Seeing is believing

One beautiful sunny afternoon, last autumn, I was working in the garden. Biggles and Holle, two of our three Labradors, were rummaging around me, trying to pick up an interesting scent or to find something absolutely horrible to eat. Phoebe, the third one (or technically the first one, she is the oldest and longest with us), was also somewhere in the garden doing her rounds in her own calm, nothing-bothers-me-way. Suddenly I heard childrens' voices, coming from somewhere right at the back of our garden. Never before I had heard childrens' voices coming from there. Holle and Biggles heard it too and rushed towards the sound. I followed, curious about what was going on. All the way at the end of our garden there were three little boys, about 8 years old. One of them was in our garden, one was just balancing on one leg with the other one hanging over the garden fence to get into our garden too and the third one was still on the other side of the fence in the neighbours' garden. Biggles and Holle were jumping around, barking, overly excited as they always are when they see people. I recognized the boy who was still balancing on one leg, the other one dangling somewhere in the air, trying to make up his mind if he should pursue his idea to enter our garden or maybe not. His name is Bart, he lives a couple of houses down the road and is a great fan of our two pigs. Whenever he has friends over, he rings our doorbell and asks if they can visit Nufnuf and Tumtum. Apparently, on a courageous impulse, this time he brought his friends through the neighbouring garden - the neighbours were not at home - to the back of our garden, hoping that no one would see them. "Whát are you doing?", I asked, being a little bit indignant with their brutality. Startled, one leg still stuck in the air, he tried to keep his balance and asked: "Uhm, may we visit the pigs?" "Well okay", I replied, "seeing your friend is already here and you are halfway here anyway." The third boy stayed put in the neighbour's garden. "He is afraid of the dogs", Bart said. And to his friend: "It's okay, you can come over here, these dogs are alright, the don't bite." Holle and Biggles were still happily barking and jumping around. "He's right", I said to the little boy, "they really don't bite. They are just a bit overexcited." The little boy put his finger up: "A dog bit me once". "In your finger?", I asked. The boy nodded. "Well, it's still there", I said. The boy looked at his finger and nodded again. Then he looked at the dogs and decided that he didn't want to take the risk. He still had all ten. "She will take the dogs inside", Bart said, pointing to me. "Well okay", I smiled. I like Bart. Bart walked home with us, leaving his two friends behind. Each on another side of our fence. On our way there we encountered Phoebe. "Aaaah", Bart patted Phoebe on her head, "she can stay outside. She is so nice and calm." And he ran back to his friend to tell him that there was still one dog outside, but that this really was a very friendly one. I took Holle and Biggles home and, together with Phoebe, returned to the boys. Halfway down the garden Bart came running towards us: "He wants to see the dog first!" You see.....that's my motto too: "Seeing is believing!"