Kizzy Ann Stamps by Jeri Watts Page A

lightly, she says, and James’s silence-shattering frustration is not a light tread at all.
    I am afraid too, I guess. But not for the same reasons as my mama. I’m afraid mostly for my brother.
    My brother is broken, Miss Anderson. He has wanted to play at the big homecoming game since forever. He stomped around in the kitchen, and then he found the noisiest piece of equipment in the barn, a tractor that just cannot find its gears, and he slammed tools around it, into it, and on top of it, all the while fuming and cussing and generally protesting the way life just will not let us get ahead.
    Losing a dream is a hard and very loud business. I worry that James will never really feel better about it. I guess I hadn’t realized how much Mr. McKenna and his work with Shag and me was helping me find a way to fit in to that hard world I talked about.

    I’ve been to Mr. McKenna’s again. We put Shag in the pen and stand with her. He doesn’t speak, and neither do I. I like it that way, as I don’t know how much I can say to him and I sure don’t want to get all deep into President Kennedy or the new President Johnson or how the price of corn could affect life around here. Shag has gotten pretty good, Miss Anderson, maneuvering in and out, and I thought all was going along well.
    But today was a different story. “She’s been in the pen with sheep enough,” he boomed when I walked Shag over to the pen where the sheep were waiting.
    “What else is there to do? She already knows how to herd animals. All she needed to learn was to get used to those sheep.”
    “Och, girl, are you stupid, then? She’s raw.” He got even louder on the word
raw.
I hadn’t thought he could get any louder, but
raw
erupted like a thunderclap right behind my ear.
    I marched up to him, my head no higher than his chest. “She’s
not
raw. She’s a good dog, and she can already herd. She doesn’t need you to tell her how to be a working dog.”
    “Prove it.” This time his words were soft and slow. He narrowed his eyes, eased over to the sheep pen, and pulled the gate open. The sheep spilled out into the meadow. “Prove it,” he repeated.
    I stepped out, and Shag, thank goodness, stepped out with me. She started her task with no direction from me, no signal, no help. I admit, Miss Anderson, I’ve never had a part in Shag’s work with herding. I just sit back and watch. It took her a pretty good while — about forty minutes — but she got them back into the pen and Mr. McKenna closed the gate behind them.
    He was booming again as he turned to me. “Raw. She’s lots of natural ability — hard to meet a border collie without it — so aye, she gets her job done. But every good dog can be better, in the hands of a good handler.
    “You,” he said, “you did absolutely nothing. Zero.”
    “I thought it was all about her and what she did.”
    He put his head in his hands and sighed. I’ve never heard a sigh that boomed, but this one did for sure. “Och, girl, perhaps you are stupid, then. She’s a
dog.
You’re the
master.
What she looks for is guidance so you can help her be the best she can be. Do your job and think. Lead her. Direct her. Handle her.”
    Shag growled, then looked to me.
    I wanted to walk away. I wanted to give up. Maybe I was embarrassed or just tired — I don’t know. I wanted to just plain leave it all behind me.
    But I thought of Laura Westover dismissing Shag and me. I thought of Mrs. Warren knowing I stand up for things I need to. I thought of Shag, looking up at me, counting on me to help her be her best. And I thought of James, and all the bad that comes when you don’t have enough to believe in to make you care.
    “Teach me,” I said. And I’m hoping he will.

    It isn’t easy, Miss Anderson. First, Mr. McKenna had me learning the history of border collies. I won’t bore you — you would be bored, Miss Anderson — but I’ll tell you that border collies are among the smartest of dogs, and they have