Angus and Sadie (14 page)

After a while, Sadie heard the men and the dogs come back into the house, and a while after that Angus came to find her.

What are you doing? We've been standing for examination. Lucy knows a lot, more even than me. Come into the kitchen with us, Sadie
.

Sadie didn't want to go anywhere.

What's the matter?

The children
.

They're only children, they can't hurt. Not like cats. Why are you afraid of them?

I'm not afraid, I just don't like them
.
I'm not like you
.

You have to try
.

I do
.

You have to try harder. Come back into the kitchen with me
.

Sadie didn't want to. She knew that Missus and Mister were in there, too, and she wanted to be where Missus and Mister were. But the children were in the kitchen, too, and she couldn't tell what children would do.

Angus said,
Come on, Sadie
.

Sadie obeyed.

She obeyed, but she didn't like it in the kitchen, where everybody was moving around and she didn't know where a child might go next.

There's nothing to be afraid of
, Angus told her.

They poke
.

She's afraid of children?
Lucy asked.
Why would anybody be afraid of children?

They poke
, Sadie said again, but the others weren't listening.

Later, in the dining room, everybody sat in chairs at the table, and nobody even noticed the dogs, who stayed under the table, napping, while everybody ate and talked. After that, as a special treat, Mister turned out the lights in the dining room, and Missus made the round, flat light move around on the floor.

When Sadie saw that light, she came out from under the table to try to touch it with her paws. When she chased the light, they all laughed, the men low and round, the children squeaky, and the women softly, with clapping. Because she was trying to get a paw on the light, Sadie barely noticed when one of the children came to try and help her catch it. When at last they turned on the big lights that made the little round light go away, the child started to cry, so Sadie went up to lick his face to help him feel better.
The light'll come back sometime
, she told the child.
It comes back
. The child's face tasted salty, and good, so she licked again. And then the child laughed, and so did everybody else again. It turned out that when she was licking his face and he was laughing, Sadie didn't mind that child.

First, they all washed the dishes, and then all the guests left with their children and Lucy, too. “Thank you,” they said. “It was delicious. Thank you. Will you come to our house next year?”

Lucy told Angus,
I can show you some things next time. But don't bring Sadie
.

Mister and Missus, Angus and Sadie stood on the porch and watched as the cars drove down the long driveway and away. Then they all stood together on the porch in the quiet darkness for a little while longer.

“That was a good Thanksgiving,” Mister said.

“It was a good dinner,” Missus said.

“Angus isn't very much behind Lucy at all,” Mister reported. “Even if my brother did hire her a professional trainer.”

“You
did
have a good Thanksgiving, didn't you?” Missus laughed.

Later, when Angus and Sadie were alone in their stall, he told her,
When you do that, with dancing, and they laugh, they're laughing at you
.

I like it when they're laughing
, Sadie said.

I don't
, Angus told her.
And you shouldn't
.

Sadie didn't agree about that, so she didn't say anything.

Angus didn't notice.

A
few days after Thanksgiving, when Angus and Mister had been gone all afternoon doing something about the fences, Missus looked up from the piece of quilt she was sewing. She went over to the window and said, “Well, well. It's about time.” Then she went through the kitchen and out onto the porch, putting on her coat, then down into the yard. Sadie followed. “It's snowing,” Missus said.

Sadie looked around to see Snowing, but no one was there. The air was cold and full of floating things.

“Look, Sadie,” said Missus. She put her hand out to catch some of the floating things, so Sadie knew that they were Snowing.

“Now it's officially winter,” Missus said, sounding glad.

Was it Snowing or Winter, the floating things? Sadie wondered. Could it be both?

“What do you think of that?” Missus asked.

Snowing!
Sadie barked.
Winter!
She didn't care which it was.

Missus laughed. “We'll have hot chocolate to celebrate. Snow and hot chocolate go together. You watch, those two will be back here in no time at—”

Angus and Mister were walking through the Snowing, coming up to the house from the barn. “Did you see this?” Mister called.

“I'm making hot chocolate!” Missus called back.

