Little Klein.

Anne Ylvisaker.

Little Klein was born Harold Sylvester George Klein, but his brothers had already established themselves as a group, a clump, a gang of Kleins, and being too late to be one of the older group, Harold Sylvester George Klein's given name hadn't been uttered since his baptism. Maybe the label was a jinx, a prophecy: while Matthew, Mark, and Luke were the tallest in each of their cla.s.ses and always at the low end of a seesaw pair, Little Klein was barely heavy enough to make the gate swing open when he stood on its rungs.

A leaf, their mother said. The boy is frail as a leaf; I won't get too attached to him because the next wind could blow him clear to the next county, where another mother may decide to keep him as a doll for her girls to play with.

When Little Klein got colds, as he often did, his mother warmed the teakettle day and night, muttering as she made cup after cup of tea, This will be his end. I'm sure of it this time. Just take him, Lord, before he gets too far stuck to my heart.

To keep their mother from worrying all day about their little brother, the Big Kleins took Little Klein with them everywhere except school and the river. Before he could walk, they pa.s.sed him from shoulder to shoulder. From this perch, Little Klein saw his first crime: shoplifting cigarettes and chewing gum from Tim and Tom's Market.

"Duck," commanded Matthew as they slipped out the door.

On a knee his second crime: taking a joyride in Officer Linden's squad car, Buddy the police dog licking his face in the backseat.

"Don't let him bite you," worried Mark.

And from under an arm his third crime: breaking into Widow Flom's house on a rainy day while she was away at her brother's.

"Slick as snot," crowed Luke as he teased open the flimsy lock. The boys spent the afternoon feasting on her state fair pie entry and last year's award-winning jam along with cheeses, root beer, and a shot of whiskey from the nearly empty bottle. This was pa.s.sed over the youngest's head. Their only slip in that crime was leaving behind a diaper from the nearly four-year-old Little, which narrowed Officer Linden's search to the three hoodlums with a tot.

Though Widow Flom did not press charges (in fact, she was thrilled with what she took as a compliment to her cooking a" you didn't see hungry boys breaking into Nora Nettle's house, now, did you? a" as well as an omen for a good showing at the fair), Mother Klein was furious. The big boys might be spitting replicas of their father, but Little Klein still had a chance of being respectable. To expose her baby to lock picking and who knows what all, well, there wasn't enough tea in a townful of cupboards to cure that sickness.

She took Little Klein, sent the others out for Ovaltine, and locked the door. She rocked her leaf back and forth, back and forth, clutching him to her as she railed at G.o.d.

"There," she said. "You've gone and done it now. Now I full-up love this runt and you are not taking him away from me. You touch this boy and I declare . . . I'll never . . . I'll never speak to you again. Nope."

Rock, rock, rock.

"No more *Shall We Gather at the River' for you, no more *Praise G.o.d, from Whom All Blessings Flow.' Nope. You steal this boy from me now, and I'll take this glorious soprano you gave me and I'll lend it to Satan's show tunes.

"Got that?"

Rock, rock, rock.

"I said, got that, G.o.d?

"Humph."

Then Little Klein burped, which Mother Klein took as a sign that G.o.d had indeed relented. G.o.d had spoken through Little Klein.

After the sun went down and he begged for his brothers, Mother Klein unlocked the door and let the Bigs back in without a word.

"Sorry, Ma," said Matthew. "Won't happen again."

"I'm sorry, Mother," said Mark. "I didn't mean to. I mean I shouldn't have. I mean a""

"Sorry, Ma," interrupted Luke. "You aren't going to ground me, are you?"

"Humph," she replied, but when she tucked her smallest into the little bed next to hers and a frog jumped out from under her pillow, she laughed out loud.

"You urchins!" she called up the steps, and the next morning there was a hot breakfast on the table when they woke.

Little Klein's whistling started back then, too. It was Sunday dinner, and as usual, no one could hear his thread-thin voice over his barrel-throated brothers.

"Pa.s.s the pickles," he said without result. He stretched his four-year-old arm but could reach no farther than his milk gla.s.s, and Little Klein was hungry for a Sunday pickle.

"Pa.s.s the darn pickles," he said, but even then no one heard him. Mark, the middle Big, lumped a clump of potatoes on Little Klein's plate as the bowl was pa.s.sed. Little eyed the pickles in the center of the table and licked his lips. He exhaled frustration, and to his surprise a large noise whooshed out. Mother Klein put down her fork and looked around.

"Not me!" said Luke, the one usually blamed for such things.

"There is no whistling at the table," Mother Klein reminded them sternly.

Little Klein wriggled on his stack of books and licked his lips again. He inhaled. He exhaled, and this time he blew out a three-note tune.

