Bella the Guardian
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A 1965 photo of Steve Stone and
Bella playing outdoors in Finland
when she was a year and a half old. Already at this age,
Bella had induced eight or ten Finnish families to invest
in the importation of a Stafford so that the Breed was quickly
on its way to becoming the most popular smooth-haired
terrier breed in the country.
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A 1965 photo of the Stone family:
Bella in Steve's lap, Eva-Marie
age five, Maini, and baby Mark -- all riding in the
Stone vehicle, a 1963 Messerschmitt "cabin roller," basically
the cockpit of the Messerschmitt 109-G fighter plane
with the motor, wings, and tail assembly missing, powered
by a 10-hp two-stroke motorcycle engine and rolling
on two front wheels and one rear wheel at 75mpg (gasoline
costs something like $4.50 per gallon in Finland!).
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A 1968 photo of Bella as a five
year old, almost the only reasonably
good one extant. She had an amazing air of authority
and would walk right through a snarling mass of fractious
Staffords, parting to let her pass as the Red Sea parted
for Moses.
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The Stone family returned from Finland to Pasadena, California, in
1966. My Dad and Mom who lived in Altadena would visit us (by
"us" I mean mainly our children Eva-Marie and Mark) almost
every day. If they arrived in the daytime when we were home, they got
the "big hello" from Bella (Bandits Belle-lettres) and Brutus
(Bandits Firestreak Red Rover). If my parents arrived at night when we
were home, they got a guarded "hello." If they arrived in the
daytime when we had to be away, in order to let them empty out, they
were barely tolerated.
While nothing untoward happened, my folks decided not to come to our home
at night when we were away. In the slang of the sixties, they
"just got those vibes."
Bella remains the primary reason that American fanciers today can enjoy
having Staffords. She was, as they say, one of a kind. She had
character and charisma. Only thirteen and a half inches high and
weighing a mere twenty-two pounds, she was well-nigh perfect in every
other respect. To the best of my knowledge, she remains the only
Stafford in Breed history to become the first registered Staffordshire in two separate
countries. She became the driving impulse behind the founding of the Breed in both
Finland and the USA.
Bella was quick, I mean really quick. A Finnish friend described her as
"Quicker than a brown thought," so nimble as to defy
description. When she flashed from repose to readiness, you had
to be looking directly at her or you'd not see her move. (That may sound
like hype, but it's not.)
In Finland, she took to guarding Mark's baby carriage (when he was in it)
when they both were only six months old without urging from Maini or
me. One night she heard a cat walking across the lawn more than twenty
feet from our bedroom window and made the first noise anyone had ever
heard from her, a deep growl that rattled the windows.
On Christmas Even, 1966, in Pasadena, following to the Finnish custom, our
extended family was opening Christmas presents in our living room. I
was sitting in the corner of the room. watching Bella in the center of
the room as she tried to decipher what all the fuss was about when,
unplanned, the door burst open as Santa Claus burst into the doorway
with a hearty "Ho ho ho!."
By great good fortune I was watching Bella at the very moment she
launched herself at Santa and barely had time to shout "NO!"
before she got to him. She stopped in her tracks about a foot away.
Maini rushed over to Bella, took her by the collar, and held her as
Santa handed presents to the children and exchanged Christmas jollies with one
and all.
When I saw Santa preparing to leave, I exited through the back door, ran
around to the front porch, and confronted him.
"Ho ho ho, be damned!" I snarled at him. "You stupid son of
a bitch, you almost bought yourself a trip to the hospital."
Whereupon Santa pulled off his whiskers and hat, and I saw that Santa
was actually one of my best friends, Mike Holmes, who loved Bella and with
whom Bella loved to play rough and tumble.
I apologized for calling him stupid and suggested that the next time he
came to visit he should not only be Mike Holmes but should look like
Mike Holmes.
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