Angus and Sadie Read online

  CYNTHIA VOIGT

  Angus

  and

  Sadie

  Drawings by

  Tom Leigh

  Dedication

  FOR MERRILEE HEIFETZ

  (herself the mistress of a lively dog)

  with thanks for her enthusiasm

  and her continual wise counsel

  For their help, however unwitting, thanks also:

  to the big blacks, Emma and Calimero

  to the boys, Poncho and Lefty

  and to Vinnie, the original dancing dog

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. How Mister and Missus want a dog and decide to find one

  2. How Angus and Sadie get in trouble and learn their way around, and how Angus is a hero

  3. How both dogs visit the vet, Angus is better at being trained, and Sadie isn’t a fetcher

  4. How Angus knows best and everyone is weird

  5. How Missus, Angus, and Sadie harvest blueberries, while Mister harvests hay and Fox harvests a rat

  6. How Sadie meets a skunk, dances with light, and locates two sheep

  7. How it’s fall, and Thanksgiving

  8. How it’s snow, not Snowing, and then Christmas

  9. How it’s Sadie who is the hero

  10. How Angus feels when Sadie is the hero

  11. How everybody knows something but nobody knows everything, and it’s not a race

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  How Mister and Missus want a dog and decide to find one

  Mister and Missus lived on a farm in Maine. The farm was called the Old Davis Place, because it had belonged to Mister’s grandfather. When Old Mr. Davis died, he left the entire farm to his grandson, young Mr. Davis, and the farm kept its name.

  The Old Davis Place was a big farm, one hundred and thirty-seven acres of woods and pastures and fields. It backed up against the mountains, so the farm had also some wide stony meadows, which in midsummer were covered with wild blueberries. Two streams ran down from the western mountains, crossing the farm on their way to a distant lake. The streams dug steep ravines out of the hills, and gulleys, too, before they joined together in the woods to make one slower, broader stream that meandered across the lower, flatter pastures and fields.

  Mister and Missus raised sheep for wool and chickens for eggs. They kept two Guernsey cows, named Bethie and Annie after queens of England, for milk and butter and sometimes cheese. They planted alfalfa and hay, soybeans and feed corn in their fields. They grew vegetables in a big garden behind the house, and Missus also kept a few flower beds at the front. What they didn’t need for themselves, they sold at a summer farm stand at the end of the driveway: vegetables and eggs and sometimes fresh butter. The alfalfa, hay, and corn that they didn’t store for winter feed, they sold at the farmer’s cooperative in town, as well as wool when they had it. All of the soybeans were sold at the cooperative; the soybeans were their cash crop.

  Of course, there were cats on the farm. A farm needs cats. There were two barn cats, and they were hunters. They caught mice and rats, the occasional squirrel, and even the odd unlucky bird. A sleepy marmalade cat named Patches lived in the house, to catch the house mice.

  Mister and Missus had sheep, cows, chickens, and cats, but they didn’t have a dog. Sometimes they wondered if they might want one. So, one winter day, they went to the library and took out several books to learn about different breeds. They both read the books, and then on the long winter evenings while Missus cut squares of patterned cloth for a quilt and Mister sharpened the rototiller blades, they talked about the kind of dog they would want, if they wanted a dog.

  Mister said, “I could train a dog to help herd the sheep and to find the milk cows when they wander off. A dog would keep the chickens safe from foxes and coyotes. The books say that border collies are easy to train, and they like to work hard.”

  Missus said, “A dog would keep deer out of my vegetable garden and raccoons out of the garbage. A dog would be company for me when you are away all day. The books say that border collies like being with people.”

  So it was decided. “We definitely need a dog and probably a border collie,” Mister said.

  “But a purebred dog is awfully expensive and, besides, I like mongrels. I like what happens when different breeds have mixed together to make something new.”

  “It looks like a border collie mongrel would be the perfect dog.”

  “Let’s go to the animal shelter,” Missus suggested.

