by Miriam Walker

By the age of ten, I was already a loner.  While other boys played stickball in the streets of Brooklyn on Saturday mornings, I was off by myself on a junking expedition.  I was always hoping to find something in my neighbors' trash barrels that I could sell for a dime or a quarter.  Afternoons I'd sit on the end of a long pier jutting into New York Harbor and watch the ships from all over the world.  I dreamed that one of them would some day take me far away from Brooklyn.  One day a middle-size brown dog with floppy ears and big brown eyes trotted up to me, licked my face and settled down beside me with his head on my knee.  I immediately named him Brownie and sat scratching his neck and playing with those floppy ears while I told him which country each ship was from and what kind of cargo it was carrying.  It was good to have someone to talk to.  When my stomach told me it was time to head home, Brownie followed me.  I knew better than to bring him into our house, so I hid him in the shed in our back yard.  If my mother had managed to find something for us for supper that night, I'd eat light and sneak some of my share out to Brownie.  He and I became great friends.  He followed me wherever I went.  I'd throw sticks for him to catch, and he'd bring them back to me.  I'd say, "Good Brownie" and shake his paw.  I hoped Brownie would be my dog for a long time, but as I ran home from school a few days later I was just in time to see the dog-catcher's ugly black wagon lurch around the corner.  I ran to the shed.  No Brownie. I was still bawling when my older sister Gladys got home.  After hearing my tale of woe, she put her arm around my shoulders and said, "The army needed your dog.  There's a war going on, you know." I wanted to know how the army heard about Brownie, how they found him in our shed, and what was so special about him that they had to have that particular dog. Gladys said, "I suppose he had some important quality that they really needed." I gave a snappy salute in the direction the dog catcher's wagon had taken and was proud to think of my dog as Sgt. Brownie.  I could imagine him in a khaki uniform with a little tin helmet over his floppy ears, trotting bravely to the front lines to bring messages and medical supplies to our fighting men.  I knew he would often make the difference whether those men lived or died.  I knew he'd be as much of a hero as any of the soldiers as he fought beside them for our country. It was not until another dog followed me home that I learned the truth.  This time my mother was waiting for me on the porch, and when she saw the dog, she said, "We can't keep him, Tommy.  I can barely manage to feed you and Gladys.  There's just nothing left to feed a dog."  That's when I knew that Sgt. Brownie was not in the army.  He would not be coming back to me when the war was over with medals for bravery hanging from his collar.  There'd be no story in the newspaper about my heroic dog.  I hoped with all my heart that some better-off family had given him a good home, but deep inside I was pretty sure Sgt. Brownie's story did not have a happy ending.