My visit to the local farmer's market yesterday put me in mind of an experience I had not long ago.

Summertime is the ideal time to live in Alcorn County, Mississippi. The good country folks around here love their gardens, and the old timers can be seen early mornings tending their gardens with their 'maters and 'taters and okry and squash. There would be peas and corn, radishes and lettuce, and everybody has a "par" tree in the yard, and apple trees and fig trees. Poke salad grows wild, and every body has chickens and there are goats and cows and pigs. There is a good reason that Mississippi leads the nation's obesity rate.

I have tried my hand a time or two at gardening. I’m not bad, but proper vegetable gardening requires time, and time is something I do not have a lot of. So, I usually buy my stuff at the local farmer’s market where one can find all manner of local fruits and vegetables, or I may resort to my favorite method: stop and chat with some of the local farmers and hope that they offer me some of their harvest for free. I have learned one thing, and that is that country folk are proud of their garden vegetables and fruit trees and are only too willing to share. So, I take advantage. Lots of folks around here are very willing to give of their harvest, and it is considered rude not to accept.

With my schedule I can only go to town once or twice a month to run errands. There are several routes to town, and each time I go I try to take a different way. It was on one of these errand runs that I first saw the white dog. She was about the size of a large Labrador retriever, but she was not a retriever. I don't know what she was, but I saw her walking along a country road, head hanging low, looking lost and forlorn. Of course, I had to stop. She came to me warily but with tail wagging. She had a collar but no tag. I knew I couldn't leave her so I prepared to load her in my car.

"That's my grandson's dog!" I looked around and there in an adjacent yard was an elderly lady gathering in her garden. I walked over and after a short conversation assured myself that she knew the dog. I wasn't going to leave the poor thing abandoned, but if she belonged to someone nearby then I guess she would be okay. "Yea, that's my grandson's dog. He lives just up the road a piece."

"Nice garden you have. Do you work it by yourself?" I asked. Yes, she responded, then she asked if I'd like to take home some 'maters or okry. "Well, I don't know, I'm sure you could use all you have there."

Oh, shoot," she said. "I got more'n I could ever eat. We give it all away, or it will all spoil. Go ahead and take what you want."

"Well, I guess I'll take a couple tomatoes." She helped me load up a plastic shopping bag of ‘maters and okry, and I was on my way.

A couple weeks later I went to town a different route. Along the road I noticed a dog, and, what's this? The same dog? I was on a different road, and pulled beside the dog to have a look. It was the same dog, all right. I got out of my car and checked out the collar. Same dog for sure. Then I looked around. There was a farmer and his wife working their garden nearby and I yelled out to them, "Do ya'll know this dog?"

"Eh? What's that? Oh, yea. That's our niece's dog." I walked over to where they were. We talked for a while, and they assured me that the dog belonged to their niece who lived just down the road. Funny, I thought. That's the same dog, but their story is different from the old lady's. Before I left I had some nice squash and some good ears of corn.

A month later I was down another road when I saw the same dog! It is hard to believe, but I was seeing the same dog as the two times before. Of course, none of the locations were more than a couple miles from each other, but they were all either on different roads or different sections of the same road. The story was similar in this case, only the dog belonged to someone's sister who lived farther down the original road than the spot where the first old lady had said her grandson lived. Satisfied that the dog did actually belong to someone, I left the dog alone. This time I left with some pears and some peaches.

At least one more time I saw the white dog, and I've never seen her since. I was traveling down the same road as the first time when I saw the white dog at the opposite end of where I had first seen her. A little girl was playing in the front yard of a house nearby, and I stopped and asked if she knew the dog. She said she did and that the dog belonged to her neighbor. The little girl's mother exited the house and I asked again about the dog. "Belongs to the man next door, but we feed her sometimes, so I guess she sorta belongs to both of us." I noticed that they had a nice garden. I told her I was just concerned about the dog, and oh by the way, that's a nice garden you have there. "Would you like some peas? I got some nice corn and tomatoes, too." I was glad to receive the fruit and vegetables.

As I left the lady and her little girl I wondered to myself about the white dog. What a scalawag that dog is! I said to myself. She's a regular vagabond! I shook my head, amazed that a dog had figured out if she wandered up and down the old country roads she could always rely on finding a free meal here and there. Then as I was driving along with my bounty, the thought occurred to me that the old cur just might be thinking the same thing about me.

They grow 'em small down on the farm in North "Missippi." And yes, that is I, haggling with the farmer (well, his grandson) over the price of some "okry."