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We were robbed Saturday night. 8omebody stole twenty-six dollars out of my trunk. We were here all alone and heard the dog harking. I mean Annie did. I am so deaf I can't hear nothing; Just like I am dead when I take my ear trumpet off. The dog kept on harking. After a while Annie got up and opened the door.
There was a door, leading to the porch, wide open; the trunk was open and the purse gone. It sho' is worrying us. We have a gun and the dog; but that must have been a nigger that knew the dog or he sho' would have hit him. If we just
had a man to stay out here with us. But we don't know who to get. We are getting old, and if Annie were to die and leave me, what would I do?" Big tears rolled down Miss Dora's old wrinkled cheeks. We were smart girls in our day. Annie can shoot just like a man but she don't do it now 'cause her eyes are bad.

We got a lot of game on our place; quail, dove and rabbits. In the season Annie would get up before day. I'd hear her gun pop, pop, at first light —that's when the birds start coming in —and in no time she would come in with enough to last several days.

"That's one kind of meat you get tired of mighty quick. There's a saying you can't eat birds twelve days straight running.

"The birds are beautiful out here. I tell Annie we ought to call our place 'Bird Heaven' "because of the red birds, thrush, and mocking birds. Now, I don't like the blue jays, they are mean to the other birds. Peckerwoods are good to keep insects away, but they are aggravating sometimes. Sometimes they tap-tap-tap so loud, we say 'come in' and it ain't nobody but the old peckerwoods. Its spooky too with nobody there. They say old folks love birds' best. I 'speck its true. I didn't used to love them like I do now.

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