Now everyone turned.

"Little Klein?" they gasped.

"Pa.s.s the darn pickles," he said.

Matthew and Luke bellowed, they howled, while Mother Klein stared in stunned silence and Mark simply reached for the pickles.

"Oh no you don't," said Mother Klein, swatting his hand away.

"We say *pa.s.s.' We say *pickles.' We do not, do you understand, not say"a" Mother Klein lowered her voice to a whisper a""*darn.' Now. Try again. *Pa.s.s the pickles.'"

"Pa.s.s the . . . pickles."

This sent Matthew and Luke into another fit. Mark looked solemnly at Mother, who said again, "Please pa.s.s the pickles."

"I'm not hungry. Can we get a G.o.d? I mean a dog? Like Buddy?"

"Most certainly not. You are much too delicate to tolerate barking and licking and fur, to say nothing of your father, who says no."

"Aw, Ma!" groaned Luke, who as the youngest Big was also the only one who got away with whining. "Dad's always got stuff to sell. He won't be home again till who knows when. What about us?"

"I may be excused," said Little Klein. He slid off his chair and stood his back up against the bas.e.m.e.nt door, as was his daily habit.

"Matthew, measure him again," sighed Mother Klein. The oldest, biggest, curliest-haired Big got a pencil and a paint stick from a kitchen drawer. He held the flat stick over Little Klein's head and drew a line. Little Klein stepped out and looked. Today's line simply darkened the lines from all the yesterdays Little Klein could remember. The Matthew, Mark, and Luke lines crawled up toward the top of the door. His four-year-old line was barely higher than Matthew's two-year-old marking.

Little Klein went to sit on the front step, the farthest he could roam without supervision. He tried his pucker again. A fine, high stream spilled forth. He trilled idly, making up tunes and whistling loud as he could. He closed his eyes, breathed deep, and attempted the longest note his lungs could manage. Just when his tiny chest threatened imminent collapse, a staccato racket coming his way broke Little Klein's concentration. He opened his eyes to see four dogs coming from the east and five from the west, all barking, running . . . all going . . . wait, coming, right toward his yard, his step, him.

Little Klein scrambled backward, jumped for the screen door handle, missed, jumped again, and fell into the house just as the dogs crashed into the screen, yapping, barking, pleading for the whistling boy. He climbed up to look at the dogs from the safety of the other side of the door, but Mother Klein scooped Little Klein away, leaving the dogs to wrestle with one another.

While after that his body seemed to grow at the rate of a blade of gra.s.s in the shade, Little Klein's whistle flourished. Kids didn't pick on him at school because they knew that one terrible note would bring the teacher or, worse, a Big Klein running. In second grade, he was awarded the school talent trophy for his whistled medley of hymns in ragtime rhythm. And when he was nine, Little Klein's whistle roused an unsuspecting hound.

LeRoy lived for smelling: socks, crotches, squirrel paths, dead fish. In his dreams his nose led him from one adventure to another. It was with this glorious snout that LeRoy chose his family.

LeRoy had been a wanderer, a dog who spent his nights outside the corner bar with the other wanderers, surviving on the generosity of the grill cook at closing time. He liked his routine, tracing the changing town smells, alley by alley, tree by tree. Early mornings were for the town, padding past houses as lights turned on; midday in the cool shade by the river; afternoons smelling his way back. People he hadn't smelled much, only the storekeepers who left him sc.r.a.ps and the drunks leaving the bar at closing.

Then one day LeRoy's nap by the river was interrupted by an intoxicatingly sweet sound. He lifted his head abruptly, and a spindly boy tripped and landed smack on him. LeRoy rose up, the boy fell off, and the dog stuck his nose in a nest of long hair. This boy smelled of leaves and gra.s.s and rabbit and river and eggs and feet. He was a feast, but he moved fast. Soon three enormous versions of the small one grabbed LeRoy's scented boy and took him away, leaving behind a splendid bouquet of all of LeRoy's favorite smells. He yapped, he howled, he chased his tail. Then LeRoy put his nose to the ground and followed this pack.

"Get!" the biggest one yelled when he saw him catching up. "Get on, you!" LeRoy barked his most furious bark, hoping to impress. The littler boy whistled before being shushed.

LeRoy bared his teeth to show what a fine specimen he was, but the big boys ignored him. Their backs did not insult LeRoy.

"Put me down," hollered his boy.

LeRoy lagged behind while following the pungent trail out of the woods, across the bank parking lot, past Liberty Corner Restaurant (stopping not for the fine aroma of cooking cow meat), under the railroad bridge (without a glance at the yapping ball of fur in Nels Nelson's yard). He followed the pack until they walked through the back door of a house and closed it on his nose.

