COLLEGE AT LAST!!
The summer of 1936 was ending. I could see that there was no chance whatever of my attending the University of Minnesota to study forestry, as I had long planned to do. I had very little money, and for that reason had not applied to the University. As we were growing up, our parents had always encouraged us to get a college education. They were willing to make great sacrifices to make that possible. They now came up with a new plan.
Mom would move to Havre with Jean, Mary, and me. Robert was already living there, having attended Northern Montana College the previous year. We would live in an apartment, and Dad would keep on working at Fort Peck, to pay for it all. It was especially difficult for Dad, as he wanted to be at home, but it seemed the only thing to do. By our moving to Havre, both Jean and I could attend Northern Montana College, Mary could attend Havre High School, and Robert could live with us.
I can't recall the actual move to Havre. Robert came down to Hinsdale with his Model A Ford to help with the move. Robert's car pulled a small trailer. We also had our family chariot--an ancient Model T roadster with a box built in place of the rumble seat. We loaded the things we would need in Havre, and drove up there. That was a major move for us--one hundred and sixty-five miles! We moved to an upstairs apartment just a few blocks from the administration building of the college. My younger sister, Mary, was a freshman in high school that year. Her school was only another two or three blocks beyond the college administration building. Robert kept his Model A there, while Dad took the old Model T back to Fort Peck Dam with him. He lived in a barracks there, and came to Havre when he could, to visit us.
Dad was always working at something, beside his regular job; he didn't like to be idle. His job on the dam was working as a laborer on the fill. The dam was largely built by dredging dirt and gravel from the river valley below the dam site, and pumping it through giant pipes up to the fill. There the water seeped away, leaving the dirt and other debris to build the fill. The pipes that brought the mud and water up from the river valley were six feet in diameter. The powerful dredges, digging deep into the deposits down stream, often encountered large stumps of the ancient juniper forest that had once grown there. Some of these stumps were pumped up onto the fill. Also, buffalo skulls and bones came out frequently.
Dad began to salvage some of the juniper wood. Such material was undesirable in the fill, anyway. He found the wood wonderfully preserved, though it must have been buried for centuries. He took the wood chunks to the carpenter shop, and from them cut out small pieces of beautifully grained and colored wood. From these he made several table lamps. The wood had wonderful colors-- browns, yellows, pinks, streaks of violet--and made handsome lamps. I think one or more of them may still be in service in Great Falls, in the homes of relatives there. Wages in those days were very low--less than a dollar an hour for hard work--but living expenses were also low. Dad and Mom managed nicely, so far as I am aware, and we (or at least I) never felt particularly pinched for money that year. I don't know just how we happened to rent the particular apartment we found, We had plenty of space, and, wonder of wonders, an indoor bathroom with running water! That took more than a little adjustment by us all, as we had never before had such a facility in our home! There was a little neighborhood grocery store just a block or so down the street from us, and we did most of our grocery buying there. The Methodist Church, where we all attended, was also not far away, and we walked there for the various services.
Robert bought a new radio for the apartment. It was a "console" model, standing upright from the floor, and we had many hours of enjoyment listening to it. He was not attending classes that fall. Instead, he was working at Gamble's store, a small and new hardware company. The radio was purchased from the store, I'm sure.
How well do I remember that first day of going to the college to register, and to meet the president, Dr. Guy H. Vande Bogart! I had a scholarship that first year, based on my high school grades, and success at the state high school week, in May. Jean and I walked the few blocks to the school, and with many other young people, got through the registration process without a hitch. Though I wasn't attending the school I wanted, the prospects at this college excited me. I don't remember being troubled by having to attend a lesser school.
When registration was completed, we new students met Dr. Vande Bogart, the president of Northern Montana College. We dutifully lined up, and he came out of his office. He shook hands with each of us, asking our names, where we were from, and what we planned to study. He was a very distinguished looking man, and, I think, a fine man. He did a great deal to develop Northern Montana College in the years he was there.
Of course, he had previously met my brother, Robert, so I suppose that was a help to him in remembering our names. Although I saw him a few times that year, and the next, it was always very casually, and I never felt really personally acquainted with him. Imagine my surprise, then, ten years later in 1946, when I was attending the University of Montana at Missoula after World War II, I met Dr. Vandebogart on the campus at Missoula. Without any hesitation, he greeted me by name, and asked about my sister and brother, also by name! He had a wonderful memory.
What were my first year subjects? Since I was pursuing my planned study of forestry, I chose the same basic subjects I would have had at a larger school. I had to take English for Technical Students, college algebra, zoology, and (I think!) sociology. I enjoyed every subject, and settled down to get good grades. All the teachers who had met Robert the year before were wondering if his kid brother would be as good a student as he was. I had a difficult example to follow! Jean signed up for a secretarial course, and took typing, shorthand, and some other business courses. We didn't have any classes together.
I also had a job! In those days the government had some programs to help students who needed extra funds. Each student could work enough hours to earn a maximum of fifteen dollars a month, at the standard wage of forty or fifty cents an hour. My assignment was to work with a Dr. Morgan, a teacher of German courses. His office was in East Hall, about a mile from our apartment. I worked with him several afternoons each week, correcting papers, sometimes typing memos and tests, and doing similar office work. Sharing the same office with Dr. Morgan was Mr. Johnson, my math teacher, and we became good friends. His son, Ed, was one of my classmates, a very fine athlete and a good student.
Beside working for Dr. Morgan, I sometimes worked on the campus, raking and cleaning up. During the winter months, I had a regular job cashiering at the basketball games. I could make change rapidly and accurately, and really enjoyed that. I got to see most of the students as they came in, and many towns people, too. Also, I had free admission to the ball games. I could usually get out of the ticket booth about half way through the game, and watch the rest of the time. Checking out my tickets and money at the end of the game took a little time, of course, but I earned fifty cents an hour for the whole time, so it was really an easy job.
