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So it happened that only a few weeks before proving-up time, Ida Mary and I had to start all over again. But with the coming of water into that thirsty land it didn't seem so difficult to begin again. And we weren't doing it alone. It was the settlers who built a new shack, a new building for a printing press; the settlers who clothed us during those first destitute days.
But with grub, fuel and other necessities we figured it would cost not more than $500 all told. Then we learned of this quarter-section with a shack already built, bunk and all. It had been filed on and the owner had left before proving-up time so that the claim, shack and all, had reverted to the government.
The country is too new to accomplish anything easily." "Too old, you mean. These plains have been hyar too long for a little herd of humans to make 'em over in a day." "We have fourteen months to do it in," I reminded him, referring to the revised proving-up period.
One day when I went for the mail she called to me: "Say! You want the job of running this newspaper? I'm proving up. Going home." We needed the extra money badly. Proving-up time came in early spring. To get our deed and go home would require nearly $300, which Ida's $25 a month would not cover.
The creeks were dry now except the water holes in the creek beds and a few seep wells which homesteaders living near the creeks had dug and into which water from the creeks had seeped. Proving-up time came for a few, and the ones who had not come to farm left as soon as they proved up at least until the following year.
One of us would light the print-shop lamp, make out the papers, take the money, and stumble back to bed. A sign, "CLOSED," or "NEVER CLOSED," would have been equally ineffective in stopping the night movement on the Strip. Homesteaders living miles away came after the long day's work to put in their proving-up notices.
I cannot recall that we ever planned ahead of proving up on the claim. We measured life by proving-up time. Only the dirt farmers planned ahead. And Ma Wagor who was an inveterate matchmaker. I can see her now, driving across the plains, holding her head as high as that of the spotted pony she drove a pony which, though blind as a bat, held its head in the air like a giraffe.
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