xt7rr49g5w3k https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7rr49g5w3k/data/mets.xml The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. 1933 bulletins  English The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Frontier Nursing Service Quarterly Bulletins The Quarterly Bulletin of The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc., Vol. VIII, No. 4, Spring 1933 text The Quarterly Bulletin of The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc., Vol. VIII, No. 4, Spring 1933 1933 2014 true xt7rr49g5w3k section xt7rr49g5w3k ` ¤7` "’ ' W 7 - V V I 7 rr V `A > V
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 2

 A Fizoiwiizia Nuasmo sizavicia 1
i "ROUNDS" IN EIGHT DAYS
3 Cree by
O? INIARY BRECKINRIDGE
ig SUNDAY
\·x°(_%’
<(,\"` Dogwood winter. In March we have a "sarvice winter;"
j in May, a brief "blackberry winter;" but the cold weather in
H {O April is "dogwood winter," because it comes when the dogwood
He " ; is in bloom.
  My nrst "Rounds" since I broke my back seventeen months
@6, ago, just after "Rounds." Over eighty miles of horseback
i travel and the doctor’s permission to ride. The spring of the
year. Eight days in the saddle, with a different nursing center
DEN i every night. Old trails, old friends. Nurses, neighbors, horses
jb ‘ and dogs everywhere.
Q  l The first day’s ride is only five miles down the Middle Fork
  l of the Kentucky River from Wendover to our own hospital at
  1 Hyden. Below Wendover’s log houses, in their setting of beech
  i trees and wild flowers, winds the trail. Everybody is out to see
  _ us off, and our indefatigable senior courier, "Pebble" Stone, is
  , my escort to Hyden. I am riding little Carminettie, a steady,
># . l . . . .
  safe pony, suited to the kind of back which still needs a steel
    brace, but a little slight for the fords. She makes the rapids
  BQ l through Muncy’s ford steadily, however, and at a "plantation"
or "running" walk Pebble and I and the two horses ride easily
  down to the County Seat of Hyden. High above the village.
[__ ° stands the stone hospital of the Frontier Nursing Service, built
  in memory of two Louisville women (Mary Ballard Morton
XJ   c and Mary Parker Gill), on the slopes of Thousand Sticks
  1 :» Mountain.
  ~ The hospital is intensely busy. Three cases of acute ap-
  pendicitis have been brought in during the past ten days—two
 y by stretcher and one by boat twelve miles up the river. I went
E into the men’s ward to see the boat patient, Bige, a boy of ten,
j and to give him a Japanese trick box sent down by a friend *
? from New York. If you open it one way you have a nickel, if
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you open it the other way the nickel is effectively concealed.  
Bige is captivated and says "it will pleasure him always." One l
of the patients, an old friend, is desperately ill, with two special  _
nurses. One of our own nurses, "Harry," is abed from an J
emergency operation,—-one of many following old shrapnel I
wounds received in the War. Three women showed me their  
new babies. I had a long talk with Amanda, one of our standbys
for seven years, whose confinements are always difficult. Since  
it was Easter day and her baby was due, I suggested to her `
that it would be nice if it came that night so I could see it
before I rode on my way. Mandy was most obliging. A few
hours later Betty, the midwifery supervisor, came smiling to I
me with the news that "Mary" was on the way and that things
were going well. At nine that night, while the doctor and Mac I
and I were talking, Betty, in white from head to foot, and I
wreathed with smiles, looked in to whisper, "not Mary, but
. Marius, has come, and everything is fine." Before I climbed I
into bed that night I slipped into the ward to greet Mandy’s »
little Easter son.
MONDAY .
