. She went to washing and she made lots of money at
it. She charged by the dozen. Three or four handkerchiefs were
considered a piece. She made good because she got $2.50 a dozen for men
washing and $5 a dozen for women's clothes.

"I was married in February, 1879, to Christiana Temple, married at
Matagorda, Matagorda County. I had six children by my first wife. Three
boys and three girls. Two girls died. The other girl is in Gonzales
County. Lawrence is here workin' on the Kincaid Ranch and Andrew is
workin' for John Monagin's dairy and Henry is seventy miles from Alpine.
He's a highway boss. This was my first wife. Now I am married again and
have been with this wife forty years. Her name was Eliza Dawson. No
children born to this union.

"The way we lived in those days--the country was full of wild game,
deer, wild hogs, turkey, duck, rabbits, 'possum, lions, quails, and so
forth. You see, in them days they was all thinly settled and they was
all neighbors. Most settlements was all Meskins mostly; of course there
was a few white people. In them days the country was all open and a man
could go in there and settle down wherever he wanted to and wouldn't be
molested a-tall. They wasn't molested till they commenced putting these
fences and putting up these barbwire fences. You could ride all day and
never open a gate. Maybe ride right up to a man's house and then just
let down a bar or two.

"Sometime when we wanted fresh meat we went out and killed. We also
could kill a calf or goat whenever we cared to because they were plenty
and no fence to stop you. We also had plenty milk and butter and
home-made cheese. We did not have much coffee. You know the way we made
our coffee? We just taken corn and parched it right brown and ground it
up. Whenever we would get up furs and hides enough to go into market, a
bunch of neighbors would get together and take ten to fifteen deer hides
each and take 'em in to Brownsville and sell 'em and get their
supplies. They paid twenty-five cents a pound for them. That's when we
got our coffee, but we'd got so used to using corn-coffee, we didn't
care whether we had that real coffee so much, because we had to be
careful with our supplies, anyway. My recollection is that it was fifty
cents a pound and it would be green coffee and you would have to roast
it and grind it on a mill. We didn't have any sugar, and very rare thing
to have flour. The deer was here by the hundreds. There was blue
qu