Lessons from Harry and the Lady Next Door

This morning I sat down with my two-year-old son to read a book called Harry and the Lady Next Door. Though I’ve been familiar with the story since my own childhood, a hidden story within the story revealed itself to me today. But let’s start with the basic premise:

Harry (our protagonist) is a small, friendly, spotted dog of the terrier variety, who loves “all his neighbors…all except one.” The neighbor in question is the infamous Lady Next Door (antagonist), who sings incessantly, very high and very loud, which of course hurts Harry’s sensitive ears. She sings higher than the peanut man’s whistle, louder than the siren on the fire engine, higher and louder than all of the neighborhood cats put together. So Harry sets out to make her stop.

He tries everything. He rounds up all the cows in the neighborhood and herds them all the way down Main Street, past the school, the library and the fire station to Harry’s house where the Lady is “entertaining” party guests. When this doesn’t work, he leads the local brass band past the school, the library and the fire station all they way to the Lady’s house in hopes that they’ll drown her out. But she just sings higher and louder than ever.

One night, Harry’s family takes him past the fire station, the library and the school to the park to listen to music at the bandstand. But instead of a band, a bunch of ladies show up on stage for a singing contest, and you can bet who’s up there with them! So Harry runs off, finds a watering can full of frogs, and places it behind the Lady Next Door during her recital. When the frogs jump out of the can and onto the Lady’s head, all the other singers run shrieking from the stage—all except the Lady Next Door, who doesn’t seem to mind frogs at all…which I’ve always felt redeems her slightly. She wins the contest (all the other singers were eliminated), and to Harry’s delight, First Prize consists of a scholarship to study music “in a far-off country for a long time!” Harry and his family see her off on a big ship, which blasts it’s foghorn just as the Lady Next Door breaks into her good-bye song; she is, at last, drowned out by something louder.

Now for the rest of the story: It occurred to me this morning, while flipping through illustrations of smallish, densely clustered homes with gardens and yards, of dairy cows in open fields, of children playing in playgrounds, of parks with benches and bandstands, of parades and brass bands, of tree-lined streets and wrought-iron fences, of storefronts and sidewalks and happily strolling shoppers, of a working port with lots of big ships—not to mention the oft repeated school, library and fire station—that this is a story about the quintessential American small town. But more interestingly, it’s a story about discord in the quintessential American small town. The entire premise swivels on Harry’s obsession to silence his warbling nemesis.

Also notable is that lots of the other human characters in the story wouldn’t mind if she shut up either. And I have to credit the author, Gene Zion, for suggesting this with just the right amount of humor and tact as one might actually encounter in a typical small town. During a scene in which Harry gnaws violently on a piano leg so as not to gnaw violently on the leg of the Lady Next Door, who is, per usual, holding forth during a neighborhood get-together, he is banished from the house. But this is the part that got me laughing:

“As he walked to the door some people said, “Poor Harry.” But others whispered, “The lucky dog!”

Notice no one is saying, “What a bad dog!” They either feel sorry for Harry or they want out, too, but they wouldn’t dream of marching out on the Lady mid-aria because, well, they’re neighbors. This is just to say that, while all the quaint small-town accoutrement listed above go a long way to making a community unique, strong, vibrant and enduring (words we use a lot at Orton), it’s the people—and their dogs—who like and don’t like each other, who find ways to cooperate even when at odds, who support the local dairy farmer and donate to the volunteer firemen and are patrons of the local arts scene, who visit in parlors and meet at parks, whose kids play together and go to school together and maybe even end up living in that same town one day…it’s those people who matter most.

You can’t just build it; you’ve got to be it.

Which brings me to my son’s pat summary of the book this morning: “Doggy funny. Lady silly. Big boat. People happy.” Well, there you have it.