All through the night it kept raining and when morning
came we faced the problem of how I was to get down to the g
- Possum Bend nursing center at Confluence, a distance of about I
twelve miles by river, but longer and harder and rougher over
the ridges and through the heads of the creeks. Four times ,
the river must be forded to get down to Confluence. The mean- {
-est ford, although not the deepest, is at the mouth of Betty’s I
Branch, near .Iudy’s Whirlpool. One of our friends with a phone  
connection lives by this ford. First he telephoned that it could
be crossed and that he would go over with us. Then, just as we ·
were riding off, he telephoned that the river had passed fording. , *
We debated. Finally, my assistant director, "Texas," now my ·
A escort, and I decided to ride over Thousand Sticks Mountain, `
cross Bull Creek, ride down it four miles, cross the gap over the
next mountain, to Hell-fer-Certain, and ride down Hell-fer-
Certain to the river and then on down the bank of the river to I
the Possum Bend center on the same side. It meant about six-
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l teen miles of hard riding——nothing to Texas, but a big effort for
l me. So we made a "soon start" and Lassie and Carminettie -
_ travelled well. Up in the head of Bull Creek one of our good
l friends, Em Shepherd, joined us. He said he would ride all the
p way to the mouth of Hell-fer-Certain, because the last "tide"
had shifted the quicksand and he wanted to get us safely by.
Both Bull Creek and Hell-fer-Certain were roaring torrents, the
I muddy waters covering the ugly stones and deep pools.
We travelled slowly but pushed steadily on and, in the late
afternoon, came down onto the backwaters of the swollen Middle
Fork, at the mouth of Hell—fer-Certain. Through the mist and
T gathering dusk we glimpsed the horizon blue uniform of the
_ Frontier Nursing Service and saw "Dunny" plowing upstream
to meet us and guide us around the quicksand. Em refused to
"stay the night." He wanted to ride back towards home until
dark and stop with someone midway. So Dunny, on Bobby, led
i the way. Texas followed on Lassie, and little Carminettie and I
brought up the rear. We struggled through the mouth of the
creek and the backwaters of the river around the quicksands,
and then climbed a narrow trail against which the river was
washing. This led on to the road, and less than an hour’s easy
T riding brought us to the white house and green shutters of the
nursing center at Confluence.
, There all was warmth and dryness and welcome. "Marshie,"
, the other nurse, and "Pepper" the bull dog, ran out to help us
unsaddle the horses and lead us in to the big fire in the living
, room and the supper, which local friends had been invited to
  share with us. We sat over the fire until late, talking about all
{ the happenings at Possum Bend, and especially the building of
  the new clinic on Grassy Branch, in which all of the local people
l were taking part. Since Possum Bend is the gift of a Cleveland
. woman, Mrs. Chester Bolton, they had called the new clinic the
,» Cleveland Clinic on Grassy Branch, and some of the Cleveland
T doctors were sending down supplies for it. About forty men
‘ had offered their services to get the logs out and to work on the
construction. It was to be built of logs, with the roof of
"boards," on hand-hewn oak shingles, on a donated site, about
g five miles from the nursing center, at the head of Grassy (
T Branch, in a most responsive district.
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TUESDAY  
The rain stopped in the night and the river eased down a i
bit. Soon after breakfast one of the Frontier Nursing Service ;
volunteer couriers, Frances, rode in from Bowlingtown way, i
with a six-year-old boy on the ponnnel of her saddle. He had .
stuffed peas in his ears and she had gone down to bring him in {
to our doctor at the hospital. She reported the Shoal ford, be- .1
tween Confluence and Bowlingtown, as barely passable. After  I
a little rest and lunch she started on the twelve-mile ride up the
river to Hyden, with small Jem balanced neatly in front. A week
later I learned how she got through. Jem was taken across the
river in a boat by an obliging mountaineer and Frances, relieved l
of her precious responsibility, swam her horse easily across. i
Eventually she had to leave the river and follow the upland, .
roundabout trails we had taken. Just as Texas and I were start- `
ing off, Dunny was called across the river to see eight-year-old
Lennie Hunt, who had just broken his leg. The father came for '
her in a boat and she gathered splints and bandages together and
hurried out. A week later we heard the end of this adventure,
too. When the river had subsided he was carried on horseback
to the hospital at Hyden. A day later the doctor relayed him  
over 200 miles by motor and train to our good friends at the A
Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati, who never refuse a mountain
child. Lennie stood all the long trip gallantly, only asking now
_ and then, "Is it a fur piece?" The x-rays were taken, the leg
was set and will soon be serviceable again.
