ATY pages 150-154

ATY pages 150-154

                Once not long after this we could hear Toby barking down by the corral.  Going down to see what the trouble was I found Billy Fortune with his foot through the barb wire fence.  This could mean trouble if he began working his leg up and down.  He could have cut his leg badly.  Toby had warned us so we got the leg out safely.

                Mother complained one evening after feeding the chickens that she thought they were laying out because she found so few eggs in the hen house.  Next morning Toby and I went hunting nests.  After some time we found one near a clump of sage brush with only a few eggs.  Starting to reach for them, Toby jumped between me and the nest.  I was shocked out of my wits when I saw him grab a large snake in the middle of the back and crush into it  but dropped it before it could bite him.  I took a rock and finished killing it while Toby stood by whining.  That was the first snake I had seen since we had moved here.  I put the eggs in my pocket and with a forked stick I took the snake to the house.  Mother and Wilhelmina almost fainted when they saw what I had.  That evening when the men folks came home they said.  “That’s where your eggs have been going.  He’s harmless.  He just swallows the eggs whole.”  They took a stick and tapped on the lumps in its stomach.  There were the three eggs.  After that mother kept her chickens in each day until they layed.

                The garden was coming along nicely.  It was what I would call a prize garden.  For mother’s apron was just as handy as when I was a child for bringing things from the garden as well as wood and chips from the wood pile. Eggs from the chicken house, and various other things.  The green string beans couldn’t have been nicer and Mother wasn’t letting any of them go to waste, she as usual was the saving little mother she had always been.  She had almost a flour sack of dried ones besides those she had cold packed.  Then too the spring greens she dried and put up and beets canned, plain and spiced. 

                Father was hard at it building a cellar in the side of the hill.  We could see him through the window diligently working away for mother’s kitchen was getting much too full.  Corn would be the next to be taken care of.  He planted what they called Indian or Squaw corn.  He said that was the only kind that would make ears for eating before frost in this high country.  We had already had some for table use.  The ears were small and white but quite sweet.  The tomatoes were wonderful but father was afraid they wouldn’t be too many ripe ones as we had already had a several slight frosts in the hills.  The quaken aspens were also showing signs of it and this helped to ripen the berries along the creek, mother and I would pick one day and can the next.  We kept this up until we had what we wanted.

                I picked cherries by riding Beauty and sitting on her back under the tree.  I’d get a kettle full then I’d ride back and give them to mother and she’d give me another kettle.  I kept this up until I practically got or picked all of them.  Toward the last, to get them I stood up on the saddle.  We got a nice lot of jelly and jam from them thus little by little stuff was being stored for winter use.

                Father’s cellar turned out to be something pretty nice with potato bins and shelves for the fruit and vegetables and a place to hang the tomato vines with green tomatoes still intact to ripen as the winter months went by and a place in the other corner for the carrots and nice heads of cabbage.,  Mother also had part of a sack of dried peas that she was very proud of.  Just as you went in the door was a hook for the lantern to hang on.  The lantern could be easily lit.  My brother made a cellar much the same way and my sister-in-law was just as busy as the rest of us.  They had a small garden but not as nice as father’s so they divided with them and I helped all I could for I knew I would be given some too.

                Our cupboards were finished and from the front upstairs window I could see our home in the valley below and the wheat a wonderful stand.  It looked like one big lawn and I thought as I gazed at it, what a nice setting and it was all ours.

                Some few days later mother was out with her turkeys when a storm seemed to come suddenly from no where and the mountain tops clouded over with a dense fog.  It was rather a hot morning for the last of August and that brought on the storm, a thunderbolt broke the calm stillness and flashes of forked lightening lit up the valley.  A few drops of rain came out of the sky.  Throwing my coat around me, Toby and I dashed up the canyon to where mother was with her turkeys.  We soon came upon them.  They, the turkeys, had panicked and mother, the wonderful little mother she always was, wouldn’t leave them even in the face of danger and was trying desperately to get them together and start them for home.  Seeing Toby and me she said,  “Thank the Lord, Annie.  I knew he’d send me some help.”  Mother always had so much faith in the Lord.  Toby and I  had some little trouble for when we’d just about get them together and started back it would thunder and they would run for a hiding place.  The rain was coming down more now but soon they saw where they were headed for and took off in fright outrunning us.  My sister ran out and shut them in their house when the turkeys got home.  She was getting the geese in when we arrived.

                We hadn’t more than gotten in the house when the mountain peak seemed to have ripped the clouds asunder and the heavens literally fell apart dumping tons upon tons of water onto the valley in a moment of time. The awful roar could be heard for a mile or more as it came dashing down the mountainside taking everything in it’s path, fence posts, trees, mother’s milk house, pans, milk and all and a calf that was swept off its feet and drowned as it was swept along.  Shirley Creek looked like Snake River.  Father’s garden was part of the river as it rushed madly onto its destination in the flats below.

