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road just as we started out and a piece of the glass jolted out of the case leaving a good sized hole and we had nothing with which to fix it. The snake struck at the glass cage all the way to Roswell and Bolly war terrified. He was so afraid that it would find the opening but he never did. We finally got to Roswell with him without any mishaps but Bolly said never again would he try such a stunt as that. He said that was the most miserable ride he ever took in his life.
We knew there were places where large sums were paid for such large rattlesnakes and had hoped to find such a place in Roswell, but in this we were disappointed. We found a man who took him off our hands in trade for a small part we needed for our car. The cost of which was only sixty-five cents. So we were hardly paid for our trouble and risk. But we were certainly glad to be rid of him. This risky venture ended so unprofitably that we heartily agreed not to capture any more live rattlesnakes.
Another incident that I will never forget was the time I started out afoot, carrying a bridle with which I intended to catch the saddle horse, which we had borrowed from Bolly’s uncle. Our milk cows had failed to come up the night before and I had to hunt them, as Bolly was busy at something else.
We had no convenient horse pasture; consequently I had to walk about four miles before I found the horse. I will never understand how I caught him as easily as I did since he was generally a little difficult to catch. Besides I was wearing a huge sun hat that was enough to frighten the gentlest horse. I had on an old pair of house shoes as they were low heeled and the most comfortable things I had to walk in.
After I had caught the horse, his name saw “Sox,” I led him to a fence and by climbing up on the fence I managed to mount him. But it wasn’t such a simple matter to stay on him without a saddle. Besides he was a horse that shied at nearly everything he saw. About the time I thought I was sitting fine he would see something, jump sideways and off I would go in the other direction.
The first time this happened I landed in a nice soft bed of sandburs, lost my house shoes and broke off my big toe nail. I got up, picked out the sandburs, found my shoes and tried it again. Each time this happened I led him either alongside a fence or to a little knoll in order to remount him.
The last time I fell off I was only about a half mile from home and was getting a little aggravated, so I just walked in and led old ”Sox” the rest of the way.
Although our home was almost at the jumping off place and no one hardly ever passed by, we were never lonely. We would go either to Roswell to visit my parents or to Portales to visit Bolly’s mother about once every two or three months. Then two or three times a week we would go over to Bolly’s uncle’s ranch after the mail, which was brought out by the school bus. We would usually stay an hour or two and once in awhile we would stay all day and visit or play bridge. Bridge was our main pastime. Although we had no other neighbors that close, we had lots of neighbors and friends within a radius of about twenty miles. After we became pretty well acquainted they all began giving bridge parties for us.
They formed a sort of club and usually had about the same crowd. There were usually four or five tables, they came from twenty, thirty and even as far as fifty miles to attend these parties.