My classes were all interesting to me. The zoology course covered a very wide range of subjects, and required the preparation of drawings of various bugs, animals, etc. I soon found that I had a knack for drawing, though I had never had any formal training. Also, my lab partner in that course was a young lady, a year ahead of me in school, who was preparing for medical school later. She was absolutely fearless when it came to handling the various specimens, even live snakes, several of which were kept in the lab. Often when working on some project, such as dissection of frogs, she would have a snake crawling around on the lab table, or draped around her neck and shoulders. I don't know whether she ever became a doctor, as I never heard of her after that one year of school.
The zoology teacher, a Mr. Anderson, had a delightful little daughter about three years of age. The little girl often came to the lab in the afternoon, and was wonderfully well acquainted with the fish and other creatures in the aquarium. She spoke intelligently of dinosaurs, and all sorts of things. Toward the end of the year, I worked some as lab assistant to Dr. Anderson, and learned to operate the various slide-making equipment available, fed the creatures in the fish tank, and so on. Then, as I was acquainted with the little girl, I sometimes served as baby-sitter for her while her parents went out for an evening. She was unusually intelligent. No silly little baby stories for her at bedtime! I have often wondered what happened to that little child!
That winter I signed up to take wrestling, for physical education. On the first night, the coach, Dr. Morgan (the professor for whom I worked) asked me to get down on the mat on my hands and knees, while he demonstrated a good hold. He got in position, then told me to try to get up. I out-weighed him by maybe ten pounds, and was strong and in good shape from hard work on the farm, so I simply stood up, taking him with me! He protested! That wasn't the idea, at all. My wrestling career ended quickly. I was getting enough exercise walking about the campus, and in my different jobs.
Both Jean and I became active in the Epworth League at the Methodist Church, and I sang in the church choir, too. Most of the young people in Epworth League were of high school age, and I made several good friends. I didn't have a car, as many of the high school kids did, but they sometimes invited me to ride with them. In the church our whole family became acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. W.W. Jones, leaders in the church. That acquaintance was to be a big help to me the next year!

MORE ABOUT MY SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL

MORE ABOUT MY SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL
Not long after the matter of the bloated cow, winter came on strong and cold. I had agreed with the Vogels that I would go to the Clement place to bring the whole bunch of cattle to their place. The agreed date (a Saturday) came, and though our old homestead thermometer showed the temperature was below the 40 degree below mark, I walked out to the Vogels’, borrowed their old slow saddle horse, and set out. I soon found it was much too cold for riding, so I walked and led the horse the rest of the way and back.
It didn't take long to round up the cattle, as they were near the gate, waiting to get out of there. The walk to the Vogels’ home, about three miles, was a bitter one. The cattle, the horse, and I all were literally covered with white frost from our breathing. The poor old horse coughed frequently, a sign that the cold air was bothering her lungs. That was the last time, I believe, that I had occasion to drive the cattle. I surely wouldn't have wanted to have another day like that one!
That winter I signed up for the senior class play, and greatly enjoyed being a part of it. I had only a minor part, of course, but it went over very well and we had lots of fun rehearsing. Having a part in a play was helpful, too, in learning not to be too nervous in front of an audience! Now I need to say something more about the typing class. When we finally were allowed to begin using the machines, we found that we could already type! In fact, on one of the first speed tests Miss Adams gave us, most of us were typing twenty-five to thirty words per minute! After that, typing became easier and easier for me, and I was soon typing as fast or faster than anyone else in first year typing. When spring came, and I entered in typing at the district scholastic meet at Malta, I won first place easily. Later, at the state high school week, at Bozeman, I again took first place in first year typing. Somehow it was a natural skill for me.
A highlight of that winter was listening to the radio in the evening. I had never before lived in a house having electricity, and the ability to tune in stations as far away as Denver and Cincinnati, Ohio, was a marvel. We listened as regularly as we could to such programs as Amos and Andy, The Great Gildersleeve, Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour, and Fibber McGee and Molly. Those were great programs!
Often that winter we went out to ice skate on Vogel's slough, where there was good ice. I was still singing in the church choir, and active in the Epworth League, too. That year our Epworth League group sometimes met with the group at Saco, and that was fun. I remember that we went to the Saco church on Easter Sunday, early in the morning, to have a joint sunrise service and breakfast together. Did I just think of the significance of the day, and all that? Hardly! One Saco boy told me of a place not far out of town where there had apparently once been an Indian battle, for many arrowheads were found there. I was more interested in that, though I never went out to see the place, than in the Easter message.
Early in the spring we began to have track practice, and for the first time I had the freedom to go out for a school sport. I had always been pretty good at running and jumping--both standing and running broad jump--while in grade school, so those were the events I worked on. I found that I couldn't keep up with the competition at all in the shorter races, but could do well in the mile run. It was a new experience for me to have track shoes available (borrowed ones) to use for running. Our team went around to various track meets with other nearby schools. The one I especially remember was a meet at Fort Peck, because on that day I managed to run the mile in 4:45. That was very good time for high school runners in those days. The world record was somewhere around 4:05 at that time. No one ran a four-minute mile until several years later. I never ran a mile that fast again, though I ran some in my freshman year in college.
In early May a group of students from Hinsdale, mostly seniors, but also some younger girls, went to Malta, about forty-five miles west of Hinsdale, for a district scholastic and track meet. I didn't do at all well in the track events, but did do very well in all five subjects in the scholastic meet. Because I had a conflict as I was taking another test when the first year typing test was given, I had to take my typing test alone, after all the others had competed, Miss Adams told me, before I started to take the timed test, that forty-five words per minute would easily win. As I mentioned earlier, I knew almost exactly what the rhythm was for forty-five words per minute, held to that, and got first place, with a speed of forty-five words per minute! It was a cinch, due to a good teacher.
That afternoon, on our way back to Hinsdale, my good friend and classmate, Foran Drabbs, and I almost had an argument. We both admired a younger girl who had come along for the scholastic meet. The teacher in charge of our group had agreed that we could stop in Saco on the way home, to see a movie. The difference between Foran and me was who would get to take E____ to the show? Or maybe it was who would get to ask her first, as she wasn't riding in the same car with us. I don't recall just how we decided the matter, but this I do remember-- she refused both of us! Later she was my date, my very first date ever, for the Senior prom.
