A bad mistake. Never ask someone to tilt the camera. It was fine when it was a square negative but when they print it rectangular, it just looks stupid.
A funny looking Nancy holding Foxy and one of the boys being towed by Duke. Duke was a good dog, but there was some kind of eye disease he got later on. They said it began in one those out buildings where we kept the rabbits later or maybe we kept them there before. Then never got the disease but maybe it only affected dogs or maybe it had nothing to do with the building and Mom totally was wrong. It wouldn't be the first time she misunderstood what a doctor told her. He got an eye infection that totally got out of control. He was getting worse all the time.
One day Wilma and us girls were going down the path in the woods and he jumped up and maybe bit her. I'm not sure on that. It was kind of scary. Mom said it was cause she was wearing shorts but we all wore shorts in Summer.
Either a few days later or a few days before Pat and her man Herman Cook and their kids had come over. Mom let them wash their clothes at our house. I don't know where they were living at the time. Pat was one of Aunt Lillian's daughters so she was our half cousin.
The boys ran wild . They drove us nuts. I was walking around the front of the car, if I remember this correctly and you can never be sure on that. Duke was following me and one of those little boys kicked him. Duke growled and I told the kid not to kick the dog. He looked at me with a smirk on his face and kicked the dog again.
Duke pounced on him and held him down in the dirt. He didn't bite him, He just held him down and growled. The kid was screaming his head off and all the others came running. I pulled duke off and stuck him in the house, I think.
The boy had blood on him because they had been playing with the farm tools and left the rake tine side up and the hoe there half under the car. He had puncture wounds on him so it was off to the hospital with him. I imagine the dog figured heavily into the retelling of how he got hurt.
A cop came and said the dog had to go to the vets and be tested for rabies. Luckily Duke had his rabies shot but he still had to go maybe because of the eye thing and coming close to biting Wilma. He was in the vets for 7 days I think. I have always read that the only way to be sure is to test their brain cells and the only way to do that is if the animal is dead. Duke didn't have rabies but because of the eye thing and because he would be a danger to other kids now, the adults decided Duke had to be "put down". Dad took him up on the hill and shot him himself because either we couldn't afford the vet bill ourselves to have him do it or Dad felt it was the right thing to do and know that Duke didn't suffer.
It was a sad time for all of us and those kids never came to our house again.
A day or so after the kid went to the hospital another cop called on the phone first and then came out to talk to Ma about it all. He said at first the hospital had told the authorities who at first thought that Pat and Herman were lying and that Herman had beat his kid. Mom confirmed that this was not so and Herman was let go.
Pat and Herman stayed together for some time but years would go by and we would learn they eventually got a divorce but it had nothing to do with this time at our house. They were just crazy people. Herman claimed to wanting to be a preacher but apparently there were "things" he didn't want to give up. Pat's family were 7th day Adventist's but they were more stupid and sex crazy. I don't know for sure but I always thought that Herman liked card playing and drinking and both were big sins in their church.
I don't know why in this photo Nancy's hair is so short. She really looks weird in it and I remember Mom never wanted to cut her curls.