Amazing Grace by Nancy Allen

talk with Moonglow every day, I’d have to.”
    â€œMr. Wick, you talk to your mule, don’t you?” I asked. I’d seen him brush Moonglow, and I’d heard him talk to the mule.
    â€œWell, yeah, I reckon I do at that,” he answered. “But I’d have to twice a day if not for Spot. I owe that mutt.”
    Grandma walked into her house and came back out with an apple cake. “It’s not much for all the trouble you went to for Spot, but we sure do thank you,” Grandma said as she handed the cake to Mr. Wick.

    â€œNobody, but nobody, bakes a finer cake than you, Maude Brewer,” he said.
    Grandma looked at Mr. Wick and blushed.
    I carried Spot’s water and food bowls to the shed and placed them inside the door. The shed was bigger than his doghouse, and he needed a place to stay out of the rain.
    I spent most of the afternoon sitting with Spot. He woke up about three hours later. When my sweet mutt saw me, he thumped his tail against the floor. “Spot, I was getting concerned about you,” I said.
    Spot looked at me and whimpered. In dog talk that meant, “I was getting concerned about me too.”
    â€œI never expected Mr. Wick to take such good care of you, boy,” I said. “He always said he didn’t care much for mutts.”
    Spot whimpered again, and I read his thoughts: “I’m irresistible.”
    â€œYou are, for sure,” I told him as I stroked his head with my hand. “Spot, I’ll be honest with you. A time or two I was afraid you might not come home again. I knew you would if you could, but that’s what scared me. I was afraid you couldn’t.”
    He whimpered, looking scared.
    â€œYou know, Spot, sometimes I feel scared about Daddy. Scared that he can’t make it home. But if you can make it back, maybe he can too.”
    That time, Spot didn’t whimper. He wagged his tail. In dog talk that meant, “Think positive. Have gumption.”
    â€œSpot, you are a fine specimen of a canine.”
    I handfed Spot a breakfast biscuit I had saved just for him. Spot always gobbled up Grandma’s buttermilk biscuits. I slipped his pill inside a chunk of cheese, and he swallowed it whole. He slept a lot the rest of the day, but I could tell he was feeling better.
    I felt so good I wrote a letter.
    Dear Daddy,
    Johnny and I went to the Paramount Theater yesterday. We saw “Lassie Come Home.” It was a sad story about a dog that got sold. The story was especially sad for me because Spot was missing at the same time we watched the picture show. My story has a happy ending too. Spot is home and feeling better. Mr. Wick found Spot and took him to Doc Singleton. The doctor treated him and gave him medicine. Mr. Wick is Grandma’s neighbor who said he never did care for mutts. Now he says that Spot is a fine specimen of a canine.
    Johnny liked the theater. He liked the big screen. He liked the popcorn and soda pop. He liked the big cushy seats, too, and so did I. Johnny said he wanted to go to the Paramount Theater every day. He said he would be willing to miss school this fall and go back to the theater if Mom wanted him to. Mom told him she appreciated his willingness to do what she wanted, but for now, she thought school would be better.
    At the library, I checked out the book “Lassie Come Home.” Mom reads a chapter, sometimes two, each night to Johnny, and I read a chapter to him each afternoon.
    Mom told Johnny and me about your trip to the Kentucky Derby. She said we might go when you get back home. If we do, Johnny wants to enter Moonglow, Mr. Wick’s mule, in the race. Mom told him that a mule wouldn’t stand a chance of winning in the Kentucky Derby against all those Thoroughbreds. Johnny said Moonglow would do as well as Granville, that he couldn’t do worse than last place. That Johnny, he’s a real judge of horseflesh. Mom says he comes by it naturally.
    If you