STILL MORE ABOUT MY FIRST YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL
Two things especially stand out in my memory of that first winter on the Burke place. First was the purchase of my first rifle! For years I had dreamed of the day when I could have my very own .22 rifle. I had spent many hours studying the rifles offered in the Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogs. I knew the descriptions and prices of all the various makes of rifles by heart.
My big problem was that I had very little money. I had saved some of the money my teacher, Viola Woodard, had given me for doing so well in the county-wide exams in May. I had about four and half dollars to spend for a rifle. I finally made my decision, and sent off my very first mail order to Montgomery Ward, for a Western Field bolt action single shot rifle. It was the best one that I could afford, not nearly as good as I would have liked, but would be good enough, I was sure. In those days it took a week or more for an order to be shipped. You can imagine my intense excitement as I waited for it to come. I guess I should admit that my parents weren't nearly as excited about the whole matter as I was. They probably felt I didn't really need it, and should have used my money for something practical.
The package finally arrived! I can still remember opening the long box in which the rifle came, and tenderly taking it out, in pieces, of course. It didn't take long to get the parts put together, and to wipe out the barrel to make it ready to shoot. I had already purchased a box of shells, so was ready to use the rifle right away. Now I wouldn't have to ask permission to use the old worn-out .22 rifle any more; I had my own! Our dog, Laddie, seemed about as excited as I was.
It was probably the following Saturday--the first time I had free time for anything like going hunting-- that I took that rifle out to look for jack rabbits. There were rabbits around, but I quickly found that I had trouble hitting them! It took a bit of practice, and some adjustment of the sights, with Dad's help, to get that rifle to shoot where I was looking. But with that done, I became deadly with it, and shot many jack rabbits, some as far as one hundred yards away. Of course, the rifle had only simple open sights. Telescope sights were just then coming on the market, but were expensive, far beyond my financial reach.
The second important thing I recall about that first winter was learning to skate! We had never had opportunity for that before, but now we had a river right at our door. Relatives from Wisconsin had sent out some ancient clamp-on skates in various sizes for us, so that all of us--Robert, Jean, Mary and I--had skates we could use. All we needed to do was learn to use them.
You've never heard of clamp-on skates, have you? You haven't missed anything, believe me! But if you had nothing else, they could provide a lot of fun. Clamp-ons were made with a good thick runner, mounted on two metal soles. The skates were held on your shoes by clamps that were tightened onto the soles and heels of one's shoes with a key. Both ice skates and roller skates with such clamps were common in those days. The big drawback to clamp skates was that the clamps would often come loose. Just when you were flying along, one skate might leave you, or trip you up as it dropped down from your shoe, and cause great frustration and damage to one's pride. Also, it was not unusual for the heel to come off your shoe, still held firmly by the clamp. That would put a stop to skating until Dad could nail the heel back on the shoe. Fortunately, our Dad was skilled in repairing shoes, and he could take care of most of the shoe failures caused by skating--when he was at home. Robert and I did some renailing when Dad was away.
The ice on the river was great that first winter. Hard freezing weather came early, before the snow, and the river froze over smooth as glass. I can still remember one Saturday morning when "Duffer" Welton, the girl who lived with her parents across and up river about half a mile from us, came gliding down the river, and urged us to come down to go skating.
How do you learn to skate? First you put on your skates. We took those old clamp skates down to the ice, and clamped them on our shoes. We used stout leather harness straps around our ankles to give them some support, and were ready to start. But we could scarcely stand up, let alone move anywhere we wanted to go.
Duffer had the perfect answer to our problem. She told us we needed to get some chairs to hold on to as we learned. We used an old high chair mostly, taking turns pushing it along on the ice as we learned to stroke and glide. It really didn't take long at all, and by evening all four of us were doing well on our skates, although it took much practice before our ankles grew strong enough for long skating sessions.
After that skating became almost an obsession with Robert and me. Whenever we could spare the time (and sometimes when chores had to wait a bit) we were down on the ice, practicing our skating. We probably had some written information on skating, about how to turn, and how to skate backward. Mostly we learned it by observing other kids. The Vogel young people used to come over, and we would skate in the evenings, though it might be terribly cold down there on the ice. When snow came, as it surely did, we would shovel snow off large areas so we could play games, especially our own particular brand of hockey.
We knew nothing about hockey, but had heard about it. While today you who are reading this might simply go to a store and buy a puck and hockey stick, we couldn't do that. No one around Hinsdale played hockey, and we had no money to buy sticks and pucks if they had been available. So we made our own! Robert invented our puck. He cut two circular pieces about two and half inches in diameter out of an old tire tread, then nailed the two pieces together, and we had a puck, a good one. At least I can testify that it was deadly painful if it hit you in the shins or elsewhere, as it often did. It's black color made it easier to find, too, when it flew out into the snow.
Our hockey sticks we made from diamond willow. It took a lot of looking to find a stick of dead, seasoned willow with just the right bend in it. There were lots of willows all along Milk River, and after searching we found what we wanted. We whittled them down to about the right dimensions, and were all set to play. Our home-grown rules made sure that we never hit the other person anywhere with those heavy sticks, though they did sometimes cause an opponent to stumble and fall. We had hilarious hockey games, with Lawrence and Walter Vogel,and the Grant boys.
One evening I recall we were playing hockey long after dark. It was bitter cold, about thirty degrees below zero, and we had a big fire built right on the ice, to give us both light and some warmth. We played until my feet were totally numb. When we finally quit, and went up to the house, I found that the ends of my toes on the left foot were white and frozen. Oh, how painful it was to soak my feet in cold water, then in warm, until they thawed out! Though no part of the toes fell off, I have had bad chilblains on those toes at times ever since. Go to the doctor? We didn't even think of doing that; it would cost money that we didn't have.