Meanwhile, Texas and I were well on our way towards the _
nursing center at Bowlingtown, in another county, further down l
the Middle Fork. We crossed a mountain garlanded in redbud  
and dogwood and the tender green of young leaves. Through a é
sort of watery sunshine we could see "a fur piece" the windings I
. of the river and the little homes nestled here and there. Then ‘·
we came down on Elkhorn Creek and travelled to its mouth and ,
the terrible Shoal Ford. Frances had crossed it with Jem that —'|¤
morning. The river was not much higher. We knew we could
get over. But it is no joke to cross the worst ford on the river,
when the rapids are galloping madly, the waters are angry and i
dark, and the big rocks concealed—j ust before it passes the ford-  
ing point.  
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  At the mouth of Elkhorn, where the swollen creek mingled
l with the backwaters of the river, we again saw the blue uniform
, of the Frontier Nursing Service. "Bucket" was coming to meet
3 us and to see us safely across. Like us she was cloaked and
hooded in the great raincoats we have copied from the Canadian
` Mounted Police. We exchanged brief greetings with the waters
  up to our horses’ bellies, and then she led the way on Dixie. Car-
  minettie and I followedjand Texas and Lassie brought up the
‘ rear. We travelled about 500 yards down the river, near the left
bank, then Bucket turned and slowly started across. The horses
hardly seemed to move. They picked their way step by step in
. the rocky bottom. The waters lashed against their legs and tore
madly past. I thought of the young courier, with Jem on the
A pommel of her saddle, and wondered how often our guardian
I angels saw us through. Dixie and Lassie travelled superbly, the
current bearing them down ever so little. Carminettie felt it
, more. Twice her legs swayed beneath her, but she didn’t stum-
ble. With her little head up she finally made the far shore. After
that it was easy riding to the lovely nursing center on the hill-
side, the Margaret Durbin Harper, gift of Mrs. Hiram Sibley
of Rochester, with its great oak barn whitewashed, shiny and
I clean. The horses had a good rub down and were turned out on
the pasture for an hour’s grazing before the "edge of dark." I
Bucket’s housekeeper dished us up a wonderful feed, with all
sorts of spring greens and a roast guinea off the place as the
piece de resistance.
  WEDNESDAY
i It was just as well we had planned on a second day at Bowl-
1 ingtown, to give my tired back a rest, for it rained again and the
‘· river rose past fording. There was plenty of time for a tour of
, inspection of the place, to discuss the work, and to see the babies
—’¤ that came to the morning clinic. One adorable infant had been
I named Marmaduke, in honor of a surgeon on the outside. Two
superb babies, Eva and Reva, were living testimonials of
i Bucket’s child hygiene program. That night we had a big din-
Z ner and committee meeting. At the close we discussed our next 4
l day’s travel over the swollen river. Committee chairmen in the
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mountains assume certain obligations calculated to confound our ._
chairmen in the cities outside. Burt Gilbert said he would get
us across the Bowlingtown Ford the next day dry-shod. By way l
of contrast I might add that a ford like the Shoal, just above {
furious rapids, and very rocky, can only be crossed if the horses
walk across it. When the river rises too much for that it is past 5
fording. Nothing can swim, and if one attempted it one would 1
just be washed down. The Bowlingtown Ford, on the other  
hand, is deep and quiet. One can swim it in anything but a high
"tide." Q
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THURsDAY Q
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The morning found us down by the ford with Burt and two  
other friends and a boat. Our chairman sprang on Lassie. An- ~
other friend took Carminettie, and a third loaded us and our
saddlebags in the boat. As we paddled slowly across we saw
Lassie plunge in, walk a few steps and then settle into long, easy
strokes. Little Carminettie, short—legged, had to swim from the
moment she left one shore until she reached the other. She did
it gracefully, and looked like a Newfoundland dog with her black
coat and neck stretched up above the water.
We met the whole Bowling family on the other side and
were invited to a wedding and a big dinner at 11 o’clock. Their
· rambling old house is surrounded by trees and shrubs, among
them some quaint and curious ones from the far South that
Manuel Bowling has collected. He showed them to us and told
us how he brought the Cape Jasmine indoors every winter to
keep it from freezing, and what he did for the cactus. Then we
went into the big room where his daughter and her fourth cou-
sin, of the same name, were sitting side by side, in front of a
young preacher. The family and friends gathered around and  ·
the ceremony began. "Stand on your feet and join your hands,"  
said the preacher. The young girl, rosy-cheeked, and the young  ’
man with a shock of yellow hair, arose and clasped hands. "Will
you take her and cleave to her and cherish her as long as you
both live?" asked the preacher. "I will," answered the boy.
