Chapter 8

Chapter 8
Life was not just horses for Willie and me. Every now and then, we hitched a ride on the city bus and rode downtown for a day of snooping and shopping. We never had much more than $5 but we managed to have a filled day of adventure, anyway. There was always the matinee at the movie theatre.


Back then, down town was still down town. Sears was still there and the dime store. There were café’s and trinket shops. We had 3 city blocks, filled with shops and we ventured into every one of them.


I will never forget this strange habit of Willie’s. Even while snooping through clothes racks, she would reach up to her scalp, scratch a little, then stick that fingernail in her mouth. What was she doing? I never asked but you know, I wondered about it. What ever, it didn’t matter. I loved her anyway.


Daddy’s garden was so productive; there was no possible way for us to eat everything that came off the vines and bushes. The back yard area was huge, about 100 feet long and 10 feet wider than the house, on each side.


My dad seemed to have magic fingers, when it came to plants. When we first moved in, he rented a garden tiller and tilled the entire back yard. He planted 6 rows of corn, with green beans planted between the stalks.


There was an abundance of radishes, tomatoes, and squash of all sorts, bell peppers and chili peppers, turnips, lettuce. He didn’t forget a thing we loved to eat.


Our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Cota, was the elementary school cook. She did her own cooking every Friday. She readied a huge pot full of chili sauce, stacks of tortillas. She froze whole ingredients for quick meals, to last her the week.


With our huge abundance, we made a swap with her. We delivered baskets full of chili peppers and vegetables and she delivered pots full of chili. I’m not sure who got the best end of that deal. Her cooking was scrumptious.


Feeding our family dog was my chore. One day, I went out to the back porch with his bowl in hand but couldn’t find the dog. I finally spied him, on Mrs. Cota’s back porch. He was eating something out of a bowl.


I went to get him and thinking he was eating something she had set out to cool, I called her out to the porch. She informed me that the bowl was for Rusty and not to worry.


Then I noticed that it was hot chili, he was eating. My jaw dropped as I realized the reason he was whimpering, while he ate, was because of hot chilies.

“Oh, my god!”

“Oh, not to worry. He’s fine. He does that every Friday.”

“What? How long has he been over here bugging you?”

“He’s no bother, to me. He loves my chili. He’s been coming over here for his snack, for the past 3 weeks.”

“What?” I stared down at Rusty, in disbelief. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen Rusty throw up, in over a week. Little Rusty had a physical problem he couldn’t help.


We obtained the dog when he was only 4 weeks old. Some neighbor’s dog had puppies and we children fell in love. The neighbor’s promised us, one of the puppies, as soon as they were weaned.


The problem was, it was hot summer and these people kept the puppies outside, in a box. Maggots got to the puppies. The children visited, every day, so when maggots began to show sores all over the puppies, we ran to tell mother.


Mother was a nurse and could handle some pretty awful sights. When she saw the condition of the puppies, she told the owner that we would take our puppy now, before they all died. Then mother took the puppy to the vet, who gave her some ointment to use.


This ointment, blocked off the air to the maggots, causing them to rise to the surface. The only way to get rid of them was to pick them off as they popped up. This, mother had to do every hour until they were all gone.


This poor tiny puppy went through pure hell. Every hour, mother applied the ointment then sat waiting, with tissue in hand. I had to help hold the puppy still, while she squeezed to get just ‘one more’.


Day after day, this went on, until finally the last maggot was gone. That poor little puppy suffered so much, and so early in life.


The maggots had gotten into 2 places on one ear, 1 place on the other ear and in her navel. Because of that life start, Rusty had a life long problem. When he got excited, he threw up.
For the most part, he was an outside dog because every time we let him come in the house, he got so excited, he heaved. It was just something we lived with, knowing how it all started.
Now, of all the things, this dog was eating chili. This kind of rocked my boat because it did not make sense. We had to be so careful with what he ate because his poor little body could not tolerate certain things. Now, without our knowledge, the neighbor had been feeding him things we never would have dreamt.


I thought back over the past few days and realized I hadn’t seen him throw up, in all that time. I went home with the tale.


Just to test him, we let him in the house. We were amazed when he didn’t throw up, just because he got excited. What was this? Did chilies heal him?