Delano Herald Journal

Serving the communities of Delano, Loretto, Montrose, MN, and the surrounding area

Opal “Grandma” Habisch Column 5/18/98



I am a little girl who once lived in a big city in an apartment
house where pets were not allowed.

I had always wanted a puppy but I couldn’t have one there.
Mother said that someday we would have a house of our own and then I could
have some pets.

The only pet I wanted was a little black puppy with white
feet.

“When we get a house,” I asked my mother, “where
will it be?”

“By the lake,” she said. “We will move into
the house that Grandma had. We will fix it up and live there.”

“Oh Mother, when will that happen?” I asked.

Mother said, “It will happen next year.”

Whenever we went to town, we went to the pet store and
looked for a puppy. But none were black with white feet. We looked all summer
and we didn’t see any. I started to think that we would never find the puppy
I wanted.

But Mother said, “Wait until we move to the house
by the lake. Then we will start to look again. Why don’t you let the puppy
pick you out?”

Finally, after a long winter, it was time to move to the
lake. I was so excited. And I couldn’t wait to go to the pet store to look
for my puppy.

After we had lived in the house for about two weeks, Mother
said, “Come, lets go shopping for a puppy today.”

It was a very nice day and on the way to the city Mother
stopped to see a friend who lived on a farm. The friend had a boy my age.

The boy said, “Do you want to see my puppies?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “We were just on our
way to the city to find a puppy for me.”

He showed me his dog and her four puppies.

“Oh, that one is black and he has white feet,”
I exclaimed. “That is just the kind of puppy I want.”

The boy said we should ask his mother if I could have the
puppy. I picked him up and brought it to show my mother.

“Look, Mother,” I said. “This puppy is black
and has white feet, just like the puppy I’ve been looking for. Can I keep
him?”

Mother told her friend that we had been looking for a puppy
like this for two years. The friend said we could have this puppy, but we
had to wait until the end of the summer, when he was old enough to leave
his mother.

I was so excited. My dad built a doghouse for the puppy
and we were all ready for him to come to live with us.

One day my mother’s friend called and said that the puppy
was old enough to leave his mother. When we went to get him, it was raining
outside. I didn’t want my new puppy to get wet so I took him into the house
with me. He fell asleep at the foot of my bed. I decided to call him Mittens.

Well, Daddy decided to get a hunting dog to live in the
doghouse he had built, and the puppy could live in the house with me. Now
we were all very happy.

Boys and girls, if you want something very badly, just
wait and pray. There will come a day when you will find it.

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