Just a week or two before our graduation, three or four of us seniors had a wonderful surprise! Mr. Orr, the principal, had arranged for us to compete in the state high school scholastic meet on the Montana State College campus, in Bozeman! He drove us over, and I can't adequately tell how excited I was on that trip. For the first time I saw real honest to goodness forests, and we went through real mountains on our way. We travelled through Great Falls and Helena, then down past Three Forks to Bozeman.
Somewhere around the famous Gates of the Mountains, we saw a bear climbing up a hill in the distance. Of course we couldn't be sure what kind of bear it was, but for me it was surely a grizzly! We arrived in Bozeman late in the afternoon, where we were assigned rooms in dormitories on the campus. I can recall very clearly my delight in walking around on the school grounds, looking at the various trees, and what were for me, huge school buildings.
Oddly, I don't remember much about the various events of that week. I was fortunate to place first in the state in typing, and I did well also in the other subjects in which I competed. Highlight of the week was the day I spent out on the Madison River with Mr. Orr and another man whose name I can't recall. I didn't fish, but watched them with their fly rods, wading in the great stream. I don't think they caught much of anything, but the weather and the scenery were both beautiful. I became even more enamored with the idea of becoming a forest ranger, and being able to live always in such surroundings.
Our senior class had sometime in the previous year decided on our class colors--Nile green and silver--and we had placed our orders for graduation announcements. It was almost time for graduation when I learned something that really surprised me. I had thought up 'til then that I was clearly the head of the class, and would surely be giving the valedictory address at our commencement exercises. Now I learned that not I, but Larry Haverfield, was the valedictorian! I came in a close second, but it was a severe blow to my pride. Further, Larry had completed all the work required for graduation in the two years he had been attending Hinsdale High School! As I said before, I didn't know him well. He, with his family, had come from somewhere in Canada. When they came to live near Hinsdale in the fall of 1934, he was almost twenty years of age. Yet in those two years he had managed to take all the necessary subjects, and beat me by a couple of tenths of a grade point. He really earned his victory, and I had earned my second place, too, because I hadn't worked as hard as I might have. It was a bitter pill to swallow. I had broken the pattern of being a Cumming youngster who graduated at the head of his class, as Robert and Jean had done.
Senior prom, senior class day with its great picnic at Vandalia Dam, everything related to graduation came and went swiftly. Though it was a real budget stretcher for me, I bought a class ring, and then almost never wore it. I think it cost either $12 or $15; that was a big price for me. The most interesting graduation gift I received was a very simple baitcasting rod and reel that my parents gave me. With that I was ready for some real fishing. I imagined that Milk River contained all the various sport fishes I had read about in the outdoor magazines. I fished with high hopes of catching a great northern pike, or a bass. I know now that such fish had never been found in the river, and probably haven't to this day! But with that rod I caught many goldeye, a few cat fish,and many carp. It was a great gift. Though the cheap little casting reel often gave me trouble with monster backlashes, I learned to cast fairly well with it, and used it for years. Now the summer was before me. I still dreamed of going to the University of Minnesota, but the possibility of doing that seemed very remote. I needed money badly. Steady jobs were not available; as a result, I had several jobs that summer. First, I rented a couple acres of ground right by Milk River, 2 miles east of town, from one of our old neighbors, Mr. Kent, and started a truck garden. I used the irrigation pump and old single cylinder gas engine we had used on the Burke place. With Dad's help I got that all set up so I could irrigate most of the garden area. That worked fairly well, and by the end of summer I had a good crop of potatoes and corn, and made a little money on those. It took too much time, though, going the two miles out to the garden spot in the little old Model T Ford, getting the pump going, directing the water where it was needed, and hoeing and weeding between spells of tending the engine. I did find time to fish,though, and sometimes went swimming, too.
Twice that summer I had brief jobs on government programs. The first was a two-week job of poisoning rodents. A crew of five or six of us was driven out to a previously selected spot early each morning. There we filled heavy sacks with poisoned grain, which was to be placed at any rodent holes we found. We slung the bags over our shoulders, and walked, and walked, and walked. We spread out about twenty feet apart, in a line, going across fields and pasture land, putting a handful of grain in every hole that looked as if it might be occupied by some rodent. We worked mostly through prairie dog towns, or colonies. We also sought out the holes of the little pocket gophers or ground squirrels. I hated the idea of poisoning animals, but the rodents were truly pests. Unfortunately, many birds also ate the poisoned grain, and died.
My second government job was as a laborer on a small dam-building job out southeast of Hinsdale, in the Missouri River breaks country. I remember Dad took me out there in the old Ford, out across the hills south of Hinsdale, a long, long ride. Finally we found our way to the camp. My arrival was expected, but my first work assignment wasn't! I was told where to put my little kit of belongings, and then report at once to the cook house. I was appointed, without any consultation with me, to the job of cook's helper, or "bull cook."
That was as mean a job as any I've ever had. I had to peel endless piles of potatoes, as there was a large crew of hungry men to feed three big meals a day. I slept in a big tent with blankets, no mattress, on the hard ground. The cook routed me out of bed about 4:30 in the morning, to help get breakfast. I toasted great piles of bread, and made coffee enough to drown out a prairie dog. I set the table twice for each meal, and afterward had to help wash the dishes. I had a little time off when the men were out working on the job, but had to begin helping with lunch again about 10AM,. I didn't get done with the last dishes of the day until about 8PM, and then, totally exhausted, went to bed. I was on that job for a week, and then an opportunity for escape came. Believe me, I had often thought of taking off over the hills for home during that week! But one day a new young fellow came out to the camp to work. At once I asked the boss if I couldn't be relieved of my job, and get out on the real work-- shovelling, pouring concrete, and so on. He said it was OK with him, if all right with the cook. That man, I guess, was willing to change helpers, so I went out as a regular worker.
