Howard Herron Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Howard Herron 2 6
A: Oh, about ten, twelve. Maybe fifteen, I don't know. But I learned
to swim good from that time on.
Q: Did you ever have a pet?
A: Oh, yes, we had dogs. I had a dog. I had a little terrier and my
brother he had an "old red" they called him. Loren Gates, my neighbor,
had a shepherd dog and in them days, they didn't plow the fields where
the wheat was in the fall of the year because they didn't have time then.
They just had all horses and the horses couldn't get the work done like a
tractor does.
End of Tape One, Side Two.
Q: Howard, do you want to continue on about your dog story?
A: Well we generally had a weenie or two around, we had a ice box with
just ice and a lid and we would get up about five in the morning and one
of us would go down and take a weenie and go down to ~ave's house when
they got up, we'd give Old Water Boy a piece of that weenie and we'd lure
him over to our house. Then all three of us, I and my brother and Ron
Gates, would take our dogs and go out in the fields in the country, the
rabbits were thick then. We would go down to those fields and we would
holler, "Here it comes," and Old Water Boy would stick up his head and he
made about two or three jumps and he reached over and grabbed those
rabbits. We'd cut their heads off and slit them in the stomach and throw
their intestines out. It was nothing to go out and get fifty rabbits and
skin the hair off. We went over to Wineman's store. He would give us
fifteen cents for those rabbits and he'd sell them for twenty cents.
He'd hook the hind leg and he always left one foot on, They'd hook those
rabbits all over that pole and the women would come in and see a rabbit
that they want and then they would freeze them. We had cold winters and
lots of snow in those days. More then, than they do now, I think.
Bobsleds, everybody had a bobsled, every farmer did. So that's the way
we earned our spending money. We'd easily get fifty rabbits in a day.
They were just thick.
Q: Did you shoot them with a gun?
A: No, the dogs would catch them, we didn't have any guns. Guns cost
money and shells cost money. We just had a knife so we could cut their
heads off and we just cut them right down here and give them a pull like
that, (indicating) and the guts would fall out and we'd pull the hair and
the hide off of it. Then take them up to Wineman's.
Q: Did you take some home to Mom to cook?
A: Oh, she had rabbits whenever she wanted them. I ate so much rabbit I
could hop. (laughs) We enjoyed it.
Q: So besides your farming, what else did you do as a young boy for a
job?