MORE ABOUT LADDIE
While he was still young, Laddie developed a close friendship with Nellie, our sorrel work horse. It was laughable to see those two. When Nellie was not in harness, she and Laddie had wild games of tag, first Laddie chasing and barking at Nellie all the way up into the pasture, with Nellie kicking and snorting and bucking. Then Nellie would turn the tables and chase him for all she was worth, threatening to trample him or bite him. They both loved it, and knew it was all in fun.
When Nellie was in harness, it was a totally different story. Laddie always trotted along on the left, her side of the wagon or hayrach, or sleigh. If the weather was hot, he sometimes trotted in her shade, and lie down almost under her feet when she was standing still. Then she never kicked or stepped on him, but would sometimes reach down and nuzzle him a little with her nose. They were just great pals.
Laddie loved to go out hunting. He finally got to the point where I could just take down the rifle from the wall, or ask him if we should go hunting, and he would get wildly excited. It took a lot of doing, but he also learned not to go off chasing every jackrabbit we saw. He would stand still, and let me get a shot off at the rabbit. Sometimes if the rabbit were a long ways away, I would actually rest my rifle across his back, to steady it, for ONE shot. Laddie didn't believe in second chances--if I missed with that first shot, that rabbit was his to chase. Off he would go, and sometimes he would be able to catch a rabbit which had only been wounded. I know his efforts didn't really help me much in capturing rabbits! When I was really serious about going out to get a jackrabbit or two to skin, or to feed to the chickens, I would leave Laddie at home. How he hated that!
We had Laddie for a long time. In the winter of 1934-35, Dad and I were batching at the Burke place. I was a junior in high school that winter, walking back and forth the two and one-half miles to school morning and night. Mom was working at the postoffice in Hinsdale, and kept a house in town, with our two girls. Robert was at school in Havre, at Northern Montana College that winter, and was only home briefly between quarters at the school.
The old shack at the Burke place was cold, and without Mom there to run the household, Dad and I got in the habit of having Laddie sleep in the house. (Mom had never allowed us to dogs or cats in the house) Laddie really made himself at home. In those days people didn't feed dogs special dog foods, dry or canned. The dog simply ate what was left over when we were through eating, so it was pretty easy, with Laddie in the house, to fall in the habit of letting Laddie lick our plates when we were through eating. Of course, we (usually I) washed those dishes thoroughly afterward, whether they needed it or not. Mom used to get so annoyed with Dad and me when, to tease her, we would tell someone outside the family that Laddie took care of the dishwashing at our place!
That winter was a special one in more than one way. During the cold weather Dad and I slept in the main living room, next to the heating stove. We had a little black female cat, jet black, who regularly slept lying across my neck, and old Laddie would crawl up on the bed in the night and lie on my feet! Between them, they helped a lot to keep me warm! It would get so cold at night, sometimes the water in the pail right beside the stove would freeze solid!
One time when the weather was not so cold, and Robert was home on a break from school, he and Dad took the team and sleigh and went to a place about four miles distant, where lignite coal could be dug out of a shallow vein which was exposed on the side of a hill. I was in school, so couldn't go along to help. They had to remove much soil and rock from the sidehill above the vein of coal, and when that was done, harvest the soft lignite coal, not really very good fuel. But it was free for the asking, and we hauled a lot of coal from that site over the years.
Naturally, Laddie went along with them after the coal, and also, as usual, entertained himself while they worked by looking for rabbits or anything else interesting. When they finally had a few sacks of coal, and were ready to come home, Laddie was nowhere around! They called and called, then decided he must have gone back home by himself. So they came on home--but Laddie was not there, either. We all spent a restless night, wondering about him, and fearing he might have gotten caught in coyote traps, or possibly been poisoned.
Next day Dad and Robert went back to the coal mining area, to look for Laddie, and I went back to school. When I got home that night, I learned they had found Laddie alright, with three feet caught in a setting coyote traps. His feet were terribly swollen, and he couldn't do any more than wag his tail faintly. He was fortunate that the night had not been awfully cold, so his feet weren't frozen too badly.
We nursed that old dog like a baby the next few weeks! Gradually he improved enough to get up and hobble around; most of the time he simply lay by the stove, licking and licking his sore feet. He lost a toe or two, but finally his feet were fully healed, and he was his old lively self again.
We had Laddie with us while living in Hinsdale for my final year of high school, and through the following summer. But that fall, when Jean, Mary, Mom and I moved to Havre so Jean and I could start college, the folks arranged to give him to some friends who lived on a farm about a mile west of Hinsdale, right along the highway. It was terribly hard to say goodbye to Laddie, but in the excitement of going to college, I guess I didn't think too much about it.
After that first year while I was in Havre, attending Northern Montana College, our parents and Mary moved to Glasgow, Montana, about 30 miles east of Hinsdale. In Glasgow they lived in town, so thought it best to leave old Laddie with those friends near Hinsdale.
In the spring of 1938, when I was finishing my second year at NMC, I was singing in the men's double quartet. We went on a trip representing the college, trying to interest young people in coming to Havre when they had finished high school. We sang and talked in the various high schools down the line toward Glasgow, and finally came to Hinsdale.
It was about four in the afternoon when we had finished our program at Hinsdale High School, and were standing near our two cars, parked in front of the school. I happened to look down the old familiar main street of the little town, and noticed a dog coming on a dead run right down the middle of the street toward us. When he was less than a block away I recognized Laddie! He was so excited he nearly bowled me over, and I remember getting down on my knees and hugging him hard! He licked my face, and whined and whimpered and all but talked, as he told me how he had missed me, and how glad he was to see me again after almost two years.
But we had to go on, and reluctantly I got into the car, and we drove away, Laddie following us just as fast as he could. He followed for some distance down the highway, then turned back after looking hard down the road as we drove away. I am sure he couldn't understand why I had left him again. I never saw him after that. A year or two later he was killed on the highway, chasing a car--one of his very bad habits.
Since then, though we have had great cats, and a dog or two, but I have never become so attached to any animals as I was to Laddie and Nellie and other animals we had on the homestead. Those experiences gave me a life-long fondness for animals, and I am glad for that!