The work on the project was just as hard, but I enjoyed it. In a week or ten days we had completed the pouring of a big concrete-lined tank to be used for dipping cattle and sheep. We also built corrals, a loading chute, and other necessary facilities. We were a lively crew of workers, all young fellows, and the work went quickly. I remember that several of us went to Glasgow one night so we could listen on the radio to the prize fight between Joe Louis and Max Baer, the German fighter. If I remember correctly, we stood around outside a tavern (I was too young to be allowed inside) and heard the fight on the radio through an open window. Louis won in the first round, I think. Baer suffered a broken vertebra, or something like that, and had to stop. Back we went to camp. The work at the little earth dam was finished soon, and I was again out of a job.
Soon after, the Montana Power Company came looking for men. The company owned the natural gas line running along the "high line" and the Great Northern Railroad. The work they were doing consisted of digging up sections of the gas line to see whether the pipe was so badly corroded that it needed replacement. I got on with them, and for just a few days spent the day on the business end of a long-handled round-nosed shovel. Again, though the work was hard, and we were expected to move huge amount of dirt, working with a couple of other fellows was fun. We chatted as we dug, told big stories, and so on.
All of these jobs paid what seemed huge wages--fifty cents an hour, with nothing deducted for income tax. On the job at the dam, my pay was reduced to cover the charge for food, to the tune of a dollar or so a day. I still managed to save a few dollars.
Most of the rest of the summer I spent working as a farm hand on the Hellstern farm east of Hinsdale. I worked at irrigating beets, driving team while haying, and helping with milking morning and night. That summer I could hold my own with the Hellstern boys at milking. They milked a herd of forty big rangy Holstein cows, with huge udders. We usually started the morning milking about 5AM, after feeding and harnessing the horses. Three of us would milk while a fourth man handled the storing of the milk. They didn't have fancy cooling equipment or milking machines--it was all done by hand. Earl, one of the Hellsterns, left right after milking to take the fresh warm milk to the creamery at Glasgow, about twenty-fivemiles away.
With three of us milking, it meant milking thirteen or sometimes fourteen cows, each of which would give about fifteen to twenty quarts of milk at a milking. Our normal milking time was about an hour. That meant that we were taking only four or five minutes per cow. Because the big Holstein cows gave so much milk, we usually had to empty the milk bucket once during the milking of each cow. It was great exercise for the hands and forearms, and I really didn't mind it at all. The hard part of the job, though, was to milk those same cows again in the evening, after a long hard day of irrigating, haying or threshing. Then the job was a real chore.
Often after finishing the milking in the evening, we would all hike down to the Milk River, about a half mile away, and go for a good cooling swim. We would get to bed about nine, and wasted no time with talk, as all of us were dog tired. For that kind of work, six days a week, with Sundays off (except for the milking), I received thirty dollars a month and "found"--that is, board and room. Did I suffer that summer? Not at all! The hard work, and the good food we had, with all the cream, butter, cheese, and ice cream we could eat, helped me to put on weight. When I left at the end of summer to go to school, I was hard as nails. I believe I had somewhat unusual strength for one of my height and weight. In those days I weighed about 140 pounds, and there wasn't an ounce of fat on me. I really think that hard work is good for a growing young fellow, and didn't resent it a bit, though I suppose I did my share of griping.
Too soon summer was gone. It was time to think of college. Meanwhile my parents had come up with a plan to allow both my sister Jean and me to attend Northern Montana College at Havre. I had to forget my dream of the University of Minnesota. I was very happy to go to some school. But that is another story, and will have to be covered later.

SENIOR! Only sixteen, and a senior in high school! I was proud! Because I had skipped a year (or done two years in one) in grade school, I was a year or two younger than most of my classmates. While I was proud of it then, I realize now that it might have been better if I had been older. My social adjustment wasn't all it might have been. I was socially a "loner," and except for some playing and visiting with the Vogel and Grant kids, I didn't mix much with the other students in my class. Not that I didn't have an interest in girls! That was coming on a bit, though I was scared to death of talking to any of them. Secretly I greatly admired two or three different girls that year, and sometimes day-dreamed about being married to one or the other of them. I figured we could live off the land, dressing in animal skin clothing and moccasins. I never stopped to think of winter weather--it was always summer, and beautiful, with ripe berries and lots of game to shoot. Those were foolish dreams, I know, and I've never before told anyone about them. The change in our living situation that fall was a big one. Dad had taken a job at Fort Peck Dam that year, so we left the Burke place in late summer. We moved in to town, though Dad was living most of the time in a barracks at Fort Peck, housing provided for the workers on the dam. He was away all week, coming home most weekends. We sold nearly all the cattle, and pastured the few remaining with the Vogel's at a place on the river about five miles from town. It was known as the Clement place, from the name of a former owner. We sold the old team and wagon, too, so we really had become "town folks." I missed the woods on the Burke place, and the animals and birds, but found plenty to do in town. On some weekends I had to go to the Clement place to check on our few cows, and that meant walking the five plus miles down there and back. Later I will tell of one or two notable days connected with the care of thestock. As a senior, and with most of the required subjects already completed for graduation, I had a choice of what I would study in this my senior year. I liked Mr. Shaw so well I chose to take both physics and advanced algebra from him. I also took another course in animal husbandry, chiefly because I knew that would involve stock judging, which I very much liked to do. The fourth course I chose was typing, and that was tough! Both Robert and Jean had taken typing, and were good at it. But just as they had warned me about what a tough teacher Miss Dorothy Dutch was (my teacher for algebra and geometry), now they told me how awful Miss Adams, the typing teacher could be! There were about twelve of us in the class, and despite the warnings, I looked forward to learning to type. As it turned out, touch typing is probably the most valuable skill I learned in high school! I've used it all my life, and it has been a wonderful help. In this my senior year I decided what I wanted to do as a career: I would be a forest ranger! I read everything I could lay hands on about that line of work, and even decided where I would go to college. For some reason, it didn't enter my mind to go to Missoula, to the state university, where there was a fine forestry school. Instead, I planned to go to the University of Minnesota, because their school seemed to get the most publicity. I wrote for a catalog, and liked what I saw. Little did I know how difficult it would be to go there, pay the high tuition charges, and all that. It was a goal, and helped me to apply myself toward being a good student, I think. Back to typing class! Miss Adams surely was different from most of the teachers. She was a perfectionist! In order to learn one thing at a time, and because knowing the location of the various keys is essential to learning