The Doodenville Men's Club
They don’t talk about who has the best dog in town anymore. No sir, not since last December.
It was the middle of December and cold, gosh it was cold, and snow, I mean you couldn’t see from the window of Jessie Miller’s General Store to the street side of the wooden planks that make up our sidewalks here in Doodenville. Everybody’s always said that it was the worse snow storm ever to have hit these parts.
Even though it was plumb miserable out, we all showed up about the same time we always showed up at Jessie’s place. We had what you might consider a men’s club. We didn’t call it that, but every Saturday about sundown, or perhaps a little later, Steve Branson, Digger Johnson, Judge Johns and myself would get together and play checkers, tell stories, and more or less just brag to one another - which some might say was stretching the truth.
This one December evening, the bragging turned to our dogs. No man in Doodenville went anywhere without his dog. A man is judged somewhat on what kind of dog he has and how he treats it and it him. Now everyone cannot see how one is treating his dog all the time nor he him so we felt like it was our duty that night to tell one another. That is where the others always get into trouble because they exaggerate a mite and this night they exaggerated a lot. Not me, of course.
The checkers match had gotten over and we began to sip a little of the stuff behind the counter that Jessie kept for snake bite. Jessie was always there but he seldom joined in because he was too busy keeping track of how much we were sipping and eating from the cracker barrel. Anyway, we were doing what we always did when Steve Branson popped up and said during a lull in the conversation, “Now we have been talking about our dogs for nigh onto three hours and Lord knows how many nights we have been doing the same. Let’s settle who has the best dog once and for all”.
Everybody seemed to think it was a pretty good idea because each man thought he had the best dog and would win any type of such a contest. We all thought a little and tried to come up with some sort of criteria that could determine who had the best dog.
Steven Branson suggested that we could have them run a race but that idea was scuttled because there was too much snow on the ground and too cold. “And besides,” Digger Johnson said, “being fast don’t mean nothing anyway”.
He was right, of course. We all knew that Crazy Jimmy Twofoot’s oldest boy, Jimmy J., was the fastest thing on two legs in three counties and the boy couldn’t find his way to the outhouse without someone helping him. At least that is what Crazy Jimmy always said.
Then Steve came up with another idea (he was always coming up with ideas, being an engineer and all.) He suggested that we have the dogs bark real loud and whose ever dog barked the longest and loudest would be declared the winner. (I didn’t say all his ideas were good, though.)
That idea was ignored because everyone knew that Jessie’s wife was sick with the virus and noise would wake her and cause some discomfort. Steve must have gotten the point also because he snapped his fingers like something had just occurred to him and mumbled, “oh, yeah!” and sat back down. It seemed as though in all the years that I had known Steve he was always snapping is finger about something.
We all sat around the stove and thought some more. Then Judge Johns cleared his throat. Now when a man clears his throat, those in hearing distance don’t pay much attention, but when Judge Johns cleared his throat you knew he had something important to say. He was also real smart so naturally we all started paying close attention.
“It seems to me,” he began, “that we want to find out which one of us has the smartest dog. The smartest dog, gents, not the fastest nor the loudest, but the smartest. Intelligence, friends, is the true test of greatness”. Judge Johns could always be counted on to get right to the heart of the matter. “So it seems to me,” he continued after grasping his lapels and clearing his throat again, “that each dog ought to be judged on his reaction to a single command and whose dog reacts in the most intelligent manner will be considered the best dog in Doodenville”.
We all thought about that for a while and by and by it seemed fair enough. But then Digger said, “You know each man here might think that his dog done the best no matter what the other three dogs did. If that happened, we would all be in a stalemate and be right back where we were.”
That sounded kind of correct. We knew we were all men of integrity, but we also knew each other and understood how sometimes a man’s judgment could get clouded in important matters like this one.
“Well,” Judge Johns said after he cleared his throat, “it seems to me we need an unbiased judge”. You know, to this day, I get plumb amazed on how the Judge could always grasp things and have a solution so quickly.
The natural judge, of course, was Jessie. I say ‘of course’ because Jessie didn’t have a dog. At least not since last spring when Old Clem Thurman’s horses kicked Jessie’s dog Cracker in the head.
Jessie agreed to act as the judge and took charge right away. “Since there are four of you,” while grasping his suspenders, “one of you will have to go first and one will have to go last, and two of you will have to go in the middle, one ahead of the other”.
I sat there and blinked because he had lost me at first. I did not think that was possible because we always thought Jessie was a mite slow. He continued: “So it seems to me we ought to go by age, starting with the youngest man. I will give you all five minutes to decide what you want your dogs to do”. He fixed his one good eye on the clock that hung over the Buster Brown sign that hung behind the counter.
After about three minutes and seventeen seconds I could tell everyone was done figuring what their dog was going to do. Steve snapped his fingers and smiled, Digger slapped his knee with both hands, and Judge Johns clutched his lapels and got that paternal courtroom smile on his face, next to clearing his throat he was famous for. I had known right off what I was going to do. “Times up! You first, Branson, you are the youngest.”
Steve sprang to his feet, snapped his fingers and said. “Bridge, get that dollar bill off Jessie’s ceiling.” Jessie had nailed a dollar bill to his ceiling years back because he said it was the first dollar he had ever made.
After hearing his master’s command, Bridge got up, shook himself off, took hold of an empty chair with his teeth and pulled it over to the potbellied stove. Then he looked at the dollar bill, back to the chair then moved it a little towards the counter. He did this procedure about three or four times.
