The Sun Dogs

                                 By Jeff Baker

            Grandfather was sitting in his chair under the tree a ways from the house when the kids ran up to him excitedly.

            “Gran’pa! We saw it! We saw three Suns in the sky!” That was the youngest girl, always excited about every new thing.

            “Three!” Grandfather said.

            “Yes,” said the oldest girl. “Right beside each other.”

            “You didn’t look long did you?” Grandfather said. “You could hurt your eyes.”

            “No, we didn’t but we saw them!” The youngest said.

            “Honest,” said the oldest. “They were right up there!”

            “Well, they’re gone now,” Grandfather said.

            “What were they?”

            “Well,” Grandfather said. “People call them Sun Dogs, and they say they’re just reflections of the sun on ice or clouds way up high. But I’ve seen them someplace besides the sky.”

            “Really?”

            “Yes, really!” Grandfather said. “Let’s see, I was just a boy on my Grandfather’s farm out in Western Kansas back about 1890 or so when I saw a couple of little girls I’d never seen before, running up Green Hill. The hill was covered with grass and yellow flowers that didn’t do anything but they were pretty. Anyway, I didn’t want the girls to get into trouble by running into the pasture where we kept the bull, so I called after them and when they didn’t stop I ran after them myself. I was pretty fast but they were way ahead of me and reached the top of Green Hill in no time. Probably because it wasn’t very big. I could hear their little-girl laughter and saw them run over the top of the hill and disappear down the other side. In a moment or two I was at the top of the hill and I looked all around but I couldn’t see hide nor hair of the two little girls and there was no place they could have hidden; the grass wasn’t that tall and they weren’t that fast. So I went back and I told my Grandfather and he asked me ‘Were they a little blond girl, kind of glistening in the light like the sunlight on the pond? And a little brown girl who was as clear as the dappled sunlight under the trees in summertime at noon?’ And when I said they were he told me those were the Sun Dogs come to earth, but they aren’t dogs they are the daughters of the Sun. We can’t always see them in the sky but when they come down to the ground we can see them plain as day. He told me to look in the sky and sure enough, there were two Sun Dogs side by side with Old Sol. So, that was what you two girls saw today. The Daughters of the Sun come here to run and play like little girls on the Earth do, but you can never catch up to them any more than you can catch sunlight in a bottle.”

            “Wow!” “Really?” the girls said.

            “Yes, really!” Grandfather said.

            “Were you really that young, Gran’pa?” asked the youngest.

            “Sure I was! Back about seventy years ago!”

            “Gran’pa,” the oldest said. “ I saw a Moon Dog once. It was real cold and there was a big bright spot in the sky right by the Moon. Is that the Moon’s son?”

            “Naaaah! That’s just a reflection of the Moon on ice or clouds way up high,” Grandfather said with a smile.

                                           —end—