A TALE

They moved into a little house. A small family: Dad, Mom, a little boy and his dog, Mustard.

One might think Mustard was a yellow dog, but Mustard was a mixed breed with long, black fur, except for a tiny spot of hair on her chest that was the color of, well, mustard, and that was what the boy picked up on when Mustard was just a pup. And that’s how a black dog named Mustard got her name.

This little family moved into a little house. Dad intended to work the yard on a regular basis: the mowing, the hedging, the trimming, and all the lawn work that goes with having a little house.

Yet, every time Dad worked the yard, strange things happened. The lawnmower blew up. The weed-eater fell apart. The hedger would shock Dad every time he used it. The edger edged out a piece of curb sending concrete flying, with one piece spinning and arcing up to destroy the edger.

No matter how Dad tried, or what he used for yard work, the equipment always blew up or fried out or half electrocuted him. On hearing the tales, Dad gave up completely on the yard.

Tales surrounded the property where the little family’s little house sat. Some said the house had been built on a Native American burial ground. Another story claimed a voodoo man once lived in a shack that sat on this same property years earlier. One story claimed a business had dumped chemicals on the property many years ago.

The little family, of course, never heard any of these stories until after they had moved into the little house. And then, it was too late. They were already there and, since nothing strange ever happened inside the house, they stayed. It was just the yard where strange things happened. After a while, Dad just let the yard go.

To a young boy, this out-of-control yard was a thing of wonder and adventure. Tall grass, climbing vines, weeds transformed into trees, and clumps of shedding dog hair from Mustard’s long fur.

Mom often commented that there was enough loose dog hair in the back yard to make a second dog. These comments were not lost on the little boy.

He spent one summer afternoon searching for dog hair throughout the yard. The little boy gathered the loose hair and formed it into the shape of a black, shaggy dog. The little boy used bits of Mustard’s loose gold hairs to make eyes for this second dog.

That evening, he showed his family this dog-hair dog on their back porch. The little family laughed at the little boy’s creation while Mustard barked at it. The dog-hair dog still sat on the back porch as Dad let Mustard in for the night and the little family went to sleep.

The next morning, the family woke early to barking. Dad got up, wondering who let Mustard out, but he saw Mustard laying at the foot of the little boy’s bed. Opening the door, Dad discovered that the dog-hair dog was alive and barking a hollowed-out bark.

Before Dad could say or do anything, the little boy was at the doorway. Seeing the boy, the dog-hair dog wagged its dog-hair tail. Can we keep him? Can we? the boy pleaded running outside, before Dad could stop him. The little boy patted the dog-hair dog’s dog-hair head. 

Your name is Scrap, the boy said to the dog-hair dog.

And Scrap became part of the family, much to the happiness of the little boy, the uncertainty of Dad and Mom, and the downright consternation of Mustard.

Eventually, the real dog and the dog-hair dog got along OK, sorta. Scrap had no interest in Mustard’s food or water. Scrap wanted nothing to eat, though he seemed to be living off something. Every day, he grew larger until Scrap was an enormous thing of black hair with those bits of gold fur shining where eyes would normally be.

It was the boy who noticed it finally, saying that ol’ Mustard didn’t shed any more. Mom figured it out. Mustard still shed, it was just that Scrap absorbed it. And not just hair.

As Scrap grew, he wasn’t just black fur with gold eyes. What looked like a squirrel’s tail could be seen near his hip. Candy wrappers glistened near his paws. Part of a Coke can poked from his ribs. And Scrap kept growing.

The little boy was crazy about Scrap, even though Scrap had developed a smell similar to a garbage dumpster. The neighbors did not know what to make of Scrap. They avoided the little family with the little house where the large dog-hair dog lived. And Mustard became miserable as the little boy spent more time with Scrap than with her.

Then came a day when Mom took Mustard to the groomer and Mustard’s long black hair was trimmed close to the skin, so that shaggy Mustard became crew-cut Mustard. 

Within days, the little boy noticed that Scrap looked like he was thinning. Coke cans and trash as well as dead squirrels and dead birds fell out of Scrap whenever he loped across the yard. Whenever Scrap lay on the porch, he looked more like a lump of hair instead of a dog made of dog hair.

On the night of a storm, Scrap howled and howled. No matter how much the little boy begged, Mom and Dad wouldn’t let Scrap inside the house. That had been the rule. The boy could keep Scrap but Scrap couldn’t come inside the house.

Of course, after that night, there wasn’t anything left to keep. Scrap was gone though Mustard’s fur was scattered throughout the yard. Following that night, Dad could work in the yard without anything happening to the mower and other equipment. Whatever curse or hex had been on the land disappeared with Scrap.

The little boy mourned his lost Scrap, but once Mustard’s fur returned, and she began shedding again, well, the little boy felt like he had a piece of Scrap back every time he swept the porch.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times.