to type rapidly, we didn't even touch a typewriter for the first three or four weeks! I had never heard of such a thing! Instead of using a machine, we sat with our hands in the correct position on the edge of the typing table, and practiced for hours-- asdfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, over and over, or mixing numbers in with the letters. There were big charts on the wall in front of us, showing the location of all the letters and numbers on the keyboard. For the first week or so we could look at those charts. After that the charts were taken away, and we were supposed to know without hesitation where each letter or number was, and which finger was designated to hit it. The school typewriters had no letters or numbers on the keys, to tempt us to look at the keys. Then there was the proper finger stroke to use, too. We would be learning to type on old Underwood standard machines, of course; electric typewriters were unknown in our area. Miss Adams called it the "tiger stroke," meaning that the finger didn't just poke at a key, but must hit it with a clawing motion, sharp and precise. Miss Adams watched us individually, to make sure we were moving our fingers just right. It was practice, practice, practice for an hour each day, five days a week. I thought we would never get around to real typing! When we did get typewriters, most of us in the class found we could type 20 - 30 words per minute, with not too many errors. One other thing--Miss Adams wanted us to learn to type smoothly, rhythmically, without sudden spurts, pauses, or stops. So we had victrola music to keep time to, usually marches, very snappy. If anyone had come by and seen twelve people typing on imaginary typewriters, keeping time to the music, they might have thought we were crazy! I know some of us thought someone was! On the other hand, I know now how important that rhythm is. I learned that to achieve a certain desired speed in typing, one could estimate how many strokes per minute were required to reach a chosen rate of so many words per minute, and simply type along at that rate. Twice later, in typing contests at Malta and at State High School Week in Bozeman, I won by trying to type at a certain rhythmic rate, and hit the desired speed almost exactly. My other subjects were just as interesting to me that year. In animal husbandry, we made field trips to watch how the farmers used different feeds for livestock. We judged animals at the fair in Glasgow, and held meetings of the new Future Farmers of America club. The teacher, Mr. Skinner, was interesting, and a good teacher. Mr. Shaw, my friend from previous years, lived up to my expectations, especially in teaching physics. I got such a good grounding in physics that two years later, at Northern Montana College in Havre, I was selected to work as physics lab assistant, to help earn my tuition and college expenses. Town living was very different from being on the Burke place. There were no animals to care for daily, except for a few hens kept in the big old barn at the back of the lot. Thus I had more free time--free for reading. Hinsdale had only a very small town library, and for some reason I almost never went there to borrow books. In this my fourth year at high school, I had read nearly all the books that I found attractive in the school library. It was at this time that I began to borrow many books from Mr. Shaw's personal library--he had a whole wall of books on shelves. I had read a few of his books in the prior year, but now I sometimes went over to his apartment on Saturday, and read all day, or brought home a fresh bundle of books. The house we lived in was less than a block from his place, so I didn't have far to go. I mentioned that we had a few cattle left, pastured on the Clement place, with the Vogel's cattle. With Dad away at Fort Peck, I had to check on them occasionally. Thus one frosty Saturday morning, in late October or early November, I walked down there (about five miles from town) to see if they were OK. There was alfalfa growing along the river bank on the Clement place, scarcely half a mile inside the pasture. On that particular morning, I walked down along the river, and found what I didn't want to find: a cow terribly bloated from eating the frosty alfalfa. She lay on her side, with her belly so extended her legs were away up in the air. There was so much pressure she could hardly breathe, but she was still alive. She was not one of ours; she belonged to the Vogels. I knew she could not live long. There was not enough time to walk clear back to their place to tell them. If anything could be done for her, it was up to me. I had learned in animal husbandry class that veterinaries use a special tool for relieving cattle or other animals suffering from bloat. I didn't have anything like that. I had only my pocket knife. But I remembered that the sticking point was toward the back end of the rib cage, and with great fear I stabbed the cow right there with the largest blade of my knife! There was no question whether I hit the right spot! Gas whistled out of the cut, along with a fine green spray that pretty well stained all my face and front! That cow shrank like a punctured balloon! I knew that the wound should be sterilized, but I didn't have anything with me with which to do that. So after washing up a bit in the river, I walked around some more, checked to see that the other cows were all OK (and not eating alfalfa!), and then walked back to Vogels to tell them about their cow. When I left, the cow was already on her feet, though looking a bit wobbly. The long and short of it was that the cow lived on, whether happily or not, I don't know. I told my agriculture teacher of my adventure, and he was sure that the cow would die of infection. But she survived! In those days there were few vets around, and I am sure the Vogels didn't call one to come out to check on the cow. More later about my senior year - and no more gruesome stories!SENIOR! Only sixteen, and a senior in high school! I was proud! Because I had skipped a year (or done two years in one) in grade school, I was a year or two younger than most of my classmates. While I was proud of it then, I realize now that it might have been better if I had been older. My social adjustment wasn't all it might have been. I was socially a "loner," and except for some playing and visiting with the Vogel and Grant kids, I didn't mix much with the other students in my class. Not that I didn't have an interest in girls! That was coming on a bit, though I was scared to death of talking to any of them. Secretly I greatly admired two or three different girls that year, and sometimes day-dreamed about being married to one or the other of them. I figured we could live off the land, dressing in animal skin clothing and moccasins. I never stopped to think of winter weather--it was always summer, and beautiful, with ripe berries and lots of game to shoot. Those were foolish dreams, I know, and I've never before told anyone about them. The change in our living situation that fall was a big one. Dad had taken a job at Fort Peck Dam that year, so we left the Burke place in late summer. We moved in to town, though Dad was living most of the time in a barracks at Fort Peck, housing provided for the workers on the dam. He was away all week, coming home most weekends. We sold nearly all the cattle, and pastured the few remaining with the Vogel's at a place on the river about five miles from town. It was known as the Clement place, from the name of a former owner. We sold the old team and wagon, too, so we really had become "town folks." I missed the woods on the Burke place, and the animals and birds, but found plenty to do in town. On some weekends I had to go to the Clement place to check on our few cows, and that meant walking the five plus miles down there and back. Later I will tell of one or two notable days connected with the care of thestock. As a senior, and with most of the required subjects already completed for graduation, I had a choice of what I would study in this my senior year. I liked Mr. Shaw so well I chose to take both