Tippy

As long as children remain heartless is how one child's story ends.
That thought was brought home to me at the age of 10, when I rescued a
diminutive young rodent from my own homicidal hands.

On the outskirts of Laramie Wyoming, the best playground was a stretch
of Prairie practically in my back yard. Summers were spent roaming
around in what at first appeared to be miles of miles of nothing but
miles and miles. I spent my summers roaming around in this vast and
intriguing place. I had quite a collection of fossils from ancient
animals, small lizards and arrowheads.

One day, my friends and went in search of a pollywog pond I had found
earlier. With the rudimentary science knowledge obtained by then, we
knew they would soon turn into frogs. Suddenly, we found a mound with a
hole in the middle of it. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a
glimpse of some animal jumping in to it. I couldn't be sure what it
was, but I wanted to find out. I called to my friends to help
investigate. When we came upon the mound, nothing could be seen to give
us a clue as to what animal it contained.

All of us had buckets for our intended collection of pollywogs. There
was also a pond near by. We decided to fill our buckets up with water,
pour it down the hole and see what comes out. We congratulated
ourselves for the clever way we thought of to satisfy our
curiosity.

We began to pour water down the hole and suddenly, strange squeaking
animals started scrambling out. We squealed with delight and thought we
could catch one of them. They ran every which way and so did we. This
got us nowhere. I decided to go back to the hole to stand guard lest
the animals returned. I saw some movement and bent down. Suddenly, I
saw this diminutive baby animal trying with all it's might to climb out
of it's home and gasping for breath. I was overwhelmed with quilt with
the sudden awareness that we had destroyed some animals' home. I
quickly scooped this pathetic looking creature up into my hand, dried
it off with my shirt, put it in my bucket and ran home. I knew full
well mom would know what to do.

Mom was always prepared for what I may bring home from my travels. When
she saw the animal, identified as a ground squirrel or gopher, she said
that it was a baby that probably had not been weaned from it's mom. My
heart sunk. It's mom was off to the four corners of the earth by now
because I had provided the great flood with no Ark.

Mom immediately went to work warming cream and sugar, her cure all for
ailing animals, and fed the ground squirrel via an eye dropper. I was
delighted to see it had a healthy appetite. After the feeding, I picked
it up in my hand and stated to gently stoke it. Soon, it was
asleep.

For the first time, I was able to take a good look at this creature. It
was gray and brown in color with a white patch on it's tail tip. We
decided to call it Tippy. An appropriate name for such a small animal
with a white tipped tail. We had no clue as to it's gender, but I
decided it was a girl. It was too cute to be a boy! She emitted small
"beeping" sounds. Soon, we would recognize what some the sounds
meant.

We located an old bird cage in the garage and loaded it up with some
grass, a blanket, water and a clock. I heard once that a clock kept
baby animals calm and kept them from being lonely for it's mom. It just
kept this one awake. The clock was out.

Tippy soon became part of the family. She was very affectionate and
simply adorable. She liked to be held in someone's hand and stoked
almost as much as she liked to get on our shoulders and nibble at our
ears.

In July we moved "back east" to New York state by car. Tippy went with
us and had the enviable position in the front seat. At restaurant stops
we always brought back lettuce, bits of tomato, bread crumbs and milk
shakes for Tippy.

It was hot that summer and soon we initiated another routine to our
stops. We made sure we wetted a napkin with cool water because when
Tippy became hot, she would sit on her haunches with her tiny paws
around her now ample tummy and beep rapidly. She always calmed down
when we wiped her down with the cooling napkin.

Dad had fashioned a leash and a collar for her so we could take her for
walks whenever we stopped to stretch our legs near empty fields. We
thought it would remind her of home. It became apparent that we became
objects of curiosity as cars would slow down wondering what a child
would have at the end of a moving leash.

Once in New York, Tippy settled down into a bigger and better home. Dad
built a large cage with wood and chicken wire. After school we would
take Tippy out for a walk along with some school friends who thought
that we had a neat pet and often went with us.

Evidently Tippy enjoyed the great out doors and soon attempted escape
several times by pushing her nose against the gate. This resulted in an
abrasion of the bridge of her nose. Dad, who by this time had his
degree in Psychology, thought that behavior modification techniques may
dissuade Tippy from bumping up against her gate.
He obtained a battery and wired the chicken wire to send a small
electrical current. When Tippy nosed the gate, she would learn that it
was inappropriate behavior and would stop. In one way, it worked.
Unknown to all of us, mom had applied vaseline to her nose.

Her funeral was held in our back yard attended by our family and a few
close friends.
After 35 years, one can still see a faded carved rock with the words
"Here lies Tippy. She will be missed. 1966"