utside and
then new meat, salted down and then smoked, put in there, and we would
cook the old bacon for the dogs. We always kep' some good dogs there,
and anybody'll tell you they was always fat. We had lots of wild turkeys
and I raised turkeys, too, till I got sick of cookin' turkeys. Don't
talk about deer! You know, it wasn't then like it is now. You could go
kill venison any time you wanted to. But I don't blame 'em for passin'
that law, for people used to go kill 'em and jes' take out the hams and
tenderloin and leave the other layin' there. I have saved many a sack of
dried meat to keep it from spoilin'.

"We would raise watermelons, too. We had a big field three mile from the
house and a ninety-acre field right in the house. We used to go get
loads of melons for the hogs and they got to where they didn't eat
anything but the heart.

"I used to leave my babies at the house with the older girl and go out
horseback with my husband. My oldest girl used to take the place of a
cowboy, and put her hair up in her hat. And ride! My goodness, she loved
to ride! They thought she was a boy. She wore pants and leggin's. And
maybe you think she couldn't ride!

"After we left that ranch, we took up some state land. I couldn't tell
you how big that place was. We had 640 in one place and 640 in another
place; it was a good big place. After my husband got sick, we had to let
it go back. We couldn't pay it out. We only lived on it about four
years.

"My husband has been dead about nineteen years. I had a pen full and a
half of chillen. I have four livin' chillen, two girls and two boys. I
have a girl, Carrie, in California, workin' in the fruit all the time;
one boy, George, in Arizona, workin' in the mines; and a girl in
Arizona, Lavinia, washes and irons and cooks and ever'thing else she can
get at. And I have one boy here. I have ten grandchillen and I've got
five great grandchillen.

"I belong to the Methodist Church. I joined about twenty-five years ago.
My husband joined with me. But here, of late years, when I go to church,
it makes me mad to see how the people do the preacher up there trying to
do all the good he can do and them settin' back there laughin' and
talkin'. I was baptized. There was about five or six of us baptized in
the Leona down here.

"People tell that I've got plenty and don't need help. Even the Mexkins
here and ever'body say I've got money. Jes' because we had that farm
down there they think I co