physics and advanced algebra from him. I also took another course in animal husbandry, chiefly because I knew that would involve stock judging, which I very much liked to do. The fourth course I chose was typing, and that was tough! Both Robert and Jean had taken typing, and were good at it. But just as they had warned me about what a tough teacher Miss Dorothy Dutch was (my teacher for algebra and geometry), now they told me how awful Miss Adams, the typing teacher could be! There were about twelve of us in the class, and despite the warnings, I looked forward to learning to type. As it turned out, touch typing is probably the most valuable skill I learned in high school! I've used it all my life, and it has been a wonderful help. In this my senior year I decided what I wanted to do as a career: I would be a forest ranger! I read everything I could lay hands on about that line of work, and even decided where I would go to college. For some reason, it didn't enter my mind to go to Missoula, to the state university, where there was a fine forestry school. Instead, I planned to go to the University of Minnesota, because their school seemed to get the most publicity. I wrote for a catalog, and liked what I saw. Little did I know how difficult it would be to go there, pay the high tuition charges, and all that. It was a goal, and helped me to apply myself toward being a good student, I think. Back to typing class! Miss Adams surely was different from most of the teachers. She was a perfectionist! In order to learn one thing at a time, and because knowing the location of the various keys is essential to learning to type rapidly, we didn't even touch a typewriter for the first three or four weeks! I had never heard of such a thing! Instead of using a machine, we sat with our hands in the correct position on the edge of the typing table, and practiced for hours-- asdfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, over and over, or mixing numbers in with the letters. There were big charts on the wall in front of us, showing the location of all the letters and numbers on the keyboard. For the first week or so we could look at those charts. After that the charts were taken away, and we were supposed to know without hesitation where each letter or number was, and which finger was designated to hit it. The school typewriters had no letters or numbers on the keys, to tempt us to look at the keys. Then there was the proper finger stroke to use, too. We would be learning to type on old Underwood standard machines, of course; electric typewriters were unknown in our area. Miss Adams called it the "tiger stroke," meaning that the finger didn't just poke at a key, but must hit it with a clawing motion, sharp and precise. Miss Adams watched us individually, to make sure we were moving our fingers just right. It was practice, practice, practice for an hour each day, five days a week. I thought we would never get around to real typing! When we did get typewriters, most of us in the class found we could type 20 - 30 words per minute, with not too many errors. One other thing--Miss Adams wanted us to learn to type smoothly, rhythmically, without sudden spurts, pauses, or stops. So we had victrola music to keep time to, usually marches, very snappy. If anyone had come by and seen twelve people typing on imaginary typewriters, keeping time to the music, they might have thought we were crazy! I know some of us thought someone was! On the other hand, I know now how important that rhythm is. I learned that to achieve a certain desired speed in typing, one could estimate how many strokes per minute were required to reach a chosen rate of so many words per minute, and simply type along at that rate. Twice later, in typing contests at Malta and at State High School Week in Bozeman, I won by trying to type at a certain rhythmic rate, and hit the desired speed almost exactly. My other subjects were just as interesting to me that year. In animal husbandry, we made field trips to watch how the farmers used different feeds for livestock. We judged animals at the fair in Glasgow, and held meetings of the new Future Farmers of America club. The teacher, Mr. Skinner, was interesting, and a good teacher. Mr. Shaw, my friend from previous years, lived up to my expectations, especially in teaching physics. I got such a good grounding in physics that two years later, at Northern Montana College in Havre, I was selected to work as physics lab assistant, to help earn my tuition and college expenses. Town living was very different from being on the Burke place. There were no animals to care for daily, except for a few hens kept in the big old barn at the back of the lot. Thus I had more free time--free for reading. Hinsdale had only a very small town library, and for some reason I almost never went there to borrow books. In this my fourth year at high school, I had read nearly all the books that I found attractive in the school library. It was at this time that I began to borrow many books from Mr. Shaw's personal library--he had a whole wall of books on shelves. I had read a few of his books in the prior year, but now I sometimes went over to his apartment on Saturday, and read all day, or brought home a fresh bundle of books. The house we lived in was less than a block from his place, so I didn't have far to go. I mentioned that we had a few cattle left, pastured on the Clement place, with the Vogel's cattle. With Dad away at Fort Peck, I had to check on them occasionally. Thus one frosty Saturday morning, in late October or early November, I walked down there (about five miles from town) to see if they were OK. There was alfalfa growing along the river bank on the Clement place, scarcely half a mile inside the pasture. On that particular morning, I walked down along the river, and found what I didn't want to find: a cow terribly bloated from eating the frosty alfalfa. She lay on her side, with her belly so extended her legs were away up in the air. There was so much pressure she could hardly breathe, but she was still alive. She was not one of ours; she belonged to the Vogels. I knew she could not live long. There was not enough time to walk clear back to their place to tell them. If anything could be done for her, it was up to me. I had learned in animal husbandry class that veterinaries use a special tool for relieving cattle or other animals suffering from bloat. I didn't have anything like that. I had only my pocket knife. But I remembered that the sticking point was toward the back end of the rib cage, and with great fear I stabbed the cow right there with the largest blade of my knife! There was no question whether I hit the right spot! Gas whistled out of the cut, along with a fine green spray that pretty well stained all my face and front! That cow shrank like a punctured balloon! I knew that the wound should be sterilized, but I didn't have anything with me with which to do that. So after washing up a bit in the river, I walked around some more, checked to see that the other cows were all OK (and not eating alfalfa!), and then walked back to Vogels to tell them about their cow. When I left, the cow was already on her feet, though looking a bit wobbly. The long and short of it was that the cow lived on, whether happily or not, I don't know. I told my agriculture teacher of my adventure, and he was sure that the cow would die of infection. But she survived! In those days there were few vets around, and I am sure the Vogels didn't call one to come out to check on the cow. More later about my senior year - and no more gruesome stories

"BATCHING"
Do you know what "batching" means? I don't mean the kind connected with computer operation. The meaning comes from the word "bachelor," which commonly is taken to mean an unmarried man. From that idea, of living without a woman, comes the term "batching." To Dad and me, in the fall of 1934, it meant doing our own house- keeping, cooking, and so on. Mom and my two sisters were living in Hinsdale, in a house rented from Dr. Cockrell. Dad and I were on the Burke place, two and a half miles out of town, taking care of the livestock.