Then before any of us, except Steve, knew what was happening, Bridge ran to the door of the store, opened it and ran outside. We could not tell how far he went because of all the blowing snow. It must not have been too far because all of a sudden he came racing into the room, leaped on the chair and bounced at least ten feet to the ceiling, snatched the greenback with his teeth and did a perfect three point landing. I say three point because his left front leg kind of cracked like a stick. He was a mighty brave dog though because he didn’t even let out a whimper. Steve claimed later that it was because of Bridge’s sensitivity to Jessie’s wife’s virus.
We all agreed that it was a mighty fine trick. Jessie pursed his lips and made a mark on a piece of paper. We all chuckled beneath our breath because we knew he couldn’t write a lick, but he was a good counter because he ways seemed to know how many crackers we had taken from the cracker barrel every Saturday night.
“Homer.” I was next. “Lock,” I began, “Go down to the jail and let Samuel Horn out and bring him here.” Now, Lock had unlocked that jailhouse door I bet a hundred times. I was always sort of afraid of getting myself locked in a jail cell accidentally, so I had taught Lock how to do it. I also knew that Lock knew who Samuel Horn was because he was our best customer. Lock laid there by the potbellied stove and did not move. That did not concern me because I figured Lock was just stretching internally or something. Pretty soon however it became apparent to me and everyone else that Lock wasn’t going to do anything except move a little closer to the stove. I felt panic creep up in my throat and started to give the command again, when Jessie, with his thumbs around his suspenders said very authoritatively, “Only one command, Homer!
We all sat there in silence for about another minute and thirty-seven seconds waiting for Lock to get busy. But ole Lock just laid there staring at the big iron stove and twitching his right hind leg occasionally.
I wanted to crawl under a chair. Everyone was stifling a smile except Steve who was laughing his fool head off and of course Jessie who was keeping a Judge,s face. I could really feel the blood boil and wanted to lash out and strike someone, preferably Steve. But after a certain age you just don’t go around and do stuff like that. So, I just sat there with all the humiliation and degradation of the world weighing me down.
“Your turn, Digger”. Jessie said abruptly since Digger was the next oldest or third youngest, depending on how you looked at it. Digger sat there for a few seconds, slapped one knee with both hands and stood up. “Spade,” (Digger was the assistant to the local undertaker) “go outside and dig me a hole six feet by three feet and six inches deep.”
Spade proceeded to do just that after he opened the door with his front paws and closed it with his hind ones. Showoff, I thought.
We all watched through the window as Spade in the freezing weather began his dig. We couldn’t see him real good though because of the blowing snow. Digger claimed it was because he was moving so fast.
After about fifteen minuets, Spade came back in the store the same way he went out but in reverse. You could really tell Spade had been outside. One eyelid was frozen shut and he was shivering like mad from the top of his head to the tip of his tail plus there was frozen mucus hanging from his nose.
Before we knew what was happening Jessie was outside with a tape measure measuring the hole Spade had just dug. When Jessie came back in he was shaking almost as much as Spade. “If I got to make a decision,” he chattered, “I got to know all the facts, right Judge?” The Judge did his paternal smile and nodded in agreement.
I was still feeling humiliated and had lost interest in the whole contest. No one was smiling or laughing at me anymore, but they didn’t have to.
“Judge!”
“Yes, your honor.” The Judge took a plug of tobacco from his vest pocket and took a big chaw. He just sat there for about one minute, chawing, smiling, and hanging on his lapels. Then without a word of any kind he tilted his head back and spat, in what Steve later figured was a forty-seven degree angle.
No more had the wad passed the Judge’s front two silver teeth, when his dog, Bailiff, jumped to his feet and ran for the spittoon Jessie kept at the end of the counter. Bailiff grabbed the brass bucket with his teeth and raced in the direction the wad was traveling and I’ll be darned if he didn’t jump four feet in the air catch the hulk on the fly right in the spittoon, landed not spilling drop, and walked sort of nonchalantly, and perhaps a little arrogantly back to where the spittoon was supposed to be and sat it down.
Jessie studied each dog, even mine which I appreciated, took a look at his “notes” and began. “Gentleman, after careful consideration and given the parameter of the charge given me I must conclude that that the most intelligent dog here tonight and therefore the best dog in Doodenville is….” He paused for the effect , then after clearing his throat and grasping his suspenders he continued, … “is Lock” and he slapped his hand on the counter.
“Lock!” We all shouted. I almost fell out of my chair. Digger did fall out of his because when he went to slap his knees he missed and fell on the floor. Branson started using powerful language and the Judge turned green, then red, then green again because he was half way choking on what was left of his chaw.
Everyone in the room, except the Judge who was busy turning colors, demanded to know the reason for Jessie’s verdict.
“Steven Branson.” Jessie began. “That was a mighty fine trick but look at Bridge's leg. It is going to take a good three weeks or so before it heals up and maybe not then, and Digger, Spade is shaking so much he will probably come down with pneumonia or something, and Judge you let Bailiff there put the most disgusting thing one could ever imagine in his mouth, no telling what he will come down with. Now the three of you made one command that, I admit made for some powerful good tricks, but by doing so the dogs did not act very bright or intelligently.
“Now I want you boys to look outside. It must be eighteen degrees out there and the wind’s a blowing a powerful lot. Now who in his right mind is going to go out there unless they had to. Yes sir, Lock is the best, the smartest, and most intelligent dog in Doodenville.” And with the word Doodenville, Jessie brought the flat of his hand back down on the counter again.
I then said to Jessie so everyone could hear, “Your honor, give me a can of those dog biscuits and put a few more coals on the fire, I don’t want a smart and valuable dog like Lock to catch a chill”.
Lock must have heard me mention his name because he opened one eye, took a deep breath, let out a pleasing sound of comfort and inched a little close to the potbellied stove.
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