Mean Old Willie

A Jon-Jon Story

I am not the bumbler in the family. Even though Mother said I was–I wasn’t. We all knew the bumbler in our family. On our farm, deep in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains, Daddy bumbled everything. One of his biggest bumbles occurred when he brought home an older Labrador Retriever named Willie.

Willie grew up in Pittsburgh with one of the partners in Daddy’s firm. One day, Willie’s owner died of old age and, as Daddy told us several nights later, poor Willie no longer had a home or a family who loved him.

Another partner asked Daddy if we would care for old Willie. After all, Daddy said, the partner knew we lived on a farm, we had a large family to play with Willie, and, most importantly, we owned a black Labrador for Willie to be with for the rest of his life.

“The more the merrier,” Daddy said and winked at us.

Mother, though, not so sure. She would be the one to handle the two Labs every day. Our dog, George, she said, could be more than enough all by himself.

At the dinner table, we kids begged Mother to let us take Willie–we said we always wanted another dog and he would become George’s older brother.

“I’ll think about it,” Mother said.

That night we kids gathered in my oldest sister’s bedroom—Holly, my older brother, Charlie, my sister Allison, who is closest to me in age, and I went over all the reasons Willie would be so great.

Our dog George had been a part of our family since he was a puppy, and when we moved to the farm, he loved being loose in the fields–though, we all knew, Mother wasn't sure if the fields he ran around in were fields we actually owned. Willie could help George stay closer to home, near the house and barn.

On the other hand, Mother hated George in the house. He never came inside unless Mother went to Somerset to take an art class or play bridge. If Holly babysat us, she would sneak George into her bedroom almost as soon as Mother drove up the lane to the highway. George was a key member of our club and Holly’s favorite. Hours later, when Mother returned, headlights flashing down the lane, George would be pushed out the door before Mother parked the station wagon.

Allison said, “Willie could be part of our club too.”

'And," Holly said, “George and Willie could sleep together at night.”

George slept outside against the back door, even though his doghouse was on the driveway side of our house. We knew the weather would have to be horrible before Mother would let him in the mudroom near the kitchen. Chickens would freeze and Mother would say, “Oh, George, can handle it.” A lake would form over our pond due to the pounding rain and Mother would say, “Oh, it’s not so bad out there. George will go to his doghouse, don’t worry.” If the heavens lit up with flashes of lightning and thunder battered the night sky, we could spot George racing across the fields. Mother would say, “See, George is searching for his house now.”

I said to Holly, “ Willie could help George find his doghouse too.”

Charlie said, “George doesn't want his doghouse, he wants to be with us.”

Even when we drove off to Somerset to go to the country club or the library or to attend Sunday school, George would often follow us. Mother or Daddy would have to stop the car and yell at him to go home, to go back to the house and sometimes, even, he would listen. Other times, he would just sit there and pant with his tongue hanging out. Charlie or Holly would have to take him back to the house.

“With Willie,” Charlie said, “George won’t be so lonely. He’ll have another dog to play with until we come home.”

This all made sense to me. While I was getting ready for bed that night, I thought of other reasons we should keep Willie too. Just like George, Willie could run alongside us when we rode our bikes, or, like George, Willie could race after Charlie’s home runs, showing me exactly where in the corn field the ball had landed. George hated giving up the ball, and, when he did, it would be soaked with his saliva. Willie could teach George how to “point” at the ball because, as Daddy said, Willie was a trained retriever. In return, George could teach Willie how to dig for ground hogs or chase after raccoons. With George and Willie together, maybe even, they could catch a badger or, better yet, a bear.

When Mother came back to my room to kiss me goodnight, I told her all of my reasons and pleaded with her to let Willie live with us. I know Allison did too.

“Maybe on a trial basis,” she said, “if only to protect you when you catch your bear.”

“You’ll see,” I said, “Willie will be a great dog.”

When Daddy brought Willie home from Pittsburgh Friday night, we were thrilled, and George couldn’t have been happier. He jumped around on the back patio and wanted to wrestle with Willie right away. I knew George and Willie would be the best of friends forever and ever. Mother just stared at him. He stood a big, black dog—heavyset, like a large black barrel.

