Life with Sophia - Franny's Lesson

One of the houses (yes there were a few) that we lived in while in Green River, Wyoming sat all by itself across the Green River.  It was a better than a shack but some might say by not much.  I recall it being covered with green tar paper and having black tar shingles on the roof.  We had no running water and we had an outhouse.  We would haul water from the Green River in buckets to do our laundry, dishes and bathe.  We would go the the pump house and get five gallon cans of water for drinking and cooking. 

Mom would build a fire outside and we would sit our washtub over it and fill it with water and cut big chunks of the lye soap Mom had made out of pork fat and lye into the hot water.  A scrub board would be inserted and that would be how we would do our laundry. 

There was a trestle bridge that connected our house to town and under this bridge would often be found vagrants or hobos.  One day while the girls were going to school, they found a drunken indian banging his head against the sides of the bridge. Not having a telephone or any other means of communication, Mom devised a strategy to insure our safety while walking over the bridge (especially at night when she was not able to watch us cross.)  The girl coming home would reach the bridge and call out "YOO HOO" and Mom would respond in kind.  This would go on until the girl was safely home. 

One day Fran decided to go to her friend's house after school.  This was done without our mother's permission.  Mom knew where she was at, since Fran went to school with her sisters but still Fran did not have permission and she was to be taught a lesson.  It became dark and Fran reached the town side of the bridge.  She yelled out her "YOO HOO" but got no response.  She continued across the bridge and her "YOO HOO's" got a little louder and closer together, and a little more desparate:  Still no answer.  Mom and her sisters had heard her and knew she was alright, but for Fran it was a pretty disquieting, long walk until she reached the home.