The Last Days of Dogtown

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is just as I warned. I have outstayed my welcome, and you are tired of me.”

“Not at all,” said Martha. “I am being selfish. I wish to have you smiling and blooming entirely for my own purposes. So take your Greyling and come back to me as soon as you can bear it. The judge has hired an extra girl, and he will be in residence for the rest of the month. I’ve even had the cook fill a basket for you.”

Judy smiled. “You have thought of everything. I am banished.”

On her way home, she stopped at the Youngers’ and covered Natty with kisses. “Look how much he has grown behind my back! How dare he?” Since she’d last visited, Polly had taken in a puppy, too, a squat, white creature with a feathery tail that Natty had named Poppa. The pup wagged at Greyling and stretched his paws away from his body, inviting her to play. But the old dog took no notice at all, curling up on the cool hearthstone while Poppa sniffed for crumbs.

Refreshed by an hour of smiles, good news, and

glowing health, Judy made her way back to her own Dogtown bed, where she slept soundly until midafternoon.

When she finally woke up and looked around, she

marveled at the perfect order and lack of dust. She would thank Polly for coming so far to do her this favor. Or perhaps it was Easter, who was not nearly such a good housekeeper in her own place.

In fact, it had been Cornelius. During Judy’s long stay at the Cooks’, he had taken it upon himself to wipe the table and sweep the floors, brush away the cobwebs, and even air the quilt. Long before that and for years on end, he’d been

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looking after Judy’s house from the outside, making sure that the roof was sound, the windows tight.

He had watched over her person as well, finding safe vantages where he could see her cooking at her own hearth, sitting in quiet communion with Martha, dandling Natty Younger.

One cold winter night when he’d had a clear view into the Dogtown cottage, she stopped in the middle of the room and raised her nose up in the air, like a dog picking up a scent. If she had seen him, if she had caught his eye and called to him, he might have walked in and stayed. But she turned away, smiling, and said something to the dog.

Wherever Judy slept, the dog was with her.

Cornelius had hated Greyling at first, jealous of the dog’s constant presence. But he came to admire the animal’s loyalty to Judy, and he realized that she showed him a kind of allegiance as well. Greyling would bark when anyone came within twenty feet of Judy Rhines’s house, but she kept quiet when it was Cornelius, no matter how close he approached or how late he called. Perhaps she remembered him from the one night they’d both slept under Judy’s roof, long ago. Or maybe she recognized his scent, knowing him to be harmless as a rabbit. Indeed, he’d even begun to worry about the dog, now white around the muzzle and so stiff in the joints that Judy had to slow her pace as they walked to and from the harbor.

Greyling died on a brilliant October morning. Judy had let her out and watched the dog stretch and shake before

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padding into the woods, her tail wagging. It wasn’t until late in the day that Judy missed her.

She walked to Greyling’s favorite spot, where the sun would heat a low granite outcrop so it warmed the dog’s old bones from below as well as from above. When Judy saw red and golden leaves lying over the still, silver flank, she knew that her friend was gone.

She got a shovel and dug a grave beside her, rolling the not-quite-stiff body, suddenly so small, into the rocky hole.

She laid a bouquet of autumn leaves and branches of orange bittersweet over her companion, and filled the grave, weeping.

That night in bed, Judy shivered, missing the shaggy heat and regular breathing of her closest friend. She was grateful that Greyling hadn’t retreated far into the woods to die, like the wilder dogs. She would have worried for days if Greyling had simply disappeared.

Judy remembered the first time she’d seen Greyling, not much more than a puppy, skinny and skittish. It had been an autumn day as well. The dog was in the middle of the Commons Road chasing a leaf that was caught in a stiff breeze. It was a yellow maple leaf capering in the air like a butterfly.

The dog had snapped at it and jumped until she’d caught it, then danced and wagged her tail and chewed it to bits.

A birdsong split the night silence and Judy Rhines held her breath, listening to the torrent of melody. She wanted to turn and ask, “It’s too late for mockingbirds, isn’t it?”