Dad was working that winter on the Works Progress Administration historical program, digging out and reporting on the early-day history of Valley County ranching. He was away often, going through old newspaper files in libraries, and talking to old timers who could remember the former days of big ranching. Dad did his writing at home, in long hand, of course, for we didn't have a typewriter. He sent his reports in to some office. Later some of his stories appeared in the WPA History of Montana.
With Robert away working at Fort Peck Dam that year, I vibrated between the Burke place, and the house in town. I had the usual chores to do, taking care of the stock, and continued to walk back and forth the two and a half miles to school. But now I could go to the town house (hey, I never thought of that before! We had a "town house!") for lunch on school days, and Dad and I usually were there for Sunday dinner, after attending church.
Mom loved her work at the post office, and took pride in doing a good job. When the usual crowd came to the post office in the morning to get their mail, Mom enjoyed visiting with the people. She put in a good long day, too--from eight in the morning to about five or five-thirty in the afternoon. The girls enjoyed living in town because it meant they didn't have those long walks in the cold each school day.
The house they lived in had two stories, and had electricity, and water (cold water only) piped into the kitchen. The outdoor toilet was enclosed in a long shed out behind the house, which also included a storage room for all sorts of odds and ends. The house was heated in part with a wood and coal burning heater, in the living room. Part of my work now included helping to keep firewood on hand for Mom and the girls.
At the back of the yard there was a tall old red barn, long unused, but storing all sorts of old gear--harnesses, parts of a buggy, and other odds and ends. The yard was large, with a good-sized garden area,which we planted the following summer. Most important for all of us was the electricity! We had never before had a home where we had that convenience. On my short stays at the house, I could listen to the radio, something which we had not had previously. The set we had was an old Philco, shaped like a big mantle clock. Of course there was no FM in those days. Dad strung an antenna from the roof of the house to the top of the barn. On winter nights that old radio would pull in stations like KOA, Denver, and another one in Ohio, whose call letters I don't remember. I thought then, and still do, that radio is a marvelous thing. I wonder if God didn't get a bit impatient, waiting for man to "invent" it, when He had made the thing possible from the very beginning!
In this, my third year of high school, I had some choice of subjects. That year was the first in which agriculture classes were introduced in our high school, and I signed up for Animal Husbandry. Along with the agriculture subject, I had the usual English, chemistry with Mr. Shaw, and civics (government organization, and things like that). I liked all my studies, and earned good grades without really putting out much effort. In those days, very little homework was required. We did have to write "themes" in most of the courses; these were usually written outside of class. I could do most of my studying in the hours I spent in the assembly room,between classes.
Chemistry was of special interest to me, and Mr. Shaw had a good deal to do with making it interesting. He liked to conduct little experiments, to show us how things worked. The laboratory was very primitive, and lacked many things needed to do a really good job of teaching or experimenting, but he "made do," as they used to say.
One of my classmates helped make things lively. Tom was the son of Dr. Cockrell, our local doctor, and was a great "cut-up" in school, beside being a good basketball player. One day, after discovering a can of ether in the chemistry supply cabinet, Tom soaked his handkerchief with ether, and anesthetized himself, right in class! He sat behind me (I was always a front row student, by choice) and all I knew about what was going on was a peculiar odor in the air.
Suddenly, while Mr. Shaw was talking, Tom became unconscious, and slid down out of his chair onto the floor. Naturally that caused a big commotion! Several of the other students had known what Tom was trying to do, so they weren't as surprised as were the rest of us. Mr. Shaw quickly determined what the problem was, and just let Tom sleep. He was recovering, I remember, about the time class let out, as he hadn't gotten very much ether before he passed out. I don't remember what trouble Tom was in for that escapade.
One day Mr. Shaw wanted to show us how metal would burn. He lit a bunsen (natural gas) burner, and proceeded to burn steel wool. This is not difficult to do. Steel wool can be heated until red hot, and then waved briskly in the air. The result is that the steelburns, with visible flames. That, however, was only the beginning of this experiment. Next Mr. Shaw placed a little steel crucible on the top of the wood laboratory table, and filled it with a mixture of powdered aluminum and ferric oxide, which is really only common rust put up in a can. To light the mixture, he used a little ribbon of magnesium foil, tucked into the powdered mixture in the crucible, like a wick.
Then he lit the magnesium ribbon with the bunsen burner. Like the magnesium in photo flashbulbs, the ribbon burned with a brilliant white light. When the heat of the burning magnesium ribbon reached the mixture below, it ignited and flared up in a big tongue of flame almost to the ceiling. The heat was so intense, the steel crucible became red hot at the bottom, and burned its way very quickly about a quarter of an inch into the top of the lab table! That was something Mr. Shaw hadn't counted on! When the smoldering wood had been quenched, and the crucible cooled off enough for us to inspect it, we found a little chunk of iron in the bottom. All the aluminum had been consumed, and the iron in the ferric oxide smelted. It had been very interesting, and became a subject for discussion for some time! I think Mr. Shaw wished he hadn't tried that experiment, though.
Another time we were learning how hydrogen is generated, and were treated to minor explosions of hydrogen in a big bell jar. Then Mr. Shaw had the happy idea that we also could generate some oxygen, mix it with the hydrogen, and have an oxy-hydrogen torch that would produce heat and water. (You know, maybe, that water is composed of a mixture of two molecules of hydrogen teamed with one molecule of oxygen--that's why it is sometimes called H2O).
