|
My friend, Sweetpea and I had gone to the T&P lake to camp
out for the
night. Sweetpea's dog, Hambone had gone with us. Hambone is
just an over
grown puppy with big feet and a wild tail that never stops
wagging.
When you patted him on the head his tail would wag so hard
that his whole
butt wagged. His tongue would hang out the side of his mouth
and he would
slobber all over you. But you couldn't help but like him.
It was late evening and we had our camp set up on a small
hill over
looking the lake. We had built a fire pit out of rocks and
had a fire
burning in it. I was cooking our supper of fried potatoes
with onions in
them and when they were done, I would break some eggs on
them and stir
them until the eggs were cooked.
Sweetpea was lying on his bed roll looking up into the tops
of the pine
trees we were camped under. There had been some flying
squirrels playing
up there and he was watching them.
Hambone had been down by the lake sniffing around to see
what he could
find. Just like any puppy he was curious about everything.
That is
everything but possums, but that is a whole nother story for
a different
time.
I had just broken the eggs over the potatoes and onions when
Hambone came
trotting into camp. Neither Sweetpea or I were paying him
any attention.
But he had a gift for Sweetpea that got our attention real
fast.
Sweetpea was lying there on his bedroll on his back with his
hands behind
his head and Hambone trotted up to him and laid his gift on
his chest.
The gift was a snake and when Sweetpea saw the snake he let
out a yell
and jumped up.
When he jumped up he bumped into me and I spilled our supper
on the fire.
This scared Hambone and he ran off, howling. I don't know
where the snake
went, but Hambone must have gone home because we didn't see
him again
until the next day when we went home.
After searching the camp site and shaking out our bedrolls
we were
satisfied the snake was gone. By this time it was dark and
we built up
the fire and sat there looking into the flames. We didn't
have any more
food with us so we were going to have to do without supper.
I asked Sweetpea what he was going to do to Hambone for
putting that
snake on him? After some thought, he said he didn't guess he
would do
anything. Hambone was just giving him a gift and just
because it was a
snake he didn't know that Sweetpea wouldn't want it.
When the fire burned down to coals we wrapped up in our
bedrolls and went
to sleep. But both of us slept with one eye open that night.
*****
?© copyright 2003 By Loren Moore
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blessings to you today
Bob Johnston
|