This is wet
, Angus said, as he ran up onto the porch.
It doesn't look like rain, but it is
.

It's not rain, it's Snowing
, Sadie told him. Then, because she wasn't sure and didn't want to pretend she knew something she didn't, she said,
Either that or it's Winter
.

The Snowing stayed in the air all afternoon, so that by the time Mister and Missus walked the dogs down to the barn after supper, it had piled itself up on the ground. The dogs stuck their noses into it.

Cold!

Cold!

Run!

Mister bent over to pick up a handful of Snowing, and he threw it far out ahead of him. “Fetch, Angus,” he said, so Angus went running off to find it, where it had landed in the garden.

But it wasn't there. Angus sniffed and sniffed, but he couldn't find it.

So Mister threw another.

Angus ran to catch it in his mouth before it hid itself away on the Snowing-covered ground, but he was too late.

Then Missus bent down to pick up some Snowing, but instead of throwing it to Angus, she threw it at Mister. “You fetch,” she said.

“Hey!” he said, and threw some right back at her.

“Hey, yourself!” She laughed. “You shouldn't tease Angus that way. Or any way. Or any dog.”

“Okay,” Mister said. “You're right. Angus, Come! I want to show you something.”

Angus came, and Mister gave him the Snowing instead of letting him fetch it, and that wasn't nearly as much fun. When Angus took the Snowing into his mouth, it was cold. Not only that, but Angus didn't have it in his mouth for very long at all before it turned into water.

It's just water
, he told Sadie.

No, it's Snowing
, she told him.

Try eating it
, he advised her.

So she did.
What happened to the Snowing? It's water!
she said.

I shouldn't tease you that way
, Angus said.

By the middle of the next day, the Snowing had entirely disappeared. But before long, there was more of it floating down through the air. This new Snowing covered everything, just like the first time, but this one didn't go away the next day. Mister said, “The dogs had better move inside for the winter, don't you think?”

“I think so,” said Missus.

So Angus and Sadie's blanket was folded up into a bed, which was moved to an empty kitchen corner. Their food and water bowls were also moved inside. Angus worried,
What about the barn? Who will take care of the barn?

Inside is warmer
, Sadie said.
It's close to Mister and Missus. You can take care of them instead. I can help
. She liked spending the long nights warm in the house, with Mister and Missus, Patches and Angus, all of them together.

Angus also liked the warmth of the kitchen at night, especially after the day he and Mister brought the sheep down to their pen behind the barn. That day, Angus started out cold, and he ended up cold and wet and tired. The sheep didn't go inside the barn to sleep, like the cows and cats. They had their own fenced pen behind the barn, with their own small three-sided house to stay in during bad weather. Angus thought that was a good place for the sheep in winter, but for some reason they were reluctant to come down from the snow-covered pasture. It made no sense to Angus, the way the sheep scattered off and tried to hide from Mister. Mister made whistling noises and waved his arms—“Sheep! Sheep! Hoo-eee!”—but the sheep didn't cooperate. They drifted apart, going nowhere, or they ran off into a far corner of the pasture. They were much worse at obeying than Sadie was. Getting them all from their pasture back to their pen was cold, hard work. After that long day, Angus was especially glad to eat a big dinner and then curl up on his blanket on the floor of the warm kitchen.

The next day, after midday training, when Mister called, “Let's go, Angus,” Angus wasn't sure he wanted to go. He remembered how cold and tired he could get, going off with Mister to work. But Mister insisted, and he called to Sadie, too, “Let's go, Sadie,” and then he called to Missus, “Let's go, honey.” They all four went walking off together. They walked through the snow along the dirt road, and then they turned into the woods. Mister pulled a sled behind him.

In the woods, Mister sawed at the trunk of a fir tree while Missus held the tree upright, and Angus chased Sadie through the Snowing. Then, Mister and Missus lay the tree on top of the sled and tied it on. Together they dragged it all the way back to the house.

“I wonder if we could train the dogs to pull in harness?” Mister said, as he pulled.