His long-haired boy tried to come back out to him.

"Get away from the door!" said their leader, picking up the little one like he was the weightless runt of the litter.

"I wanna keep him," said his boy, but the big one kept talking.

"Mark and Luke, get rid of the dog before Ma gets home."

"Why us?" whined one.

"I gotta work on my bike," muttered the other.

"I wanna keep him," his boy continued to plead.

"No dogs. Dad's rule and he'll be back in three weeks. Now just do it."

When the door opened and the little one popped out, LeRoy had hope, but before he could get a sniff or a lick, his boy was s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the leader again.

"Beat it!" he yelled, and LeRoy scampered into the alley. He hid between garages until the streetlights came on and the house lights went out, then he crept back up to the house.

All night LeRoy lay by their step, hoping for another whiff, ear c.o.c.ked for another call. His stomach rumbled, he barked, but not even the Shad up and scram, you! shouted out a window or the ensuing silence moved him from his spot.

After the moon rose and trash-can-scavenging racc.o.o.ns woke LeRoy, he toured the fenceless yard behind the house. Weeds, rabbit, worms, racc.o.o.n, squirrel . . . but no dog. Faint whiffs, of course, faint but pa.s.sing. This yard was home to no dog. LeRoy stretched. He pranced a few circles after his tail. He took a winding sniff around and around and around the house, and he knew: this was the end of wandering.

Not since his puppy days had LeRoy felt the urge to add a family to his life. But once the notion hit him, LeRoy accepted it without question. LeRoy lifted his leg on the apple tree. He went back to the dirt next to the step, where the smells of frog and ripe shoe mingled like a lullaby, and LeRoy slept.

Little Klein was the first to find LeRoy in the morning.

"My dog!" he yelled, running out the back door only to be toppled once again.

LeRoy launched into a chorus of howls and barks so long and loud that Priscilla Warren, newlywed, stepped one slippered foot onto her next-door stoop and said in her most married voice, "Well, I never!" hoping to end this uncivilized ruckus.

"Get, dog! Get on, you!" cried Mother Klein, dashing after her boy and dislodging him from the s...o...b..ring pooch. "Where in tarnation did you come from?" Then turning to Little Klein, she said, "I suppose you've been whistling again. Now, back inside. Good morning, Priscilla. New robe?" She turned toward the house. "Matthew, Mark, Luke! Up and out!"

Little Klein hesitated, and LeRoy danced around Mother Klein, knocking his boy to the ground.

"Lord have mercy!" Mother Klein cried as she separated the two again. "Boys!" she called. "Are you okay, baby?" she said, kneeling down to inspect her paw-printed son.

"Golly!" said Little Klein, diving back into LeRoy's matted coat. "I'm nine."

"You're fragile," Mother Klein answered, collaring LeRoy with her arms, pulling him away from Little Klein.

"I'm small, not fragile," he said.

Matthew stuck his head out the upstairs window.

"We didn't bring him home, Ma. Never saw that dog before."

"Can I keep him? Can I keep him, huh? Huh, Ma? Can I keep him?" begged Little Klein.

"Certainly not. He'll break you clean in two."

LeRoy kept up his howling and barking until Mother Klein held up one hand and said, "Stop!"

Then LeRoy lay down with his head on his paws and whimpered.

"Look, Ma, he's as skinny as me," said Little Klein. "We have to feed him at least."

Mother Klein harrumphed. She called Mark to bring out a bowl of yesterday's stew. Mark set it on the bottom step before the whining dog, then walked a wide nervous circle around him. LeRoy offered the bowl three sharp barks before burying his snout and slurping it clean.

"Look at him eat," said Little Klein. "I've always wanted a dog my whole life. A dog that hungry has to be homeless."

"He's a wild dog, not a pet. Now he's fed. He's got to go back where he came from."

"No!" wailed Little Klein, planting himself on the ground next to the dog.

She waved her arms and said, "Shoo! Shoo, dog! Get on, now! Get!" But LeRoy scooted over and sniffed her feet, dribbling some undigested stew onto her shoes.

"Lord have mercy. I've got more to do with my day . . . Boys!" she yelled again.

Matthew and Luke stumbled bleary eyed into the yard, Luke mumbling, "I didn't do it," as he flopped onto the bottom step.

Matthew whapped the back of Luke's head.

"Get up," he said as he grabbed his mitt and threw a ball high in the air, watching the sky until he caught it, then threw it again.

"Mark did it," Luke tried.

"What?" Mark spun around to defend his name.

"Cut it out, Luke," said Matthew, giving him another whap, this time with his glove.

"I want to keep the dog," demanded Little Klein, but no one heard him over the ensuing Big Klein wrestling and blame calling.