We lived in a little out-of-the-way place in Naples, Idaho, not far from the main highway to Canada.
It was 1945, I was 4 years old, and I had two sisters, ages 9 and 6. World War II was on, rationing was on, Daddy worked hard as a sawyer in the woods, drove a school bus for the high school kids and played fiddle in the band Saturday nights for extra money.
We had a barn and a couple of cows, hay in the fields, a vegetable garden, chickens, a creek for fishing. Daddy played his fiddle every night, and there was a weekly jam session at our house. Life was busy for the parents, yet we kids always had so much time and lots of freedom to explore.
This happened when Mama was expecting a fourth child. One day, I climbed up in the loft of the barn looking for my sisters. I found them sitting by the big, open window and lighting up a cigarette — yes, while sitting on the hay, a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old. When I said “me, too,” they told me I was too little.
They were always saying that.
When I told them I would tell Daddy, they told me I could have just one puff … if I would not tell Daddy!
They continued to puff away, so down the ladder I went, ran up the hill to Mama and I told her: “Those girls only gave me one puff!”
That’s when the action started …especially when I said, “They’re in the barn!”
Mama went running down the hill to the barn and up the ladder to the loft. I was right behind her. She found the girls, and quickly all were running. Then she hugged them both, telling them she was so afraid that she would lose them. There must have been a bit of a lecture, but I don’t remember that part. She hugged them both again.
Much later, Daddy came home, and the action started all over again. Guess who got into terrible trouble? Mama would tell you he deserved it. I did not know until she said it that we were too poor for him to have “smokes,” and what about rationing? And where was his mind, hiding them in the barn? And they almost lost the girls!
Poor Daddy, he did look guilty and sorry. He too hugged us all as if he had just about lost us.
He looked and looked for the rest of the pack of smokes and for any sign of matches. He never did find any. Maybe Mama found them first. And all I said was, “Mama, those girls only gave me one puff.”
This has been a favorite family story for 70 years.
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