Hound Dog

 

An old man lived with his hound-dog, Mace, in a run-down shack on the
outskirts of town. He had no family and only a few meager possessions:
a table and chair, a bed, a bag of hand tools, and his dog. He used the
tools to do odd jobs in town, for which he usually would be paid enough
to get food for the next day. Mace and his master lived from one day to
the next on what little these jobs would bring in. The dog was just a
normal hound, with one exception: while most dogs like to chew on grass
occasionally, Mace loved it. When the old man was in town, Mace would
spend the day in the yard in front of the house, chewing away on the
lawn.

One bright, sunny day the old man said goodbye to his dog and headed
into town to work. He had a plumbing repair job in one of the homes
there that would take him most of the day and would probably pay enough
for food for the remainder of the week, if he managed the money
carefully. He headed for town with a spring in his step and a whistle
on his lips. Inside the house and ready to start, the old man reached
in the bag for his wrench. To his surprise, he didn't feel it. He dug
around again, but there didn't seem to be any wrench. He looked in the
bag, then dumped its contents on the floor, but still no wrench.
Reality set in. Without a wrench he couldn't finish the job, and
without the pay he couldn't even buy food for that night's supper, let
alone for tomorrow. When he finally came to grips with reality, he told
the lady who hired him what the situation was. While she sympathized
with his situation, the job needed to be done. If the old man couldn't
do it, she would have to hire someone else.

The old man packed up his tools and headed home, head bowed and
shoulders stooped. The whistle was gone and no longer was there a
spring in his step. A walk that normally took 15 minutes seemed to last
forever. But finally the old shack came into view, and there was Mace
in the distance, munching away as usual on the lawn. When the dog saw
his master, he came running, tail wagging, telling the old man how glad
he was to see him. Kneeling beside the hound, the man began to pet him,
and through tear-filled eyes told the dog that there would be no supper
tonight and no food for tomorrow. What's more, without money to buy a
new wrench, he had no idea what the future held. It was the loneliest,
most helpless feeling he ever had!

Then he caught a glimpse of something shining in the grass. As the old
man went over to see what this piece of shining material was, his
despair turned in an instant to joy! It was the wrench! The old man had
dropped it on his way out that morning, and it would have been lost
forever had Mace not been eating farther away from the house than he
usually did! The old man grabbed the dog, gave him a hug that almost
suffocated him, and ran into the house. Reaching for a stub of pencil
and the only
piece of paper he had, he wrote a moving tribute to his canine
companion. Few people have ever heard these words...until now, that
is. One man who did happen to read them changed them a bit and has his
name recorded in music history. The > old man never did get the credit
he deserved.

But now you are privileged to read the beginning line of his original
poem, which went: "A grazing Mace, how sweet the hound that saved a
wrench for me."