Daddy John Stories

Sam Meets the Striped Kitty Cat

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:52:54 -0600

by Daddy John (Fussner)

One day in late February the sun was shining bright, and the wind was blowing from the south. There was a promise of spring in the air. It was warm for late February. Several red birds could be seen around Dough Doughy’s house, along with a dozen or so robins. The sparrows were already thinking of building nests, though it was much too early to start. About a hundred pigeons were sunning themselves on the south side of the barn roof. There were dark pigeons, white pigeons, old, young, all colors and ages.

Way down in the pasture near the woods, a few deer were grazing on the green grass between the patches of snow. Near the brier patch, old and young male and female rabbits were busy stuffing themselves with tender green grass and the young shoots of plants making an early growth. Many little field mice were out looking for food, for they were very hungry after the last cold spell.

Chatty the squirrel lay sunning himself on the big limb of the old oak tree near the creek. In the creek could be seen little fish looking for food, bigger fish looking for little fish, and the biggest fish looking for all of them. Tommy Turtle was slowly swimming around, looking for just anything at all to eat.

Out in the barn, the mice that can always be found in barns were very busy scampering around, looking for stray bits of grain that may have been dropped and keeping an eye open for bits of paper, string, or anything else that would make a warm nest warmer. Dough Doughy had left the door open so that the warm, fresh air could dry out the barn.

Under the chicken house lived a cute little animal. She wasn’t very big, and her coat was black except for the white stripes down her back. She had lived under the chicken house all her life, and she wasn’t afraid of anything in the barnyard. She would walk under the six big horses much as if their legs were tree trunks. Dogs worried her not. They would only try to catch her once. After that they stayed well away, leaving when she walked near.

She didn’t bother the chickens, except to take an egg once in a while to make her coat shine. Dough Doughy didn’t mind, for he often fed eggs to his six big horses to make their coats shine. The only things that tried to get away when she arrived, but didn’t often succeed, were the mice and the very few rats that lived in the barn. Some of the wiser mice lived in the barn to a ripe old age. The rats, however, never lasted over a week. Rats and mice were Petunia’s main food, and with her around, Dough Doughy had few problems.

The warm weather brought Petunia out from her nice dry nest. She was as hungry as all the other wild citizens of the farm. She had already eaten everything around the chicken house. The food Dough Doughy set out for her was filling, but she was a little tired of it, so she was off to the barn.
Petunia hadn’t been to the barn in three weeks, so the mice were playing all over the place. Petunia entered the open door, stopped, and looked around. Boy, oh boy! What a sight for a hungry skunk!

Way, way over near the far end, fully forty feet away, was a big rat, chewing on a bag of feed. In between Petunia and the rat were about a half dozen mice. What should she do? Should she catch a small mouse that she was sure of or try for the rat, which was forty feet away but only six feet from his hole in the wall and safety? What do you think? Well, sir, almost faster than the eye could follow, Petunia streaked across the forty feet. Before the rat knew she was coming, it was too late. Mr. Rat made a fine meal for Petunia.

After a big meal, most animals like to sleep, and Petunia was no different. She slowly walked out to the chicken house and was soon fast asleep in the sun. She had been napping for about an hour when she was awakened by a dog barking. Opening her eyes and springing to her feet, she saw Sam. He would lunge forward barking loudly and then back off. He repeated this over and over. Petunia couldn’t retreat to her den under the chicken house because Sam was between her and the entrance.

Petunia didn’t want any trouble, so she backed off toward the barn. Sam kept coming after her, barking every step of the way. He didn’t know anything about skunks, but he was about to find out. Petunia reached the barn, still slowly backing away from Sam, when she realized that Sam wasn’t going to stop making a pest of himself. She turned and ran as fast as she could. Sam was doing a good job of keeping up with her as they raced across the pasture.

Dough Doughy was out in the pasture rounding up the horses, and he saw Sam chasing Petunia. “ Well, well,” he thought, “ Sam is about to learn another lesson the hard way. He will be a mighty lonely dog before this is over.”

