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new rifle. One Saturday afternoon after practicing shooting, he insisted I keep the gun

overnight. I stood the gun behind the door and put the cartridges on top of the bookcase.
That night while sitting on the front porch, we heard a car coming down the dirt road.
The hen yard was located across the road down below the crib and horse lot. The car, a

brand new Ford, drove on by our house. I looked down the road toward the chicken yard,
and saw someone open the hen yard gate.
I ran into the house, got the gun, and' loaded it on my way back.
Ma asked, “What are you going to do?”

I answered, “I’m going to shoot that bastard1!”
About that time an old hen started squawking.
Ma said, “Shoot up into the air—not at the man.”

I pulled the trigger. I’ve never heard a bullet sing through the air like that one did that
night. The guy in the hen house tore down all the fence in the back of the hen yard getting
out of there, and the parked car up the road cranked up and took off so fast that the wheels
kicked back dirt some twenty-five feet.

After that incident, we didn’t have any more chickens stolen—and I knew who owned
the Ford car. No one ever mentioned that episode again in our family.
I became a sharpshooter.

Emerald and Tribble were just about nineteen months apart, so Ma had her work cut
out for her then. She depended on me to do lots of chores, including sweeping up leaves.
One fall day, after Emerald was bom, I was helping Ma sweep the yards. As she raked

up the leaves, I piled them up over a rail fence in the field so that we could bum them. When
Ma had to go inside to feed Emerald, she asked if I could bum the leaves that I had piled in
the field—without burning myself.

“Oh Yes! I could do that easily! No problem!”
She fed Emerald, and I got the matches. I dropped the first match that I struck into the
fold on the chest of my starched dress. The more I tried to knock the match off me, the more

I was fanning it—and the bigger the flame grew.
I got scared and started screaming and running. After Ma heard me screaming, she
probably surmised what had happened. She ran toward me, shouting not to run. Heck, my

feet wouldn’t stay still! My clothes had burned through and my flesh was burning.

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