Brownie's Home

By Thomas S. Bruce

Brownies Home is a short novel about a little brown puppy that someone had put out along the road that became special to this family who became very fond of Brownie. Brownie was a champion of a dog he was playful at times, didnt want to be bothered at times, wasnt scared of anything and was a good protector. Brownie was a unique dog. I wanted to let people know just what he meant to me and my family it was an exciting time of my life and to have a pet that you were as close to as we were to Brownie. I see why people become fond of their dogs that become a part of their life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9781467053020

Thomas S. Bruce

My name is Thomas Steven Bruce.  Growing up along side a small highway where the houses were scattered miles apart from each in a small town called Medley, West Virginia definitely gave me a taste of real country living.  Medley has one post office, which opens at 8:00 a.m. — closes at noon and two convenient stores.  Farming and pulp wood are means to an income in Medley.  There are also coal mines that run thirty to forty miles in Medley. I was the youngest of eleven children in my family. My father died when I was a year old. After graduating from Petersburg High School in Petersburg, W. Va., I went to Shepherd College in Shepherd Town, W. Va. on a scholarship.  Later I got my Master’s from the District of Columbia in Adult Education; then retired from the Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.C.  My residence is now in Temple Hills, Maryland. I am involved in the Temple Hills Association; attend church at Holy Family in Temple Hills; walk and line dance with the Iverson Mall Walkers and Line Dancers.  Mason Redemption Twenty Four is a lodge I am affiliated with. I enjoy music.  James Brown was my favorite artist.  During the day, the Young and Restless and Oprah Show keep me busy.  I love to play the slots.  Through it all, though, there is not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for everything.  I almost died about a year ago.  Paramedics put a defibrillator on my chest and bought me back to life.  God is good.

Book preview

Brownie’s Home

Thomas S. Bruce

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AuthorHouse™

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© 2010 Thomas S. Bruce. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/3/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4490-2042-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-53020 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009909040

SKU-000258458_Text.pdf

H ey Jim, did you see that man?! That rock, I threw, skipped about five times on top of the water. Jim said, The next time you aren’t coming. You see I’m trying to catch a fish. They aren’t biting, but you got to be quiet if we are going to catch any fish today. Jim then picked up a rock and threw it into the water. It must have skipped fifteen to twenty times across the water before it went out of sight. I said, Gee, man how you do that? He grabbed me in the collar and said, I will show you how things are done my way. He said, Let’s get out of here. It looks like it’s going to rain. All of a sudden, a big bolt of lightening flashed in the sky. Jim hollered, Let’s go! It’s beginning to rain. We’ll come back tomorrow.

Jim was my brother. Mom always said to listen to Jim because he was responsible for me. He was two years older than I was. I hadn’t started to school yet. I was six years old this summer. My birthday was about a month ago. I would be able to start to school in the fall. I followed Jim every place he went. It began to rain a little harder. Jim said, Let’s get under this big tree. We stopped there for a couple of minutes, and he said, Let’s get out from under this tree. It had begun to lightening quite a bit. We were soaking wet before we got home. When we got home we had a couple of chores to do. We had to feed the chickens, slop the hogs, get the wood and water in for the night. Jim always made me do half the work, but I didn’t mind doing it.

The next day we got up early. Mom woke us up early that day to go to the garden to hoe and pick greens for dinner. We worked in the garden early in the morning before it got hot. In the afternoon we were free to do what we wanted to do. During the summer we played along the creek that ran by my mother’s house because it was always cool along the water. Sometimes, we went swimming; sometimes we’d catch crabs, or catch bait for fishing and sometimes we’d throw rocks at water snakes. We always had fun along the creek.

Dwight and David lived across the creek from my Mother; they were our neighbors we were about the some age. We were together most of the time. The name of the creek that ran by my Mother’s house was Patterson Creek. It wasn’t a big creek, but it was big enough that we had to watch ourselves in some places because it was wide and fairly deep. There were certain places where we could walk clear across the rocks in the water, but if we slipped on the rocks, we would fall in the deepest part of the creek. That’s why we had to watch what we were doing all the time. It was kind of dangerous. My brother Jim always looked out for us all, mostly because he wanted to be the boss. He liked telling us what to do.

It was getting late one day when we were crossing the creek on the rocks when Dwight and I began to argue about a baseball card. It was a baseball card with Jackie Robertson’s picture on it. He said the card belonged to him and I said the card belonged to me. He said I had stolen the card from him. I told him that I brought the card the day before at Mr. Stottlemyer’s store. So one thing led to another. We started pushing each other and fighting one another. We both slipped off the rocks and fell into the water. Neither of us could swim that good. Both of us started hollering for help. We hollered several times before Jim dove in and helped us out. He fussed and told us to never do that again because we both could have drowned. He smacked us. He said he wasn’t going to tell Mom because he knew if he did she wouldn’t let us come back down to the creek. He said, I’ve got to keep an eye on you all the time. Don’t let this happen again ‘because if it does, I will throw you in the water myself. Now hug each other and get out of here.

We didn’t go down along the creek for a couple of days. I kept asking my brother when we were going to go back down by the creek. He said, I don’t know because you guys don’t know how to behave. It was Dwight’s fault, I said. I continued, Dwight said that I had stolen his baseball card. Jim said, Don’t blame it all on Dwight. He’s here to talk for himself. Then Jim said, I don’t want to hear anymore about that darn baseball card.

By the way, my name is Steve. I’m Jim’s brother. He calls me TB when he is not mad at me. He said, OK, TB, let’s you and I go down along the creek. We’ll just skip some rocks, watch the fish jump up in the water and walk along the side of the water. OK, that sounds good, I said. We stayed down along the creek for two or three hours playing and having fun. Jim hollered and said, It time to go. I’ll race you from here to the foot of the hill that goes up to the house. Whoever wins buys the other a Popsicle. We took off running. All of a sudden he stopped running. I kept on running to the bottom of the hill. I stopped at the bottom of the hill where there was a little animal. It was a little brown dog. The dog was standing there by himself. He was shivering and crying as though he was cold. He looked scared to death. It looked as though someone had dropped him off there. Jim finally came down to the foot of the hill. I said, "Look what I’ve found…this cute little puppy was just standing there alone. Do you think he belongs to someone? How do you think he got here? He has a collar around his neck, no name or anything to say who he belongs to. What should we do with the little puppy? I’m going to take him home. Jim said, You know Mom’s not going to let you keep him in the house, plus she’s not going to let you keep him on the outside either. It’s best you leave that puppy right where you found him. OK, I said. But the little puppy started following us. We did not know how to get rid of him. We took off running. He took off running. We stopped. He stopped. We took off running again. He took off running again. Then I said, Hey Jim I’m going to take him home." I took off my shirt so nobody could see him and wrapped it around him. I picked him up and carried him the rest of the way.

That night I kept him in my bedroom. Jim and I had a bed together. If Mom catches that puppy in this room, it’s all on you TB, Jim said. I don’t have anything to do with it, he said. I’m going to say that you were told not to bring the puppy home but you brought it anyway. Mom always said you were hard headed. That night the puppy didn’t make any noise, but what would we do with him in the morning?

The next morning when I woke up the little puppy was lying on the bed beside me. I could tell he was going to be a good little puppy. I stayed in my bedroom all day that particular day. I played sick. I told Mom I had a real bad headache and I was going to stay in bed all day. It was almost noon and