if nothin' else. That slicker answered for ever'thing sometimes. My
husband slep' many a night with his saddle under his head.

"He used to carry mail from San Antonio to Dog Town, horseback. That was
the town they used to call Lodi (Lodo), but I don't know how to spell
it, and don't know what it means. It was a pretty tough town. The jail
house was made out of 'dobe and pickets. They had a big picket fence all
around it. They had a ferry that went right across the San Antonio River
from Floresville to Dog Town. I know he told me he come to a place and
they had a big sign that said, 'Nigga, don't let the sun go down on you
here.' They was awful bad down in there. He would leave Dog Town in the
evenin' and he would get to a certain place up toward San Antonio to
camp, and once he stopped before he got to the place he always camped
at. He said he didn't know what made 'im stop there that time, but he
stopped and took the saddle off his horse and let 'im graze while he lay
down. After a while, he saw two cigarette fires in the dark right up the
road a little piece, and he heard a Mexkin say, 'I don't see why he's so
late tonight. He always gets here before night and camps right there.'
He knew they was waylayin' 'im, so he picked his saddle up right easy
and carried it fu'ther back down the road in the brush and then come got
his horse and took him out there and saddled 'im up and went away 'round
them Mexkins. He went on in to San Antonio and didn't go back any more.
A white man took the mail to carry then and the first trip he made, he
never come back. He went down with the mail and they found the mail
scattered somewhere on the road, but they never found the man, or the
horse, either.

"On the Adams ranch, in the early days, we used to have to pack water up
the bank. You might not believe it, but one of these sixty-pound lard
cans full of water, I've a-carried it on my head many a time. We had
steps cut into the bank, and it was a good ways down to the water, and
I'd pack that can up to the first level and go back and get a couple a
buckets of water, and carry a bucket in each hand and the can on my head
up the next little slantin' hill before I got to level ground. I carried
water that way till my chillen got big enough to carry water, then they
took it up. When I was carryin' water in them big cans my head would
sound like new leather--you know how it squeaks, and that was the way it
sounded in my head. But, it never