In Battle Mountain they had many pets. They couldn’t afford pet food, so the pets would get their scraps or nothing at all. Mom also would not let them kill any files in the house because it ruined the cycle of life. The flies were needed to feed the lizards, and the lizards were needed to feed the cats.
One day they went to the Hot Pot, a natural sulfur spring in the desert, to go swimming. Brian and Lori knew how to swim, but Jeannette did not. So, Dad decided she was going to learn that day. He would take her out into the deep parts of the water and let her go. Jeannette would be flailing around eventually would start to sink, inhale, water, and almost drown. Each time, her father would pull her out and throw her back to the same fate. She then realized that in order to stop being thrown back into the water she would have to get away from her father. Eventually she got away. This was her father’s way of teaching her to swim. Jeannette was really mad at him for teaching her in this way. But how else would she have learned??
Then Dad lost his job, but he said it was because he had a new plan for finding gold. Times became very tough because there was no way to get food and Dad would be gone for weeks at a time. One day he came home with a package of food. The can of corn was stolen and they ate most of the rest of the food. Lori and Jeannette were so hungry one day that they ate margarine mixed with sugar. Mom yelled at them, but Jeannette thinks it was because she had planned on doing the same.
These hard times led to Dad asking if their grandmother could loan them some money, but Mom was too proud to do that. This led to a LONG fight between Mom and Dad. They caused such a scene that their neighbors came out to watch. Soon furniture was thrown out the window and Mom was hanging from the second floor window screaming. Jeannette was embarrassed. They ran inside to help Dad pull her back into the room. Mom accused Dad of trying to kill her and claimed his innocence.
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