Petunia reached the fence and raced under it and on into the woods, where she holed up in a hollow tree. The hole was near the ground, but too small for Sam. Petunia knew she would be safe from harm. Poor Sam reached the fence and rolled head over tail, unable to stop. He then had to hunt for a hole under the fence large enough for him to go through. He soon found the hollow tree where Petunia was holed up. He barked, he scratched at the hole, and he stuck his head in; he did everything he could to get Petunia.

Soon, enough was enough, and any more was too much. Petunia turned her tail toward Sam; up went the flag, and out shot the gas, hitting Sam in the face and front. Sam let out a howl you could hear for a mile or more. He rolled in the dirt and rubbed his head on the ground, trying to clear his eyes. After a while, he could see well enough to go home. Yelping every step of the way, he reached home in record time.

Dough Doughy had waited out by the barn after he drove the horses in. He listened to Sam as he made his way to the hollow tree. Dough Doughy knew just what was going on every minute of the time. When Petunia threw the charge of gas from the glands under her tail, Dough Doughy heard Sam yelp, and he knew what to do. Going into the barn, he opened the door in a little cabinet and took out a bottle of medicine for Sam's eyes. He then went to the brooder house, where the baby chicks are kept, and filled a big tub with warm water.

Soon Sam was home, his eyes were taken care of, and he had been given a hot bath, a good drying off, a warm bed in the brooder house, a hot meal, and plenty of time to think about chasing striped kitty cats. For about a month, no one came near Sam except to bring him his food.

(Laura recommends Nature's Miracle for skunked dogs).

Mom and Dad and Christmas Memories

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 08:11:27 -0600

I was going to post another of Dad’s stories for Christmas, but instead these mini-biographies popped up and wanted to be shared.
Merry Christmas to all, and may your memories be happy ones!
-- Mary Garrett

Our father, John William Fussner, told us bedtime stories every night, and it was our favorite part of the bedtime ritual. These were stories just for us (and often about us), drawn from our father’s imagination and the many stories he had heard and lived in his life. He had grown up on a farm in Illinois and moved to the St. Louis area because there weren’t enough opportunities for work.
Some of the best stories about my father came from his older sisters and his mother, proving you are never safe if you come from a family of storytellers. Fortunately for us, he wrote down many of his stories, and I encourage everyone to make a similar record of family stories. Magic was important! When we were little, our Christmas tree and presents were nowhere to be seen until Christmas morning, letting us know that Santa had been busy at our house.
Both our parents made us children the focus of their lives. Dad worked hard at McDonnell Douglas to support his family, but the rest of his time was devoted to home. He and his brothers built the house we lived in, and Dad built much of the furniture, including beds, closets, kitchen cabinets that I believe will last forever, and a table made from a door, large enough for all of us to eat together. Family dinners were important, every day at five, and we were to compliment the cook and ask to be excused before leaving the table.
When I came home from kindergarten and said I wanted to be a teacher, Dad said I'd have to do well in school to get a scholarship, since "Daddy is a working man." I worked hard, and he encouraged me all the way!

