thought of someone she hadn’t thought of in years, Ma and Pa’s old German shepherd dog.  Elizabeth had never known Smokey.  He was bitten by a rattlesnake a month before Elizabeth was born.  Christine told Elizabeth about how Pa named him Smokey, because he was a dark, gray color with big, black eyes.  He had loved Ma’s salt pork, and she told how Ma used to give him his own plate.  He was a good watchdog, and that’s how the rattlesnake got him.  Christine had been playing on the ground with Smokey.  She was only two or three, she couldn’t remember which.  The snake had crept up on Christine, and Smokey took the deadly bite for her, fighting with the snake, who retreated, but not before he had sunk his lethal fangs deeply into Smokey’s paw.  Smo...

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