(3 of 5)
Friday evening. Our radio batteryless because I can't afford new ones. The wife tired from a trying day with the youngsters. I tell her to sit down and rest and I'll get supper. Decide on eggs scrambled with chipped beef and chopped celery. Light the oil stove and put double boiler on to heat. Twenty minutes to six already. Our time is two hours behind Eastern Standard. Eggs mixed, celery chopped, beef shredded, ready for cooking. Light oil lamp, set table, put on bread, preserves, butter, milk, catsup, sugar and cream. Put two tablespoons coffee (think that's right) in drip pot and put two cups water on to boil. Nearly six. Egg mixture put over now boiling water and stirred. Done in four minutes. Five after six and we are eating, I with an eye on the clock. Twenty-six after and my dishes are at the sink. "Don't think I'll go, the children would not take their naps this afternoon," says the Mrs. The Chewy goes at the second turn of the starter and I'm out over the cattle guard and the culvert over the first irrigation ditch. Over a second, third and fourth, all graded as the ditch beds are above the valley here. Now to step on it. First mile gone, slow down for another grade culvert, the second mile nearly a straightaway. Indian wagon raising an infernal dust is soon past. A glance to the left at the sun setting over cotton fields and scattered palms, bare purple mountains in the distant background. She's doing 58. Cut the gas for the turn into the irrigation plant enclosure. No pump Diesels throbbing, so Doran will have the radio going. Barely miss a skunk near the settling basin, screech to a stop behind Clary's new Ford 8 parked in front of the engineer's quarters. A little late, but "1933 marches on" into the yawping of ''Hooey'' P. Long's latest.
HERBERT D. CANNON
Colorado River Indian Agency Parker, Ariz.
Dogies
Sirs:
In your issue of Oct. 23, p. 45, under Music and an account of Mr. Billy Hill's song entitled "The Last Round-Up," I was interested in the footnote stating that the word "dogie" means a yearling and giving its pronunciation. The pronunciation is correct but you are mistaken as to the meaning of the word. It does not signify a yearling but means any young animal that has lost its mother in the nursing period and is either reared by hand or left to shift for itself. It may be applied to a calf, a horse, or a lamb. The animal usually shows its lack of proper nourishment, being pot-bellied with a dull lustreless coat and a general appearance of undernourishment. The word is also used as an adjective, the term "dogied'' meaning having lost its mother and showing the effect in lack of growth and poor proportions. Cowboys when driving a herd find the small weak animals in the rear of the herd as they weaken and drop back so that in their songs in speaking of "roll along or git along, little dogies" they refer to the last of the herd commonly called the "drags" which have to be urged to keep up with the herd.
F. W. MITCHELL Roswell, N. Mex.
Your footnote to comment on "The Last Round-Up" (Oct. 23, Music) reminds me that out here we like to define a dogie: a little calf that's lost its mother and whose father's run off with another cow.
W. B. SCHAW JR.