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growing on our place and made a sort of frame and covered it with the pieces of canvas which were all that was left of our tent.
This time we decided we would like to be down in the bottom of the ravine among some hackberry trees. These trees made a shade over our canvas house which we very much needed as it was nearing summertime. We carried big flat rocks from the hillsides and laid them for a floor. This didn’t turn out to be such a good idea as it was more tiresome to stand on than a cement floor and that is bad enough.
Several outstanding incidents happened during these three years, which we will never forget and which I will attempt to relate, not in order of their importance but in the order on which they happened.
The first of these was the big rain we had while we were still in this location. It was at night after we had gone to bed. The rain had started before we went to sleep, just a slow drizzle, nothing to be alarmed about. In fact we were so glad because we always needed rain in that country. But along in the night sometime we were awakened by water dripping in our faces. It had been raining long enough to get the canvas soaked so that it wouldn’t hold water, Then when it began raining so hard, of course the water poured right thru in a stream.
We hadn’t been able to stretch the canvas tight enough to turn the water very well, anyway. So we got up and stood the broom up in the middle of the bed, thinking that would help turn the water. By this time the bed was so wet that it was impossible to sleep in it. But were to frightened to sleep anyway, as it was raining harder and harder we could hear the water running in a stream on either side of the house. And of course we couldn’t tell how high the water was getting or close it was to the house.
At least I was frightened, although Bolly didn’t act frightened or let me know in any way that he was. But when it was all over he admitted that he was as worried and frightened as I was.
We had an Aladdin lamp and we had to set it on the floor under the cabinet in order to keep the raindrops from breaking the chimney and leaving us in the dark. I don’t know how long it rained, but it seamed hours and hours. Anyway we slept no more that night.
Finally this nightmare ended as all nightmares usually do, and in the morning and with the bright sunlight everything seemed so calm and peaceful that the horrors of the night faded somewhat. But we didn’t intend to let another such rain catch us in this location.
As soon as it was light enough to see we went out to investigate. We found that the streams on either side of the house had barley missed it.
It was only a very short time later and while we wee still living in this location that we had another and more trying episode.
Bolly had gone with his uncle to Portales, a distance of about one hundred miles, where his mother lived on a farm. (His stepfather having died since we left there and left her this farm.) When he returned he had a terrible headache and a high fever. I put him right to bed and started doctoring him although I hardly knew what to do for him, as neither of knew what was wrong with him.