Woozy
Woozy opened his eyes for the first time and looked up. There was a little boy, and in his hand was a saucer in which was some white stuff. The boy smiled at him. Woozy was interested in the white stuff; it looked good. He licked some with his tongue. It tasted good but it was very cold. Woozy licked it again but pretty soon his tongue got so cold he would have to stop licking for awhile. But he went on licking and after awhile it was all gone and the dish was licked clean. Then he looked up at the boy and said: “Woof!” But it was a very small woof, for Woozy was a very small, round, roly poly puppy. He said woof, three or four times but the boy only smiled for he had no more of the white stuff. He would have given more to Woozy if he had had it but he could not give more if he did not have it.
Pretty soon the door opened and a monstrous big dog came in. She went over and tried to lick the boy’s face. Then she laid down beside him. Then the boy took a ball of cord and rolled it into a corner and Woozy trotted after it. He grabbed it and worried it, and growled—frightfully. Pretty soon his mother went over to him, took him by the back of the neck and carried him over to the boy and laid him down, as much as to say:
“I think he is naughty, and you had better make him behave.” But the boy just smiled and stroked the dogswith his hand. First he would stroke the mother and then he would stroke Woozy. The mother would lick his hand but Woozy pinched it with his sharp little teeth.
Woozy and the boy grew up together. They both got bigger every day until the boy was nearly as big as his father and Woozy nearly as big as his mother. Woozy thought the boy was perfect. He followed him everywhere. If you saw the boy anywhere you might know that Woozy was around, and if you saw Woozy you might know that the boy was not far off.
Sometimes they took long walks together in the woods. Woozy would run off among the trees but pretty soon he would come back to the boy and look up in his face and say: “woof,” which meant why don’t you come along and have some fun? Once robbers tried to steal the boy, but Woozy growled and showed his teeth until the robbers ran away.
One day the boy was crossing a pasture field. There was a cross bull there lying down behind some bushes. When he saw the boy he began pawing the dirt and then he ran after him. Woozy grabbed the bull’s tail and held on till the bull turned around. Then he fell off and rolled over and over. The bull ran after him and stuck one horn through his poor body. The boy had climbed over the fence and he screamed and cried with all his might. Then the bull threw up his head and poorWoozy’s dead body flew over the fence. Oh, how mad the boy was and how he cried! His mamma said, “Never mind dear, Woozy was willing to give his life for you.” But the boy was lonely, and he cried as hard as he could cry when they buried Woozy in the garden.