"He looks none-too-friendly," she said to Daddy.

"What could I do," Daddy said, "They were going to put him to sleep." Instead, Daddy put Willie in our mudroom for the night.

After dinner, we all wanted to play with Willie, but Daddy said we should wait. “Willie’s tired from the drive to the farm and not used to kids and other dogs.”

Saturday morning Daddy brought Willie out of the mudroom and fed him in the kitchen. Later he put a leash on him so Allison and I could show Willie his new dog house and the patios outside the house.

With George taking the lead, we walked Willie down the lane to the barn, over to the pond, and into the woods behind our house, but Willie didn’t show interest in George or anything. Instead Willie led us back to the house and the back door. We decided Willie must want to take a nap or eat lunch in the kitchen, but Mother said no, Willie would need to get used to being outside.

“Labrador Retrievers have no business being inside the house,” Mother said, “Labs are not indoor dogs.”

Allison and I were not so sure Willie understood this. He sat under the picnic table on the back patio and just stared at the house.

When Daddy came up from the barn that afternoon, Willie perked up and went to greet him. Later Daddy took him on a long walk. Daddy said they went back to the barn where he introduced Willie to our hired hand and the cows. Willie seemed happy to be with Daddy and George loved the walk, though he kept his distance as Willie didn’t like him rubbing against him. George ran ahead and ran back, barking and exploring, but Willie stayed by Daddy’s side.

That night Willie howled in the night light under the security pole on the driveway.

Mother said, “That’s just Willie saying good night to you and Allison and all of his new friends in the barn.”

In the days that followed we discovered Willie hated chasing baseballs, running after us on our bikes, digging up ground hogs, or hunting wild beasts with me in our woods. He simply waited under the picnic table for Daddy to come home from work. 

When it rained, Willie would bark at the back door and scratch at the screening until Mother said she was sure he would tear the door to pieces. In the daytime, Mother would have Charlie throw milk bones into Willie’s doghouse so he would learn to go inside his home, but at night, with the rain, Daddy would give in and let Willie and George sleep in the mudroom.

"Don't use our good towels to dry them." Mother would yell to us kids as we went to make a bed for the dogs, but soon the whole house smelled of wet dogs. Mother would be furious and say the dogs should stink up their own houses outside.          

Willie liked being with Daddy. Often on the weekends Willie would drive with Daddy to Somerset to pick up a big sack of dog food or get supplies for the farm. If Daddy stayed home, Allison and I would find Willie sleeping on the front patio next to Daddy on the lounge chair. Willie would raise his head, look at us, and then go back to sleep.

I said to Mother, “Willie only wants to be with Daddy. George is always with Charlie and Holly, but Willie won’t play with Allison and me.”

Mother said we should give Willie time. Later, when we called Willie or pulled him on his leash, he snapped at us and wanted to be left alone. 

At the dinner table we complained to Daddy, but he told us Willie was a different kind of dog. He said once Willie was with him driving back from Somerset when the car suddenly had a flat tire. He was changing the tire when out of the woods came a huge grizzly bear about sixteen feet tall. The grizzly was hungry and wanted Daddy for his dinner. Well, Daddy told us, Willie jumped on the grizzly and forced that old bear to run back into the woods.

"How did you get home?"  I asked.

"You never saw anyone change a tire quicker in your life."  Daddy said with a wink.

Mother rolled her eyes and told Daddy to stop telling us stories.

Daddy said, “Willie’s here to protect us. He can’t play with us as much as George because he has to keep an eye out for grizzlies.”

I loved this story and wanted Daddy to tell it to us again–how Willie fought off a bear. Unlike George who always wanted to play, Willie would be our guard dog.

Mother said, “Given his guard duties, we should let Willie alone.”

It wasn't long before we realized Willie only wanted to protect us from under the picnic table. Soon Allison and I had little to do with him. George didn’t like him either. After enough growls and a few bared teeth and snaps, George left Willie alone.

The only time we had fun with Willie was when he got inside the house.

