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.