Henry was true to his word, and devoted his spare time to
Juliette and I. He stopped frequenting the Stomping Grounds, and
even broke the word to Buddy that he could no longer continue as
the Scrappers manager.
Although Henry had been inattentive for so long, one thing he had
not been was a spendthrift. The Scrappers success was his success,
and he made a lot of money working with them. He was savvy
investor; his secretive ways in the years before the near failure
of his marriage allowed him to build up a substantial sum.
His total assets were in the neighborhood of 250,000. When he
revealed the sum to Juliette, she nearly fainted. They were rich!
He was not yet 35 years old, and able to retire.
But Henry was also humble, and did not let on to his friends of his
success. Juliette allowed him time for one vice, and that was his
love for tinkering in the workshop. When asked how he supported his
family, he would point to one of his many inventions and claim that
he’d been lucky.
True, several of his inventions had been patented and they did
bring in some additional investment income. But the fact was this:
many of the inventions were pure junk. Henry didn’t care, because
for him, it was the tinkering, the craft. The actual outcome was
not important. If it was a success, then the rest was gravy.
Greta, the faithful dog, was getting old. She spent much of her
time lying down in the workshop when Henry was working. Her glory
days as the heroic savior of chickens was long gone, and even the
last several years of playing in the yard with I were no longer a
priority for her.
Henry had noticed her lethargy and mistook it for lack of exercise.
He got to tinkering and using some of the scraps leftover from the
hatchery fire many years earlier and constructed a motorized
running pad for her. Greta watched quizzically as the machine took
shape.
Within two weeks, it was completed and Henry turned it on. It
worked flawlessly, and Henry urged Greta to step onto it. While she
at first resisted, her curiosity got to her and she stepped on and
began walking. Henry turned up the power a bit and she started to
run, she barked happily and kept running until suddenly, she seemed
to stumble, and fell off. Henry rushed to her side, but it was too
late. The run had proven too much for her old heart. Greta was
dead.