housekeeping

I went back home. The lady that I work for in Grand Junction that had the sick boy, came to Fruita to asked me if I would come back and work as a housekeeper for her family, both of them worked. She said that she could house rent free if she would cook this old man two meals a day. So I went down to work for her and her husband. I did the lunch and helped with the supper and cleaned up the place.

I got to talking to that old man and ask him where his wife was. He use to be a policeman. He said that she was so damn ornery that he could not live with her, so he put her in insane asylum.

He told me about Adam Steele, and another man, that were outlaws. How they would come into town and cause all kinds of problems. I told him that Adam was a cousin to me. He said that he seen Adam shoot a button off of a mans coat. It did not pan out; the old man could not stand the children. So I went back to Fruita.

I get another job in Fruita, keeping house for a family of four; the wife was bed fast. I would go there in the morning and go home at night. They had a little boy that went to school with Billy. One day the boy came home from school and he had wet his pants. I jump all over him about it, and he cried and he said that there was a big boy that would not let him come home to use the toilet. That night when I went home, Billy told me about it and I found out the big boy was Billy. I told Billy that I was taking care of the boy and he was to leave him alone.

Billy was not used to people planting flowers, he was use to the flower growing up in the wild and he pick a man tulip, he came and gave them to me, he was a happy boy when he gave me the tulips. The next day here the man came and jumps all over Billy and me for picking his tulip, but we get over that.

I had all those jobs from the time we moved to Fruita until school was out. Between mama and my odd jobs we were able to keep food on the table.