"One time the Santa Fe was having trouble because of competition from other railroads. They were cutting back on hours and wages and laying men off," Aunt Sarah said. "Most of the men in La Junta worked for the railroad so it put everyone in town in a bind.

About this time the city council started hearing complaints from the folks in town about some of the tricks our Justice of the Peace was pulling. He was dipping his hands into funds whenever he had a chance and charging way too much to perform weddings. The councilmen got tired of hearing from the people of La Junta, so they relieved Justice of the Peace Croney of his duties. Some of the councilmen came to Father and asked him if he would take over the job of being Justice of the Peace. Father was Captain of the Home Guard in the war between the States and he had a reputation for being upright and respectable. The Santa Fe had cut his time from 12 to 10 hours a day and lowered his pay so Father saw a chance to earn some extra money and he took the job. He was Justice of the Peace for awhile and then became a Police Judge. He said the job gave him a headache but he kept doing it, so we suspected that he liked settling all those arguments. Since he was used to putting up with our fights he must have felt right at home.

Since the Santa Fe cut Doc's pay so much and they had a whole mess of younguns, he and Amanda had trouble making ends meet. We helped them as much as we could but we were short of money too. Of course Mama always had a big garden and did a lot of canning and storing vegetables in the root cellar so our groceries weren't high.

La Junta was small and every family had a milk cow. Our cow Polly was nearly a member of the family. She had a personality all her own and was a good milker. We had all the milk we wanted to drink. Mama made cottage cheese and butter and we still had milk left over. Polly had quite an appetite. We fed her in an old dish pan and she licked it clean. She ate nearly all our leftovers. Polly liked most everything, potato peelings, corn shucks, pea pods, she was nearly as good a garbage pail as the pigs. One day Polly got ahold of some wild onions and the milk tasted strong. We had to eat onion butter and onion cottage cheese until it was all cleaned up. It didn't taste so good. We had to watch that she didn't get ahold of anymore wild onions.

Polly's home was one of our sheds. Father and the boys had fixed it up real nice for her, they put adobe on the walls and it was warm. No one wanted to clean it, it was a dirty job but we all had to take a turn at cleaning Polly's shed. There was always plenty of manure for Mama's garden.

Polly got lonely, she was a town cow but she wanted the company of others. She would stand at the fence and bawl when she had to stay in town. All the folks in La Junta who had a cow, paid a little to rent pasture from Widow Snyder and they hired a boy to take all the cows to the Snyder place on the outskirts of town.

One day Father came home and told us that the boy who usually took the cows to pasture had another job and since the Millers had more kids than anyone else in town the Council asked Father if any of his kids would like to take the cows out. Father jumped at the chance.

'It's an easy job,' he told Mama. The cows had to be taken out in the morning and then brought back to town in the evening.

'Yes, but who is going to have time to do it?' Mama asked. Oscar and Albert were both helping farmers, so that left me. Girls just didn't do chores like that.

'I was thinking of Doc's boys,' Papa said. 'They could use the money.'

'They're too little,' Mama said and Papa looked at me.

'John could do it if you would help him, Sadie,' Papa said. 'It's good money. It pays $1.00 a week and you could split it. You could earn a little spending money yourself.'

'Oh, Papa,' I moaned. 'It'd be a terrible chore and it's a long walk.'

'Well, take one of the horses,' Papa said. 'John's old enough, if you were with him he could do the work.'

Now even though I would like to have had the money I hadn't been on the horses much and I was scared to ride on one of them with little John all the way out of town.

'I don't think I want to,' I said.

'Nellie's gentle," Father said. I guess he must have read my mind.

'You could do it, Sadie,' Mama said. 'Doc and Amanda have been short of money and this would be a sure help.'

'Taking cows to pasture is for boys.' I was beginning to like the idea but I was afraid some of my friends would see me while I was doing boy's work.

Papa laughed. 'Albert and Oscar would have jumped at the chance when they were your age,' Papa said. 'You've always been able to do anything they did.'

'All right,' I sighed. I was lonely without my two brothers around and the money would come in handy. I was going to miss my book reading time but maybe I could take my books with me.

So Doc's oldest boy, John and I got the chore of taking all the town cows out to pasture. We started the next morning. At first both Nellie and I were a little skittish but soon she settled down and acted like she enjoyed the trip and Polly seemed to like our company.

It was quite a job, I had to go to Doc's house and pick up John, then we rounded up the cows from each home. Thank goodness La Junta was a small town. I never did get a chance to take any books with me, but I didn't miss them. John nearly talked my ears off. It was comfortable riding with my nephew and getting to know him. He thought I was smart because I was an older woman.

Each season brought something new to the prairie. In the springtime the little flowers bloomed and once in awhile a jackrabbit scurried out of our path. In the wintertime the bushes were fringed in white. The plains changed with the seasons and so did the boys. Later we brought B and then it was Sammy's turn. Even after I was older and more dignified once in awhile I'd ride out of town with Sammy just so I could talk to him and see the prairie. "

Writer's note: Sarah Miller was my grandfather's aunt. Her brother Doc Miller was my great grandfather and Sammy was my grandfather. She was called Aunt Sarah by many people in La Junta. Because she lived longer than her parents, her brothers and sisters Aunt Sarah often described herself as the "last leaf on the tree." She lived in the little house that her father and brothers built on First Street in La Junta until she fell and had to go to the hospital.

When she was 94 a blood clot developed and Aunt Sarah's leg was amputated. She went to a nursing home. I started to realize how fast time was passing and when she died her wonderful stories would be gone too. By that time I was a court reporter so I took my stenotype shorthand machine and went to La Junta. There in the nursing home I recorded some of her stories. It was the last time I saw Aunt Sarah. She died on October 21st, 1971 when she was 97.

I have taken her stories and fictionalized them to make them more interesting but have spent hours in the Denver Library and the Colorado State Museum researching the years that she lived. A cousin of mine from Wyoming, Barbara Helwick has sent me the results of an extensive genealogy search she has made into the Miller family.

As I have written these stories I have often felt as if I knew Sarah Miller, not only as an elderly woman but when she was a child. It has been a wonderful experience.

Aunt Sarah had the heart of a servant all her life because she took care of others.