Mangled Fairy Tales
First thing I want understood is this: I never asked to be immortalized in song as a hungry dog.
A dog has got pride. Not much, dependin’ on the dog, but some. We may chase our tails, lick ourselves in mixed company, and eat things better left unidentified, but we do possess a sense of reputation. Mine has been dragged through nurseries for generations by people singin’ merrily about my empty supper.
“Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard, to get her poor dog a bone.”
That’s where the trouble begins.
Poor dog.
I wasn’t poor by nature. I was poorly managed.
There’s a difference, and it’s the same difference between a drought and a man forgettin’ to draw water because he got comfortable in the shade.
Now, Mother Hubbard weren’t a bad woman. Let me say that before somebody accuses me of bitin’ the hand that failed to feed me. She had a kind heart, a soft voice, and the organizational habits of a dropped sewing basket. She meant well in every direction and accomplished it in very few.
Her house leaned east when the weather was dry and west when it rained. The chickens slept where they pleased. The clock ain’t told the truth since Moses was a boy, and nobody minded because Mother Hubbard preferred time as a suggestion. She owned seven shawls, one kettle, two cracked plates, and a cupboard that served mostly as a wooden disappointment.
I loved her.
A dog can love a fool. This is one of our noblest and least practical qualities.
But love don’t fill a belly.
That morning, I had been hungry since dawn. Not peckish, mind you. Not mildly expectant. Hungry in the manner that causes a dog to examine furniture for moral weakness. I had already investigated the hearth, the doorstep, the wash basket, and a boot belonging to the late Mr. Hubbard, may he rest wherever disorganized men are sent.
Nothing.
So, I sat by my bowl and looked meaningful.
Dogs have several looks. There’s the “I have never been fed in my life” look, the “I only regret bein’ caught” look, the “that sound came from the chair, not me” look, and the deep ancient stare by which we remind humans they have obligations.
I used the deep ancient stare.
Mother Hubbard smiled down at me. “Hungry, are you?”
I wagged once, in a businesslike way.
“Well, bless your heart,” she said. “Let’s find you a bone.”
Now bless your heart is a phrase humans use when they’ve noticed a problem and are preparin’ to solve it with sympathy instead of materials.
She went to the cupboard.
I followed, naturally. A dog who doesn’t supervise food preparation has surrendered his place in creation.
She opened the door.
The cupboard was bare.
Not nearly bare. Not inconveniently bare. Bare as a sermon in August. There was one crumb of something, a twist of old string, and a spider who looked thin enough to have its own opinions about the management.
Mother Hubbard stared into it.
I stared into it.
The spider stared back like a tenant considerin’ legal action.
“Well,” she said.
That was all.
Well.
People think dogs don’t understand human language. This is false. We understand plenty. We simply don’t respect most of it. I understood that “well” meant there was no bone, no plan, and likely a speech comin’.
Mother Hubbard patted her pockets. She looked in a jar. She peered behind the flour sack, which contained no hint of flour and was therefore more sack than promise. She even lifted the lid on the sugar tin.
“Maybe there’s something in town,” she said.
Town.
Town was two miles away, uphill both ways dependin’ on who was complainin’. But I brightened. The town had butchers. The town had markets. Town had alleys of unspeakable opportunity. I fetched my own leash and sat up straight as a judge.
Then Mother Hubbard put on her bonnet.
If you’ve never watched an old woman prepare for town while your stomach is holdin’ a revival, you don’t know endurance. First came the bonnet. Then the shawl. Then the search for the purse. Then, the discovery of the purse under the bonnet she had first rejected. Then the change of shawl because the first one “looked mournful.” I nearly became mournful myself.
At last, we set out.
The road was dusty, the sun was high, and Mother Hubbard walked with the determined slowness of a person who has never been dangerously underfed. I tried to hurry her by pullin’. She told me not to drag. I tried to lead. She told me not to wander. I tried to communicate urgency by starin’ at her with my tongue out. She said, “Yes, it is warm.”
Humans miss so much.
When we reached town, the butcher was closin’.
This weren’t an accident. This was the natural result of startin’ a food expedition after spendin’ forty minutes choosin’ a bonnet. The butcher, a round man with a red face and a soul calibrated by weight, was sweepin’ sawdust from his floor.
“Any bones left?” asked Mother Hubbard.
He glanced at me. I stood noble.
“Not today,” he said.
I sat less noble.
“No bones?” she said.
“All gone.”
Now I could smell bones. They were not gone. They were in the back, behind the counter, beside a barrel, concealed by greed and poor manners. A dog’s nose is a witness no court deserves. I looked at the butcher. He looked at me. We understood each other as enemies.
