(9)
So by the time our new rock house was completed it was our turn to entertain. We gave a housewarming, which was to be the first in a series of these parties, which we gave during the remainder of our stay in this community. Although it had been three years since we left, the decorations from our last party are still hanging. We go back every once in a while and look at the place where we were so happy and get a little homesick.
This last party was on Halloween and we had the house decorated with orange and black crepe paper streamers, hanging from the ceiling, black cats and witches all over the walls and the bridge pads, tallies and favors carried out the Halloween motif. These were usually dinner bridge parties since everyone had to travel so far.
We had invited twenty guests. I started planning for this party about a month ahead of time. I spent two whole days preparing the dinner alone. I baked pies, fried five chickens and had everything else that goes with fried chicken. And I had the grandest time doing it, as I love to cook and also love to entertain.
Every one ate so much and seemed to enjoy everything as much as I had enjoyed preparing it. We played bridge then for about eight o’clock until two. Then everyone departed for their respective homes. One couple even had to go fifty miles, over half of which was rough county road. (The Nobel Dunlaps)
We had so wanted our last party to be a success and I am sure it was because everyone raved for weeks afterward about what a grand time they had had. And of course that pleased us very much. We still number these people among our friends although we do not see them very often. Every time we go back some or the other of them gives a party for us.
As I have told near the beginning of my story, our wells made our place valuable enough that we were able to trade it for one hundred head of white face cattle. Which at the time were only worth twenty dollars a head. Bolly’s uncle needed this place as it joined his ranch, so we traded it to him. Thus we wrote finis to our homestead life. We were both very reluctant to leave as we had learned during these three years to like this life so much.
But it was the only thing that we could do as one section of land wouldn’t make us a living.
We only got to live in our nice rock house a little less than a year, So we bade it a sad farewell, pastured our cattle out with an old bachelor rancher close by and went back to Bolly’s mother’s farm near Portales, where we lived for about nine months, until Bolly was called back to his job with the Santa Fe Railroad.
We moved to Roswell, which was Bolly’s headquarters for some time.
We borrowed money on our cattle and bought a small ranch close to Roswell and moved our cattle on it. But it wasn’t close enough so that Bolly could work and look after the cattle too, so we had to hire a man and his wife to live on the ranch.
Bolly was cut off again for a short while and we went out and lived on the ranch during this time and we were in our element again. But this didn’t last long as Bolly was soon called back and has been working steadily ever since. Of course this is wonderful and we are glad to have a steady salary coming in. It was so terribly long that we didn’t have a salary at all. And Bolly’s job pays awfully well. But still we certainly do miss the ranch life.