.
Ralph was a dog. He was a mutt, a full-blooded mongrel of the Heinz 57
variety. He was sort of a beagle-lab-shepherd-collie-and-something-else
mixed. He wasn't much bigger than a Beagle, but his legs were a little
long for that breed. He didn't really look that much like a Lab, but he
had the squarish nose of one. He had the pointed ears and the blackened
nose of a German shepherd. Otherwise, he was a medium to light brown all
over.
And his disposition? Ralph's attitude was almost always to be found on
the sour side of things.
Every time a flea bit into his hide, he would yelp and let out another
complaint about how unfair life was, about how he was being tormented,
picked on, harassed, and bedeviled. He would moan, whimper, cry, and
bark with rage. He would snap, growl. And sometimes he would even foam
at the mouth.
Of course, all the complaining did no good. And the other dogs tried to
tell him as much.
Charlie, the old dog from down the road, occasionally suggested to Ralph
that he roll around on his back in the dirt to smother some of the
fleas. Roberta, an older girl dog who had been lots of places, would
sometimes tell him to go jump in the pond. She said that it worked for
her. But Ralph never listened to anyone's suggestions or prescriptions.
He was too absorbed in his own misery.
Ralph was angry. "It's the Creator's fault," he often complained, "What
kind of Creator would let me suffer like this all the time?"
When anyone wanted to get Ralph really
stirred up, they could simply answer back with, "Well, the fleas have to
eat, too."
But the fleas were only one part of Ralph's unhappiness. Much of his
unhappiness came from the fact that he had no dog family and no people
family at all. He had been abandoned as a pup. And he was fortunate to
have lived at all. Most dogs like him didn't make it very long out in
the open country.
"Why me?" He was whining now. "Why is it always me?"
There was no one around to answer the question. And that was ok, because
the question was not meant for anyone, anyway. Ralph was simply busy
expressing his misery again. Most of his complaining was meant to
express his unhappiness with the Creator, with his lousy lot in life,
with fleas specifically, and with the unfairness of everything in
general. The other dogs had become deaf to the grumbling always spilling
out of Ralph.
The tormenting fleas were really after him this morning. In his growing
distress, Ralph finally jumped up and ran across the old dirt road, and
right out into the empty hay field beyond. He ran across the recently
cut field, scaring up prey here and there. Mostly rabbits and a few
doves. At one point he ran right over a rat snake, stepping on its head.
The snake hissed it's displeasure, but Ralph was already gone, running
away from his troubles.
He ran past the edge of the hay field and on into the meadow beyond,
past the little pond, through the large patches of wild flowers, on up
the slope and into the woods. But all his running did no good. The fleas
were still biting him repeatedly. All the way through the small stand of
woods, Ralph ran on, and out the other side into the morning sun again.
On and on, Ralph ran. And wherever he went, the fleas were still
feasting. It was worse this time. Really bad. And so Ralph ran.
Somewhere in his young dog mind, the resolve was settling in that he
should just keep running, on and on, until the fleas stopped biting. Of
course, the fleas would never stop biting as long as they were there.
But the idea felt good anyway. And so Ralph kept running and yelping.
He ran up and over several more hills, and down several dusty roads, and
through half a dozen stands of trees. He crossed two different creeks,
and almost fell over an unexpected rocky ledge. Sometime later, Ralph
was running across the eighth or ninth open field, when he began to
realize that he didn't know where he was. Ralph stopped right there.
A loud, red tractor was moving along one edge of the field, on his
right, doing whatever it is that tractors do besides generate clouds of
dirt. And there was a clump of trees over there, to his left. A sharp
hill was just ahead, beyond the wobbly fence that bordered the field.
Nope, never seen any of this before, Ralph thought.
He trotted on ahead to the edge of the field and then beyond. He went up
the hill and stood there, looking around. He turned to look back the way
he had come. But nothing looked right. Nothing looked familiar. He
inspected the landscape in every direction, as far as he could see. He
sniffed the breeze. But the rolling land and trees and houses and low
hills all looked strange. Nothing smelled familiar at all.
The fleas were still biting at his flesh. Ralph ran down the hill to the
edge of a field. There he rolled on his back, over and over, until the
stinging finally stopped. Next, he went to a small muddy pond nearby and
jumped into the cold water. He paddled back and forth until his skin
felt better.