*****
My dad, John William Fussner, was a mischievous boy. He taught his little brother Don not to bite by grabbing him as he ran across the room to bite, pulling his arm in front of his already-wide-open mouth, and allowing him to bite himself. Of course, when Don started hollering and Grandma came running, Daddy’s innocent, “He just bit himself,” didn’t keep him out of trouble. He also liked to slam the doors when his sisters were baking, causing their cakes to fall, but he didn’t get in trouble for that because his father liked fallen cakes better anyway.
He always felt sorry for one of his school friends, who had a very long name, because when they were punished and had to write their names on the blackboard, Daddy would always be finished much sooner. (His lack of enthusiasm for school surfaced again after his stroke, when he disliked therapy and got out of it by deciding to tell the speech therapist all the wrong answers until she gave up). He always encouraged us to do well in school, and told me early on that I would need good grades for a scholarship if I wanted to be a teacher.
He grew up on a farm in Illinois, and said that Grandma could bake better on her old wood stove than any modern housewife with a gas oven. As a young man he worked 40 head of mules for a man who rented the mules out, and he often spoke of the superiority of mules, in intelligence, ability to work, and lack of fussiness about diet. He did say sometimes that it “took a two-by-four to get their attention.”
He had picked out my name when he was still a young boy, Mary for Jesus’ mother, and Frances for his own mother, and his relatives always referred to me by both names. He named my brother William John because he didn’t want to stick a “junior” on his son.
In his youth Dad worked for the Civilian Conservation Corp, and he once took us to a park to see paths and buildings the CCC had built. He figured it was a good program since it gave them work and a bit of pocket money and sent income home to help their families. He told of one man who kept reaching across the table for things rather than asking to have them passed; one day someone hit him on the head with a heavy metal mug, and he never did it again.
During WWII he worked as a bus driver, and buses were crowded because of gas and tire rationing. One very big man would grab both sides of the door and squeeze the passengers inside. Dad said passengers used to go to the Forest Park Highlands and then ride his bus home for a real thrill, and if he saw a woman putting on lipstick, he would swerve the bus on purpose to smear lipstick all over her face. Once a passenger called the bus station to complain about Daddy, and he happened to answer the phone. He assured the caller that he would personally deal with that driver. He also once bet a passenger that he could get a date with a pretty girl who was getting on the bus, not telling the passenger that she was his cousin, who readily agreed to meet him for dinner.
My mother met my father in his mother’s kitchen (Grandma lived next door to Mom’s older sister Dot). She asked who the “cute bus driver” was, and they began dating. Mom always said that the best way to avoid mother-in-law problems was to pick the mother-in -law first.
Dad tried to enlist in the Army at the beginning of the war but was refused because of his heart murmur. To do his part, he went off to Alaska and then Hawaii to help in the construction of airports. He loved Alaska the best and always wanted to go back. Meanwhile, Mom sent him a Christmas card (she got his address from Grandma, of course), and after the war, they married. With his brothers’ help, Dad built the little house we grew up in. Mom stayed home with us children because Dad said, “If I wanted some other woman raising my kids, I would have married her.”
Dad delivered soda for a time and then found work with McDonnell Aircraft, where he stayed the remainder of his working years as a sheet metal assembler and riveter. He kept such good “spec. books” that even the foremen came to him for advice, but he never wanted to be any sort of management himself. His favorite assignment was working on the Mercury and Gemini space capsules. When he was retired on disability, he really missed the place, even though he had often complained about it while he worked there.
Both parents made us children the focus of their lives; if an invitation didn’t include the children, it wasn’t for them. Mom was always there to hear about our school days, Dad told stories, and they formed a formidable united front on discipline. A stern look was all that was usually needed to remind us of our responsibilities, but sterner measures could be counted on if we were stubborn. Mom told me of Dad picking me up when I was just a little thing and making me put clean clothes back in the laundry basket after I had taken them out.
When we went somewhere, they were always counting to five, to be sure they had all of us. At the zoo, Dad used to give us time to run and roll down grassy hills, to “use up some energy.” We thought it was great fun, and it was only when I became an adult that I realized that it also gave him and Mom time to sit on a bench and rest. Dad said his goal was to get us all raised, without serious injury or serious trouble; he succeeded and said later, after he became ill, that he was content because he had accomplished that.

John Fussner's stories Presented by daughter Mary Garrett
(copyright reserved for family)

Mixed-Up Old Hen

Mon, 4 Apr 2011 20:22:48 -0500

from Homespun Stories from Uncle John (Fussner)
presented by his daughter Mary Frances (Fussner) Garrett

Photo is my “Hawaiian Chicken Little” square, made with Leslie Blanchard’s help, and a kukui and shell necklace, made on Pride of Hawaii cruise.

