Rick and Ruddy: The Story of a Boy and His Dog

by Howard Roger Garis

Up among the sand dunes grew clumps of tall, coarse grass. One of these clumps would make a resting place for the dog. He found a mass of green stems that were thicker than the others, found it by smelling his way and feeling, rather than by sight, and then made himself a sort of nest, by turning around and around before he curled up to lie down.

Nearly all dogs—even the tiny poodle that sleeps on a blue cushion in some lady's parlor—turn around and around on their bed before settling down to go to sleep. Perhaps the dogs themselves do not know why they do this, but it is because all dogs were once wild, like wolves. In fact dogs really come from wolves, ages back. And wild animals, going to sleep in the woods or jungle, have to be careful of where they make their bed. If they curled up in the first bunch of grass they came to, they might lie down on some snake, or scorpion, which would bite them.

So, ages back, the wild dogs, little different from wolves, got in the habit of trampling their grassy bed, walking around and around in it. They did not do this to make it snug and cozy, as perhaps a cat might do. They did it to trample on and drive out any snakes that might be hidden in the grass.

And so Ruddy, before he curled up to try to go to sleep in the sedge grass of the sand dunes, did just as his wild, wolfish ancestors had done—he trampled the grass. Of course there were no snakes in it, but Ruddy must make sure in the only way he knew.

"There, I guess this will do until morning," said Ruddy to himself, thinking in dog-fashion, of course.

Then he curled up and went to sleep. He was tired from his swim to shore through the storm, and he was still hungry. The bit of bread and meat the coast guard had given him was hardly enough for a small kitten, and Ruddy was quite a large puppy now. But it was the best he could get.

"Maybe, in the morning, I'll find a home," thought Ruddy. "The kind of a home I used to have when I was very little."

And Rick, sleeping in his white bed, safe and snug and warm away from the north-easter, awakened for a moment and stared up at the ceiling. He heard the beat of rain on the dark window of his room.

"Maybe, when it's morning, I'll have a dog," he whispered. "I—I hope it isn't a cat!"

Perhaps Ruddy dreamed of the happy days of his smallest puppyhood. Those days had been happy, for he had lived them in a fine barn, with his mother, and several other little reddish-brown puppies like himself. They tumbled about in the straw, and there were horses that Ruddy learned to love, in the short time he knew them, almost as much as he loved a certain boy and girl who raced out from the big house, every morning, to look at, laugh over and play with the puppies, of whom Ruddy was one.