bulldog as he traipsed up and down the length of his wire. With the rifle I followed him in the sights. But every time I got a bead on him, tree foliage got in the way.
Suddenly a gasp sounded from below. “Jim, what are you doing up there?”
Mom didn’t wait for an answer. Our screen door slammed and I could tell she was on the phone with my father at his hardware store. In a few minutes our Ford chattered into the driveway. Dad climbed out and came over to the apple tree.
“C’mon down, Jim,” he said gently. Reluctantly, I put the safety on and let myself down onto the summerseared grass.
The next morning, Dad, who knew me better than I knew myself, said, “Jim, after you finish school today, I want you to come to the store.”
That afternoon I trudged downtown to Dad’s hardware store, figuring he wanted the windows washed or something. He stepped out from behind the counter and led me back to the stockroom. We edged past kegs of nails, coils of garden hose and rolls of screen wire over to a corner. There squatted my hated nemesis, Bogy, tied to a post.
“Now here’s the bulldog,” Dad said. “This is the easy way to kill him if you still feel that way.” He handed me a short-barreled .22-caliber rifle. I glanced at him questioningly. He nodded.
I took the gun, lifted it to my shoulder and sighted down the black barrel. Bogy, brown eyes regarding me, panted happily, pink tongue peeking from tusked jaws. As I began to squeeze the trigger, a thousand thoughts flashed through my mind while Dad stood silently by. But my mind wasn’t silent; all of Dad’s teaching about our responsibility to defenseless creatures, fair play, right and wrong, welled within me. I thought of Mom loving me after I broke her favorite china serving bowl. There were other voices—our preacher leading us in prayer, asking God to forgive us as we forgave others.
Suddenly the rifle weighed a ton and the sight wavered in my vision. I lowered it and looked up at Dad helplessly. A quiet smile crossed his face and he clasped my shoulder. “I know, son,” he said gently. I realized then: He had never expected me to pull that trigger. In his wise, deep way he let me face my decision on my own. I never did learn how Dad managed to arrange Bogy’s presence that afternoon, but I know he had trusted me to make the right choice.
A tremendous relief overwhelmed me as I put down the gun. I knelt down with Dad and helped untie Bogy, who wriggled against us happily, his stub tail wiggling furiously.
That night I slept well for the first time in days. The next morning as I leaped down the back steps, I saw Bogy next door and stopped. Dad ruffled my hair. “Seems you’ve forgiven him, son.”
I raced off to school. Forgiveness, I found, could be exhilarating.
Jimmy Stewart
As told to Dick Schneider
© Lynn Johnston Productions Inc./Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
The Joy of the Run
All the men in my family for three generations have been doctors. That was what we did. I got my first stethoscope when I was six. I heard stories of the lives my grandfather and my father had saved, the babies they’d delivered, the nights they’d sat up with sick children. I was shown where my name would go on the brass plaque on the office door. And so the vision of what I would become was engraved in my imagination.
But as college neared, I began to feel that becoming a doctor was not engraved upon my heart. For one thing, I reacted to situations very differently from my dad. I’d seen him hauled out at three in the morning to attend a child who’d developed pneumonia because his parents hadn’t brought him to the office earlier. I would have given them a hard time, but he never would. “Parents want their kids to be all right so bad, they sometimes can’t admit the child’s really sick,” he said forgivingly. And then there were the terrible things like the death of a ten-year-old from lockjaw—that I knew I couldn’t handle. What
Suddenly a gasp sounded from below. “Jim, what are you doing up there?”
Mom didn’t wait for an answer. Our screen door slammed and I could tell she was on the phone with my father at his hardware store. In a few minutes our Ford chattered into the driveway. Dad climbed out and came over to the apple tree.
“C’mon down, Jim,” he said gently. Reluctantly, I put the safety on and let myself down onto the summerseared grass.
The next morning, Dad, who knew me better than I knew myself, said, “Jim, after you finish school today, I want you to come to the store.”
That afternoon I trudged downtown to Dad’s hardware store, figuring he wanted the windows washed or something. He stepped out from behind the counter and led me back to the stockroom. We edged past kegs of nails, coils of garden hose and rolls of screen wire over to a corner. There squatted my hated nemesis, Bogy, tied to a post.
“Now here’s the bulldog,” Dad said. “This is the easy way to kill him if you still feel that way.” He handed me a short-barreled .22-caliber rifle. I glanced at him questioningly. He nodded.
I took the gun, lifted it to my shoulder and sighted down the black barrel. Bogy, brown eyes regarding me, panted happily, pink tongue peeking from tusked jaws. As I began to squeeze the trigger, a thousand thoughts flashed through my mind while Dad stood silently by. But my mind wasn’t silent; all of Dad’s teaching about our responsibility to defenseless creatures, fair play, right and wrong, welled within me. I thought of Mom loving me after I broke her favorite china serving bowl. There were other voices—our preacher leading us in prayer, asking God to forgive us as we forgave others.
Suddenly the rifle weighed a ton and the sight wavered in my vision. I lowered it and looked up at Dad helplessly. A quiet smile crossed his face and he clasped my shoulder. “I know, son,” he said gently. I realized then: He had never expected me to pull that trigger. In his wise, deep way he let me face my decision on my own. I never did learn how Dad managed to arrange Bogy’s presence that afternoon, but I know he had trusted me to make the right choice.
A tremendous relief overwhelmed me as I put down the gun. I knelt down with Dad and helped untie Bogy, who wriggled against us happily, his stub tail wiggling furiously.
That night I slept well for the first time in days. The next morning as I leaped down the back steps, I saw Bogy next door and stopped. Dad ruffled my hair. “Seems you’ve forgiven him, son.”
I raced off to school. Forgiveness, I found, could be exhilarating.
Jimmy Stewart
As told to Dick Schneider
© Lynn Johnston Productions Inc./Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
The Joy of the Run
All the men in my family for three generations have been doctors. That was what we did. I got my first stethoscope when I was six. I heard stories of the lives my grandfather and my father had saved, the babies they’d delivered, the nights they’d sat up with sick children. I was shown where my name would go on the brass plaque on the office door. And so the vision of what I would become was engraved in my imagination.
But as college neared, I began to feel that becoming a doctor was not engraved upon my heart. For one thing, I reacted to situations very differently from my dad. I’d seen him hauled out at three in the morning to attend a child who’d developed pneumonia because his parents hadn’t brought him to the office earlier. I would have given them a hard time, but he never would. “Parents want their kids to be all right so bad, they sometimes can’t admit the child’s really sick,” he said forgivingly. And then there were the terrible things like the death of a ten-year-old from lockjaw—that I knew I couldn’t handle. What
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