* Then the preacher turned to the girl. "Will you take him and
T cleave to him and cherish him as long as you live‘?" "I will,"

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v_ she answered. After that he pronounced them man and wife.
Her married sisters kissed the girl affectionately and the whole
J family moved into another room, where a splendid dinner graced
l a long table. We began with chicken and sausages and ended
with enormous white and yellow iced cakes. A lot of fun passed
li around at the expense of the bride’s older unmarried sister. "She
 l would have to dance in a hog trough," they said, as that was the
. custom when a girl let her younger sister marry ahead of her.
  Soon afterwards we rode away, up Leatherwood Creek,
i across a mountain, down Panco towards Bullskin. We had leis-
i ure to observe the good work done on the county roads through
A the wise handling of unemployment relief funds. Hundreds of
g men are back in the mountains from the mines and the railroads,
l and even the manufacturing towns, without work, without land,
“ cows, hogs, chickens, anything. The work relief system gives
them a meager, but assured, livelihood and stretches a trail here
and there, properly drained and widened, with mud holes filled `
in. The work relief also repaired our hospital wall, and roads
and drains at several centers.
Bullskin is a most delectable creek, with broad fertile fields,
unusual in our section, creating a green and smiling valley. The
apple trees were in blossom as we left the forest behind us and
rode down through comfortable homesteads towards our nursing
center at Brutus, arriving just in time for a meeting of the
splendid Brutus Committee. Although this nursing center (The
Belle Barrett Hughitt Memorial, the gift of Chicago friends) is
only two years old, the grounds were in beautiful condition, the
pasture well grassed, the shrubs flourishing, the young orchard
beginning to bloom. The nurses, Lois and Jean, came running
out to meet us, like the words of the mountain ballad, "We’ll all
go out to meet her when she comes," followed by their dogs, and
 ‘ by little Kola, Brutus housekeeper since first the center was dedi-
 , cated. Again we rubbed down the tired horses and turned them
 ’ into pasture. Several hours later, after our committee members
F had left, we gathered around a fire for long conversations.
For the first time I saw the Florence VVilliams Memorial
Library, given to Brutus, by a Cincinnati friend, and the records
of how constantly the books were borrowed, how faithfully and
in what good condition they were returned. Favorites, among

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young and old, were Ben Hur, The Tale of Two Cities, Lind- I
bergh’s We, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Bible ,
Stories, animal stories and Western tales. y
The night passed unbroken by calls for the nurses, and early
the next morning we rode off for Red Bird in a blazing sun. i_.
FRIDAY  
The usual road from Brutus to Red Bird leads over one of
the steepest mountains in creation, known as the "Flatwoods,"
and then down Little Jack’s Creek to Red Bird River, and up the
_ river to the mouth of Big Creek, and the nursing center a mile
beyond. We made the first mountain and, coming down on Lit-
tle Jack’s and learning that Red Bird River was still in an angry
state, we decided to avoid the fords by crossing the next moun-
tain, to come down on Big Creek by way of Granny’s Branch. So
we turned up a fork of Little Jack’s and picked our way slowly .
up the stream. This was new territory to Texas and me, and ,
what was our delight to find in the cabin at the head of the fork t
Mrs. Cad Hensley, a patient brought to the hospital some two ;
months before for the removal of a six-pound cyst, and returned
to her remote abode on a litter. We hailed each other with de-
i light and Texas and I lingered to talk with her and her husband,
out plowing the steep hillside. Then her daughter, Nellie, T
· ruddy-cheeked and in overalls, volunteered to act as our guide
across the gap to the head of Granny’s Branch. We wound up
and across through a glorious country, heavy with the odor of .
wild plum, white with the bloom of dogwood, rosy with redbud,
and sprinkled with great yellow patches of mustard gone to seed.
