ALL ABOUT BUSTER...the wonderful dog

    My sister Glads--well, her real name was Gladys, but I always called her Glads, and best I recall now (I am 86 and may not always recall things exactly right), everybody else called her Glads also.  I thnk she liked that name because she liked flowers, especially gladiouli.  (Later in life, she became a floral designer in a florist).
     Glads was much older than I as we had different Mothers.  At the time I am referring to, I was 8 or 9 and she, well, she had already been married several years and lived on PEA RIDGE with her husband, Jesse.
     They owned a ten-acre plot on a poor, rocky, yet treeed  (how do U like that word?)  ridge, as I said, called Pea Ridge.  I don't know now if that was the real name on that ridge or just a descriptive word somebody attached to it.  Years later, I asked somebody why it was called that and was told,"That land was so po hit wouldn't grow nuthin but peas!!!!", but Jesse always had a prolific garden.  I suppose there were a number of rocky ridges called Pea Ridge in most every State
    Jesse went to work in a nearby coal mine and latere in life drew Black Lung benefits...(I gotta stop this colored background as it is going to use all my ink).
     Jesse, relatives and friends bult their small wooden house.  The corner of it that you first approached was an open covered porch as it was part of the house.  On the left side of the porch was a door to the living room  In it there was an open fireplace with a large, flat rock hearth.  Then you went in to the dining area and to the right of that (no divider) was the kithen, and in the corner was a large iron cookstove.  Out of a sheet of sandpaper, Glads had cut out the shape of a cat.  It was mounted on the wall by the stove, and on it read:  " Scratch my Back".  I thought that was so clever...but then I was awfully gullible...or is it gullable??...just remembeer, "mesobumb".  (Many years later, I ran across a letter addressed to Glads from the "Home Extension Service." which was anotice of their next meeting, dated in mid-30's.)
     In those days, there was no electricity, no telephone, few paved roads, no indoor plumbing.  They had a well but it did not furnish sufficient water so they caught rainwater which was funneled into the well.
     Oh, I nearly forgot...yes, they  had a dog named BUSTER.  Next Monday, I will tell you why he was such a wonderful dog.
     (PS:  I have another GOOD dog story that I met in  Ecuador, but, first, I have to do some research on it..thanks for your patience.)