torrents of praise upon a certain American Walker
hound that he owned. He summed up his oration
with two or three examples of coon hunting prowess
that his hound possessed.
“Let me tell you something,” Jerry said to his
friend in the brown jacket. “My dogs are so smart
that they probably could even tell you what a coon
track looked like!” This statement was taken with
a general laugh. His friends knew that Mr. Shields
would boast anything about his beloved pack. Their
plates of greasy and slightly overcooked food arrived.
Again the party of hunters returned to the subject of
their hounds. A bearded man stated that he would
rather live with his dogs than anyone else because
he claimed that they could understand his ways.
The other hunter nodded and asserted that his pack
were all he needed to be happy in life. Jerry listened
intently to the conversation as he dug through a
bowl of somewhat elastic grits.
“Country music and my dogs are all I crave,” the
bearded man stated. Not to be outdone, Jerry added
his opinion that the best music he knew of was the
sound of his dogs on a coon’s trail. The two other
hunters agreed heartily and resumed eating.
After a period of silence the bearded man, while
wiping his mouth with his shirt sleeve, said, “Say
boys, I have a brother who lived in Charleston. He
was a bird hunter and he had a pair of dogs that
I’d give anything for. Anyway, when he moved up
here, he left his wife down in Charleston, where he
came from.”
Several curious grunts constituted the others’
replies. The speaker continued, “He did, however,
bring his two bird dogs with him and he still has
them. But the thing is that he left his wife. She
wasn’t his first one either, I think that she was his
third or so.”
Jerry nodded, deep in the story. The bearded man
rambled on, smiling, “There seems to be a decisive
question here. . .”
“That is?” the others questioned impatiently.
The bearded man continued, “If he left his wife but
brought his dogs, then just what is man’s best friend.
Is it his wife or his dog?”
The hunters laughed aloud at this question.
“I’ll say dog!” the man in the brown jacket answered.
“Because I don’t have a wife.”
Jerry thought about the problem for only a split
second. “I’ll be tempted to say dog, too,” he stated.
“My Susan just doesn’t put up with me like she
ought to.” The other hunters fixed their gaze upon
the speaker with sympathy. He continued, “Oh, sure.
I’m the one that brings home the bacon. I also fix the
stuff that’s broken when it really needs it. You have
to remember that repairing broken plumbing isn’t
one of those things folks do as a hobby. But even
with all that, she just isn’t satisfied.”
He was not done with his list of grievances. “But
what’s a dead coon on the porch or a pair of boots on
the carpet?” Jerry asked with an air of aggravation.
“I wish that she’d just let me be myself. I can be out
half the night hunting any time I want. The way she
talks, I think she’d like to see me hovering around
the house like a buzzard. She says that I need to not
fret over my dogs as much and pay more attention to
her.”
“It goes back to the question,” the bearded man
stated with finality.
It was true. Jerry Shields gave the utmost care to his
pack of hounds and everything else was trivial. To
him, his wife was the one that cooked food, cleaned
their small house, and mostly asked him to do things
that he didn’t want to do. Susan was seemingly of
second importance when she came between him and
his dogs. He often complained that she really did
Of Dogs & Wives | Luke Foyle | Grade 9
29
BAYLEY BULLETIN, MAR-MAY 2016
