Tippy, Chapter Five

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

Continued from last week.

I was completely flabbergasted and dejected. I had not planned on this. I needed a new plan. I decided to stay in my old doghouse until I could get my thoughts together. At least it was something familiar.

I bedded down there for the night. Sometime in the night an old car came up the driveway. It stopped, and the motor was shut off. Four big rough-looking characters got out. They each had a flashlight and a pistol.  

They started looking around. They went in the farm buildings. They went to the house and shined their flashlights in the windows. I didn’t know what to do, whether to stay where I was or run and hide somewhere else. Wherever the old chicken was, it was staying very silent. I decided to do the same.

The men finally gathered back at the car. I heard them say there is nothing here, and they left.

When daylight came, I felt safe coming out of the doghouse and looking around. I went to the place where Mother Thompson always placed the table scraps and found a few remnants there. Then I decided, for old times’ sake, to visit the briar patch where Pete and I used to hunt rabbits. I couldn’t catch one by myself. I missed Pete.

Toward evening, I came back to the doghouse. I felt really lost and alone. What to do? I finally went to sleep. {D It was summer and Jim, Pete and I were in the front yard, spread out under the Maple trees. Jim was reading from that Black Book he would occasionally read aloud. This time he read, “This is Matthew Chapter 6 Verse 26. ‘Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?’” D} 

I awoke with a start and admitted to myself I didn’t understand the dream much.  

However, it seemed as though it was saying something bigger than us was taking care of the birds. My deduction was that I am bigger than most birds (except those ugly buzzards) so he must take care of me too. Evidence of this was that I was free of scratches and scrapes, no one had caught me, and I was not hungry.  

I was just very, very lonely. Time to think of a new plan.

To be continued.

Note: The {D} section indicates a dream sequence.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.