"Folks in La Junta talked about the hard winter of '85 for many a year," Aunt Sarah told us. "It started early. It turned colder than usual in September and the tomatoes were still in the garden.

'I think we're in for an early winter,' Mama said.

'I read in the Tribune that the old timers say it's liable to be a bad winter,' Papa said.

The town had a newspaper now, the La Junta Tribune. James Denny bought an old army press and set up shop in the same Pullman that was used as the Santa Fe freight depot. My father was proud of La Junta and he was pleased to have a town newspaper. He liked to read. Subscriptions cost $1.00 a month and that was a heap of money but Papa said now he could find out what was going on and didn't have to hang around the pool hall. I was glad we had a newspaper too. I was good in grammar and could read about what was happening in town without having to depend on my brothers to tell me all the latest chatter. There was some good stuff in those papers. Not long after Mr. Denny started putting out the La Junta Tribune there was trouble between the cattlemen and the homesteaders over something Mr. Denny wrote in the paper. I didn't understand what it was but it was exciting because Sheriff Ben Mixon, who was a cattleman, punched Mr. Denny in the nose. Guess it didn't put him out of business because the Tribune is still carrying all the news in the county.

'I better get the tomatoes in before we have a freeze,' Mama said. She had worked powerfully hard on the garden and it supplied most of our food.

By that afternoon the wind had come up and it was starting to rain. 'We better get those tomatoes picked,' she said as she tied a scarf around her hair. 'You kids come on.' We picked every tomato on the vines, both the green ones and the red ones. That rain was so cold my teeth were chattering but Mama wouldn't let us stop until every tomato was picked. Mama said those tomatoes were pure gold.

After that we had to wrap the green ones in paper. We used some of Papa's old newspapers to wrap the tomatoes in so they wouldn't rot. He went through the papers and picked out pages for us to use. Father never threw away a newspaper and was I glad later that winter.

After we wrapped the greenest tomatoes Mama went to work canning tomatoes and making chow-chow. She kept me busy peeling them for her. That rain soon turned to snow and it piled up.

The old timers were right, it was a tough winter.

We were in the new Lincoln school now and that Christmas our school program went off without a hitch. There was so much more room all the kids must have known they had to do their best. We were hoping for snow for Christmas and we cheered when it started snowing on Christmas Eve. I had learned to knit that year and I made a warm scarf for Mama. We got just about the best surprise that Christmas, it came by train. Every year Grandma and Grandpa Miller sent a box all the way from Missouri. I still remember how excited we were when we opened those boxes and saw the oranges and nuts and candy. That year there was a package all wrapped up and printed on it was a note that said, "For all of you." When we opened the package it was one of those new inventions called a Stereoscope. It seemed like those brothers of mine always hogged that Stereoscope and I never got enough time to look at the pictures. Those pictures looked so real it seemed like I was standing in a different place.

A few days after Christmas it started snowing again and the snow kept coming down for several days. Father was working out on the tracks away from town. Frank and Sam were in the railroad yards and after they went to work one morning we didn't see any of them for several days. It snowed and just kept on snowing and we didn't think it was ever going to stop. That snow didn't look near as good as it had on Christmas Eve. My brothers and I tramped out to the barn. It wasn't really a barn, it was more of a shed, but it kept our horse and cow and the chickens warm and dry out of the snow. We had to put on several layers of clothes to keep warm while we were doing chores and there were wet outfits hanging on every nail.

The wind blew the snow in so Mama had to stuff rags around the windows. It was snug and comfortable around our wood stove but as soon as you got away from it boy was it cold. We had to keep carrying in more wood and coal.

Finally one morning the sun popped out and did it look good. The wind had died down in the night and the snow stopped but it was piled so high we couldn't open either door. Albert loosened one of the windows and he and Oscar climbed out and shoveled the snow away from the door so we could get it opened. It took them all day to dig a path to the barn. The animals were mighty hungry by that time.

School was closed for a spell and at first I enjoyed the vacation. Albert and Oscar were busier so I had more time to look at those grand pictures in the new Stereoscope. After chores were done I could play, but it didn't take long for that to get tiresome. I loved to read but books were scarce and I got tired of reading the big Bible even if it did have some good pictures. I read all the old La Junta Tribunes until I practically memorized them.

I wanted to play school but Oscar and Albert thought that was silly.

'Why do you want to play school?' Oscar asked.

'I miss school,' I answered.

'Well, I don't miss it.' He and Albert thought they were too old for such things, so I was by myself and I was lonesome for my school friends. We were isolated and I couldn't get to Mary Jane's house. Mama wouldn't even let me try and I began feeling mighty bleak.

I missed Papa and Frank and even missed Sam. The house seemed quiet without them. The night that Frank and Sam finally got home I almost hugged them to death. They said they had been working nearly 'round the clock digging out trains. Food had been hard to come by. Mama hurried around and put supper on the table and they sat down and ate like a couple of starving pigs.

Father didn't come home until a couple of days later and when he did he had plenty to tell. The train he was on got stalled between La Junta and Pueblo and they had to dig their way out.

'Sheriff Mixon lost a bunch of horses and most of his cattle,' Papa said. Sheriff Mixon was just about the richest man around La Junta. 'Everywhere you look there are dead cows on the prairie.'

'I guess this snow's hard on everyone,' Mama said.

'Mixon's hired hands are breaking the ice so the cattle can have water to drink,' Papa said.

'Yeah,' Sam agreed. 'I heard they had a bunch of cows the other day that drank too much and froze to death in the open.'

I sure was glad that we had a barn for our horse and cow to sleep in. And I was so happy when school finally started again so we could get back to normal.

But things didn't get back to normal for a long time because the snows kept coming all the rest of the winter. The La Junta Tribune said that Sheriff Mixon lost $12,000 worth of cattle and a bunch of horses. I got tired of tramping through snow to get to school that year.

After that harsh winter there were a heap of poor folks around La Junta. I had always wished we lived on a farm so I could ride horses and run free but that year I was glad my father and brothers worked for the Santa Fe Railroad so we had plenty to eat.

It was the next spring when the Marks family moved into a shack across the alley from our house. It was a little two room place and there were kids running all over. They had a passel of kids, I never was able to count them, I think they had more than us and they were all little. I liked having new neighbors and soon became friends with Fanny Marks even if she was three years younger than me. Her father, Ned Marks had worked as a cowhand for Sheriff Mixon but now he was out of work and they were poor as dirt.

Ned Marks wasn't around much and I heard whispering that he was hanging around the pool halls. His misses took in washing. She was a little skinny thing and Mama said she always had a hungry look about her.

Mama felt sorry for them, she gave them vegetables out of her garden and we used to sell the left over milk to them. Mama would have given them milk but Mrs. Marks insisted on paying us. We took pieces of paste board and cut it out in little squares and they would say "Good for one quart of milk." We almost gave them the milk because they were so poor and they didn't have much. We were supposed to sell them twenty quarts of milk for a dollar, but sometimes we would give them extra tickets.

One day Mama saw one of the boys coming over and she says 'It looks like that dollars' worth of tickets that we sold them is lasting a long time.' The boy got there and Mama says 'That last dollars' worth of tickets that we sold you, isn't that nearly gone?'

He says, 'Gosh, they have been gone a long time, but we have been making more.' I guess the kids were trying to help their Ma stretch the grocery money.