Page 62 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

ruins so fascinated me. It was performed by John P. Clum, Indian Agent for the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona.
While living at the McCrackens, I bought my first pair of eyeglasses. Dr. Reed who homesteaded near my Dad’s (and whose wife helped me can vegetables), came over to Dusty and fitted them. I wore them two week and they were broken while I was playing games with the children. I had them replaced, but the night of the same day I received them, they were broken again when someone slammed the door just as I started in. The third time was the charm, and I wore the next pair until they had to be changed.
We had a cow and lots of milk, butter, whipped cream, and buttermilk. The chickens gave us plenty of eggs as well as fried and baked chicken. The pigs ran wild in the pinon scrub and fattened on the fallen pinon nuts. When it was time to butcher a hog, Willie took his rifle and shot the one he wanted. In the deep South they boast of the peanut-fed pork as being so fine, but never have I eaten any pork so tasty as that fattened on pinon nuts. We had a big, big garden with fresh cabbage all winter long - by covering it with dried corn stalks in the barn.
The McCrackens had a number of horses and each member of the family loved to ride. I really enjoyed my horseback rides while I was there. At that time I’d rather ride than eat - and Mary was an excellent cook!
A man named Sampson, who worked at the Sullivan ranch, was a good friend of the McCrackens and spent a lot of time at their
home. He had a wonderful horse which he let me ride any time I wanted to. He was a very superior horse and I loved to ride him. Where some horses, with malice aforethought, will go under low-hanging limbs in an effort to scrape the rider off their back, this horse would step out of the trail to go around a tree - all on his own initiative - if there were low branches.
When I told Sampson about it, he said, “Yes, I know. I told him to take care of you.”
Sampson (the only name I ever knew) took me riding to many interesting places including Wahoo Canyon. This was supposed to have been an outlaw hangout many years ago. Sampson entertained me with stories about it as we rode along. It was beautiful heavily wooded country, and quite a climb until we entered a small box canyon. On passing through it, like passing through the eye of a needle, we saw a lovely flat open meadow, enclosed on all sides by small cliffs. I could see how it would have made an excellent outlaw stronghold.
Another source of enjoyable horseback rides was Opal McCauley, John’s sister.
She watered some of her family’s stock at McCraken’s place and often watered the horses last so she could saddle a couple for the two of us for a ride after I got home from school. We made several longer trips on Saturdays when we went after wild grapes and black walnuts. The walnuts were a special treat and grew in Wahoo Canyon. We carried them home in gunny sacks and gave them to Mary and to Opal’s mother. They used them in cookies and in fudge for our Halloween party at school.