Every time Allison and I went outside, Willie would run for the door across the patio and every so often, before the screen door completely closed, he would push his way inside. If he made it, he would make a beeline for the couch, and we would run after him, shouting, “Hide Willie, Hide!” But he wouldn’t. He only wanted to lie on the couch and mark it up with his muddy paws. Mother, though, would send him scurrying back outside, either with a broom or yanking on his collar, telling Willie to behave, threatening to spank Allison and me for letting him inside.  

Soon, as the weather improved, Willie began to lie in the garden next to the patio where he could keep his eye on both the lane and back door. Mother hated that he found a spot in her garden, but she gave him this space. Besides, the garden was all dug up by George with his bones or me with my trucks and plastic soldiers. If the bushes could survive being smashed by Charlie’s baseballs, his basketball, or his baseball bat when he pounded it on the ground for no reason, Willie lying in the cool dirt would not be a problem.

That was why it was so strange one Saturday afternoon early that summer when Willie did the worst thing ever.

Daddy had gone to take Charlie to baseball practice and Holly to her friend’s house. Daddy said Willie couldn't go with them because he found it too hard to watch Willie while Charlie played baseball. When they went to leave, Willie kept trying to get in the car, so Daddy had Allison and me hold both Willie and George by their collars as the car drove up the lane.  

Before long George went off to look for groundhogs, and Willie settled into his guard duties in the garden. Allison and I were playing with her Barbies on the back patio. We could hear Mother inside in the kitchen. Though we were hot, a nice breeze blew across the patio.

We had been talking about what Ken and Barbie would wear to the Ball, but I kept fidgeting, and Mother, from the kitchen window, told me to go to the bathroom. “Right now,“ she said. I hated taking the time to pee, but I jumped up and ran into the house.

Willie rose from his sleeping spot, thinking he would go inside too, but when he realized he was too late to get through the door, he stopped, sat, and looked across the patio. Maybe he saw a rabbit or a weasel or George digging a hole.

Slowly he crossed over to where Allison sat, dressing her Barbie, and, when she reached out to pet him, for no reason, he snarled and bit her. He bit her in the face.

Allison screamed. I was in the bathroom playing with the water at the sink when I heard Mother rush out the door. She yelled, “Bad dog! Bad dog!” I flushed the toilet and ran to the window and saw Willie scamper off toward the side of the house. Mother grabbed Allison and carried her crying hysterically to the house. I ran to the kitchen as Mother whisked Allison past me and took her into her bathroom. I ran after them. Allison’s face, shirt, and hands were all bloody.

Mother focused on Allison's face, trying to wash away the blood with a wash cloth. Soon she laid Allison on her bed, having her press a towel against her cheek. She told me to sit on her bed and watch Allison, as she went out to get Willie, but I wanted to go with her. If dogs could be spanked, I bet she was going to spank Willie.   

It wasn’t long before both dogs were tied up at their dog houses, and we were in the station wagon heading for the Somerset Hospital. I sat in the front passenger seat – which I never got to sit in with Holly, Charlie and Allison being older than me. Allison lay on the backseat with a big towel on the side of her face; she cried the entire time as we drove the nine miles to the Emergency Room. I kept asking her what she had done to Willie, but she wouldn’t answer me.

Mother told me to quit pestering Allison with questions.

I asked Mother if she spanked Willie.  

"No," she said, "but I should have."

Mother told the doctor on Willie. She saw the whole thing. Luckily, she said, Allison turned away just in time. Mother said Willie was a mean old dog.

I told the doctor he never wanted to play with us either.

The doctor reassured Mother and me, it would be all right. He gave Allison a tetanus shot, but he said her left cheek would require three stitches.

Later, after we came home, Daddy called our veterinarian. The vet, Daddy told Mother, said we had to watch Willie for the next two weeks to see if he had rabies.

Rabies! Does Willie have rabies? What are rabies? Will rabies make you sick? Is Allison going to die?

“Jon-Jon!” Mother said as she made dinner. “Stop asking so many questions. We’ll just watch and see. No, Allison’s not going to die.”

Allison had a big white patch on her face just below her eye. Charlie and I went back to her bedroom and asked if we could see her stitches. When she lifted the patch high enough for us to peek under, her cheek looked horrible: three black threads sticking out of her face, red ointment painted all over her cheek, and a ugly purple bruise.

“What did you do to Willie?” I asked.