One pretty day in May, the sun was warm, the flowers were showin' their colors and the birds were singin' fer thar mates, and to warn other males to keep thar distance. At breakfast Grandma asked Grandpa to kill the old rooster after he finished eatin'.
"Why be you wantin' to kill Old Red?" asked Grandpa.
"Tomorrow be our weddin' anniversary, and Ah wants to cook up a pot of chicken an' dumplin's," answered Grandma.
Grandpa grinned and said, "Woman, why be you wantin' to take hit out on poor Old Red's hide fer a mistake we'uns made over ten yars ago?"
With that bit of foolish wisdom outen the way, he departed out the door with haste. Old Red be out in the back yard, and tho' he be tame an' easy to ketch, this day Grandpa coundn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. That bird jest nivver were whar he jest was. Didn't take Grandpa long to git tired playin' a game of tag with Old Red, sein' as how Grandpa was always the one that was it.
Havin' more'n e-nuff, he went an' fetched his old scatter gun. Thar be Old Red standin' in front of the lilac bush, waitin' fer a tasty breakfast. Grandpa went up with Old Betsy and let go. Hearin' the shot, Old Red left real sudden-like, runnin' hard, wings flappin' 'til he be long gone out'n sight, not to be seen by anyone 'til feedin' time come sundown.
Now, you be thinkin' that Grandma wouldn' be fixin' them chicken and dumplin's, but you air wrong. Grandpa be missin' Old Red, but he sure didn't miss them six fat young hens that war under the bush takin' thar daily dust bath.
Grandma had a ˇworried look 'til she got a close-up look-see at them hens. "Thanks be to the Lord and lucky fer your hide Old Biddy not be one of them," she says to Grandpa.
Old Biddy, she be Grandma's pet hen. Grandma hand-raised her in the wood box back o' the kitchen stove. Biddy sorta got mixed up in the head, sometimes thinkin' she be a people, and sometimes sorta thinkin' like a chicken. She fell way short of the mark on both counts.
That old hen could make anything hatch. Once she sat on an empty thread spool and hatched out a hollow-headed woodpecker. One day she found an old door knob, and she sat an' sat an' sat, 'til at long last she hatched out a brass weather vane. Grandpa put hit up on top of the barn whar hit could twist and turn with the wind, with jest one little mix-up, tho'. Hit's tail pointed into the wind 'stead of hit's head. Grandpa had an answer fer that, too. He said that, like a lotta folks, that thar bird be so slow at thinkin' things out that by the time hit figgered out whˇar the wind be comin' from, hit war already goin' back.

Little Joe’s Pets

Tue, 8 Mar 2011 13:57:08 -0600

from Stories from the Land of Make Believe
by Daddy John (Fussner)
edited by his daughter Mary Frances (Fussner) Garrett

