When I was eight years old, I bought my very first dog.  ..... 

"Daddy said we'd pay you if need be," I told Mrs Thomas.

"Now Sam oughta know better'n that."  Her hug left me gasping for air.

"Well, Daddy said it's a better dog that's bought and paid for." I folded my arms across my chest like I'd seen Daddy do when he was making deals.

"Is Sam the one wantin' this dog?" she asked and plopped her backside down in one of the porch rockers leaving the sides bulging, and started rocking.

"Oh no!  It's gonna be mine.  I'll do the tending and feeding myself."  I backed up the empty rocker beside Mrs. Thomas, tip-toed to fit my bottom up into the seat and swayed to start rocking like she was doing.

"Well then, young lady.  How much money do you have?"

That put a whole new light on the subject.  I reached down into my pockets of my old overalls and pulled out my money.  "I got two nickels.  Will that be enough?"  I suddenly felt I wasn't as good at making deals as my Daddy.

"Of course that's enough.  But I can't have you going around broke, so why don't you give me one of those nickels, and you keep the other?  The old dog's all yours."

I handed her a nickel and asked if the dog had a name.

"Nope.  I've always just called her Dog."  When she saw the disappointment in my eyes, she said, "Course now, if you wanted to call her something, you could caller her  Nickel since that's what she cost ya."   I thought that was the smartest thing I'd ever heard.

"Come on Nickel," I said and just like she knew there had been a deal made, she trotted down the dusty road right by my side.  About a hundred feet away, she stopped and looked back as if to say goodbye.  I patted her head and yelled back to Mrs. Thomas, "I'll take real good care of Nickel.  I promise."

"Oh, I'd bet on that Shug.  Bye now.  You be a good girl."

I waved and skipped happily down the road to home, Nickel by my side, never to see Mrs. Thomas again.

(This is an excerpt from a much longer story,  published in Good Old Days in 1989, winning three awards.  To be published soon in a collection of short stories by Shirley Ann Gandy)