Beggar

"RUN!" Mom screamed. She held the door open and jumped up and down-- waving her arms like a lunatic. "Hurry!" My brother and I caught her panic and raced inside. She slammed the door closed and leaned against it -out of breath and wide-eyed!

"What's wrong?"

"What smells so good? " My brother asked as he ran the short distance to the kitchen. "What the... Mom! What did you DO?"

There outside the window was the largest Great Dane I had ever seen, happily chewing a beautiful brown loaf of home-made bread. By the looks of things, he had already eaten three.

Never mind the fact that Mom was in a flipping panic, my brother was mad that he missed out on warm bread and jam after school snack. He barged out the back door and yelled "Get out of here you ol' Beggar!"

But Beggar just waged his tail and licked his huge choppers. "Thanks Mom," my brother sighed.

Weeks passed and we all came to like him. He was a gentle soul and we teased Mom horribly about making sure he wouldn't leave by feeding him.

As we did with all the strays that found their way to our house, we tacked a "Found Dog" poster on all the local boards. One day his owner drove up to get him. He knows his way home from here I just can't figure why he stayed.

A few days later Beggar was back. This time his owner asked us if we wanted to keep him.

"He seems to like you better than me these days." he said with a frown.

"It's not us he likes," Donny said " it's Moms' oven fresh bread." Mom came out of the house carrying a brown paper sack. "He likes it warmed." she said as she handed him Beggars' own personalized doggie bag with two loafs of bread.

"Thank you, I'll see that he gets it just the way he likes it."

It must have worked because we never saw him again.