“I didn’t do nothing to Willie.” Allison said. “Cross my heart.” She started crying.

I believed her.

Poor Allison. She had to stay in bed the rest of the evening and all that night too.

Looking out the hallway window at Willie in the garden, I wondered what she had done to make him bite her. Poor Willie. Everyone was mad at him. I heard Daddy say to Mother, “We can’t put him down until we know if he has rabies.”

I wondered what that meant: put him down, down where? Down in Pittsburgh? Would we give him back to Daddy’s boss?

I thought Daddy’s boss was dead.

That night at the dinner table, I asked how would we know if Willie had rabies?

Charlie told me to look for white foam coming out of Willie’s mouth.

“Don’t you go near Willie,” Mother said.

I wouldn’t go near Willie, I promised, but I would let Mother know if I saw white foam if he started puking. She could count on me.

But why didn’t Willie get a tetanus shot, like Allison, and be done with it?

Holly said tetanus shots had nothing to do with rabies. Tetanus shots were to kill the germs from Willie’s fangs.

Why don’t we brush Willie’s fangs with toothpaste or something? That had to be better than tetanus shots. I hated tetanus shots.

Charlie said rabies required twenty shots (or more!) for a month (or more!) in your gut and that was much worse (much, much worse, he told me) than tetanus shots.

In your gut! Rabies must be horrible!

Charlie said we should watch Allison too to see if she had white foam coming out of her mouth. We might have to lock her in her bedroom if she did. Feed her under the door. Push a hose through the slit for water.

“Allison will be alright,” Daddy said. “In the meanwhile, for the next two weeks, let’s just let old Willie alone.”

“Don’t do anything to provoke him,” Daddy said. “He’s lived a good life and needs some peace and quiet.”

Charlie said he better not try anything with him. He had his baseball bat and would smack him into a bloody pulp. I said I would carve him into a bloody pulp. I had made a Viking sword with some wood from the barn, and though I could never get it very sharp, I was sure I could stab him or, maybe, chop off his head if he came near me.

After dinner I showed everyone exactly how I would do it too.

Mother said, gathering the dishes, “That’s enough, Jonathan. Just let Willie alone.”

The next day, I put my Viking sword in my belt and stood ready for old Willie. Still, I didn’t make the sword for protection–I made it for combat, such as fighting Indians or Romans–and it hung heavy from my belt and constantly banged against my leg. After an hour or two, I grew tired of carrying it. Worse, by the end of the day, every time I went outside, I forgot to check on Willie to see if foam poured from his mouth and dripped all over the bushes. 

On top of it all, Charlie and I got into trouble watching Allison. She hated that we were studying her, waiting for white foam-like bubbles, like bubble gum bubbles, to bubble out between her lips. She told Mother on us.

Mother told us to stop it.

So, for the good of the family, we had to watch Allison slyly – as if we were not watching her at all – but that was hard to do, and with those ugly stitches covering half of her face, she wasn’t that much fun to stare at anyway.

I realized too that if Allison attacked me full of rabies, I didn’t think I would be able to slice her head off.

Charlie might have to help.

But she didn’t do anything different and following her around became boring.

Even her stitches were boring, like dried, tiny black worms stuck halfway out of her cheek. We almost forgot they were there.  

But everything changed a week later.

On Friday I sat on the driveway gravel and played with my trucks. Allison didn’t want to play with me and had gone inside to be with Mother.

George played with Charlie in the backyard. Willie, who had been sleeping in the garden, got up and went into the yard to see what George and Charlie were doing, and after observing George racing into the cornfield after Charlie’s home runs, decided to come back to the house.

I looked up to see Willie walking toward me. I didn’t give it much thought. I hadn’t been playing with him and hadn’t sat near his spot in the garden. No foam, white or otherwise, covered his mouth.

I went back to making a dirt road in the loose gravel.

My sword lay on the patio where I had dropped it a couple of days earlier.

Suddenly I could feel Willie’s presence, a big husky black Lab staring at me as I looked up. Just as I did, he growled a deep growl, bared his fangs, and lunged at me.

I screamed and jerked back, but I could feel his teeth ripping into my mouth. The pain felt terrible.  

