Did You Hear About The Time My Expedition Was Ruined?

Archie Brown’s dad had grown up in Arkansas. He had moved to Texas after his service in the Navy in WWII, to work in a chemical plant. But every summer, the family went to Arkansas to visit the kinfolks back on the farm.

Archie really loved the visits because of adventures he and his cousin, Sherman Earle, got to experience. Archie and Sherman were only 3 months apart, age wise, and they really got along well. Sherman’s dad kept livestock. He had a pond with lots of fish for the boys to catch. And he had dogs. Coon dogs.

One of the best of the dogs was called Rounder. He was named because he was expert at circling a coon till he could find an opening to catch it without getting himself hurt by his prey. But Rounder was a great dog for boys as well. He would fetch and do other tricks. He would protect the boys from snakes and other threats to their safety. Archie thought Lassie had taken lessons from Rounder on how to be a kid dog.

One day Aunt Joyce, Sherman’s mother, told the 6 year old boys they could go on a picnic if they took Rounder with them. She thought the boys would go to the end of the gravel road and eat under a tree within sight of the house. But Archie and Sherman had other ideas.

Archie and Sherm were excited to go on an exploring the woods. They made themselves a lunch of peanut butter crackers and a big jar of orange kool-aid. They took their lunches and their bb guns, and set off on their expedition. They walked nearly half a mile, following the bank of an irrigation canal, to a place where a tree had fallen across the canal. The boys put their lunches on a rock so they would have one hand free as they crossed the canal on the log bridge. Once across, they went into the woods and snooped around, taking pot shots at blackbirds and exploring land they were sure had never been discovered before.

Some time later, the boys heard their names being called by Aunt Joyce and Archie’s dad, Orel. The parents were horrified to think the boys had gone so far and could not believe they would have crossed the log into the woods. The boys got a very stern lecture that day.

The only thing that upset Archie and Sherman, though, was that when they got back, they found Rounder laying on the rock, having eaten their lunches. Archie and Sherman were really disheartened.

If a guy can’t trust his dog, who can he trust?