Credits
Writer(s):
Gaylord Du Bois
Penciller(s):
Mo Gollub (spot illustrations)
Inker(s):
Mo Gollub (spot illustrations)
Colorist(s):
? (spot illustrations)
Letterer(s):
Typeset
Subject Matter
Genres:
nature
Character(s):
Buttons (a puppy); Boots (a cat); Bulldog; the clan of the other neighborhood dogs; Great Dane (presiding over the dogs' meeting); Fox Terrier (speaks at the dogs' meeting); five kittens
First Line:
Buttons was a puppy--not very big and not ver fierce and not very brave.
Synopsis:
Buttons ran away from Bulldog not because he's a coward (he's not), but because he's so small. Boots often saved Buttons. Word was Buttons was a coward, a discredit to dogs. The dogs shunned him. Boots disappeared. One day Buttons heard Boots, ran to see; he saw her curled around her kittens as Bulldog attacked. Buttons charged. Bulldog ran away. Buttons was a hero. He was nursemaid to the kittens, who loved him as much as they did their mother. Buttons' being known for a courageous heart was due to the kittens, so you can't blame him for taking such good care of them, can you?
Reprinting
Reprint Notes:
Miscellaneous
Pages:
3
Notes:
Mo Gollub art credit identification and Gaylord Du Bois script credit identification by David Porta, August 2020. Currently, no documentary evidence of these credits is known.
This is a story about both finding heart, and finding family in friendship and parenthood.
Born 1899, Du Bois's own 1937 marriage to Mary was transformative. He grew in faith, and her daughter, Miriam, asked him to formally adopt her.
This story can be seen to draw on Du Bois's own life experiences:
• Du Bois's earlier divorce (Boots disappeared)
• Du Bois's aimlessness and illness (Buttons isn't a coward: he's just small)
• Du Bois's finding himself, finding his heart, his rudder, and his faith, as a husband to Mary and in fatherhood to Mary's daughter Miriam (Buttons' finding a courageous heart in defense of Boots and her kittens, and becoming a second mother to the kittens)
Du Bois was already divorced after having been married to an earlier Miriam, a Jewish girl, Miriam Gideon, a co-ed he knew from Boston College in the '20s (she graduated in 1926); it lasted a few years. (She became a renowned composer of Jewish liturgical music. He wrote a poem to her during the marriage, poetry being something he wrote all his life. He later wrote many poems: to Mary, his life partner; about his personal Savior, Jesus; and about nature.)
What started Du Bois on his writing career, he found himself, at 36, living with his parents, laid up in bed with brucellosis, which had plagued him since childhood: physical infirmity. He took up writing fiction to bring in income for his family.
There he was, in his late thirties, and just a year into his career writing fiction. He had corresponded with story writer Bill Rouse for tips on writing. William Merriam Rouse, also known as Coon Mountain Bill, was then Mary's husband (Rouse was the first step-father to Mary's daughter Miriam).
The day Gaylord arrived to meet Rouse in person, Rouse had just died, and the house was filled with mourners. That day he met Mary, and Miriam. Gaylord stayed on to help widowed Mary get affairs in order. He fell in love, and asked her to marry.
So it came about: that Du Bois found happiness in being a loving husband and father, who grew in his Christian faith; and that, eventually, daughter Miriam asked her second step-father to formally adopt her.
Here we have the story of Buttons the little pup and Boots the cat, and Buttons' finally finding a courageous heart.
One of a list of Du Bois identifiers is his love of language, and using it in his stories. During his first marriage, he had five Little Blue Books (essentially pamphlets) published by a midwestern Jewish publishing house that was guided by the aim to put learning into the hands of the common man (his first wife and her second husband became targets of anticommunism in the 1950s).
The Little Blue Books penned by Du Bois in the late 1920s include #1105 Pocket Dictionary Spanish-English English Spanish, #1109 Spanish Self Taught, #1207 French Self Taught, and #1222 Easy Readings in Spanish.
The root of the word "courage" is "cor" – the Latin word for heart. To take heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant “To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart.”
Du Bois's knowing both his High School Latin and French (besides wring those books, he had been to Paris while in the Coast Guard after World War I), compare Richard the First of England, nicknames: Coeur De Lion, Richard the Lionheart.
Compare the story of Buttons and Boots and Buttons' finally finding a courageous heart:
Bulldog bullied Buttons the puppy, who ran away not because he's a coward (he's not), but because he's so small. Physical infirmity.
The cat, Boots, stood her own against Bulldog, and often saved Buttons.
Word got around that Buttons was a coward and a discredit to dogs. The clan of the other neighborhood dogs held a meeting. Buttons was shunned. (Du Bois's forced to living in convalescence with his parents while in middle age, his late 30s.)
Even Boots disappeared. (Du Bois's being divorced.)
One day Buttons heard Boots' voice, and he ran to see. Boots was curled around her kittens as Bulldog attacked.
(Bill Rouse's death left Mary widowed, her daughter orphaned.)
Buttons threw caution to the winds as he charged and fought to save Boots and her kittens. Bulldog ran away.
Buttons was a hero.
"He became nursemaid to the new kittens, and they loved him as much as they did their mother. Indeed, it was sometimes thought by both Boots and Buttons that they were not quite sure which was their mother.
"So from that day on never was the word coward used in connection with Buttons for he had proved he had a courageous heart. And it was all due to those five brand new kittens, so you can't blame him for taking such good care of them, can you?"
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