The Darkest Evening of the Year

receded.
    She sat on the mown green grass just where it ended at the brow of the hill, beneath the spreading boughs of immense old oak trees. After a searing Indian summer, the tall grass of the descending meadow had faded to the color of the sunshine that had stolen the green from it.
    The shadows of the oaks began to spill down the slope in early morning, but they seeped uphill once more as noon approached. By this hour, the shadows of other trees at the foot of the meadow steadily inked toward the crest.
    Through the shadows, young Amy saw something golden coming, and then through the sunshine it ascended, red-gold in the white-gold grass. When she realized that it was a dog, she rose to her knees, and when she saw that it was limping, she stood.
    In those days, she had never been in the company of canines, and she had been naturally wary of this animal. Because the dog limped, favoring its left hind leg, Amy’s wariness was tempered by sympathy that encouraged her not to retreat.
    The poor thing was in miserable condition, its coat matted and filthy, as though it had been abandoned to fend for itself or as if it had been mistreated. Yet when it came to her, weary and weak and hurting, it smiled.
    She didn’t know then that it was a golden retriever or that the lovers of the breed referred to this expression as the golden smile, which was easily offered and so different from the false smile of a dog merely panting.
    When Amy reached out a hand to the golden, it did not growl or shy away, but instead took another step and licked her fingers in a manner that at once seemed to her to be a grateful kiss.
    Halfway across the play yard, leading this four-legged foundling toward the orphanage residence, Amy encountered Sister Angelica, and then for a while there was much bustling about and excitement, with eager children streaming to the yard to see the wounded dog that Amy Harkinson had rescued from the meadow.
    Sister Agnes Mary, the abbey’s infirmarian, arrived with a medical kit. She found a shard of glass embedded in one of the pads on the dog’s left hind foot, extracted it, and treated the wound with an antibiotic solution.
    As bedraggled and dirty and flea-ridden and gaunt as the dog was, the children nevertheless were at once of the unanimous opinion that it should be given residence for life as the school mascot.
    Mater Misericordiæ had never before enjoyed a mascot, and the sisters were not convinced that it was a good idea. Besides, being nuns and therefore responsible, they intended to attempt to locate the owner of the dog, though it wore no collar.
    After assuring the gathered children that the pooch would not be sent to the pound, where it might eventually be put to death if not claimed, Sister Angelica chased everyone out of the yard to dinner in the refectory.
    Amy lingered, tagging behind Sister Angelica and Sister Claire Marie as they, with a makeshift rope leash, led their new charge to the concrete work deck outside the laundry, behind the residence hall. There, they provided water for the dog to drink and devised solemn strategies for giving it a bath.
    When Sister Claire Marie noticed Amy, she reminded her that she had been instructed to go to dinner. Reluctantly, Amy retreated.
    Although the dog had made no comment on the departure of the other children, it began to whimper as Amy hesitantly walked away. Every time she looked over her shoulder, the dog was watching her, its head lifted, ears raised. She could hear its thin mewling even after she had turned the corner of the building.
    Amy had eaten little of the food on her dinner tray when Sister Jacinta—who, because of her sweet high-pitched voice, was secretly called Sister Mouse by the children of Mater Misericordiæ—arrived in the refectory to bring her back to the deck outside the laundry.
    The dog had not stopped whimpering since Amy had left. Because of their years of experience with the techniques of manipulation employed by cunning orphans, the nuns were not easy marks. But the dog’s mewling was of such a pathetic character that they could not harden their hearts to it.
    Instantly upon Amy’s arrival, the dog quieted and smiled and wagged its tail.
    Through the twilight and into the evening, a gaggle of sisters worked on the dog, cutting the terrible mats out of its coat, giving it two baths with shampoo and then a third bath with a flea-killing solution for which Father Leo had made an emergency trip into town.
    When Amy