By Tami Olson and Chris Bilger
It was a cozy Christmas eve in an old cottage. The wooden logs held a brown glow around a warm fire in one corner. Sitting in a chair before the fire an old tired hound dog is telling his grand-puppies a story of his puppy-hood.
“It was the Christmas eve of twenty-eight, no, make that twenty-nine that it all happened. Times were hard then, the depression ya’ know. I was just a pup like you young rascals. My uncle Rufus bursted into the kennel. Seems the family that was carin’ for us lost a boy. The boy run and hid lots-o-times before so it didn’t fret us none. But when night fell he was still gone. We began to worry. There was a strong wind a blowin’ but the boy never answered when we called. It began to snow lightly, but before long it was coming down so thick that we couldn’t hardly see past our snouts. Rufus set out with the master to find him. I was told to stay but I sniffed that boy’s leg too much to let him freeze. Once they was out of sight, I set off to find him. The wind and snow was whipping around so hard that I soon found myself lost and cold. But still I ran as hard and fast as I could until I finally found him. He was curled up on the snowy ground under a big oak tree. I barked and howled all I could to get help to us fast, but the wind was too strong and too loud so no one could hear me. I ran to him and started to lick his face and I nudged his hand to try and get him to come home with me. Finally he woke up, and we started back towards home. Finally Rufus and our master found us and he carried the boy home. He never wandered quite so far from home again.”