BUSTER: The Wonderful Dog, Part II (Conclusion)

     (I am trying again; mybe it will work this time).........So my sister Glads and her husband lived on Pea Ridge and had this dog named Buster.   They inivited her Aunt, Maude (she was not my Aunt as Glads and I had different Mothers, but I called her Aunt Maude also, with her permission) to come spend the day.  Later that morning Jesse asked Aunt Maude if she would like a fried squirrel for lunch, and she said, "Where on earth are you going to get a squirrel...its almost lunch time now?"  Jesse told her he would send Buster after one.  So he told Buster to go get a squirrel.  Aunt Maude said, "Jesse, you know that dog can't understand you".  Jesse replied,"Just give her fifteen minutes, Aunt Maude and she will be back with a squirrel".  Well, a few minutes passed and Aunt Maude said, "Where's that squirrel, Jesse?"   Jesse said,"Well, now you wait a minute its only been ten minutes"  About two minutes later here comes Buster up on the front porch with a live squirrel in its mouth.  Aunt Maude was astonished.  The woods were full of squirrels and other 4 legged creatures.  Well, Jesse dressed the squirrel and Glads parboiled it, and then rolled in flour and fried it and made the most delicioius gravy to go along with the hot biscuit she had just baked in that iron wooden stove.  So that was lunch, and Buster got some too.  This is a true story, and for many years later Glads and Jesse loved to tell this story.  I had fried squirrel there too.  Maybe Buster knew we were living during the Depression era and she needed to help out.               (Will try to do the Ecudorian dog story soon if I can get this computer to work...Norton has told me the cookies have been fixed...we will see.)

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.)