Sometimes we heard the note of the thrush, sometimes we saw
the cardinal and his mate.
Near an abandoned site, where the home had burned, we li 
passed an old apple orchard, hoary but still lovely, by the ruined  T
chimney. Such a sequestered and almost inaccessible spot would {·
have suited an ancient hermit. Gushing springs came out of L
the side of the mountain and tore down to join the branch. The
, branch was racing to Little Jack’s Creek, Little Jack’s rushing
it in its turn to Red Bird River. Red Bird, tempestuous and rapid
i meets Goose Creek and becomes the South Fork; and the South

 1
§ Faonrma Nuasmc srzavxcm 9
l Fork, eighty odd miles further on, in Lee County, joins with the
  Middle Fork and the North Fork, to form the Kentucky. The
‘ Kentucky, gathering in all these Appalachian waters, moves
‘ towards the Ohio, and then the Ohio sweeps on to the Missis-
sippi, with its majestic march down to the sea. These little
if springs, this tiny branch, were all tributaries of that mighty
 » system. The continuity———the unity—the swift passing. We felt
; a part of it as we reined in for a moment where the springs
came out of the mountainside, near the old apple orchard by the
ruined chimney.
Granny’s Branch is rocky. Granny’s Branch is rough. The
sun was well past the meridian as we rode down into the village
of Big Creek and on to the trail up Red Bird River. Soon we l
saw the nursing center ahead of us, set high on the side of the
mountain above the windings of the river, and with an American
flag flying from its roof in honor of the day.
_ The Clara Ford Center on Red Bird, gift of a generous friend
j in Detroit, is a rambling log house of exceptional beauty, with
l its "blossom patch," its thriving young orchard, a beautiful pas-
; ture, and woodland white with dogwood. We rode over a new
bridge across the branch and dismounted at the great oak barn,
freshly whitewashed. "John," the nurse in charge, with
"Randy" at her heels, met us, smiling and wide awake although
T she had spent the last night on a delivery. She helped us unsad-
dle our mounts and turn them into pasture. Then she told us
about the new bridge. The old one was beginning to rot. As we
. have no money even for essential repairs, the mountaineers had
a "working" and put up a new bridge with donated timber. The
labor in whitewashing the barn had been given by fathers in
payment of midwifery fees, since money is as scarce this year as
hen’s teeth. All the nursing centers we visited were well kept
<,‘  up. All of the nurses were as smiling and gay as John, although
 j they had come through a hard winter of rain and snow and
l_ "tides" on a bare maintenance level only. We are often asked
e how we have kept going through the depression. That is how.
We had arrived at Red Bird just in time for the committee
meeting. A huge dinner was set out in the dispensary waiting
room, and while we got out of our riding clothes into mufti the
committee drifted in on mules and afoot. First, we sat down to

 . 10 THE QUARTERLY BuLLE·r1N
the dinner, of chicken and sausages, fresh greens and onions
and potatoes, preserves donated by members of the committee-
all delightfully cooked, all homemade or home grown. Only the
coffee and the sugar were "fotched on." The cream was so
thick it had to be served with a spoon. I noticed, in travelling
from center to center, a real diference in the condition of the v
nurses who had cows and those who depended on the scanty
amount of available milk they could get from neighbors. At  
Bowlingtown, Red Bird, and Flat Creek, the nurses were rosy
and blooming, with plenty of fresh milk, butter and cream. At
the other centers we were greeted with smiles as gallant but
from paler faces. From this I formed a resolution that, depres-
sion or no depression, every nursing center should have its cow.
Our committee met on the broad veranda overlooking the
river. When the members had gone, John and Texas and I gath-
ered in the living room——a charming place in which John has
lived for so long that it has the touches of the real homemaker.
Books fill the shelves by the chimney. Knitting lies on the table.
On the wall hangs a painting by a local woman, with no lessons
in art but a born talent. The desk is of solid walnut, hand
planed by a local man trained at Berea. The linen cloths on the ` `
homemade walnut dining table, like the bedroom rugs, were
woven on a hand loom at Big Creek by a woman taught at the
same excellent institution.
