The preacher got there early. He was wearing his Sunday clothes. Necktie.

His truck came roaring into the driveway of an ugly old house.

The preacher slid out of the cab. He was old and bent. Hair the color of a retired dandelion. He brought to mind Walter Mathau after a long night.

The elderly cleric grabbed his Bible. He knocked on the front door, straightening his collar.

A young mother answered. Little girl on her hip.

“Thank you for doing this,” the mama said.

He followed her through the dingy house. They were poor, but the house was in perfect order. A lot of people think the poor don’t keep clean houses. This is a Hollywood myth. “You don’t have to be rich to own a dustrag,” the author’s grandmother used to say.

The poor are often proud.

The preacher passed through the den. Tonka trucks littered the floor. A few GI Joes, fallen in the line of duty.

He arrived in the backyard, where he met the Tonka truck owner. A little boy, with a shovel in his hands. The boy smelled like little-kid sweat. His cheeks, flushed from manual labor.

There was a newly dug hole in the earth beside the boy. There was an object beside the hole, wrapped in a bedsheet. A canine tail poking from beneath the sheet.

The preacher removed his jacket. “You lift her from one side, son, I’ll get the other.”

The boy was strong for his size. And there were holes in his little shoes. It took some doing, but together they placed the heavy remains of Boy’s Best Friend into the ground.

“What do we do now?” asked the boy.

“Now it’s my turn.”

The old man put on his jacket.

The pulpiteer opened his leatherbound book. He read some. He read the one about the Lord being a shepherd, and about the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and all that business.

The boy’s mother and sister stood at the edge of the hole. Heads bowed.

Then, the sermonizer asked if anyone wanted to add anything. The boy just looked at him. Unsure of what this meant.

“Go ahead,” the old man prompted. “Say a few words.”

There were tears in the kid’s eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Share a memory.”

The boy cleared his throat. He wasn’t one for speeches. But he did it. Although it was hard for the kid to finish, because he was gasping so hard.

“What happens now?” the boy asked after he finished.

The preacher removed his jacket again and grabbed the shovel. “Now we cover her up.”

The Dynamic duo spent a long time filling the grave. The old man sang while he worked. He sang the one about leaning on everlasting arms. He sang one about unbroken circles.

Afterward, the boy accompanied the man to his truck. Before the parson stepped into his vehicle, the boy reached into his pocket and handed the man three crumpled dollar bills, and four quarters.

The old man’s eyes were pink with threatening tears. “You don’t have to pay me for a funeral,” he said.

“Yes, I do,” said the boy.

Because, as I say, I was proud.