Little Joe lived with his daddy and mommy in a nice warm log house in a little clearing beside a clear, murmuring stream, deep in a forest of the Ozarks. Little Joe had many pets. Do you want to hear what they were?
Well, there was Chatty the squirrel. Chatty lived in a hole in a big oak tree on the bank of the stream. No, Little Joe didn’t keep Chatty in a cage. He didn’t keep any of his pets in a cage. He kept them in something far better and stronger than any cage man can build. It was something God gave him and his daddy and mommy added to. What was it? It was a circle of love.
When Little Joe was at the age when little boys learn their ABC’s, his mommy told him that the letter O is the best letter of all. It is a complete circle. The wheel, the sun, the full moon, the lovely ripple from a rock thrown in a quiet pool of water, and the circle of ripples moving out ever further until it reaches the shore are all the letter O. The circle of love that Little Joe had for his forest friends was like that, rippling ever further on.
Little Joe would go out to fish in the little stream with a can of worms and a pocketful of walnuts for Chatty. Soon after Little Joe sat down, baiting his hook, and leaned back against the big sturdy oak tree, Chatty would appear on the branch above. Slowly, scolding every inch of the way, he would make his way down the tree. Soon he would be down beside Little Joe, sniffing for the treat he knew was waiting.
Little Joe would just keep on fishing. If Chatty was to get his treat, he had to earn it. Little Joe didn’t give handouts. It was up to Chatty to find which pocket the walnuts were in and get them as best he could. Chatty knew his job well, and soon he would have a walnut out of Little Joe’s pocket. Sitting on Little Joe’s lap, he would hold the walnut between his front paws, eating away at the nut and dropping the shells in Little Joe’s lap. Yes, Chatty was held firmly in Little Joe’s circle of love.
Little Joe had other friends, too. Nearby was a nest of robins. As Little Joe fished, he watched his friend, R.B. Yes, that was the name Little Joe had given him, R.B. for Robin Red Breast. Joey had found R.B. when R.B. was a young bird. It was late fall, on a cold, windy, wet day. Little Joe was walking along the stream, idly kicking the fallen leaves, thinking about the big Thanksgiving dinner still too many days away. “Why,” he thought, “does it take so long for the special days to get here?” He didn’t like to wait so long, but he couldn’t think of any way to speed it up.
Suddenly he saw something move in the leaves just as he was about to kick. Stopping his kick, he dropped to his knees, as his hands rapidly searched in the leaves and soon found the crippled robin. R.B. looked as if he had been in very deep trouble, as if he had been caught but had gotten away. Little Joe carefully, tenderly carried R.B. home. With his mommy and daddy’s help, he gave R.B. first aid and placed him in a shoe box. Slowly, R.B. regained his health and became a household pet.
Daddy build a small platform, complete with perch, water, and food container. Mommy put it on a book shelf in Little Joe’s room. R.B. spent all that winter with them, flying from room to room, watching Mommy do her housework and sitting on Daddy’s head or shoulder, reading the paper with him. Best of all, he liked to play hide-and-seek with Little Joe. With the first warm days of spring, Little Joe and R.B. started taking walks in the woods, but they still played hide-and-seek in the house on cold or rainy days.
One day R.B. saw a pretty little girl robin. Yes, from then on R.B. slept in a tree at night. By day he helped to build a nest, and after that, R.B. was a busy little bird, feeding a nest of young. Whenever he saw Little Joe fishing, he knew that his pal would help out by giving him a couple of worms. R.B. was also very good at helping himself to Little Joe’s worms. He would slip up beside Little Joe, and quick as a wink, he would pluck a worm from Little Joe’s bait can and scurry back to his nest full of hungry babies. R.B. was caught fast and held tight in Little Joe’s circle of love.
The largest of Little Joe’s pets was a full-grown deer. Yes, it was a full-grown, dainty-stepping, graceful doe. Little Joe called her Ruby. He said she was a cousin of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and well she could have been. Se was trapped in Little Joe’s circle of love last January. A cold blizzard had howled for three nights and two days, dumping a foot of snow, and Ruby and her fawn couldn’t find enough to eat.
One day, just about sundown, she saw Little Joe and his daddy hauling a load of hay out to the cattle that Little Joe’s daddy kept in a pasture behind the barn. Ruby and her fawn lost no time in jumping the fence and making themselves at home with the cattle. Each day she got a little less afraid. Soon she was waiting with the cattle when Little Joe and his daddy arrived with the wagon load of hay. A few of the cows were Little Joe’s pets. Every day he brought them a treat: an apple, an ear of corn, or a lump of sugar. Soon he had Ruby and her fawn eating out of his hand, and Ruby was held firm in his circle of love.
Another of Little Joe’s pets was a big, beautiful black crow. His name was Blackie. Little Joe’s neighbors, brothers, and sisters said that Blackie was a thief. Little Joe said that Blackie was a collector of pretty things, and that’s what Blackie was. He didn’t steal, because he didn’t know that anyone owned the things he took. Blackie collected coins: nickels, dimes, and quarters; jewelry, such as rings, necklaces, bracelets,and cuff links; bits of colored glass; ribbon; string; paper; and anything else bright enough to attract his attention and small enough for him to carry.
Blackie kept his treasures in a big hollow tree in Little Joe’s back yard. About once a week, Little Joe would lean a ladder against the tree and empty Blackie’s treasure chest. Blackie would scream and scold, but he couldn’t stop Little Joe. After emptying the hollow tree, Little Joe would put the coins in his pockets to pay Blackie’s fine for stealing, and he would return the rings and other articles to their rightful owners. Then Little Joe would spread what ws left out on the table in the yard so that Blackie would be kept busy carrying it back to his tree.
Little Joe and Blackie were great pals. Blackie would follow Little Joe to school and meet him when school was out, flying overhead or riding on Little Joe’s shoulder, hoping for a tasty bit of left-over lunch. Little Joe and his pets had many happy times together. Now let’s go to bed for our sleep and a pleasant trip to Dreamland. Remember to go to sleep with your left eye first, and you will go right through Dreamland and into the Land of Make Believe.