  “Not until spring, though. Not until we’ve moved the sheep out of their pen and up to the spring pasture.”

  “All right. In spring, we’ll get our dog,” said Missus.

  At the animal shelter, the puppies lived in one big pen by the door, fourteen puppies from eight different litters, all together, all day long, all night long.

  It was wonderful for those puppies to be in a big pen with so many friends to chew on and chase after and fight with over the heavy pieces of rope tied in thick knots. For each of them, it was like having thirteen brothers and sisters to sleep in a big warm pile with. And what could be better than thirteen brothers and sisters?

  “As it happens, Mr. and Mrs. Davis,” the attendant said, “four of our puppies are half border collie. Their father is a registered border collie named Joss and the mother is a shepherd mix, one of your typical mongrels—a good pet, gentle, and she loves children.”

  “We don’t have children,” Mister said.

  “But we have friends who do,” Missus said.

  The attendant went on, “The three black-and-white males are from that litter, and there is one female. She’s the sorrel—that reddish brown one with a cast on her rear leg. Take a look. You can tell the border collies by their coats and their ears and the way they stare. Border collies really stare, and right at you.” The attendant looked at his clipboard. “Let me tell you about the shots the puppies have had, and we also require you to have them neutered or spayed.” He held out a piece of paper.

  But Mister and Missus had stopped paying attention to the attendant and started paying attention to the puppies.

  They walked over to the pen and leaned over the wire to get closer. When the puppies caught sight of Mister and Missus, all fourteen of them rushed to greet them, from the biggest (one of the three male part border collies) to the smallest (the little reddish brown female border collie mix, who had a white nose, white paws, and a no-longer-white cast on one rear leg). The puppies ran as fast as they could up to the fence, stumbling over their own feet and one another’s feet, too. They rushed to push their noses above the fence and smell the excitement.

  Hello! Hello! Hello! They jumped up against the fence and fell down on top of one another. Pet me! Pick me up! They yipped and wagged their tails. Me! Me!

  The little sorrel puppy tried to crawl up onto the pile near Missus, but her heavy cast held her back. She tried to burrow underneath, but the other puppies were crowded too tightly together. So she went around to the side and yipped. Me! Me! But when Missus tried to reach down to her, the pile of puppies rushed after her hand—and knocked the little white-and-sorrel puppy over onto her back. She lay there, her tail wagging fast.

  “Oh dear,” Missus said, but she was laughing. “What’s wrong with her leg?”

  The puppy struggled over onto her three good legs and lumbered back toward Missus’s hand. Me!

  “She took a tumble down a steep set of cellar stairs, when she was only four or five weeks old, and broke it,” the attendant answered. “She never got it set, so it healed wrong and so we had to rebreak it and reset it
. Well, the surgeon had to. But it should be entirely mended in just a couple of weeks. Puppies are like babies, they heal quickly. And she doesn’t mind it.”

  “I think she minds,” Missus said. Her hand finally reached the puppy and the puppy snuggled up against it. Yes, nice, and she licked the fingers. Mine. Missus picked the puppy up, and the puppy tried to lick under her chin.

  Meanwhile, Mister also put his hand down into the squiggling pile of puppies. He was reaching for the biggest one, who was mostly black, and that puppy had no trouble pushing his way straight to Mister’s hand.

  “Good boy,” Mister said.

  Me! The big black-and-white puppy planted his rear legs on the back of another puppy and pushed, jumping to get to Mister’s hand. The other puppy tumbled over sideways into a third, and that third puppy growled and nipped at its own paw, as if it were the paw that had attacked him. Other puppies rushed to join in.

  But the big black-and-white puppy did not let himself get distracted. He took hold of Mister’s hand with his teeth and pulled. Me.

  Like all puppies, he had sharp, sharp teeth. As if he’d accidentally stuck his fingers into a box of needles, Mister jerked back his hand and flicked a finger at the wet black nose. “No!” he said, in a deep, stern voice.

