In the dark there was little to do. She took up the mending that Granny Jane had done in the evening, but she could not do the knitting. Granny Jane had offered to teach her, but she had no interest in learning. Granny Jane had a Bible that was more frequently used for the recording of family information than for reading, but Ola started to read it anyway, though she had little aptitude for it.

She was further burdened by the sense, instilled in her by both Granny Jane and her father, that kerosene was not to be wasted by staying up in the evening. And the work in the mine, going deeper and deeper now, required more lamplight. Daylight was for work, and the night was for sleep. There was no need to prolong the day with artificial light. One went to bed when the sun went down and rose when it came up again. And as the late fall pushed into early winter, the days shortened, and sleep became harder and harder to come by.

Had she asked her father, he would have told her she needed only to work harder to be ready for sleep in the late afternoon and early evening. None of the men at the mine shack were troubled by wakefulness. They put in exhausting days digging the ore, milling it at the arrastra, and moving it down the road to town. But there was always whiskey, too. And the men finished their days with whiskey after the evening meal, and that led them more quickly to sleep.

And it was not that Ola May did not work during the day. She took care of the animals—two horses, the string of burros that the men no longer used to haul ore down the mountain, a cow, two pigs, and fourteen chickens. The population of chickens was always in flux according to the ability of the predators that abounded in the Galiuros—mountain lions, black bears, wildcats, coyotes, and occasional Mexican wolves, expanding their territory farther to the west.

There was water to haul from the spring and wood to split for the stove and fireplace that heated the cabin and cooked meager meals. She also looked after the men, cooking for them twice a week and packing it up the road to the mine shack. The rest of the time they took care of themselves, which usually meant beans from cans or some unlucky bird or mammal that had wandered through the camp when a gun had been handy. In winter there was not enough daylight to work the mine and hunt, too.