                We were told later that several teams and wagons with people had waited below Jim’s and my place for hours before it subsided enough for them to cross to go to their homes.  They said a fellow tried it some years back and his team was swept to their death and he was saved only by being able to jump from the wagon to the bank which was somewhat of a close call.  Old-timers told my father of those cloud bursts that occurred about once a year during August or heat of summer.  He was told to build his house back aways from the creek or on a sloping hill.  So he did.

                The next day father found the garden was damaged very little because everything was at a mature stage.  It made the corn ripen faster so we all got in and it was soon dried and some mother cooked in an open kettle with salt and canned it.  It was a little salty but really good.  She got the recipe from a farm journal.

                None of us was the worse for the storm and the cellar was gradually filling with good things.

                The first of September Jim went with his big wagon and team to Rupert to bring back the list of things we had made out sometime back for our home.  It included furniture, curtains, groceries, dishes and bedding, pillows, feather bed, quilts, sheets, blankets, pillow slips and so on.  It was supposed to be at the Rupert depot by September the second.  So Jim would pick it up.  I thought I should go along to help get the things but mother said it wouldn’t look good.  I wasn’t married to him yet.  So I watched him out of the valley and waved as I always had.

                Father had his bench land cleared, plowed and harrowed and today the man came to seed it to fall wheat.  Mother and father were both very pleased about it. My brother through hard work had his bench land ready too and the man would also seed theirs.  This meant a crop for the summer of nineteen hundred and fourteen and money to go on.

                Jim though hadn’t quite finished cleaning, burning and plowing his.  He might get it in spring wheat.  A part of it anyway.  Father was up there with him riding on the back of the drill seeing that the drill didn’t clog and miss some rows.

                Father had gotten mother two bushels of summer apples from some folks he was working for and that day was used in working them up into applesauce, a few preserves, and jelly from the peelings.  Mother did not can or make anything out of the service berries because they had such a sweet taste. Some mixed lemon juice with the pulp to make butter from them.

                That night father was tired but pleased with the prospect the day had brought forth and mother, sister and I were tired from the canning so we all retired early and soon were fast asleep.  About midnight though Toby barked and howled making quite a racket.  Every time he would sit down next to the kitchen door, he would sit so close you could hear his back hit the door and each time a growl like he was backing away from something.  Finally father took his gun and went downstairs and outside.  Toby was at his heels growling all the time hunting all around and finding nothing returned to bed but Toby kept up his growling.,  At daybreak father went out again.  This time he found tracks but no animal and in the meantime mother dressed and went down and was building the kitchen fire when father came in and hearing him say to mother., “I didn’t blame Toby for worrying and it was a good thing you had everything shut up good for we had a visitor last night.  One you wouldn’t want to encounter on your turkey drive.”  “What was that?” Mother asked.  “Nothing less than a bob cat, and a big one at that from the looks of the tracks.  There was no sign of him but he’s around and won’t rest until he gets what he’s after.“  “Well we’ll have to be on the look out” mother told father.   Mother fixed breakfast and sister came down and set the table.  We all sat down and ate the nice hot muffins, butter and chokecherry jelly.

                Now that father’s and my brother’s wheat was in, the time from then on would be spent in getting wood up for winter.  So Toby and I again went for a walk.  For it was such a beautiful day.  We were getting a little frost each night now.  Father had covered the tomatoes and Mother had canned quite a few but they were still loaded.  I lifted up the canvas and picked several nearly ripe ones.  I took a salt shaker from my pocket and proceeded to eat them as I walked along.  I still loved the excitement of this country.  The fresh air, the surrounding hills and all that went with it.  There were so many things for the taking.  Where would a city give you as much.  A city couldn’t give the health one found here.

                As we walked along I heard Toby whine.  I looked in his direction.  Looking I saw Toby digging with all his might.  As I saw something shiny I began to help him.  There was one of Mother’s milk pans.  Hunting a little father down we found the other one that had been buried from the flood.  I washed them in Shirley Creek.  We took them to mother only to find that both had small holes in them but mother said she could plug the holes and use them for chicken watering pans.

                The next afternoon when father went to Sublett to get the mail, he found a man with a load of peaches and apricots.  He had been peddling them up and down Sublett creek.  Each summer they came in there if you were lucky enough to contact them.  Father brought home two bushels of peaches and a bushel of apricots so we had another job of canning but how wonderful to have all of that for winter.

                The next morning while we canned, father and Jim went to the hills for wood.  Getting two loads and one was taken to our place.  Father had already gotten several for himself.  Brother was also replenishing his wood pile.

                The following day Jim and I went down to our house.  Father went along to help put the furniture together and in place.  Jim had put the stoves up, so he made a fire.  I put on a tea kettle of water to heat.  Then I washed up the dishes and put them away in the cupboard.  I also put away the groceries Jim had bought.  Father had made us a library table and my brother a kitchen table.  When everything was put in place and the shades were all put up we locked the door and went back home.