"Blame Your Sorry Hides" By Tony Smith

It was hot that day. Dad’s old black and tan dogs were laying on the porch like something dead, but when Mom opened the kitchen door to pitch out scraps, the dogs would take off like a bullet to go see what she had pitched out for them.
Sometimes them dogs would fight over the scraps. Me and Ernie liked to see the dogs fight but Dad would not let them fight. He would kick them and make them stop. He talked bad to them. I remember when they would fight; Dad kicked them until they stopped.
Then he would look at them and say, “Sport and Hank, here you all is good hunting buddies and fighting one another over a piece of cornbread. You all ourt to be ashamed of yourselves. Blame your sorry hides anyhow.”
Do you know them dogs would stand and listen, looking up at him with them big brown eyes and their long ears hanging down? It was like they knew what he was saying to them. In a little bit they would just walk off and lay down somewhere. Just before it got dark them dogs would come to life. They would be running around all over the place. Nothing moved, what they did not know about it. If any kind of varmint got around the chicken house it was dead meat. Them dogs had no mercy on coons, fox, opossums or any other animal.