Hand-Me-Down Dog

By Ida Powell Brown

I guess you couldn’t really call him my dog.
We didn’t have no papers I could sign,
But anyway, I paid Bill a half a dollar
Fer jist the right to say that he was mine.

You see, I’ve wanted Tim since he was little.
He was so round, an’ brown, an’ cute, but gee,
The day Bill brought him home he says, “Now listen,
This dog belongs to no one else but me.”

And then he taught Tim tricks, and took him trailin’.
They’d climb up to the top of Camel’s hill.
They never seemed to want me to be with ’em.
Tim wouldn’t go with nobody but Bill.

But now Bill’s seventeen he’s kinda changing.
He never wants to take Tim chasin’ squirrels.
He shaves, and combs his hair without mom makes him.
He don’t have time fer anything but girls.

Tim jist can’t understand why Bill acts differ’nt.
The way he howled at first, it worried me.
That’s why I sorta had to take him over,
So he’d git treated like he used to be.

I started bringin’ bones home from the butchers,
An’ takin’ him on hikes fer exercise.
But he kept missin’ Bill, he’d whine so funny,
And look so mournful at me with his eyes.

Well, Sunday night when Bill’s girl threw him over,
Of course he come a whistlin’ back to Tim.
That dog jumped up and sniffed at both our trousers,
And wouldn’t have a thing to do with him.

Right there’s where I fished out the money;
Of course Tim come to me that time, but still
He knew his supper meat was in my pocket.
Fer once, I had a better smell than Bill.

(1935)