Sharon and Jude with Topsy the dog
My sister, Jude, did her best to entertain my brother and me, but she wasn’t always successful. Asking us to climb in a wagon is one example of a “good time” that backfired. She probably intended to pull us up and down our lane or maybe even down the road and pretend we were having an adventure. From the looks of us, the last place “Bucky” and I wanted to be was in a “Service Truck” wagon. I’m sure my brother would have preferred to build roads in our sandbox so his play soldiers could walk wherever he sent them. I have no doubt I wanted to be in the house where my dolls were waiting for me and the tea party I had promised them.
Jude is happy, Sharon is mad, Bucky ready to cry
Occasionally Jude and I deserted our brother and walked across the road to Uncle Steve’s home. This was especially true when our aunt and uncle from Detroit came up for two weeks during the summer. Here we are with their dog, Topsy. They had no children, so Topsy was as spoiled as any child who has no siblings. We were allowed to play with her if we didn’t do any rough-housing. At the first whimper of distress, we were told to go home and not come back until we knew how to treat a “city” dog.
Jude scoffed at the very idea. City dog, indeed. The older she got, the more she preferred our dogs, Pepper and Sparky, who loved to roll in cow manure, chase the cats, and act like perfectly normal country dogs. Naturally, she wouldn’t have dreamed of telling our Detroit relatives that she considered Topsy a sissy, a crybaby, and a thorough disgrace to the canine kingdom.
Jude with Pepper and Sparky as Puff looks on
