Cloud Pictures, What Do You See?

August 11, 1965

Jocie Brooke here, reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Do you like trying to see things in clouds? I do sometimes. I took this picture. Well, not really on purpose. Zella would have a fit if she thought I was wasting film on clouds, but I slipped when I was trying to take a cow picture for the paper and took the sky instead. I don't know why people wouldn't just as soon see clouds as a cow, but Dad says they wouldn't. That farmers like pastoral scenes in their paper.

Anyway, once the picture was taken, it was taken. Wasted film or not. Now I'm seeing an angel in the cloud. Wes says I'm using more imagination than eyesight, but if I want to see an angel where there's nothing but fluffy puffs of white, then that's fine. He says a person should see things they like to see when they look at clouds. I asked him what he saw. He looked at the picture a long time and then said he saw race tracks for invisible sky racers. Zella said we were both wrong. That anybody could see the lion's face in the middle of the cloud. Plain as day. 

Dad said he saw clouds. Said he liked clouds just the way they were, that he spent so much time under the ocean in that submarine during the war that he was always blessed by the sight of blue sky and clouds. 

So what do you see here?

Poor Bailey in my story doesn't like dark clouds, but sometimes the storm clouds come.  Right now he's having trouble figuring out a way to get out of the fenced in yard. Remember the part of the story that I've already written is on the Bailey's Bug link at the top of my report if you want to catch up.  I'm thinking I should have cut out some of the beginning and jumped to the action faster. I think there's going to be some action. I think. Anyway, here's the next couple of pages.

BAILEY'S BUG (Continued) by Jocie Brooke

     The fence wasn’t so easy to conquer. Bailey couldn't jump it. His legs weren't long enough or springy enough. He pushed his head against it, but all that did was pinch his nose between the wire links. With a yowl, he plopped down in the shade with his paw over his face.

     After a while, he started walking around the fence again looking for a weak spot. In the far corner a little hole showed up under the bottom of the fence. He began pawing at it to make it bigger, but Mr. Robinson ran out, grabbed his collar and gave him a shake.

     “Stop that, Bailey. No digging in the yard.”

     Bailey backed away from the hole that was too little to fit his head through, much less the rest of him. Even if he could sneak around and dig when the Robinsons weren’t paying attention, it would take a lot of digging, and his toenails where already sore. There had to be a better way. Bailey went back to the middle of the yard.

     He didn’t have much time. Mr. Robinson was headed toward the back door. Maybe the gate wasn’t fastened tight. Bailey took off and banged into the gate. It gave just enough for him to squeeze his head through, but then the gate bounced back and caught his neck.

     All he could do was make a strangled whiny sound until Mr. Robinson came to rescue him.

     “What’s the matter with you today, Bailey?” Mr. Robinson pushed open the gate to let Bailey get his head free. “You got someplace you want to go?”

     Bailey hopped around Mr. Robinson and then jumped up on the gate. He wagged his tail as fast as he could. Maybe Mr. Robinson understood what he wanted to do.

     But then the man laughed. “You silly old dog. You don’t really want out there. Nothing but trouble out there for a dog like you.” He took hold of Bailey’s collar and led him toward the back door.

     Bailey had to go back inside. Lucinda looked up from her nap with her I-told-you-so look. He didn’t wait for her to say it out loud. He said, “I’m going. Tomorrow.”

     She raised up and stretched, grabbing her claws on the back of the recliner. “Don’t bother waking me to say goodbye.”

 (to be continued)

That's all I got written this week. When I wasn't at the newspaper, I had to help Aunt Love with the green beans somebody at church gave her. Stringing beans takes forever. But I'll figure out how Bailey gets out of that fence sooner or later. Do you have any ideas?