nothing’s wrong, Daddy,” Rose said. “You know how you get sometimes, you just start thinking about things and you can’t seem to fall asleep.”
“‘That was exactly the wrong thing to tell Daddy, of course; right away he wanted to know what things. Rose made up some stuff about the school elections to tell him. She was in charge of publicity for the candidate put up by her home room and she didn’t know where she was going to get the paints and cardboard for the posters. Well, that troubled Father and he had a little angina pain even though both knew the elections were a good two months off, but as Rose pointed out it wasn’t the end of the world, and that seemed to calm him some. But then he started to ask where everybody was: were Mother and I in bed, and where was Roger? Well, she had just let him out, Rose said. This satisfied Father for it was a natural thing to do, and so he went back to bed.
“‘Roger still wasn’t back in the morning, but fortunately Mother, who rarely was up before Father, this time was, and she told him she’d just let Roger out. That started something in our house, I can tell you. From that time on poor Mother and Rose and I had to take turns rising before Father just so’s one of us could say we’d just let Roger out. The trouble was, Father usually got up at dawn. We were always tired now because we had to take turns staying up late too. This hurt us in the alertness department. I mean, it was self-defeating, for without sleep we just weren’t sharp enough to withstand Father’s assaults on us for information. It was wintertime—a cold one in Iowa that year—and suddenly it seemed as if all our relatives and friends were coming down with everything all at once. The three of us were always so tired now that we didn’t know what we were saying and would spill the beans to Father accidentally.
“‘It wasn’t our fault, but the bad news would just tumble out all over the place and there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it. It was just awful that we couldn’t shield him any more, and believe me it took its toll on that dear man. He lost weight and had pain all the time and his parameters—pressure, pulse, eye track—just went from bad to worse. About all we could manage was to keep Roger’s disappearance from him, and this at a time when we’d given up hope of the dog’s ever returning. For that matter, Father was so generally dispirited and debilitated by now that he rarely ever asked after him. We wondered if it might not be better just to find some way of breaking the news to Father, have done with it altogether, and then maybe manage to get enough control of ourselves to try to deal with the routine day-to-day shielding of Father that the situation demanded. But of course we were too far into it now. We couldn’t just say we’d lied, and we certainly couldn’t tell him one morning that the dog had just gone off. Father had too much sense for that; he’d have seen that Roger had been missing for weeks.
“‘Well, the way it turned out we didn’t have to choose any of these alternatives, but frankly I thought it was all over with us when Father himself brought up the subject. “I don’t know, Miriam,” he said, “I just never see Roger any more. The dog is always out. He never used to be like that before this damned winter. Oh, these are hard times, Mim. I’m hearing so much bad news lately I’m worried that there might be something wrong with Roger’s bladder”—and then he clutched with both hands at the small of his back as though he’d just felt a fierce jolt in his own bladder.
“‘I told Mother and Rose what Father had said and we agreed that we had to do something fast. Well, the very next night Mother went up to Father and said, “You know, Earl, Mim and Rosie have given what you said about Roger yesterday quite a lot of thought, and Mim agreed that maybe it’s just too cold for Roger here. We did get him as a pup from
“‘That was exactly the wrong thing to tell Daddy, of course; right away he wanted to know what things. Rose made up some stuff about the school elections to tell him. She was in charge of publicity for the candidate put up by her home room and she didn’t know where she was going to get the paints and cardboard for the posters. Well, that troubled Father and he had a little angina pain even though both knew the elections were a good two months off, but as Rose pointed out it wasn’t the end of the world, and that seemed to calm him some. But then he started to ask where everybody was: were Mother and I in bed, and where was Roger? Well, she had just let him out, Rose said. This satisfied Father for it was a natural thing to do, and so he went back to bed.
“‘Roger still wasn’t back in the morning, but fortunately Mother, who rarely was up before Father, this time was, and she told him she’d just let Roger out. That started something in our house, I can tell you. From that time on poor Mother and Rose and I had to take turns rising before Father just so’s one of us could say we’d just let Roger out. The trouble was, Father usually got up at dawn. We were always tired now because we had to take turns staying up late too. This hurt us in the alertness department. I mean, it was self-defeating, for without sleep we just weren’t sharp enough to withstand Father’s assaults on us for information. It was wintertime—a cold one in Iowa that year—and suddenly it seemed as if all our relatives and friends were coming down with everything all at once. The three of us were always so tired now that we didn’t know what we were saying and would spill the beans to Father accidentally.
“‘It wasn’t our fault, but the bad news would just tumble out all over the place and there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it. It was just awful that we couldn’t shield him any more, and believe me it took its toll on that dear man. He lost weight and had pain all the time and his parameters—pressure, pulse, eye track—just went from bad to worse. About all we could manage was to keep Roger’s disappearance from him, and this at a time when we’d given up hope of the dog’s ever returning. For that matter, Father was so generally dispirited and debilitated by now that he rarely ever asked after him. We wondered if it might not be better just to find some way of breaking the news to Father, have done with it altogether, and then maybe manage to get enough control of ourselves to try to deal with the routine day-to-day shielding of Father that the situation demanded. But of course we were too far into it now. We couldn’t just say we’d lied, and we certainly couldn’t tell him one morning that the dog had just gone off. Father had too much sense for that; he’d have seen that Roger had been missing for weeks.
“‘Well, the way it turned out we didn’t have to choose any of these alternatives, but frankly I thought it was all over with us when Father himself brought up the subject. “I don’t know, Miriam,” he said, “I just never see Roger any more. The dog is always out. He never used to be like that before this damned winter. Oh, these are hard times, Mim. I’m hearing so much bad news lately I’m worried that there might be something wrong with Roger’s bladder”—and then he clutched with both hands at the small of his back as though he’d just felt a fierce jolt in his own bladder.
“‘I told Mother and Rose what Father had said and we agreed that we had to do something fast. Well, the very next night Mother went up to Father and said, “You know, Earl, Mim and Rosie have given what you said about Roger yesterday quite a lot of thought, and Mim agreed that maybe it’s just too cold for Roger here. We did get him as a pup from
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