138. Ruth's beautiful description of her childhood on the farm, and family life in near poverty.
Childhood on the farm: My earliest recollections on the farm I guess was the summer I turned 6 years old. (This would have been about 1914, and the summer before her father died in October.) We were living in a little log house close to what we called "the wash." Often there were immense floods that came down this wash, from Casto Canyon about 2 miles to the east. These swift torrents would cut in at the bottom of the wash, and soon a big section of the land would slide into the flood. I remember this summer watching my father walk along the side of the lucern patch which was sliding in piece by piece, as if his walking there could stop the disaster. Each flood left its deposit of sand in one bend, which we joyously played in calling it our "sand patch." It was the most beautiful white sand I've ever seen. I wonder if I were to go back there now if it would seem so white and clean . Farther on down the wa