Then he wandered off into a stand of trees. And laying down by the
biggest oak he'd ever seen, Ralph fell asleep. He slept right through
most of the daylight hours. The sun was low in the west when he finally
woke up.
While he still had some light, Ralph ran back up the hill to see if
anything would help him figure out the way back. By now the red tractor
had worked its way across all the small fields below, so even they
looked very different. More importantly, they smelled different.
"Why me?" Ralph wondered aloud. "Why am I always the one who has all the
bad luck?"
"What are you talking about?" asked a voice behind him.
Startled, Ralph snapped around to see who was there. It was a fox. A
vixen. And she had laughter in her eyes. Was she mocking his distress?
"Well," said Ralph, "I was talking about my life. I mean, I always have
all the bad luck. My life is poop, if you'll pardon the expression."
"Oh, by all means, please feel free to express yourself fully." She
said. "By the way, "I'm Anna. I haven't seen you before. Who are you?"
She had been walking in a small circle while they talked. And she
continued to remain alert, always sniffing the breeze coming up off the
fields.
"Name's Ralph," said Ralph. "I'm from back there, somewhere" he said,
raising his head once to indicate the general direction behind him.
"So what kind of bad luck have you had in life, Ralph?" Anna asked, as
though she had no sense at all.
But the laughter in her tone and in her eyes kept Ralph from telling the
whole, miserable story. He simply said, instead, "Plenty. And being lost
just adds to the pile."
"I see," Anna said. "Well, if you're hungry, Ralph, you're welcomed to
join me for dinner. But I don't want to interrupt your misery. The mice
are out, and the table is ready." And with that, the fox trotted down
the hill toward the lush grasses that grew just outside the freshly
worked fields.
Ralph was offended (of course) that a perfect stranger would take the
misfortune in his life so lightly. But his stomach reminded him that
he'd had eaten nothing all day. So, even though mice had never been a
regular part of his diet, he trotted down the slope after Anna.
Ralph was not skilled in catching mice. But Anna was very good at it. In
fact, the fox seemed to enjoy the game every bit as much as she enjoyed
eating the rewards. And when she saw how Ralph fumbled and stumbled and
fell (actually flipping over in a summersault) without catching
anything, she was inspired to do even better, catching enough for the
both of them.
To add to the fun, she decided to show the dog how to catch a mouse. But
he had no knack. Yet, with Anna's help, Ralph did manage to catch one
rodent that night. Well, actually it was a dead one that had been run
over by the old red tractor earlier that day, on its way between fields.
Ralph simply sniffed it out.
But when he held it up, Anna congratulated him all the same. And then
she laughed right out loud. And while Ralph tried to be offended at the
laughter, he couldn't help himself. He laughed, too, momentarily
dropping his one and only catch of the day.
The next day, Anna took Ralph with her on her morning runs.
She showed him the whole area and introduced him to several other foxes
whose territories bordered hers. And she took him to see the old hunting
dog (now retired) that lived with the old man in the little house in the
woods. In the days and weeks that followed, she showed him how to fish
the creek, how to scare up birds for lunch, and how to steal honey from
the hollow oak at the south edge of the thicket. She also showed him
where fresh raspberries grew, where the pear trees were, and the proper
way to eat live grasshoppers.
Whenever Ralph started griping about his fleas, the hot sun, the pouring
rain, or whatever, Anna would just laugh and trot off. She'd say
something like, "Can't wait around, Ralph. Life is calling to us," and
she'd just leave. Ralph soon learned that it was a lot more fun to
follow Anna and learn something new than it was to stay behind and
complain.
About a month later, Anna introduced Ralph to Lilly. Lilly was Brian's
black and white collie. Brian was a boy, about 11 years old, the
youngest of the family that had recently built a new house down by the
river. Lilly was named for the white patch of fur on her face that
resembled an Easter lily in bloom. And she was the all-time prettiest
thing Ralph had ever seen.
Anna introduced them because the time was close for her to be finding a
mate. She wasn't sure how dogs went about making a home and raising
families, but she knew that she needed to be about the business of
making a place for little foxes in her life.
