Summary
Two sisters, now adults living in separate cities, reunite every other year at a convenient halfway point, Denver. During these visits, they wander the zoo and nostalgically recount their childhood, reflecting on the eccentric Mr. Murphy who kept a backyard menagerie, and their grim foster mother, the formidable Mrs. Placer.
Life with Mrs. Placer
Running a boardinghouse, Mrs. Placer preferred to be called "Gran" by her tenants and foster children. She and her boarders indulged in the habit of harboring grudges, gathering each evening around their "unappealing" meal to recount the day's misdeeds, plots, and perceived injustices. Despite their best efforts to remain unnoticed, the sisters often found themselves the subjects of Mrs. Placer's scrutiny and imagined affronts. For instance, Mrs. Placer gleefully shared with others how the narrator's teacher insisted she "could not carry a tune in a basket."
A Toxic Environment
This corrosive discourse persisted throughout the years, attributing the sisters' academic struggles and social challenges to the faults of others. The atmosphere was such that even a girl with braces, who played with them, was accused of flaunting her good fortune over their inability to afford dental care. Yet, amidst such negativity, a slender thread of joy persisted, nourished by Mr. Murphy's small assortment of animals. Despite his vices, Murphy offered the girls a sanctuary, unfettered by demands, where they could lose themselves in the antics of a fox, a deodorized skunk, a parrot, a coyote, and two capuchin monkeys.
A Gift and a Scheme
One day, Murphy gifted the sisters a puppy and advised them on how to persuade Mrs. Placer to let them keep it by highlighting the dog's potential as a watchdog. The suggestion worked like magic on Mrs. Placer’s paranoid imagination, which quickly envisioned the dog as a loyal guardian against various threats. Though initially resistant, upon hearing the word "watchdog," Mrs. Placer relented, her imagination transforming the puppy into an alert sentinel poised to defend her home from countless imagined dangers.
Laddy's Transformation
The dog, named Laddy by the girls, proved to be a clever and amiable companion, beloved for his joyful spirit and beauty. Accompanying them every morning, Laddy reveled in life's simple pleasures, sometimes embarking on his adventures with local dogs, much to the girls' admiration. However, Laddy’s independence did not sit well with Mrs. Placer, who slowly appropriated him, renaming him Caesar and turning him into a fierce watchdog prone to aggression.
A Fatal Encounter
Murphy, distressed upon learning about the dog's aggressive behavior, approached Mrs. Placer with his monkey Shannon. Tragically, upon opening the door, the dog attacked, fatally injuring Shannon with one swift bite. Mrs. Placer offered a feigned scolding of "Caesar" with her characteristic insincerity.
The Aftermath
In a state of grief-driven madness, Murphy poisoned the dog the following morning. Plagued by sorrow over Shannon’s death, he sang mournfully at the monkey's grave, which he marked with a plaster Saint Francis statue. Unable to endure Murphy's sorrow, the sisters clandestinely plotted their own escape from Mrs. Placer's malignant care, eventually growing up, finding jobs, and for Daisy, marrying. Finally, they managed to leave their past behind.
Reflecting on the Past
Back in the present, the sisters reminisce about the events that transpired after their oppressive childhood. With Mrs. Placer's passing, they were quick to sell the boardinghouse to the first buyer, severing the last ties to their old life.
Parting and Humor
The narrative concludes with the sisters parting ways as one boards a train, exchanging playful imitations of Mrs. Placer's scornful rhetoric about imagined moral failings and foregone martyrdom. During the journey, the narrator begins...
(This entire section contains 626 words.)
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penning a letter to her sister, playfully adopting Mrs. Placer’s critical tone and finds herself reveling in a liberating, albeit wicked, mirth.
Extended Summary
Sitting in a zoo in Denver, Colorado, two sisters eat popcorn while watching a blind polar bear, a family of grizzlies, a black bear, and a group of monkeys. The narrator’s sister Daisy is accustomed to seeing off her sister in Denver every other year, while the narrator is on her way back east. Daisy comments that the polar bear reminds her of someone named Mr. Murphy. This comment sets the sisters to thinking about their childhood in Adams, a small town fifty miles north of Denver. Orphaned at eight and ten, the sisters grew up there with a foster mother unrelated to them called Mrs. Placer, or Gran, who ran a boarding house in which, like her, all of the boarders complained and gossiped about the rest of the town.
Mr. Murphy was a gentle, jobless Irishman who spent his time drinking, playing cards, and enjoying all of his animals, which ranged from a parrot that spoke Parisian French to two small, ‘‘sad and sweet’’ capuchin monkeys. Before they reached adolescence, the girls loved him and his monkeys, thinking of them like ‘‘husbands and fathers and brothers.’’ One day Mr. Murphy gives them a present of a half-collie, half-Labrador retriever puppy. At first, Gran would not hear of keeping him, imagining all of the horrible things he would do, but she agrees after she hears that the puppy would make a good watchdog.
The puppy, whom the girls named Laddy, made a great mess at first but learned quickly and soon Laddy became a charming dog, escorting them to school and enjoying himself with hunting weekends in the mountains. Gran became angry after one of these long weekends, however, and decided to train Laddy herself, renaming him ‘‘Caesar’’ and taking him away from the girls. By disciplining him with a chain and occasional cuffs on the ears, Gran changed Caesar into a powerful attack dog. The police demanded that he be muzzled after he began biting and harassing strangers at the house, but Gran largely ignored them.
Upset, the girls did not tell Mr. Murphy what was wrong because they knew, from the time a boy squirted his skunk with a water pistol and Mr. Murphy responded by throwing a rock at the boy’s back, that he could become dangerously angry. However, Mr. Murphy heard about the dog’s transformation anyway and determined, enraged, to confront Gran. When Mr. Murphy arrived outside of Gran’s house with the eldest of his monkeys on his shoulder, Gran released Caesar, who pounced on the monkey and killed it. Mr. Murphy began sobbing; very early the next morning he poisoned Caesar’s meat, killing him.
When the sisters saw the dog dying, they ran into the mountains wishing they could flee the town. The police arrested Mr. Murphy while he was giving the monkey a solemn requiem mass, but no one felt sorry for Gran, and he was released. Mr. Murphy withdrew even more from society, giving his monkey a daily requiem, and the sisters could never visit him again. Gran continued to manipulate the girls, undermining the narrator’s relationship with a boyfriend and ruining her pleasure from being cast in a play.
At the zoo, the sisters discuss why they never ran away, and while Daisy cites the difficulties of the Great Depression, the sisters agree that the real problem was the guilt that Gran made them feel. The narrator muses about the long-term effects of the years with Gran, and the sisters rush to catch a cab so Daisy can take her adrenaline injection for asthma. They both feel overwhelmed and affected by the experience, but as they board the train they gossip about the porter in a manner similar to that of Gran and the boarders. The narrator writes Daisy a letter from the train about how nothing can be as bad now that Gran is dead, while a Roman Catholic priest waits for the writing table. The narrator then breaks out in an ‘‘unholy giggle,’’ picking up a gossip column to disguise the real reason for her laughter, whatever it may be.
