cry coyote

Early in the spring, Milton took me out in the toolies to herd his sheep, I think there were about five hundred of them. I had two sheep dogs to help me. I do not remember where Don and Alvin were, because they usually took care of the sheep. Milton moved the sheep wagon out there under some trees and left me a big gun to shoot off if there were coyotes barking.

Well I herded them sheep all over those flat land for three days. The first night a Coyote done a lot of yelling so I pull out the old gun and stood in the door of the sheep wagon and shot that gun off, the thing kicked back on my shoulder and knocked me down on my back on the floor. My shoulder was sore for a week, so the next night I let the coyote yell.

frank olson
Milton came out the third day and we drove them sheep closer to the house and got ready to lamb. At the next railroad station the boss had just got married and everybody in the county were getting together to give then a selvere. We were all running around the house they were living in, and it was darker than pitch. Everybody was running around the house banging on old tubs, and making as much noise as we could, as I was going around one corner of the house something hit me on the head. The next thing I know I was laying on the floor, everybody looking down at me. Milton was washing my face with a wet wash rag. Frank Wilson as I became to know him had hit me over the head with a club that he was suppose to be hitting an old wash tub, but I got in the way. That was how I met my first husband, Frank Wilson. We danced all night that night and he told me he and a man by the name of Bobby Coddle were working on the railroad section at Spence across the river from where we lived.

nature calls
The boys were busy night and day staying with the sheep while they were lambing. Edith and I had very little to do, and nature calls, when two men on one side of the river and two young girls on the other side, both men were 15 to 20 years older than us. They started coming over and spending the evenings. Or we would go over there and set around and talk.