We also played Fox and Goose on skates, and crack the whip, a lot that winter. On one or two occasions Robert and I skated all the way to Hinsdale, to school. We estimated it was about six miles around by the river, which meandered a lot. Despite the greater distance, we could arrive at school earlier on skates than we could by walking the two and half miles of our usual route. There was one barrier that Robert found--a strand of barbed wire strung clear across the river at one point. He found it when he skated right into it, and it put him down quickly and hard. It doesn't always pay to be out in front! He wasn't hurt badly, but we watched for wire pretty carefully after that experience. We could skate to town only when the ice was smooth and not covered by snow.
Because we lived so far out of town, and always had chores to do, Robert and I couldn't try out for basketball. That was the BIG sports activity of Hinsdale High School! Town boys, plus some of the lucky fellows who lived in the dormitory, made up the regular team. Competition with neighboring high schools was fierce. I wanted badly to learn to play, but never did. Oh, we played a little during the lunch hours, but I was never skilled in the game.
Robert and I enjoyed going to the games, and seldom missed one during the long season. It meant we had to walk home the two and a half miles, do our chores, then walk back to town, watch the game, and hike back home in the night. Some of those walks were pleasant, with the moon shining brightly on the snow, but others were just plain miserable, cold, dark, and lonely. Also, during that first winter, Robert and I sometimes walked to town in the evening to attend the rare movies (when we had the money!) or to listen to lectures.
That was an exciting winter for me. With my new rifle I wandered far and wide, hunting jack rabbits for their skins and to feed to the chickens. Frequently I shot a snowshoe rabbit, to use for bait in my weasel trapping, or for the chickens. Occasionally Mom cooked a young rabbit for us all to eat. They weren't nearly as good eating as cottontails, or the tame rabbits we had left out at the homestead. The truth of the matter is that I was terribly blood-thirsty in those days, and almost anything wild was fair game for me. I was always trying to kill any magpies that offered themselves within range, and also shot a great horned owl or two that first winter, ignorantly thinking they were predators that should be killed. They were very plentiful along the river, no doubt due to the large population of snowshoe rabbits.
I ran a considerable trap line, trying to catch weasels. I saw lots of weasel tracks around the place, and didn't realize then, as I did later, that one weasel makes an awful lot of tracks. They cover a wide territory regularly, hunting for mice or rabbits. I did manage to catch a few that winter, and earned a few dollars selling those skins and the skins of jack rabbits. The chickens that we had brought down from the old place were kept in a dug-out chicken house almost exactly like the one on the homestead. They made quick work of the carcasses of rabbits and weasels. Chickens love meat!
Another activity that took much of our time, and provided good exercise, was the preparation of fire wood. There was plenty of dry wood on the place, chiefly old dead cottonwood trees, and many clumps of diamond willow. Dry willows made fine fire wood for use in the cook stove. The cottonwood was used mostly in our little heating stove. The two stoves together served as the heat source for the whole house. As you can guess, without any system for moving the air around, the two bedrooms were always mighty cold! The little wood heater stove would accept chunks of wood up to two feet in length. If carefully filled with wood at bedtime, and the damper closed down to avoid too much draft, that little stove would keep warm for several hours. After that it got just plain cold in the whole house. Many times we had ice frozen on the water pail by morning! Frost a half inch thick would form on the heads of nails in the walls and ceiling on some cold nights.
Preparing wood for use in the stoves required much ax work, chopping willows into foot-long lengths, and sawing and splitting cottonwood chunks. Using a big two-man cross-cut saw, we first sawed the cottonwood logs into chunks about twelve or fourteen inches long. Then we split them into pieces small enough to go in the cook stove. Both Robert and I became so skilled in splitting wood in those years on the Burke place that either of us could usually split a match laid on the chopping block. Today I'm lucky if I can hit within an inch of where I want the ax to go!
I almost forgot another fun activity that Robert and I had that winter. I don't think we ever tried it again, but that year there was some good ice on the old slough that occupied a sizeable part of the land of the Burke place. Water flowed into the slough when the river was high. Sometimes heavy rain or melting snow run-off would partially fill the slough. That winter there was a nice area of smooth ice about half a mile long, roughly L-shaped. Our Dad had often told us of the thrills of ice sailing on the frozen lakes in Wisconsin when he was a boy. Now we thought perhaps we could do some ice sailing ourselves! One Saturday we rigged up a small square sail, about four feet on each side, and took our best sled down to the slough. We used the ax for a rudder. One of us sat facing forward, and holding the sail, while the other sat facing toward the rear, holding the ax wedged between his feet, with which to steer.
As I remember, the wind was fresh, blowing out of the southwest, so we moved down to the far end of the ice on the slough, settled ourselves on the sled, and raised the sail. I was in front. Our start was very slow on that first trial, but we soon gathered some speed, and scooted down the ice in great shape. We made the turn at the bend all right, without losing any speed; in fact, we were still picking up speed! All too soon we were approaching the end of the ice--and remembered that we didn't have any brakes! The only choice was to "abandon ship" any way we could, which we did. Even then we slid for some distance on the ice before coming to a stop. We made several runs that day, and with the wind coming up stronger and stronger, we had some great fun. As well as I can recall, that was the only day we tried ice sailing. The ax didn't work well for steering, and the stopping process was pretty rough. One person couldn't manage both the sail and the "rudder," and we just didn't pursue the sport any further.
Thus the winter passed, with plenty of things to do. I look back on those months with great pleasure. School work was always easy for me, and everything we were learning was interesting. The studies in General Science were especially so, as I already knew something of the natural world, and loved the simple little chemistry experiments we did. It was a good year.