Dad tried to keep a housekeeper after mother's death but we didn't always have one. Flo Lowery, Amy's mother was there more than anyone. Of course folks talked and lots of folks thought she and dad would be married. I knew they wouldn't for I heard her talking to a friend of hers a Gertrude Gentry that had come to visit. They were sleeping in the little room Cac uses for a sewing room and I was on the sofa in the living room. They supposed I was asleep but their talking kept me awake and I heard Flo telling her friend about going to Kansas to meet a man she was marrying but which did not take place and about what her wedding dress cost in transit. Flo made us two dresses that winter one a black and white diagonal stripe piped in red with a pleated skirt and the other a blue one. We wore them interchangeably all winter. We sure didn't have the wardrobe of clothes that girls have now. Malinda Cox stayed a while she was the lady who had stayed at Grandpa's and who none of us enjoyed having. When we had no one else Edith and I kept house. We churned, had the separator to wash (a job I detested) baked bread, pies, cake, etc. The boys really teased us about our cooking especially the biscuits but we all thrived on the food however poorly it was prepared. An old huckster by the name of Elmer Fertig came by every week. We hunted eggs or had an old hen to trade when we wanted something especially. We bought bananas oftener than anything and candy or something we didn't have every day. Edith and I took music lesson from Nora Herr who was then Nora Ringer. We had more fun than lessons when there by ourselves. We would get her down on the floor and sit and her and had a lot of horseplay. I remember one day when Dad decided we should pay back all the dinners we had been invited to. He expected so much of we girls. We did the best we could but the women who came did help out a lot. You could imagine two teenage girls 14 or so trying to get a big dinner for experienced cooks and getting the house in shape. That experience is still a nightmare. We cooked on a wood and coal range.

          end of part twelve

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