Tales from when we were kids

About the time the Weston County History Book was compiled, I asked Babe (Ethel) to write down some of her early family history. At that time, she was living in Walla Walla, Wash. It was early 1990s. The following stories are what she wrote from her memories.
Part III
 
Mother came to stay with me for a while when Lee was 5 years old. A stray tiger grey kitten came to our home. Mother took it in and called it Kitty Cat. She worshiped that cat. He would always climb up on her lap as she cut out quilt blocks or was sewing. Then at times he would crawl upon the back of her chair and lay around her neck. No one dared to touch that cat. One day some friends came to visit Mother. We were telling tales about what we done when we were kids. Mother told us about a dog that was carrying off her eggs or breaking them in the nest and eating them. Dad caught the dog and rubbed his behind with turpentine on a corncob. The dog had a running, howling fit and they never did see that dog again. Of course, we all had a laughing fit. 
Now when the people came, Mother asked Lee to put Kitty Cat outside for awhile. He did, or we thought he did. All of a sudden, out of the kitchen on the run came Kitty Cat making growling sounds and scooting on his behind, making every scatter rug I had on the floor and up on the daveno, off again and down the hallway, out in the dining area going miles an hour. 
The third time around, Mother said he is having some kind of a fit. Then we smelled vapor rub.  Right then, I knew what Lee had done to Kitty Cat. We caught the cat and he had vapor rub on his behind. We couldn’t find Lee. I looked in the bathroom. There was my toothbrush all covered with vapor rub — need I say more? Lee had put it on the toothbrush and scrubbed it on Kitty Cat’s behind. Well, Mother thought Lee could do no wrong, but she said, “When I get my hands on Lee, I’ll blister him.” We looked from 3 p.m. till 6 p.m. for Lee. Finally I looked under Mother’s bed. There he was all wrapped up in a scatter rug. Supper was ready so I got him to come out. You know what Mother done when she saw him? She got her Bible, took Lee on her lap and I don’t remember what she read to him. Then she gave him a good, kind talking to. He told her he was sorry and cried. But we got a big kick out of it all.
My sister Nellie, lived in Walla Walla, Wash. She would come down every day. We always chased the fire trucks to see where the fire was, also the car wrecks. One day about 2:30 p.m. the fire truck went by, we waited about 10 minutes, then saw smoke, so we told Mother to hurry and come on out and we would go see. She wasn’t coming very fast, so we grabbed her by the arms and was running her. Lee had the car door open for us. 
She stumbled and said, “Oh, God, have mercy, I broke my toe”. Well we got her in the car and took off. She kept saying, I broke my toe, I broke my toe.” We didn’t wait for her to put her shoes on. Well, we didn’t come back to my place, but went on to Walla Walla, 12 miles away. 
We got back to my place about 6 p.m. Poor Mother, she couldn’t get out of the car. We got her in the house and finally saw her big toe was all swollen and black. She really did break her toe.
There was a small irrigation ditch running across the back of the place where we lived. Lee and Mother would catch trout fish by hand from it. Lee would pit a screen wire across the ditch at one end and Mother would stand there. Lee would go up the ditch and wade down in the water so far, then put a screen in behind him. When he got the fish closer, he would move the screen down closer to Mother. 
When he was about three or four feet from her, she and he would catch the fish in their hands. Lee would knock them on a rock to kill them. He would clean them, and Mother would cook them and they ate them. The trout came out of the Walla Walla River into Hudson Bay irrigation ditch.
 
The story continues in next week’s News Letter Journal.