I grabbed my face and fell backwards onto the driveway. Willie growled again and lunged at me a second time. But I kicked at him, screaming through the blood.

Suddenly I heard a baseball whiz past us and thump against the house. Charlie and George were racing towards us—George barking and Charlie yelling, “Willie! Willie, stop! Willie, heal! Willie! Stop!“

Willie turned his head and saw Charlie running down the yard, bat in hand, and—in front of Charlie—George charging directly at him. Willie jerked away and took off around the side of the house.

Charlie stopped at Mother’s station wagon, but George chased Willie past their doghouses and into the front yard.

I heard Mother burst out of the house and run toward me. “What’s going on? What’s happened? Jonathan! Charlie!”

“It’s Willie!” Charlie yelled, starting after Willie and George. “I’m going to kill him.”

Mother saw the blood gushing from my face. I lay screaming and holding my mouth. Blood poured between my fingers, covering the front of my shirt. Allison, running up behind Mother, looked at me in shock.  

Mother lifted me into her arms. Allison ran with us to the back door. I could see her black stitches against her cheek as we went inside, her eyes full of tears.

In the kitchen Mother put me down, telling me to hush, to calm down, to be still. She said it would be all right, but I couldn’t stop crying. It hurt too much. Allison began crying too. Somewhere in the front of the house George and Willie were barking and snapping at each other and I could hear Charlie yelling—but for me, the world had stopped.  

Slowly Mother moved my hands away from my face and tried to see through the blood where Willie had bitten me. My mouth was full of blood. Grabbing a towel on top of the washing machine, she put it against my lip, my chin – my hands holding it against my mouth. She took me to her bathroom. With water running from her sink, she slowly moved the towel away, but the blood was too much to see the wound cleanly, even with a washcloth washing away the blood.

Willie had torn my lower lip. Separating much of it from my mouth.

In minutes we were in Mother’s station wagon heading back to the hospital—Allison this time in the front passenger seat, Charlie in the backseat with my head on his lap. Charlie pressed the towel against my mouth as we drove to Somerset. I stared up at him, his face flush with anger.

“I should have killed him,” Charlie said to me. “I should have killed him,” he repeated to Mother.

“Hush,” Mother said.

“I should have,” Charlie said. “When Willie slept in the garden, I should have bashed his head in.”

I stared at Charlie, thinking, I don’t want a tetanus shot. I don’t want rabies in my belly. I hate Willie.

Later, the doctor gave me a tetanus shot and it hurt. My lip required six stitches and they hurt too, and I couldn’t talk with the white patch across the bottom of my face.

When we came home from the hospital, George sat at the backdoor to greet us, but Willie was not in his usual spot in the garden. Mother put me in my bed and with her hands pushed my hair to the side. She touched my cheek and told me that I was a big boy and I would be okay.

That night, when Daddy came home from work, he came to my room and said I was really strong for fighting off Willie and I would get better.

I wanted to ask him why Willie had hurt me, but I couldn’t speak with the stitches and the patch covering half my mouth.

Daddy said, as if answering my question, Willie wouldn’t hurt Allison or me any more.

After Daddy left, Charlie, Holly, and Allison came in to inspect my stitches.

Holly said Willie hid in the woods, but Daddy got him to come back to the house. He’s now locked in the mudroom. The vet told Daddy we would have to wait another two weeks to see if Willie had rabies. Mother, though, didn’t care what the vet said. Willie had scarred two of her children and would not bite anyone in our family again.

Mother was really mad, Allison said, and really let Daddy have it! She said, he never should have brought Willie home to the farm. This whole thing was Daddy’s fault. 

Daddy told Mother he would take care of it.

Charlie overheard Daddy talking to the hired hand. He saw the large pistol the hired hand brought from his car and watched him load it with real bullets.

Charlie said Daddy wouldn’t let him go with them when they went to get Willie. He had to hold George. But he was old enough, he said. He should have been allowed to go with them.

“Willie deserved better,” Holly said.

I went to sleep dreaming of Willie and saw him happy with Daddy walking up from the barn. He was much younger in my dream and loved being on the farm. George, barking, ran ahead of us kids. Mother stood waving from the house, telling us to bring the dogs, dinner’s ready and come inside.