Trudy and Biscuit

In the valley of Fairmeadows, in the town of Dun-under-Dell, lived Trudy with her mother and father and her older brother Rufus. This is a story about Trudy.

One August morning, Trudy decided to visit her favorite bit of woods just on the edge of town. Her mother often told her not to go there alone, but to take Rufus or her friend Serafina, but it was a fine, bright day and she was feeling spunky. Mother had just baked biscuits and set them out to cool, but Trudy liked the sweet things still warm, so she filled her pocket with the warm, fragrant biscuits, and off she went.

As she came to the main road through town, the one she had to cross to get to the woods, she stopped and looked both ways. She saw no farmer leading a wagon of produce, no blacksmith heading out to the country to shoe a horse, only an old donkey standing by the side of the road, swishing its tail and looking at her, bored. Trudy scurried across the road and into the woods.

Oh, how cool it was in the shade of the trees. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a warm biscuit and took a healthy bite. She tasted the sweet honey, the rich flour, and gave thanks for the milk their cow gave just that morning. As she walked deeper into the familiar woods, she munched another biscuit, happy as anyone would be with something sweet to eat in a shady wood on a fine day in August.

Now, Mother did not want her walking alone in those woods, because one never knew what might be lurking in a cave, or behind a rock, or up in a tree. But Trudy was not afraid; she knew the woods well, and had never seen anything more frightening than a water snake, sleeping on a rock by the stream. And Trudy knew that the best thing to do with a snake was just to leave it alone.

She walked along a familiar path, humming to herself a song she had learned on Sunday. There was a big rock nearby, where she sat to eat another biscuit. While she was licking the crumbs off her fingers, she heard a “snap” behind her. There was something there! Something had broken a twig, something she had not seen when she came to sit down. What could it be?

Trudy slowly turned and looked straight behind her. There was nothing there; she didn’t know whether to be relieved or to be even more frightened. Then she looked down behind the rock, and laughed. “How did you get here?” she said to a small, brown puppy, all alone in the woods and looking very, very hungry.

She reached to the puppy but it backed away, wary of her. The poor thing was hungry and lost – and small enough to become dinner for something bigger – but it was scared of her. “Come here,” Trudy said, and held out her hand, but the puppy backed away, wriggling under some brush.

Then Trudy thought, “Do puppies like biscuits?” She felt in her pocket; there was just one warm biscuit left. “Hmm,” she thought. “If I give the puppy my biscuit, then there will be no more for me. But if I don’t, then how will we become friends?” She looked again, and could see only the puppy’s scruffy face, sticking out of the brush, with soft, bright, brown eyes.

That made up her mind. She pulled the warm treat out of her pocket and broke off a piece, then held it out in her hand to the puppy. It crept forward a bit, then backed off, then forward, then back; forward, then back. But each time it got closer and closer to her hand. She held her hand steady and did not move suddenly; then the puppy got close enough to sniff the bit of biscuit, and suddenly it was gone with a gulp! The little dog whined a bit, so she broke off another piece and gave it to him, which he ate right up. Trudy reached down and gathered him up, held him in her lap, and fed him the rest of the biscuit.

“Well, now what shall I do with you?” Trudy said. The puppy’s fur was dirty and matted; he had bits of twigs in it, and had obviously rolled in something stinky. But he settled on her lap, and stretched out his neck with a small groan when she scratched it. “I will take you home and bathe you, and Father will teach me to care for you, and I shall name you…” Well, what else could she call him? “I will name you Biscuit.”

That was the happiest thing that happened that day. The second happiest was: when they got home, Mother had just taken out of the oven another batch of sweet biscuits. But Trudy was allowed only two: one for her, and one for her new friend.