Free Blue by Joyce Moyer Hostetter Page A

there was plenty of people running out to see what was going on. All of a sudden he hit the brakes hard and I seen that a little black dog had run across the road right in front of him.
    It took me a second to realize it was our dog. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I never thought I’d see that dog again. “Pete! It’s Pete!” I hollered. “Stop and get him, Junior. Let’s take him home.”
    But Junior wasn’t stopping for nobody—not even the policeman that stopped him on the way in. The policeman’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he seen us girls in that truck with Junior. It was a crazy, scrambled ride. The girls was crying and we was all smushed up against each other, me sitting half on top of both of them.
    I hung on to the dashboard till we were out of the road that led to the hospital. “Junior,” I said, “you were right about Pete. He followed Bobby to the hospital. Did you hear me, girls? Pete ain’t dead. He’s back there watching over Bobby.”
    It felt good to hear myself say it. I just knew Bobby would get better with Pete there being his guardian angel.
    All of a sudden I felt good—like I had climbed a mountain. I had actually got to see Momma and take her some corn and tomatoes. I knew I should fuss at Ida and Ellie for not staying put in them weeds like I told them to, but instead I felt like celebrating. So I said, “Junior, take us to the lake.”
    “I’m taking you straight home and don’t say a word about it,” said Junior. He kept glancing in his mirror like he thought the town of Hickory was fixing to send the police after him.
    When we got home, I used the last of our sugar to make a cake for the twins. Then I took some old copies of the Hickory Daily Record and the cake out to the corncrib. We set up some sweet-potato crates for tables and chairs and had us a regular playhouse. Ida and Ellie ate the cake while I read the paper to them.
    “Look!” I said. “It says right here that the president’s wife was on the train in Hickory. It says about a hundred people was watching for her to come stand on the platform and wave at them.”
    “Did she do it?”
    “No, she didn’t. But they seen her in the dining car.”
    Wow! It didn’t seem possible that President Roosevelt’s wife had rode right through little old Hickory. I wondered if the president would ever go through. I’d give my overalls just to get a glimpse of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
    While I was reading the paper, I seen a reminder that there was a paper shortage because of the war. We was supposed to turn in every last bit of paper we could find so it could be reused. So after we ate the cake and played for a while, I went inside and gathered up all the newspapers and put them in order by the date.
    All of a sudden, something caught my eye that I had missed before. There on the first page on July 4—right where I don’t know how I could’ve missed it—was a story about our dog. Of course, the story didn’t mention Pete by name, but it had to be him, on account of it was in the paper right after Bobby went to the hospital—when Pete disappeared. And now we had seen him there with our own eyes.
    “Ida!” I called. “Ellie! Come here and look at this.”
    The girls come running into the living room and I read it to them.
    DOG FOLLOWS POLIO VICTIM TO HOSPITAL
    To a little black terrier who has stationed himself out at the Emergency hospital the word polio is some mysterious something which keeps his young master away from home.
    According to the nurses at Health Center the mangy looking pup arrived Saturday and evidently has every intention of staying until his master is released.
    The dog has burrowed a pint-size fox hole in which he sleeps at night, and wags his tail thankfully when the nurses throw him bits of food during the day.
    The hospital has a strict no-visiting rule, but the self-appointed canine sentry has taken matters in his own paws.
    Besides being a man’s best friend, he figures that rules