Charlie

              Charlie Smith sat on the hard bench with his bowed legs tucked under the edge.  In his hands, the chunk of pine transformed into the image of a puma stretched out as though in a crouch.  The shavings on the ground between his legs were clustered like heaps of fallen leaves from the nearby Sycamore.  As he whittled, he watched the feuding couple nearby.  They shouted at one another like a squabbling pair of stellar jays.  The craggy lines in Charlie’s face deepened as he furrowed his bushy brow. 

“That’s the trouble with wimmen,” he said, “they’re always tellin’ you what to do.”

The couple’s loud bickering disturbed the McNab that lay curled at his feet.  Charlie reached down and gently stroked the dog that raised its head and perked its ears.  “Pay those fools no mind, Sport.  They’re just stirring a pack of trouble for one another.”  He spoke low under his breath as the bickering between the couple intensified.

Charlie’s pale blue eyes flashed from the restless dog that was emitting a low growl in response, back toward the couple disturbing the animal.  It didn’t seem necessary somehow to create such a ruckus.  Charlie figured all the man had to do to alleviate the situation was to walk away, leaving the loud-mouthed woman standing with no one to argue with.  The only thing he could determine that the bickering was accomplishing was to disturb the quiet and enrage his dog.  He resented the intrusion and wished they would just go away somewhere. 

“Time was when a woman knew her place and kept her thoughts to herself,” Charlie muttered to the McNab.  “Time was when a man was a man, and no woman raised her voice to argue.”

The dog looked up at his craggy-faced master with the alert expression of understanding.  He whined, placed his chin on his paws, and settled back between his master’s denim clad legs.  He lay with ears erect with his master’s diligent efforts in the form of excelsior piled on the ground around him.  Charlie absent-mindedly stroked the top of the dog’s head.

It wasn’t that Charlie had no use for women; it was that he longed for the time when women were too busy to pick an argument with their men folk.  A time when they knew when to keep their mouths shut.  Too bad they weren’t as smart and as loyal as the dog.  He bent to soothe the McNab again.  The dog raised his head to give his master an impromptu lick, then nestled his chin into his furry paws, his eyes fixed on the couple as they moved away, taking their bickering along with them.