Pinto Beans and a Silver Spoon

To all those who long to recapture the lost years that go crying down the corridors of time, this faithful, but futile attempt to retrieve the irretrievable and thereby attain the unattainable is dedicated. So we invite you to come with us to a high prairie guarded by mountains purple in the distance where the wind is forever blowing, sometimes gently and many times cruelly. In this restless, haunting wind may be heard the plaintive cries and happy laughter of little children, the prayers and hymns of the faithful, the moans of mothers in childbirth, and the grieving of those in bereavement. All these sounds and many more are heard in this song the wind sings, for this lovely, lonely land was at one time home to a hardy breed of pioneers who had dreams of living out their lives here. But fate in the form of drought and dirt storms scattered these people and destroyed their work. Now all that remain are a few windmills and a cedar post fence still standing and faithfully representing the efforts of one special pioneer, our father. This prairie is now the domain of grazing herds of cattle. May our memories be forgiven for trespassing here, for we were those children whose cries and laughter are heard in the wind and whose happy childhood spent on that prairie make it forever a hallowed place. So wind, blow softly here and fiercely, ever singing your lonely song of time as the inexorable years go by on this empty prairie we once knew as our home. - Lula Collins Daudet & Ruth Collins Roberts"Opening this book is like discovering a multi-sensual time capsule in the southwest sand. Dust it off and enjoy." - Latayne Scott"A warm and intimate account of the arduous years of the authors' childhood sustained by their parents'staunch ethics and by a bubbling sense of humor."- Charlotte Black"Two sisters' narrative about growing up in New Mexico is broken up into vignettes, each of which is charming in itself." - Jack Janowski