SATURDAY
Our ride next day up Red Bird River to the Caroline Butler
Atwood Center, near the river, at the mouth of Flat Creek, was
uneventful except that Texas stopped off to see a sick baby for
John, and that we lingered here and there to chat with an occa-
sional old friend. Red Bird had lost its muddy, angry look, and  
although the fords were still deep they were passable——even the
long ford that wanders a quarter of a mile up river, where the Q
only safe travel lies in the avoidance of banks on both sides.
About a mile below the Atwood Center we again saw the blue
1 uniform of the Frontier Nursing Service as Peggy rode to wel-
U come us with smiles and a general look of physical well-being
I that I attributed to Arabella, her cow. We hadn’t ridden far,

 Faonrma Nuasimc; snnvicisz 11
however, before an expectant father came down the trail on his ‘
mule—his anxious face wreathed in anything but smiles, and
Peggy dashed off with him. We followed more slowly, fording
the river for the seventh time that day, turned up the mouth of
Flat Creek and rode in through the pull gate to the grounds of
v the Atwood Center. Peggy had already caught her midwifery
bags and gone on with the expectant father; but Minnie, her
ll housekeeper, and Bogie, the dog, came out to help us. The horses
were soon on grass and we walked slowly up the path, through
Peggy’s flowers and shrubbery, towards the house. Peggy has
a loving touch with flowers, and the grounds were blooming.
There was just time to change into mufti before the com-
, ·mittee began to arrive for its quarterly meeting. We carried
on without Peggy, first with the dinner in the dispensary wait-
ing room and then with the business of the meeting. A row of
mules stood hitched outside the pull gate. Mrs. Reve Sizemore
came five miles, with her little boy pickaback behind her, to take
her husband’s place, because he, one of our early devoted com-
mittee members, had been shot in a personal feud two months
before. She thought she knew who shot him because she knew
` ` the people who wanted to shoot him. But he had said to her
once, "Nancy, if they get me I don’t want you to go about ‘law-
ing} That won’t bring me back. Just stay home and raise the
children." There are five children, three girls and two boys,
the oldest twelve years and the youngest ten months. "Where
did you get your big hat?" asked someone of her little son,
Jimmy, almost extinguished under a large black felt. "Hit was
pappy’s," he answered happily and then ran down to see which
mule had broken loose and to tie it up again. I had a few mo-
ments quiet talk with Mrs. Sizemore. There is no school near
enough for the children to get an education. The neighbors are
3 helping her get in her crop; but she has no cow. One could tell
that by looking at Jimmy, who is two years undersize. She spoke
Q with decision and without bitterness. I knew that our social
service director could help her, and told Mrs. Sizemore that she
would call in the course of the spring.
~ Near the "edge of dark" when everybody was leaving,
Peggy came back from her maternity case. She brought the
mail with her. This was Saturday. The Wednesday Lexington

 ‘ 12 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN I
Herald was our latest printed news of the outside world. I had I 
seen the Tuesday paper on Friday at Red Bird. I couldn’t read
Peggy’s copy until we dried it in front of the fire, as the mail -
bags got wet coming through the deep fords. Peggy has, how-  
ever, two other connections with the world outside. One is the
E forest ranger telephone service, recently put through, to Red i
Bird. She and John have a little talk over it every night when A
the wires aren’t blown down by storm. The other is the radio. r
Several of the centers have radios, gifts of a St. Louis friend.
Of course, they aren’t always working because the batteries have Y
to go long distances on muleback to be re-charged. But Peggy’s
was in good order and we listened to New York to hear what .
had happened on Saturday-after having read in the wet paper _
Wednesday’s news. ·
There followed our long conversations over the fire. Out
of her narrow maintenance Peggy had saved the money to buy
a swarm of bees and was setting up a "bee gum" in her garden.
The honey, added to Arabella’s cream, would, I felt sure, neces-
sitate an alteration in Peggy’s uniform. After we shut off the
radio, the outer world faded into its true distance and our own
world fell into its right proportions. These we all of us pro-
nounced good.
SUNDAY
’ Our next trail lay up Bowen’s Creek. Texas was thrilled to
meet a smiling young woman in a print frock, on a mule, with a `
fat baby on the p