My sister, five years older than I, was married at eighteen years old in the early spring of 1941. Her husband came from a large family. His youngest sister, Rose, was just a little less than a year younger than I. She was a bit of a tom-boy, and could hit a baseball as good as any boy, and a lot better than I.

During the summer my sister's in-laws came to our house for a Sunday dinner and friendship. Rose was my buddy, and we wandered off to see what mischief we could create. Rose was dressed in a nice white blouse and a flowered skirt, with patent leather shoes.

A wild critter common to that part of Ozark America, is a little kitty that we called a pole cat. Other parts of the world they are called skunks. These pole cats are a little different than those normally seen of elsewhere. They are a little smaller, and are not black with a white stripe down their back. Instead, they have the black and white all mixed together to make then look more like a white towel that missed the wash and mildewed badly. They do not turn their backside toward their target, but stand on their front feet, lift their gun turret above their back and fire straight ahead. They are very good shots.

Rose and I saw a pole cat and, of course, tried to think of some mischief we could create.

One of our neighbors had the stupidest dog that ever lived and we thought that it would be great fun to get the dummy tangled up with the pole cat. Rose stayed to watch the kitty cat, and I ran to get the dog.

The skunk hid himself in a bush that was about five feet round. When I returned with the dog, Rose took him to the opposite side of the bush and I was to scare the stinky kitty out. The dog, it seems, had evidently experienced such a critter before, and would have nothing to do with it.

I got down on my hands and knees to look under the bush, and found the pole cat looking at me. Without even blinking, he fired, hitting me square between the eyes.

Rose let the dog go, and it took off for home. I became sick, and lost all that feast previously consumed with our families. Rose and I knew we were in very deep trouble.

Rose led me (for I could not see) to a small stream some hundred yards away, and attempted to wash the results of the direct artillery hit from my face. After a while we gave up, and decided to go to the house and throw ourselves on the mercy of those having jurisdiction over us, our mothers and fathers.

Rose did not smell a lot better than I, and we were both wet and covered with mud. The pretty little dress Rose was wearing would wash, but the shiny shoes would never be the same.

Our mothers were upset and dressed us down greatly. I believe we would have been spanked, but they were afraid they might kill us.

Facing our fathers was the hardest part, for they laughed, adding insult to injury.

- - - Tom Nance