The Nosy Little Star

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 10:51:05 -0600

from Bedtime Stories by Daddy John (Fussner)
(collected by his daughter, Mary Garrett)
Photo is author’s great-grandchildren Moriah, Nicolas, Robin, Christopher (John) and Stephen in front of the fireplace Robin and Moriah drew for their daddy.

Once upon a long, long time ago, there was a bright little star. He lived way, way up in the sky, high above the church steeple. Little Star was not only bright, he was also a nosey little star, and whenever he noticed anything at all that was strange, he just had to get closer to have a look.
One night he almost bumped into the moon trying to get a better look at the mountains. Boy, oh boy did the man in the moon tell him off! A few nights later, Little Star wanted to see what was in the big dipper and almost fell in. Soon after that, he got lost in the Milky Way and was a week getting out.
No, he wasn’t a mean little star; he was just a nosey little star.
One night, long about the middle of winter, he noticed something different about the earth. Wondering what it was, Little Star moved closer and closer until at last he was sitting on a telephone pole up at the corner.
He looked up and down both streets and saw lots and lots of pretty lights on the houses, on the trees in the yards, and believe it or not, he saw trees inside the houses. All of the trees were pretty and covered with colored lights, but the ones inside the houses were prettier than all the rest.
Little Star sat there on the telephone pole, looking and looking. Suddenly he heard something way up in the sky. Looking up, he saw a fat little man dressed in a red suit, riding in a sled pulled by eight little reindeer with bells on their harnesses. Who do you think it was?
The sled came closer and closer, and lower and lower until it stopped on the roof of a house not too far from where Little Star was sitting. The little man, whom we call Santa, got out of his sled and put his pack on his back. “Zoom!” down the chimney he went.
Little Star could tell something was going on around the pretty little tree inside the house. He was much too far away to see what; so he moved closer, first to a tree out front, then to the porch, a short hop to the window sill, and there he was.
Santa was very busy putting gifts around the Christmas tree, toys for the children, and pretty packages for all. Suddenly he noticed the light from the star. Looking up, he saw the little star. Santa quickly opened the door, went out, picked up Little Star, and looked him over. Going back inside, he put Little Star under the Christmas tree. He had already put a nice little angel on the top.
“Now,” said Santa, “you look really nice sitting there, and you will be really close; so you can see everything that happens in the morning. You be sure and watch the little ones. Tomorrow is their day.”
With that, Santa turned to leave, saying as he did so, “You would look much prettier if you would turn around and around while sitting there.” Zoom, he was gone.
One thing Little Star didn’t know, which way was he to turn, clockwise or counter-clockwise? Oh well, he was a star with eight points; so he made four go one way and four go the other way.
All of you know about the happy children he will see on Christmas morning. Who knows? Maybe he will be under your tree.