Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog

Told by Floyd Bailey

Written down by Don Bailey

My grandfather (Floyd Bailey) told me this story in the year 1961 or 1962. The characters are my grandfather's brother Skip (Russell M. Bailey), and Skip's son Mac (William MacFarland Bailey). Here's the story as Granddad Bailey told it:

"My brother Skip used to like to come down here to the farm to hunt pheasants every fall. Sometimes he would bring Mac. One time he came down here with Mac on a nice warm fall day. Mac had a brand new Omaha station wagon with a fancy roll up window in the back. And in there in the back, he had a dog they called Freddie. He was one of those real fancy registered dogs that city people use for hunting, and his real name, honest to god, his real, registered, purebred name was "Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog". They named it from Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog on Captain Kangaroo.

<-- Mighty Manfred was this kid of dog

"As I said, it was a nice warm day, so Mac left the back window down. Every time they stopped to hunt a field they would go to the back of the car and call Mighty Manfred to come on out. He would jump out of the back and then they would hunt the field. And every time they came back to the car Mac would stand by the open window at the back of the car and call to Mighty Manfred, and Mighty Manfred would take a big run and then a long jump in through the open window.

"As we were going on, hunting to late in the day, there began to be a chill in the air. So Skip told Mac to roll up the back window and turn on the heater. It was a fancy city car, and Mac just pushed a button from the front seat while we were driving and the back window rolled up automatically. Pretty soon we came to a field they wanted to hunt and we stopped the car. While Skip was walking around to the back of the car, Mac pushed the button from up in the front seat and the back window rolled down. Skip called Mighty Manfred and he jumped out of the back window like always. But then Mac pushed the button one more time, and rolled the window back up.

"So we hunted up and down the field, and when we came back to the car, Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog thought the window was still open. And he took a long hard run to the back of the car and made a great, long leap and smashed head first into the window and fell into a pile on the ground at the back of the car.

Haw, Haw, Haw!"