  The puppy closed its mouth, but he didn’t back away. This time he butted his head up against the hand, instead of grabbing it. Me.

  “You’re a smart fellow, aren’t you?” Mister asked, scratching the puppy behind the ears. “And big. How strong are you?” He picked the puppy up.

  Yes, good. The black-and-white puppy licked Mister under the chin. Mine.

  Now Mister and Missus stood facing one another. Each held a puppy. The little white-and-sorrel puppy with the cast poked her nose up against Missus’s neck and licked. It tickled, and Missus laughed. “This one,” she said. “She’s sweet. Affectionate.”

  “This one’s a male, and bigger. And he’s smart,” Mister said. He and the black-and-white puppy both stared right at Missus.

  Missus stared right back at the black puppy. “How do you know he’s smart?” She reached her free hand over for him to smell, and he snuffled at her palm, his tail wagging fast.

  Mine, too. Nice.

  Missus scratched under his ear with one finger. “I don’t care about bigger,” she said. “But stronger would matter.”

  Mister looked at the little white-and-sorrel puppy, but she didn’t notice him, not until he patted her on the head and rubbed one of her ears between his fingers, pulling it gently.

  Oh—what? Nice. She squirmed to get closer to Mister’s big hand.

  “That is the sorriest looking dog I’ve seen in a long time,” Mister said, and he laughed. “She must be the runt, and with that leg she’s going to need special care.”

  “In another two or three weeks she’ll be as good as new. But yours, you could start training pretty soon, couldn’t you?”

  Mister asked the attendant, “How old are they?”

  “Eleven weeks. You can start training dogs at about, oh, three, three-and-a-half months.”

  “It seems so young,” Missus said. There was too much talking and not enough petting, so the little sorrel puppy wriggled in her arms, trying to squirm up closer to her chin and lick it. “Are they housebroken?”

  “Pretty much,” the attendant said. “I meant you can train them to come, sit, and stay. You don’t want a dog that’s not trained,” he told them.

  “But why are they here, being given away?” Missus asked, stroking the puppy’s bony head to keep her quiet.

  “Well,” the attendant answered. “Actually. A neighbor reported that they weren’t being properly cared for. I mean, that leg was just neglected,” he said. “The puppies were being neglected.”

  “Oh,” Missus said.

  “Good thing you’re here to help the animals out,” Mister said.

  “Yes, I know,” the attendant agreed.

  “So, which one do you want?” Mister asked Missus.

  “Which one do you?”

  Mister didn’t set the black-and-white puppy back down among the others, and Missus kept the white-and-sorrel close against her chest.

  “I don’t know,” Mister said.

  Take me. Take me.

  “I can’t decide,” Missus said.

  “We said only one,” Mister said.

  Take me. Take me.

  “Although, if there were two, they could be friends,” Missus said. “Do they get along all right?” she asked the attendant.

  “Of course they do. They’re siblings, littermates,” the attendant said. “They’ve always been together.”

  Me.

  Me.

  “We only need one dog,” Missus said.

  “Just because we only need one doesn’t mean we can’t want two,” Mister said. “And it doesn’t mean we can’t have two, either.” He scratched with his fingers on the top of the black-and-white puppy’s head.

  Mine. Good.

  “It’s not as if we don’t have room for two on the farm,” Missus agreed, and she stroked the soft back of the white-and-sorrel puppy, all the way from her neck to the end of her tail.

  Nice. Good. Yes.

  “You have a farm?” the attendant asked. “Then you’re perfect for these dogs.”

  So both puppies went home in the pickup truck with Mister and Missus, riding in a cardboard box behind the seat. It was strange to be in a box. They’d never been in a box before. They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know what would happen, and the truck was so loud, it made them unhappy, uneasy. The little sorrel puppy climbed up on the big black-and-white one, and they both went to sleep.

