Page 16 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

My pupils consisted of Margaret and Mamie Moore, the Butler girl, the Freeman girl, and three boys whose names I don’t remember. Margaret, the Butler girl, and one of the boys were all in the first grade — beginners. Mamie was in the third grade, and the Freeman girl in the seventh. I don’t recall the grades for the other two boys.
One day while school was in session, a big Rhode Island Red rooster entered the schoolroom door, followed by a very reluctant hen. The children began murmuring as if they would chase the chickens out, but I quickly put my finger to my lips for silence. There we sat frozen to our seats while the rooster clucked to the hen as if he were a hen with one chick. He coaxed her over to the chip box by the heater (low in chips, fortunately) jumped into the box and squirmed around as if settling down on a nest, all the while clucking to his hen.
After his demonstration, he jumped out of the box, and coaxed and cajoled his disinterested mate until she finally hopped into the box. With an air of great satisfaction, the rooster strutted out, but as soon as he was completely out of sight, the hen jumped quickly out of the box and went scampering off in the opposite direction. This must have been the very first strike for Women’s Lib ever witnessed.
The Moore’s had moved to this spot adjacent to the Gila National Forest about thirty years previously and their four sons had grown up there. The family consisted of Dad and Mrs. Moore and their eldest son, Jeff. In another log cabin about forty yards from the parents’ cabin, lived the youngest son Sam, his wife Dixie, and their daughter
Barbara, three years old. Down the lane about a mile east was a large frame house sheltering the second son Ed, his wife Diana, and their three daughters: Mamie, 13; Margaret, 6; and Edwina, 2. The fourth son, Jack, lived in California I think. Three cowboys completed the household; Guinn Dickerson of Lovington, N.M. and Gale and Riley Miller, Diana’s brothers.
Dixie and I had more in common with each other than we had with any of the others. She was more nearly my age and very fun- loving. Even more important, she was not native to the country and had not been there long enough to lose all interest in the outside world. After winter began in earnest, we were not able to get together often through the knee-deep snow, especially since she had to carry Barbara wherever she went.
While I still lived at Dad Moore’s and later after I moved to Ed’s, we had many pleasant rides, with Barbara in front of Dixie in the big western saddle. Both of us knew how to ride, and how to saddle and care for our mounts, so when the men were away and didn’t need the horses, we took a picnic lunch and rode far into the forest where no car could go. Dixie was a wonderful instructor and was very patient with my eagerness to learn everything about this exciting new world.
I had grown up in a small town and knew many things about animals and nature that city girls did not, but I was still a relative tenderfoot in this wild country.
Mrs. Moore knew of a place where wild grapes grew on the cliffs beside the road