Jane Smiley - Some Luck

Joe squatted a little ways from the nest the dog had made, with his hands on his knees, and stared. One puppy was almost all white, two were brown and white like the mother, and two were all brown with white toes. Their ears were back and their noses were always pointed in the air, and their tails were very short, like little worms. They whimpered. Papa thought that the dog had gone down the road to find another place to live.

Then one night, Joe happened to kick Frankie in his sleep. Frankie woke Joe up and said, “I know about those puppies. And if I tell, they’ll be drowned in the pond, you’ll see.” But Mama found them on her own — she’d walked around the barn with some shears and a basket, to cut lilacs off the bushes that ran along the fence line. Joe saw her from a distance — he was loitering with his boiled potato in his pocket, waiting for a moment to go see the puppies. But he saw Mama stand up straight and turn her head. She looked up and down and then walked toward the back of the barn. Joe crept along behind her. She set down her basket and went over to the siding where it was broken, and she bent down.

Joe trotted up behind her, and when he saw that she had found the puppies and Pal, he said, “What’s that?”

Mama put her hand on his chest and pushed him backward. She said, “That awful cur had puppies. I thought she’d gone off. Well, your papa is going to have to do something about this!”

“Why?”

“Because there’s just no telling what those things are crawling with — worms, for sure. I knew letting that dog stay around would lead to no good.”

“Papa said she was a pretty good dog—”

“And the next thing you know, she’ll find her way into the house. This is something I’m going to nip in the bud.” She spun around. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I saw you—”

“Joey, you are the sneakiest boy I ever saw. Half the time, Frankie gets up to no good, but at least he’s noisy and doesn’t creep around, scaring your wits out of you.”

Joey apologized.

Mama said, “Here, you can carry the basket. I need to get back before Lillian wakes up from her nap.” They went over to the row of lilac bushes, and Joey walked along, holding the basket in both hands, as Mama snipped off the purple flowers with a few of the smooth dark-green leaves and dropped them in. The fragrance floated in the air all around him. As they were working, two cars passed on the road, and their drivers waved — Mrs. Frederick in a Franklin and Mrs. Carson in a Ford. Joey liked cars. Beyond the road, the field of oats was greened over with thick shoots. When she was finished, Mama put the shears in the pocket of her apron and took the basket from him. He said, “I could sell them. The puppies.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sakes. Not in a blue moon.”

“They are good puppies.”

They walked silently for eight or ten steps; then she stopped, turned toward him, and bent down. She said, “How long have you known about the puppies?”

“A long time.”

“Did you tell Papa?”

Joe shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Papa will drown them and shoot the dog.”

“As well he should. Did you ever touch the dog or the puppies?”

Joe shook his head.

“Should I believe you?”

Joe shrugged.

“Well, that’s honest, at least.”

Joe turned away and walked toward the barn. He had to, because he was starting to cry, and Mama hated that. He heard her shout, “Don’t you touch those dirty things!”

He knew he should have confessed about burying the dead puppies, but he didn’t dare. And anyway, he had touched them only with the handkerchiefs and washed his hands many times since that day, which was a week ago.

Back at the barn, Pal was lying in the nest she’d made, and the puppies were lined up along her belly, suckling, brown, white, brown and white, brown and white, brown. He did something he knew he should not have: he said names, though only in a whisper, “Brownie, Milk, Sugar, Spot, Bill.” Frankie would think they were stupid names, but Joe liked them. He squatted there and watched the puppies for the rest of the afternoon, and Mama could have dragged him away by the ear if she wanted, but she never did. The funny thing was that, when Ragnar and Papa came home to do the evening work, they left him alone, too. At suppertime, he went in the house. Nothing was said about the puppies, though Irma kept tsking over her fried chicken and wouldn’t look at him. Night came, and some Bible reading, and then bed. He knew that when he got up in the morning and went outside the puppies would be gone, and Pal, too. And they were. A little while later, Mama said that Granny Elizabeth had some kittens, and would he like one? There was a pretty calico with a mark like an exclamation point on her back. Joe said no.

A little while after that, Papa sat down with him on the top step of the back porch. He cleared his throat about six times and then said, “Joey, I knew those puppies were there. I didn’t know you knew.”

“I knew.” Then, “They were good puppies.”

“Maybe. Hard to tell. The female might have been useful if she hadn’t had those pups.”

“Mama hated her.”

“Mama didn’t hate her. But Mama knows that a stray dog can have something, something bad. Distemper or milk fever, or even rabies or something like that. Even if you or Frankie or Lillian didn’t get something bad from the dog, the cows could, or the sheep or the hogs. I don’t know, Joey. I don’t know.”

“Did you shoot her?”

Papa didn’t answer.

Joe got up and went into the house.

AFTER HARVEST, Walter and Ragnar, with help from Rolf, Kurt, and John, put an addition on the west side of the house, a room for Frankie and Joey, so that Lillian could have their room. Walter couldn’t afford a two-story addition — if the boys wanted Rosanna or Walter, they had to go through the front room and call up the stairs — but Frank was eight by the time it was finished and they moved in, and hadn’t John and Gus been sleeping downstairs, on the back sleeping porch, off the kitchen of Rosanna’s parents’ house, since Gus was five and John was seven?

Walter put two windows in the south side of the addition, and a window on the west side, but no window into the north side. He also studded out a future opening so that one day he could install a door, but just the thought of Frankie with a door to call his own made him nervous. He had not spared the rod, and he had not, therefore, spoiled the child, but Frankie was the most determined child he had ever seen, far surpassing himself, Howard, Rolf, and everyone else on Rosanna’s side of the family. It was as if, when he saw certain things, his brain simply latched on to them and would not let them go. It wasn’t even contrariness. Half the time, Walter could say, “Frankie, don’t do that,” and Frankie wouldn’t do whatever it was, because he didn’t care about it. The other half of the time, it didn’t matter what Walter said, or even what Frankie said.

There was a bucket of three-and-a-half-inch nails. Walter said, “Frankie, leave the nails alone.”

“Okay, Papa.”

“I mean it.”

“Yes, Papa.”

An hour later, the bucket of nails was turned over, and Frankie was sifting through them.

“Frankie, I told you not to touch the nails.”

“I wanted to find something.”

“What?”

“A longer nail.”

“I told you not to touch the nails.”

“But I wanted to find it.”

“I forbade you.”

“But I wanted to find it.”

“Did you find it?”