Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday April 17, 2008

The morning I was still in bed at 3:45 already awake and I heard the neighbor's dog, "Purty" having a barking fit. Purty seldom barks, so I got up and went across the lane to try to find what was wrong. I could not see a thing, so I figured as Purty, a female of Orphan Annie style canine, is getting along in years, that this activity may be part and parcel of the fairer sex in all species. Just a thought mind you.

Later in the morning Max and Mollie went out for their morning constitution and it began to sound like a foxhunt on one of the Dupont Farms. At the crack of dawn I looked in the tree that is in my neighbor's yard and hangs over on to our property and hanging in the limbs for dear life was a midsized Coon or for the purist, a Raccoon. It was scared to death. A little later the Coon managed to get from the tree to a wheelbarrow that was leaning up against a building and was trapped by Purty. I thought, Purty needs to pray she does not get a hold of the Coon. I have seen Coons tear a good dog to shreds if the dog failed on the first lunge to get it just right. Sometime ago I wrote about a Coon drowning a $2500 Coon Dog 50 years ago. The farmer is still weeping. Anyhow, in the course of time Purty did get her nose through a gap between the wheelbarrow and the house and Purty became more than a little bloody. Later in the day Purty was serenely basking in the sun, and the Coon is nowhere to be found. I hope the little female Coon is okay. I'm sure it is a female Critter for when Joyce heard the ruckus she came out and ordered the Coon out of the tree and it just sit there looking wide eyed. I know one male who jumps when the Great Blonde issues commands and I assume any male of any species would also tremble at her Mount Sinai like voice.

I returned to the house to find Joyce sitting in the kitchen with two Bibles at the ready, she no longer owns a gun, but in her day she was a pistol packing, Bible toting Mama and having been born in Chester, PA has been known to have bouts with bitterness. She now clings to two Bibles and Jesus and as I said nurses a little bitterness.

She immediately hit me with, "Honey, do you think we can get Troy to make a little hole in the fence, just big enough to let the Coon out, and small enough to keep Purty in? I am terrified something horrible will happen to the Coon and if she has Coonites (her term for baby Coons), Purty would surely kill them, don't you think?" Now how many men would cut an arm off to have a wife with such compassion? I hope and pray that one of our neighbors will talk with Troy about a hole in his fence, after all I am known as "Dr." Lilly and I try to keep my comments to my neighbors about heavenly things.

In the near future I would not be surprised to walk out to smell the morning and see, in Troy's yard Purty and the Coon sharing Purty's food and water. She is a good dog and being born and bred in Indiana shows no sign of bitterness. We had pet Coons when I was a kid and they were a scream.

The point in all of this nonexistent, I just wanted sympathy for the Coon, for Purty if she ever catches the Coon and for me when Joyce finds out I have NOT asked Troy to make a hole in his fence. To this day she holds a Bible as though it were a pistol and she Annie Oakley.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with Credit.

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