Free A Father for Philip by Judy Griffith; Gill Page B

finish the
cabin and hang it over our door, here?”
    “If that’s what you want to do, of
course. Now I think you’ve stayed long enough. Your mom will be worried. See
you tomorrow? When I get back from helping with the field?”
    “Yup. See you, Jeff.”
    ~ * ~
    The morning of Philip’s birthday brought
low lying clouds and heavy rain. Both he and his mother slept late, due, no doubt,
to the dark skies, and when she awoke Eleanor went to the back porch at once to
see if the basket was there as Ralph Exley had promised. It was, and she lifted
the lid to be met by a shiny black nose, a whimpering sound and the scrabbling
of little paws against wicker.
    “Oh, you are a darling!” she crooned,
scooping up the pup into her lap. “Come and meet your new best friend.”
    She carried the puppy into Philip’s
room, put it on the bed beside her son’s head and stood back. The pup sniffed,
licked, then sneezed. Philip opened his eyes a crack, then widened them into
big, blue-gray orbs. He squeezed them shut for a moment before he popped them
open wider still.
    “Wow!” he cried. Then “Wow!” again.
    “Happy birthday, love.” Eleanor smiled.
“Like him?”
    Philip’s expression was answer enough,
but he said, “Oh, Mom! Is he mine?”
    “All yours. He’s a Labrador retriever,”
Eleanor replied.
    Philip squirmed to get away from the wet
little tongue which was trying to wash his chin. “Will he get big?”
    “Pretty big. Like this, maybe,” his
mother said, indicating height with her hand.
    “Wow!” Philip said once more. “Can I go
show him to Jeff before breakfast?”
    “No, honey.” Eleanor chuckled. “It’s
pouring rain and he’s too little to go running through the woods yet. You’ll
need to remember to keep both gates in our fence closed all the time, too.”
Normally, they stayed open all the time, now Philip was big enough to stay away
from the road running past the farmhouse. “You wouldn’t want him wandering into
one of the pastures where a cow could step on him, would you?”
    Philip looked at the tiny puppy and held
him close. “No! A cow could crush him with one foot. I’ll remember to close the
gates when I leave the yard.”
    “But you won’t be leaving the yard
much,” she said. “You’ll need to stay home with him and help him learn all
sorts of things. I’m sure Jeff will understand.”
    “Then can I go tell Jeff about him now?”
    “Not in the rain! If you want your puppy
to be really yours, you’ll have to stay out of the woods until he’s big enough
to go along. You need to spend lots and lots of time with him in case he thinks
he’s my dog, not yours, because I’ll have to look after him when you’re in
school. What are you going to name him?”
    “Casey,” replied Philip without an
instant’s hesitation, looking surprised at his mother’s question.
    “Casey? That’s a good name. How did you
come up with it so fast?”
    “Because that’s his name, Mom. That’s
what you just called him.”
    “I did?” Eleanor  knew quite well
she had done nothing of the sort.
    “Yes. You said, ‘Casey thinks he’s my
dog.’” Philip frowned and held the puppy closer to him for a moment. “How come
he thinks he’s your dog, Mom?” He appeared quite aggrieved at the thought.
    “Philip! I don’t believe you heard a
word I said. I did not say ‘Casey thinks he’s my dog’, I said, ‘ in case he thinks he’s my dog’.”
    “Yeah. Casey thinks he’s your dog. But
he’s not, Mom. He’s mine. Isn’t he? Even if you said—”
    “All right! All right!” Eleanor laughed,
holding up her hands to ward off the spate of words she expected to hear
pouring out of her son as he repeated their previous conversation verbatim—As
he had heard it. “Breakfast. Let’s go.”
    But ‘Casey’ the dog remained.
    ~ * ~
    The birthday dinner party went off well,
with everyone, including Kathy batting balloons wildly around the house while
the puppy barked shrilly,