pages 142-144

ATY pages 142-144

                The days were long and nights short that time of the year.  And morning came early.  Mother was up about five am.  Father and brother were building a church down on Sublett Creek and they were anxious to get it done, for a man at Malta wanted a big ranch home built.

                Jim had more plowing to do and post holes to dig.  Fencing and so on.  Mother and I had been making some of my wedding clothes and dresses to wear afterwards.  Jim and I had talked of getting married sooner, but I said let’s wait until fall.  Everyone is so busy now.  And there is much to do before fall.  Our kitchen cupboards have to be built and we have to get furniture.  And canning to do for winter.  We were happy and that was all that mattered then.

                A few days later Jim got a letter about our ranch.  We drove to Malta the next day with Beauty and Babe hitched to the buggy.  It was a distance of fifteen miles, mostly flat desert like country of gravel, foxtails and greasewood, which was a small brush that grew close to the ground.  Squirrels jumped and ran from the side of the road.  Several jack rabbits at a time darted off into the distance.  The brownish grey fur of a coyote could be seen loafing along, stopping at intervals with his nose in the air as though sniffing for food.  It was a lovely summer day, a cool breeze had come up, just enough to blow the dust away as we drove along.  Jim did not urge the horses for they were sweating some anyway.  We had the whole day in which to get this done.

                It was a little past noon when we arrived so we drove in the shade of a tree in the little village.  Jim watered the horses, then put a feed bag with oats in it on each horse so they could eat their dinner while Jim and I ate our lunch we had brought along.  We walked around this little town of only a few homes and business places.  We then went to the land office.  Several people were there ahead of us so we sat down and waited our turn.  The large picture he had over his desk was interesting.  It showed the Indian with his bow and arrow hunting buffalo nearby.  In the far corner the white man with his high powered rifle shooting the buffalo for sport.  The moral of the picture was the Indian kills for food and clothes.  The white man for the sport of it.

                Soon it was Jim’s turn.  I heard the man at the desk say, I have some more papers for you to sign in regards to your land.  Jim said that was fine.  He took the pen and signed. “Now that will be all” was the reply given by the man, so we left.

                On the way back we had a discussion on a subject we had discussed before.  I wanted to get an irrigated forty at Rupert instead of the homestead but Jim thought the homestead best.  He thought it would be a better investment.  We could make more and eventually sell if we became tired of it.  “Well,” I said,  “Since we have gone this far, it would be foolish with our home built, all the fencing, and sage you have railed as well as grubbed out and burned.”

                We were leaving the greasewood desert behind now and to our left was green alfalfa fields, stacks of hay, and nice home, barns, corrals, horses, and cattle.  We knew these people well.  From then on were places like this until we passed Sublett. We did not stop to get the mail because father and brother passed it of evenings coming back from work so we left it for them.

                When we arrived home we could see our old Toby dog running in circles and howling.  We wondered what was wrong.  Mother came out and told us he had come in contact with a porcupine.  His nose was full of quills.  He had never seen one before and probably bit at him in self-defense.  Jim said he’d see what he could do after he took care of the horses.  He used his pliers to pull the quills from the dogs nose.  He used his knife to cut some that were bedded too deeply.  Toby howled and howled in pain but felt better after Jim had removed the quills and put medicine on his nose and mouth,  We soon found he couldn’t eat too good so it was another job getting quills out of his tongue.  After that porcupines came and went but Toby had learned his lesson.

                The next morning after the men folk had gone to work and the house work was done, with field glasses strapped over my shoulder and a very small twenty two rifle in my hand, the bullets always in my pocket, for I would never kill any of God’s creatures unless it was a snake and even then he would probably wiggle away before I could get a bullet in the gun, but I did like to practice shooting at tin cans or rocks.  I started for the garden with Toby at my heels, walking among the rows pulled a couple of carrots to eat on as I walked along.  Here I found rabbits had been nibbling on the crisp tender lettuce leaves and carrot tops.  They were the little cotton tails that live along Shirley Creek and wound up more times than once as a nice juicy meal for a coyote or an old hawk, leaving the garden, jumping Shirley Creek, I started the winding cow trail up the mountain like hillside that always seemed to beckon me,  when I had nothing else to do.  There was a deep mystery abiding there for me.  I talked to Toby for a while thinking he was still at my heels, but the effort must have been too much for him for looking back I could see him hunting along Shirley Creek.  He was looking for a tasty meal.

                The winding trail took me a little lower down so I walked back up to a higher level.  It was great just to inhale this pure undiluted air.  And all so wonderful just as God had made and left it so many thousands of years ago and left it thus for man to try his luck with it.  I had come to love this country.  Who wouldn’t? so carefree with the quiet stillness that reigned there, away from the throngs of the busy city pavements, the rush and push, hustle and bustle, people that rubbed elbows, day after day and yet never really know each other.  That were always in a hurry.  Their thought only of themselves.  And breathed the polluted air from the dust of the city streets.  I stood there under the blue horizon of this mountainside in awe of it all for here was something worth living for.

                I placed my field glasses to my eyes and surveyed the country, for miles.  I saw the wheat fields on the hill side and bench lands.  The valley below to American Falls, and in the far distance was Heglar mountains, west all this wonderment of God’s world. 

                Yes it was an extra good wheat year, even spring wheat was over waist high,  The crops were good in the valley too where they were seldom good.  The valley-the one, two city girls, their mother and sweetheart of one of the girls had come across almost a year ago to their home in the canyon on Shirley Creek, arriving there in the dark of evening.  Ah! but this was all so different.  I could see heading crews, close and far capturing those heads of gold.  The header box would stay under the spout of the carrier until it was full then pull out and another pulled under until full then stack to thrash later when ready.  It took six or seven men to cut and stack the grain.  There were four horses on the header, two on each side.  They pushed the header into cutting the wheat.  The man that drove stood astride of the rudder bar and between the horses a tongue to steer and guide it.  There were row header boxes, one was under the spout at all times while heading to catch the grain.  This was the way they did it before the days of the big combines and finally when they did come, they used from sixteen to eighteen horses to pull the combine.  As I said it was a wonderful wheat year.

                Some of the old timers said these cycles would last as long as ten years at a time when ranchers would average from forty to fifty bushels per acre on good land.

                As I made my way back over the trail.  I too was in hopes we would get in on some of those good years.  Thinking Toby had given me up, I was surprised to see him coming back up the trail wagging his bushy tail.  So I patted him on the head.  We made it down though by putting on brakes every so often as pebbles and rocks rolled ahead of us by our feet slipping in the loose gravel.  Then seeing something else, a young man on horseback, one of sister’s friends, talking her into going to a party someplace.  I began feeling more as the days went by that she was becoming set in her ways and that the right one would never come along.  I think her heart was in Sidney’s keeping.  No one else seemed to come up with his qualities.

                As I neared the house he galloped away.  She seemed very much pleased.  Mother wanted to know where I had been when I went down where she was driving up her turkeys to feed.  They seemed to prefer staying in the wild cherry orchard.  Walking there I was surprised to find how fast the small fruit on these trees were growing and ripening.  These cherry trees grew all along Shirley Creek, in good years, people would pick them by the tub full.  They would cook and work them through a colander making juice into jelly, and the pulp into butter and jam.  Mother had said we would can some of the cherries when they were ripe.  She soon got the turkeys penned for the night.  Said she couldn’t afford to lose them now.  As mother fed the turkeys I went on to the house.