  By evening, they had been given their names. The black-and-white one was Angus, because he looked as if he might grow up to be as big and strong as a Black Angus bull. Angus was easy to name, but Mister and Missus disagreed about the little puppy. “Sorrel, for her color,” Missus suggested. They were all sitting together on the kitchen floor.

  “Just look at the sorry, lopsided way she walks,” Mister said, and held out his fingers for the puppy to lick. “And the sorry way she doesn’t even care what a sorry sight she is. We should call her Sorry.”

  “That’s a terrible name. You can’t call her that. The cast is going to come off and then she’ll be just fine, not a sorry specimen at all—not that I think she’s sorry now. I think she’s sweet. How about a flower? How about Daisy or Rosie?”

  “But she’s funny-looking—the way her ear is half-flopped down, and the splotches of color over her eyes, like some masked avenger. You can’t name her after a flower. That would be a joke.”

  “Sadie,” said Missus unexpectedly.

  “What?”

  “Sadie, like Sadie Hawkins, in the old comic strip. Sadie Hawkins Day is named after her, because she was so homely—not that I think you’re funny-looking, not a bit—nobody in Dogpatch would ask her to marry him. So there was one day a year when, if she could catch a man, he had to marry her.”

  Mister and the black-and-white puppy just stared at her, but the little sorrel puppy climbed up onto Missus’s lap, to nuzzle up against her hands.

  “Sadie’s a good, old-fashioned name,” Missus concluded.

  “Sadie,” Mister said, practicing it. “Sadie?” he asked, reaching his hand out to the little puppy.

  Angus followed the hand. Mine.

  The sorrel puppy stumbled toward Mister to reach his hand. He scratched her under the chin, and she licked him on the palm. “Sadie she is,” he said.

  “Angus and Sadie,” Missus said. “That’s settled. But now we’d better feed and walk them, so they have a chance to go to the bathroom and not have an accident during the night.”

  Mister stood up. “What do you say to some supper, Angus? Sadie?”

  Me! Me!

  Me, too!

  The puppies didn’t know what supper was, but they tried to climb up Mister’s legs. “That’s right,” he said, and rubbed both of their hea
ds.

  Right!

  Right!

  “Do you think they’re hungry?” Missus asked.

  “They get fed three times a day while they’re this little,” Mister answered, “so they must be.”

  “It’s lucky we got a big bag of puppy food.” Missus took three metal mixing bowls down from the shelf and walked over to the kitchen door. “Angus and Sadie!” she called.

  Angus and Sadie! they both answered, but neither left Mister’s side.

  “Let’s go!” said Mister, moving across the kitchen.

  Let’s go!

  Me first!

  Missus poured brown crunchy bites into two metal bowls and set them down on the porch. She had already filled a third big bowl with water.

  Food!

  Let’s go!

  Angus went to one bowl and Sadie went to the other, but almost immediately Angus moved over to eat what Sadie had. He pushed his head into her bowl, and nudged her head aside.

  Sadie pushed her head right back in. With their heads crowded together, they ate until all of the brown bits were gone. Then Angus went back to the other bowl. Sadie followed him and pushed her head in beside his, so she could eat, too.

  Mister and Missus stood and watched this and laughed.

  After they finished eating, both dogs stuck a paw and their noses into the water and lapped it up with their tongues.

  “I hope they’re going to get a little neater with their eating,” said Mister.

  “I hope Sadie’s getting enough,” said Missus.

  Then Mister said, “Let’s go!” and he walked down the porch steps. Missus picked Sadie up, carried her down the stairs, and set her carefully on the ground. Angus ran after them, but the floor disappeared out from under him, and he tumbled down all three steps.

  As soon as he hit the ground, Angus got up, shook himself, and stared at those steps. He stepped up onto the first one, and that was easy. So he went up to the top again, and then—more carefully this time—came down, front paws first, rear paws next, thump; front paws, rear paws, thump; and a final thump onto the ground. Now he knew. He guessed those steps wouldn’t fool him again.