We had survived the separation in fine shape up until the last day before Mother returned. Father had some unfinished business with a man in the country and thought he would just run out and finish it up while it was still on his mind. We locked the house as usual by bolting the back door and putting the night lock on the front. We weren't gone very long only about an hour. As we turned in the lane on our return, a strange sight met our eyes. The washing machine, which had just been purchased, was lying side down on the lawn. It gave us an eerie feeling. We continued into the house. The curtains had been yanked from the rods. The typewriter, pens, everything moveable was gone from the desk. Clothes, towels, even furniture, had been moved. We left things just as they were. Father went for the sheriff, leaving Knolyn his pistol. We were two scared kids, standing there in the dark room afraid the thieves might come back and hoping they would so we could just get a shot at them. The sheriff came out the next morning, walked over the place, and left without saying anything. I believe he had so many murders to solve at the time that he didn't have time for one little robbery that took nearly everything we owned. When I arrived home from school the next day, I found Mother, Paul, Esther, and a stranger a huge police dog large enough that one would need to own a stockyard to feed him standing in the middle of the front room, not certain as to what to do. I broke the news to them as gently as possible under the circumstances. Mother hadn't had a very successful trip and that was just about more than she could take all in one blow. She had nearly recovered from the shock when, a couple of days later, she was looking all over the house for the vacuum cleaner. When she realized it was no place to be found, she sat down in the middle of everything and wept. She finally got her way and we moved to Pueblo. The move was successfully accomplished and, as were all the other moves, was made during the summer months so it wouldn't be necessary to change schools in the middle of the year. One of my out-of-town friends gave me a dozen banty chickens. I patched up a rundown chicken coop in the backyard for them. One night a skunk or dog got into the hen house and devoured all but one of my pets. The one left was probably ignored because of her size. She wouldn't have made a good mouthful for any animal. She had a lot of character though. I presented her with twelve large white eggs which I hoped would turn into twelve healthy chicks. She sat on those eggs religiously until one day I found myself the proud owner of ten yellow bits of chirping fuzz. At about the same time Knolyn traded a bike which he had dug out of the junk yard for two white mice. In due time their cage was literally swarming with tiny pinkish-white creatures which in our eyes were amazing weapons for getting even with neighbor kids for all the wrongs they had done us. We invited them over to see our white mice. Out of natural curiosity they accepted the invitation. We took them in one by one. When a child reached the point where he thought it might be nice to hold one between thumb and forefinger, we opened the cage and carefully and deliberately placed mice in his hair, on his neck, and in his sleeves. Naturally the mice couldn't stay still long. They were active enough, especially when they found themselves out of the confines of the cage. Suddenly panic would grip the child and he would make for the door screaming wildly and flinging mice from his person. We watched in an abstract manner, feeling a little sorry for a person who didn't love animals. One child rushed home babbling madly about mice, and his parents, thinking he was running a temperature, called a doctor. When the real story finally got out, Knolyn made another trade. This time he had nineteen mice to trade the mother and eighteen little ones. He couldn't bear to part with the big dad rat, however. He turned him loose in the yard and let him forage for himself. I might add he kept the stray cats from around the place. Once he got into an argument with a long-haired yellow, prize-winning cat owned by the Kebbel family next door, and did considerable damage. The cat was a sorry sight with tufts of fur missing and one eye badly swollen. The Kebbels got their revenge though. They fixed it so we had to get rid of King, our police dog. I admit he didn't like the paperboy and tried to bite his leg every evening. He was a ferocious appearing animal but he had a heart as big as his whole body. We finally grew tired of the mutterings of the neighbors and found a home for King. When I came down with scarlet fever the city insisted that we be quarantined for three weeks. Knolyn was resentful since he was striving for a scholarship in high school and felt he couldn't miss that much school and make the grade. Consequently, Dad and Knolyn moved across town into a makeshift shack and came home several nights a week. They parked the car down the block and sneaked in the back way like two thieves in the night. The Kebbels were on their toes, as all good citizens should be, and one evening when they saw these two shadows disappearing through the door, they called the health officer. When he came to tell us about it the next day, of course we had to tell him that the Kebbels were subject to hallucinations and insanity ran in the family. We didn't stay in Pueblo very long. Dad was transferred to the east end of the valley. This time the town was smaller than usual, consisting of nine hundred people nine hundred and four when we arrived. Our family had, by this time, reduced in size to four. Kedreth, Paul and Knolyn were in Washington, D. C, learning the bakery trade from the ground up. Our lives were certainly not without mishap while we lived in Holly. The very first summer, we received word that the rest of the family was tired of Washington and wanted to come home. They arrived soon afterward, bag and baggage. Now we had ten at the table every meal. Kedreth had married and increased his family by one. Paul had also taken a wife. We put up two army cots, one for Esther and one for me. It wasn't too bad since it was summer, but one night the town's one telephone operator phoned frantically telling us to get out of the house and on high ground, since the dam had burst and the flood would soon be upon us. We took the car, a lantern, some food, and blankets. All ten of us got in the car, and Father took us to a scale-house out of the way of danger. It wasn't a very exciting flood for us, as the water eased only an inch from the front door and then receded. The next morning when we came back to our house the dust was blowing again. I suppose that was one of the outstanding things about Southern Colorado during that period. One Sunday afternoon of a particularly beautiful summer day, we were out in the yard freezing some ice cream. The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and not a leaf was stirring on the trees. Suddenly someone looked toward the west and shouted, "Grab the stuff! Here comes a roller!" By the time we had picked up the few things lying around and made our way into the house, the storm was upon us. Until just the moment it struck I stood in the yard and watched. It was fascinating in all its destructive splendor. As far as the eye could see to west there was a dark, forbidding pall. It looked as though someone had scrawled penmanship whirligigs into the sky and they had all united to form a vast wall of dirt. It crept along, blotting out the light as it came. Suddenly hell broke loose; like a thousand demons the wind whipped the tree leaves into shreds. Great branches cracked and fell. It was as black as night and even electric lights made only a sickly yellow glare in the dust-filled room. Only by wetting pieces of cloth and pressing them to our nostrils could we even hope to breathe. Night fell, and not a sign of relief did we see. It rained that night and it was three hours before the mud gave way to clear air. Time passed swiftly and I developed out of short hair and pig fat into young womanhood but that is another story. Dremolski