There's story's about some of them.
The plains of the Dakota offers up beautiful farmland to plant crops. Almost anything will grow in the rich black moist soil found there. The first settlers almost jumped from their britches as they leaped from the wagon seats to stake out property lines and claim homesteads.
There were a few draw backs though. Gophers!
Whole villages full of pocket gophers. Prairie Dog towns raised holy hell with the stability of the soil and the crops that grew near them. You could not canter at speed across a field on your horse, heading home for supper, for fear of the poor animal going down with a turned ankle, or worse, from sticking a foot into a hole or tripping on a gopher mound.
Helmer had one name for them, "SONS OF BITCHES" He never referred to them by any other name but "SONS OF BITCHES"
In those days folks would come out from the city for sport and shoot gophers. It was like a family outing. The farmers out on the homestead liked it because it got rid of some of the pesky critters without wasting any time or money.
What you do is after Sunday school and church you take along some fried chicken and water melon and baked beans and a pitcher full of lemonade, if you could get it, and go out to the country, eat a little something, and then shoot gophers. The women cleaned up and chatted about whoever had not showed up for church or wouldn't speak up for a volunteer project at the Sunshine Club. The men would go off on the prairies and farmers fields with their sons and their Remington bolt action single shots loaded with rounds of long rifle rim fires and shoot gophers. Yep! Shot gophers to while away Gods given day of rest and peace.
The poor little gophers didn't have much of an idea how miserable they had made it for others. They were just doing, they thought, what the good lord intended them to do. That which it was, to eat regular, sleep in little holes they dug for themselves for homes, and sun themselves after lunch on top of their mounds and live like proper little gophers. They sit straight up on their hind legs as look outs for big gopher snakes on the prowl, and hungry prairies chickens, and hawks in the sky. The little "SON OF BITCHES" couldn't know how easy a target they made sitting straight up on top of their mounds like that.
They did this duty as good citizens and solders of Prairie Dog town so the older gophers who needed to rest longer after eating could do so in peace. It was an honorable thing to do and a good life to live. Prospering, sharing and looking out for one another, and in that security enjoying the singular sweet joy of this here life!
We were from the west coast and thought the little prairie dogs were really cute sweet soft cuddly things like a hamster or a squirrel or Buttons the guinea pig.
We drove clear across those plains heading east and began to see the little guys along about western Montana. We were eager to meet our cousins who lived out on the original family homestead.
We always had little pets, and were taught in church to love and respect all living things, and to respect our elders and the ways of others, to be tolerant and speak politely with manners and such.
Imagine for just a moment our shock and curiosity when we were greeted by a little fellow in the open ground by the hand pump between the barn and the farmhouse with these words.
Hello, I am Helmer. Are you the folks that are coming out to shoot some of our "SONS OF BITCHES"?
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