Mother Hubbard sighed. “Well, maybe the baker has something.”
The baker did have something. Bread.
Bread is fine if you are a duck or a prisoner, but I had been promised a bone. Still, I’m adaptable. I would’ve accepted bread under protest. But Mother Hubbard had only enough coins for one small loaf, and by the time she paid for it, she had become so pleased with herself that she forgot who the expedition was for.
She tore off a piece and ate it.
I watched.
She tore off another piece and said, “We’ll save some for supper.”
We.
There is no word more dangerous in a hungry household than we. It generally means one person has eaten and another is bein’ invited into philosophy.
On the way home, Mother Hubbard stopped to speak to Mrs Tweedy about rheumatism, cabbage, a cousin’s wedding, and whether the preacher’s new hat was a sign of vanity or poor circulation. I lay in the shade and considered runnin’ away to sea.
By the time we returned, the loaf was half gone, my stomach had begun composing hymns, and the cupboard remained bare, havin’ not improved itself in our absence.
Mother Hubbard looked at me. “Poor thing.”
Again, with poor.
Then she did what kind, disorganized people often do: she made a grand gesture instead of a useful one.
“I’ll go again,” she said.
And she did.
This is where the rhyme becomes confused, because Mother Hubbard made several trips that day. She went to the baker. She went to the joiner. She went to the tailor. She went to the fishmonger, who had fish, which was progress, except she disliked the smell and returned with ribbon.
Ribbon.
For me.
She tied it around my neck and said I looked handsome.
I ate the bow.
Not out of spite. Out of research.
It was not food.
After that, matters became strange. Hunger does things to a dog. So does bein’ sung about by neighbors before the crisis is over. Children began followin’ us, chantin’ the rhyme in pieces, addin’ verses whenever Mother Hubbard left and returned with some new foolishness.
She went to buy me a coat.
I didn’t need a coat. I had fur and resentment.
She went to buy me a wig.
A wig.
I ask you, what is the correct response when you are hungry enough to consider the chair leg and your caretaker comes home with artificial hair? I wore it briefly because I loved her, then shook it into the fire.
She went to buy me fruit.
Fruit is what food eats.
She went to buy me a coffin at one point, which I found to be both premature and discouragin’.
By evening, I had reached a state beyond hunger. I was calm. This alarmed the cat, who moved to a higher shelf. I don’t blame her. Serenity in a dog is often the last stop before bad choices.
Mother Hubbard sat in her chair, exhausted from failin’ all over town.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
That was the first sensible thing anybody had said.
I went to her and put my head on her knee.
She stroked my ears. Her hand trembled a little. That is when I remembered something dogs know and people forget: most foolishness is not cruelty. Some of it is loneliness wearin’ a bonnet.
She was old. She was poor. She had no husband, no children near, and a cupboard that told the truth about both. She had spent the day tryin’ to provide for me and mostly providin’ evidence against herself.
I sighed.
Then I stood, walked to the back door, and barked once.
“What is it?” she asked.
I barked again.
She followed me outside.
I led her to the garden, past the weeds, past the broken bucket, to the place under the lilac bush where I had buried three bones against lean times.
Yes, I had bones.
Of course, I had bones.
I am a dog, not an optimist.
Mother Hubbard stared as I dug them up one by one.
“Well, I never,” she said.
That made two of us.
She laughed then. A small laugh at first, rusty from disuse, then bigger. I wagged. She laughed harder. The cat watched from the window with the expression of a banker refusin’ credit.
We brought the bones inside.
Mother Hubbard put one in my bowl with ceremony. I accepted it with forgiveness, which is easier when you are chewin’.
After that, changes were made.
Not dramatic changes. Humans are slow animals. But a list appeared on the cupboard door. The butcher began savin’ scraps, partly from kindness and partly because I stood outside his shop every Thursday lookin’ like testimony. Mother Hubbard bought fewer ribbons and more meal. The cupboard did not become abundant, but it ceased bein’ a philosophical argument.
As for the rhyme, it kept spreadin’.
Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard, and the cupboard was bare.
True enough.
But the song leaves out the important part. It leaves out the bonnet delays, the butcher’s lies, the ribbon, the wig, the old woman’s loneliness, and the dog with emergency provisions under the lilac bush.
It makes her foolish and me pitiful, which is a poor bargain for both of us.
So let the record show: I was hungry, yes. She was scatterbrained, certainly. That the cupboard was bare, beyond dispute.
But I was not helpless.
And Old Mother Hubbard, bless her bewildered heart, was not cruel.
She just needed a list, a budget, and a dog with a better pantry strategy.
olbigjim 