(5)
After he began to improve it was certainly hard to keep him on his diet too, with him fussing and fuming continually because I wouldn’t let him have a big steak, But this was a small worry compared to the worry and nervous strain I had been under for so long.
During this month Bolly lost forty pounds and was only a shadow of his former self when he was finally able to return to our home. And upon our arrival home, life resumed its peaceful happy trend, for although, we had very little, we were very happy because we still had each other.
As soon as Bolly was well and strong again he resumed his well drilling. The well he had already finished before he became ill. Was only about one hundred yards from our dwelling. It only produced a very small stream of water. However, it was enough for house use and for our two milk cows and a few chickens, so that we were spared the task of hauling water as most of the homesteaders in that community were compelled to do. Because only a very, very small percentage of the wells that were drilled in that country ever turned out to be anything but dry holes.
But Bolly wasn’t satisfied with such a poor well, as he was confident that there was more water in that ravine. So he borrowed his uncle’s drill and again drilled another one. And he was right for this time he did get a good well. Then about a year later he drilled the third well only about fifteen feet from that one and it was also a good one.
These wells raised the value of our place so much that it was worth about four times as much as the other homesteads in the country. So we were beginning to feel that we were accomplishing something after all, as well as just having a cheap place to live during the Depression.
Before fall came again and the seasonal rains set in, we moved our little abode to a higher, safer place. This time we selected a sloping plateau sort of up on the side of he ravine so that we would have no more worries about floods.
We dug out about two feet of the earth in order to make the roof higher, enlarged the whole thing and put a tin roof on it. When we had finished this and were again settled, we started building a house for our chickens. I helped Bolly make the adobes and he got a man to help lay them. He cut and trimmed cedar posts which grew right there on the place, and made the roof these, covering them with brush and dirt.
We made two large windows in the front and covered them with scraps of chicken wire. In actual cash this chicken house cost us fifty cents. Bolly had to buy two cross ties to put over the windows.
Now, that I had such a nice chicken house I had to make use of it, of course, I started raising all the chickens I could. I set every one of my little brood of hens,. Besides being so fond of fried chicken we loved to raise chickens. So we had all the fried chicken we could eat, sold several of them and saved all the pullets of the next year. Of course the next year I had several more hens to set and succeed in raising quite a large flock, This flock practically made our living from then on.