Blackie had long black curly hair and followed Doris everywhere — through fields, to gather ferns, up and down every lane she walked. But one afternoon Doris was busy preparing a magic lantern show for her friends, so Blackie went out alone.
He decided to visit the other village dogs, find some company, have a run. He hadn’t met his special friends yet when he came across a big bone lying in the road.
This looks good, he thought. I’ll take it home.
He ran home with it and settled in the side yard. Doris found him there.
“What have you got?” she asked. She looked at the bone — its colour, its smell — and a chill went through her. She’d heard of people cruel enough to put poisoned bones out in the road, not caring which dog found them.
She threw it away. Blackie looked disappointed, but he trusted her. If she took a bone from him, there had to be a reason.
They went for a walk, but Blackie didn’t want to run. He kept stopping to eat grass — which dogs do when their stomachs are wrong.
Doris took him home and called her friends to say the lantern show was postponed. She bathed Blackie’s head with cool water all evening, and he looked up at her with his brown eyes — grateful, warm, trying to say that he didn’t want to leave.
It was a long, bad night. But Blackie got well.
Doris told everyone to watch their dogs. And in that village, there were no more poisoned bones.
