Myriad pets, both domestic and wild

Rural children grow up with fewer organized activities than do their urban counterparts, but they enjoy a variety of country opportunities not available in cities. One facet of a tellurian upbringing is exposure to animals, both domesticated and wild.

With six children in the family, our mother suffered through myriad pets we kids dragged home. She wasn't much for animals, especially under her kitchen table and on the couch. But she survived - after a fashion.

We were always catching toads, frogs, and snakes up at our pond. One of us caught a small garter snake one day, so we hauled it to the bath tub to give it a good home.

It was in the tub for most of the day, but after our mother badgered us to take it back to the pond, we went to get it, but the snake had disappeared. We looked for a couple of minutes but soon rushed on to other activities.

A week or so later some friends of our parents arrived for a visit. The lady was a big, heavy woman who could be emotional at times.

We were in the house playing with the Deer Lodge kids when we heard terrible shrieks and bangs from the bathroom. Seconds later the lady stampeded into the living room and out the front door. She ran clear to the yard gate and out onto the road. The poor lady was in such a panic she couldn't get her pants over her abundant behind. We kids loved it.

After the poor thing got her pants on and regained her ability to speak, she explained that while she was sitting on the toilet, a snake stuck its head out of the spout to the bathtub and looked her square in the eye. We were ecstatic. Not only had the lady found our snake, but she also gave us a show of monstrous, white buttocks jiggling down our sidewalk. Our poor mother was horribly embarrassed.

We had a skunk for a few years. Our youngest sister found it wandering around the corral. I pulled in on a tractor one morning and she came toddling up to me, holding a tiny skunk by the tail.

There was a mother cat with litter of kittens in the basement, so I hauled the little thing down to her. She accepted it immediately, and it was rewarding to see the old cat groom the skunk as if it were her own.

So the skunk grew and eventually moved upstairs with us. It hadn't been de-scented yet, but being tame, rarely sprayed anyone. I inadvertently sat on it once, and when our mother walked in the door of the reeking house, it got ugly.

Eventually, we got the skunk de-scented and she became part of the family. She was a good pet, but was a big nuisance to our mother. The animal was nocturnal and spent her nights going through the kitchen cupboard and everyplace else. It was bad, but at least we owned a skunk.

Finally, after a few years of torture, the skunk did something that set our mother off. She finally had enough skunk and carried it by the tail to the front door where she threw it out. We had a bunch of dogs then, and they had it before it hit the ground. We kids were devastated, of course, but our mother held her ground and refused to be repentant.

We hand raised a little pig that would come into the house on occasion. In those days we had catechism study for two weeks after school got out, and nuns came from Butte or someplace to teach us. They stayed with a local family, and would lunch with the respective parents once a week.

Not having been raised Catholic, our mother was somewhat intimidated by the nuns in their habits. She wanted everything to go well when they lunched at our house.

We were proud of our pig, so we let it in for the nuns to enjoy. They were probably weary of proper behavior, and loved it. Our mother was mortified for years after.

It was a duck that almost killed the poor lady. We had an old muscovy drake that was a horrible beast. Nasty, we called him.

He had the propensity to attack us from behind, sinking his toes into our jeans and beating us with his wings. He wouldn't quit once he started. It was frightening, and kicks meant nothing to him.

One winter afternoon our mother steamed into house, yelling that she wanted a gun. She could barely speak from the panic she had suffered when the duck attacked.

She was hanging out laundry when the old duck saw his chance. Our mother wasn't an animal lover and was especially frightened of Nasty.

These few are a small part of the animals we hauled home over the years. There were gophers, hawks, deer mice, calves, sheep, and chickens - all comfortable in our house. Our mother suffered far more than the animals did.