The idea sounded good. We set up the necessary equipment. The oxygen generator combined sulphuric acid, strong stuff, with zinc oxide. A tube led from the oxygen generator to a "y" tube, to which was attached a tube from the hydrogen generator. The mixture of the two gases lit readily enough, but there wasn't enough of the gas to make a very big flame. For some reason, I was watching the operation at very close range, and reached up to give the oxygen generator a little jiggle, thinking that would produce more oxygen. Maybe it did; I don't know. The flame backed up through the tube to the oxygen generator flask, which exploded right in my face, spattering me with sulphuric acid, some of which got in my eyes! It burned like fire, believe me!
Mr. Shaw acted very quickly. He put my head in the sink, and ran cold water into my face and eyes immediately, and with his fingers opened my eyes so the stuff could be washed out thoroughly. The only harm I suffered was some lasting redness in my eyes, but there was no damage to my vision, for which I am thankful. One student in the class was standing clear across the room at the time of the explosion. He had a piece of glass about an inch long from the flask stuck neatly in the middle of his forehead! What could have been a tragic event turned out to be almost harmless. Several of us had some acid on our clothing, and that didn't do the cloth any good, as you could guess.
That experience didn't keep me from further experiments with hydrogen. We knew that it was lighter than air, and one of my classmates and I came up with a neat idea. We would fill some rubber balloons with hydrogen, write something on them, and let them go in the assembly room! They would go up against the ceiling where no one could reach them! We got a couple of balloons filled all right, and decided that we would tease our basketball coach and his lady love a little. So we painted on the balloons "Mr. U_____ and Miss P_______,", (we used their names, of course) and released the balloons in the assembly room as planned.
The only trouble was that it wasn't very difficult to trace down the culprits! The balloons were used as targets, and shot down with paper clips fired from rubber bands. The principal lectured us strongly, though he could hardly keep from laughing. But we didn't do that again! But let's get back to the batching. That winter I learned to do simple cooking, especially with things cooked in a frying pan, or boiled in water. We had plenty of vegetables from the garden to eat--potatoes and carrots and even some musk melons (our name for cantaloupe) stored in the cellar under the house. And beside those things, we had eggs and milk and cream in good supply. We didn't lack for food. I did help to increase our meat supply that year by shooting pheasants and grouse frequently. We had a small stack of wheat hay down on the hay field. Dad had tried raising wheat that year, in place of the usual alfalfa, but the grain was so poor it wasn't worth harvesting or threshing. So we had cut it with a mower, raked it, and stacked it as hay. The stack contained a lot of wheat, and the Chinese pheasants learned quickly that it was a good place to feed. Jack rabbits, also, came regularly to the stack on winter nights.
Since we were fattening the birds ourselves, we saw nothing wrong with harvesting a few of them. So sometimes I would go down to the haystack on Saturday mornings, hide in some loose hay, and wait for the birds to come out of the nearby brush. I think I always shot only the male birds. Whatever, they were very good eating! Also, there were a few grouse around that winter, and I shot two or three of them. We ate pheasant and grouse simply fried in the skillet; we didn't do any fancy cooking with them.
It was in that fall and winter that I developed an intense interest in learning to mount animals and birds. I saw ads in the outdoor magazines I read, of how just about anyone could quickly learn the necessary techniques through a correspondence course from the Omaha School of Taxidermy. So I wrote to the school, and received their literature. The course sounded fascinating, and I wanted to take it, but the cost was far beyond my ability to pay--something like fifty dollars. So I didn't do anything about the course, simply because I couldn't.
It was only a couple of weeks later that I received another letter; they were offering a special price! I could have the course for only twenty dollars, or something like that. Again, I didn't reply. Well, the end of the matter was that I could take the course for just five dollars, they were so interested in me, etc., etc. That I could handle. I sent in the five dollars, and a little more, as I needed some initial supplies of arsenic and glass eyes and other stuff, per their letter. It wasn't long before the whole course (a little booklet of about twenty pages) and the arsenic,etc., came, and I could launch my new hobby.
I'll have to give the school credit that the booklet adequately explained how to skin animals and birds, how to preserve the skin with the arsenic powder (deadly poisonous stuff!), how to put in glass eyes, and so on. What they couldn't do for me was show me how to put those animals in life-like poses such as I had seen in their advertisements. That requires real artistic abilities that I didn't have, or had never cultivated. But I struggled with it manfully. Here is where the pheasants, snowshoe rabbits, and great horned owls came in. I did learn to do a fair job of skinning birds, though the great horned owl I tried to mount proved to be very difficult. The instructions said that the skin of the head must be kept intact; in other words, the skin from the body and neck must be pulled over the head, without making any cuts. The book failed to explain how the relatively huge head of an owl could possibly be pulled through the narrow skin of the neck! It simply can't be done!
I did manage to mount an owl in a taking-off--or maybe it was a landing--position. I fastened the whole thing on a board, and proudly presented it to the school, where it was to serve as one of the objects used in Future Farmers of America club meetings. I was vice president of that club that year, and needed an owl as the symbol of my office, you see. Do you know that a few years later, in 1938, when I visited the school with the men's quartet from Northern Montana College, that old owl was still in use? He looked pretty bedraggled and woe- begone, but still had his wings stretched out as if he might fly!
I didn't have such good results with the big white pelican I shot and tried to mount. That was a messy job, trying to skin that big bird from a short slit in the skin on its stomach. When I got to the task of getting that huge head and bill and its sack out through the long neck skin, I was stumped. I decided belatedly that there was no way it could be done. So I just mounted the head and neck only, on a plaque to hang on the wall. I had to cut the neck skin at the back, but managed to sew it on the form without too much trouble. It really looked pretty good, in my opinion. It was something like a big game trophy.
But I had something new to learn. I had applied lots of arsenic to that pelican's head skin and the big sack under its bill, but evidently not enough. As it hung on the wall of my bedroom the next year, the sack under the bill began to change color. From a lovely yellow-orange, it changed to a pale green, and then to a bright pea green. At that point my Mom said it had to go! I hated to part with it, but there was no choice. With that my career as a taxidermist came to an abrupt halt.