For all of you who are animal lovers, SORRY!!! When I was about two Mother missed me and went looking for me. We had a large yard with a gate in the front of the house and she found me there with a great big, (her words, not mine) black dog standing over me licking me to death, (literally!) Mother said I had cried so much I was out of breath!! Since that time I have had a fear of any kind of animals!!! Oh, if a pup is quiet and somewhat friendly, I don't mind petting it and I once had a kitten who used to sit on my lap, very quietly and purr, while I rocked in my rocking chair But if it got up and started to walk around, down it went!!!My different kids at some time or other had a pet cat or dog but who wound up feeding it? You are so right! And every time I swore that was the last time! I was afraid to get on a horse when I was younger! But my brothers talked me into getting on Old Nellie, (yes that was the old mare's name!) They brought her up to the fence and I climbed up and sat on her. No saddle but a rein and guiding straps! I thought, "Wow! This is nice. I've got to go and show Mother." Now Mother was up the road aways helping a neighbor to can some peaches that were going to spoil if someone hadn't canned them, and the neighbor was sick!I went up there and got off the horse and went running into Mrs. Henniger's house and told Mother, "come quick, let me show you what I can do!" I was excited and running and probably yelling at the top of my voice. Old Nellie got freightened and jerked at the reins and tore off the gate I had her tied to and ran down the road as fast as she could for the barn! Mother and I after her! Mother calmed her down and got the gate away from her and took off the reins and the gate! But I was able to ride her after that but I never got excited and yelled again! When we had dogs I made sure they were outdoor kind! Never wanted an animal to get on me (except for that one kitten!) Dogs, well, I don't know! Tom had a dog that was given him. She had never been speid (is that spelled right?) but Peggy, my sister-in-law who gave her to Tom said she had had the dog for ten years and she had never had a litter!So what happens? You guessed it! Tom called me up in Tacoma, where I was helping Dick and Jane after John was born and says, "I think(I think the dog's name was Cha-Cha,) Cha-Cha is having pups someplace. She disapperared for a couple of days and now she keeps going up by the fence out back by some bushes". So in the meantime, I came home in a couple of days and I look out the back door and here is Cha-Cha carrying one pup after another till she had all SIX up on the porch! After all, the weather was getting hot and she wanted them where it was a bit cooler! Tom tried getting rid of them by selling them or giving them away but we still had three! One, the only male, was rather cute and I think must have taken after the father because he didn't look like any of the rest of them! So I told Tom he could keep the male which he promptly named Leon. Well, a very, very, short time later Cha-Cha pulled the same stunt again but this time she really outdid herself and the pups were on the porch (poop and all) and were soon eating milk out of a saucer and making a regular nuisance of themselves and who had to clean up all that mess? Nobody but "Mommy Dearest!" And I don't like animals! I told Steve one day, get a big cardboard box and take all the pups and Cha-Cha with you to Stockton when you go to work tonight and take them to the Animal shelter or pound or anything!!! So I kept Leon! Tom was up North I think, anyway, he wasn't home, but Leon would go across the street from the house where there was a Cemetary and he would bring flowers off the graves and lay them on the front porch; then he began to bring some clothes(ladies) from a house up the street, and put them on the front porch! She came tearing down there one day and I didn't know where he had found them! But I told her to keep them off her open porch and he wouldn't find them! Then he started bringing me old bones that he had found buried where Cha-Cha had buried them or pieces of food; one time them was an "almost" green fried egg out there. Another time there was a guy cleaning up the cemetary and I didn't know he was there but there was a really nice looking T-shirt on the porch! I brought it in the house because I didn't want him chewing it up. A man comes to the door and asked me if I had a small puppy, etc. and he thought it might have run off with his shirt! I brought it to the door and said, "Could this be the one?" He started laughing and said yes, that he had been playing with Leon during his lunch break, but when he went back to work and later looked for his shirt, it was gone and he didn't know which house he, the dog had come from!! I really hated to leave Leon up in Jackson when I had to move to Lodi but I couldn't have any animals in an apartment house with no outdoors to speak of for him to be in! So my landlady where I as renting asked me, "What are you going to do with Leon?" I told her I didn't know and she said she would love to have him! That was the last animal I had! There were a few before that! Not mine but the kids. Like the three kittens named Marilyn, Janie and Mary Ann! They were the kittens of a Manx cat that was at a place we rented and these kittens were born under the house!!And the Mother cat was getting rid of them as fast as she could so Tom ran her off and captured the 3 kittens! But this is enough for today!!
