2. Lady and Sylvia
She dangles her paws over the edge of the porch in the shadow of the eave when it gets warm, then hot. She folds one paw over the other as if in prayer. Lady watches Sylvia stalk the chickens but with no great interest.
Sylvia’s long low body slinks among the ferns and ruffage. She moves like some well oiled machine with a million gears. The way she moves reminds me also of those tiny red newts that like to slink and slither among the mountain rhododendrons, except that the newts are so innocent and wide-eyed, like they are seeing God’s great creation unveiled on the seventh day, whereas Sylvia has murder on her mind. Chanticleer quits pawing contemptuously at the ground. He’s seen Sylvia from fifty yards. Her sleek gray stands out starkly against the dirt and brush. He looks up at her and cocks his head to one side and to the other. He cackles a haughty warning. Sylvia stops her gears.
Then she streaks across the yard and the hens erupt in nervous cack- ling. They and Henry scatter like a cluster of clacking marbles struck by a well placed shot. Even Chance takes a few involuntary trots away before he recalls his dignified station. Then he cackles at Sylvia and refuses to move further. Sylvia dashes up a tree. The chickens reassemble a little further toward the creek.
Lady watches this drama a dozen times daily. I watch her from the kitchen window and wonder what she thinks. She’s well above all this barnyard nonsense. She’s an old dog now. Her tail and the hairs around her eyes are streaked with ashes. She’s gotten thicker around the middle. You would say that I toss her too many scraps. I would say that since we’re both a couple of old ladies, we two can eat what we want, waistlines be damned.
Sometimes I think that Lady suffers from depression, sometimes I think that she is just resigned. She has big brown melancholy eyes like mine. Old ladies with big brown melancholy eyes are bound to get ac- cused of sadness, and we certainly do.
The latest one, William, is always very sweet to Lady. When he visits he brings her doggy bones and toys. He waves the toy in front of her, she looks at him dubiously, then clamps the toy in her mouth and runs away.
I know that the two of them do this solely for my benefit. William never particularly liked animals despite, or maybe because of, having grown up on a farm. Lady never liked change and she does not believe in replacements. Lady thinks when things are lost, they are lost, and when souls get holes in them they cannot simply be mended like a scarred tin roof.