Ralph and Lilly hit it off well. And the family who owned Lilly didn't
seem to mind when Ralph was around a lot. Brian took a real liking to
the new dog, calling him Shiner, for the dark marking around his left
eye. And Ralph kinda liked the name, "Shiner". He responded to it
whenever Brian called him.
Meeting Anna, and then being introduced to Lilly and her owner Brian and
his family, changed Ralph a quite a bit. He complained less and less
about the little things that needled him, and that used to get him down.
Summer turned to fall, and Ralph sat one morning gazing at the frost
covered meadows that sloped down to the river. Bright morning sunlight
sparkled like tiny diamonds wherever it touched the frost. Overhead the
sky was a perfect blue, with only a few streaks, here and there, of
wispy white clouds. Beautiful in every way, thought Ralph.
"The Lord Creator makes everything beautiful, doesn't He?" said Lilly,
as she came up beside Ralph. She too was taken by the incredibly
glorious morning.
"He sure does," Ralph answered.
The two dogs sat, side by side, just taking in the sunshine, the carpet
of icy crystals, the trees of gold and scarlet reds and shades of
orange. Soon the snow would come and the ponds would freeze over, and
even the river would be mostly covered with thick ice. But that was
another beauty, another adventure. Sufficient for today was the beauty
Ralph and Lilly shared right now.
Anna found her mate and they spent some time hunting and playing
together. They set up a den low in the hills on the southern edge of her
area. And before long she had 6 little pups to care for. Her mate
brought in the groceries for the first week or so, and then she was also
able to get out again to hunt.
Snow did come that winter. Lots of it. And the river got a good covering
of ice in lots of places. Even in the sunny parts, thick ice covered
most of the water.
The beaver grew lazy in the winter months, under their big lodges of
tangled sticks, twigs, mud, and stones. The minks that lived down by the
river found ways to get into the water to fish. They played and hunted
all around the woods and river area.
Ralph was able to stay with Brian's family, helping Lilly to keep an eye
on things around the house and property. He and Lilly spent lots of days
running and playing in snowy meadows, or through the woods and down by
the river. At night, they always kept a keen eye and ear open for
trouble.
There wasn't much trouble. Most night visitors were deer wandering
through, on their way to and from the river, or a mink chasing a mouse,
or maybe a rabbit hopping up near the house on it's search for grass and
pine cones. The smell of the dogs usually was enough to warn strangers
away. And a little barking took care of any others. Of course, the local
rabbits and deer and other neighbors paid the two dogs little or no mind
at all.
As winter turned to spring again, and then to summer, Ralph began to
realize that he had become a part of the family. He seldom thought
anymore of trotting off and having far off adventures. He and Lilly were
even talking of having some pups of their own. It was almost fall again
before he realized that just how happy he was.
In fact it was a visit from Anna that reminded Ralph of how unhappy he
had been in the old days. She was talking and laughing with Lilly,
saying, "Oh, you should have seen him. He was the most miserable dog I'd
ever seen." And she winked at Ralph. Then she went on to tell of how
he'd been standing on that hill, lost and confused, talking to himself.
"Actually, I ..." Ralph started to butt in. But it was true. At the
lowest point in his life, Anna had come along. And Ralph soon learned
that having a friend in scary times made all the difference in the
world. He also realized, as Lilly and Anna continued to talk and laugh,
that life was completely different now.
It was funny, Ralph thought, how the very worst things in life can
actually become a springboard to the best times we will ever have. In
the old days, he had been so focused on his unhappy feelings that he
hadn't been able to see the path he was on -- a path that led to Lilly,
and to this place, and to real and lasting happiness.
Without moving or saying anything out loud, Ralph said a prayer of
thanksgiving in his heart to the Creator. "Thank You, O Lord, for giving
me a life so good as this. And please forgive me for all my complaining
while I was still on my way to this good place."
Then he jumped straight up in the air (a trick he'd learned from Anna)
and yelped with perfect joy. Coming down, he nipped Lilly on the ear and
then ran for the woods. And the three of them ran in circles through the
trees, chasing each other and yelping, scaring up rabbits and squirrels,
and acting as foolish as young pups for much of the afternoon.
(Oh, and of course they all lived happily ever after.)
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