Well, we Johnsons were making money and things were looking good. But we might have suspected something would go wrong. I guess we should have moved on as the arrested man had been doing for months. But we, like he, stayed too long. Anytime our present and future looked that rosy, we might have known that financial disaster was lurking near by. The old devil was after me again. To calm our financial tempest, my family might have to throw me overboard, as the sailors did Jonah. This time the bank went broke--the bank in which the road- building company had its money, the money which was paid to Marvin Hood month by month. He couldn't pay us. He couldn't even pay himself. Papa often paid cash out of his own pocket for supplies for Marvin. Then Marvin would repay him on payday. The bank closure caught Papa without any cash. And Marvin couldn't get any money to repay Papa. He couldn't even get a little money to help us get back to Hamlin. We had the truck and the Dodge car. I don't know how we made it. I think we drove part way on kerosene; we could buy it for only four or five cents a gallon. And of course we arrived home hungry. Duck soup from a rusty bucket would have tasted good. After years of negotiating, Papa finally got about half the money Marvin owed him, and that included two of the wagons used for hauling the crushed rock at Gorman. While there at Gorman, Old Scotch took sick with what was commonly known as sore mouth, and after many days of severe suffering, he finally died. If Old Scotch had died suddenly before his period of suffering, it would have been almost like losing one of the family. He was one of the family and had been in the family longer than some of us could remember. We wouldn't have sold him for any amount of money. But, though we regarded him highly, since we had found no means of alleviating his suffering, and since he had suffered for so long, his death didn't bother us quite so much. We hated to see him go but were glad his pain had ended. I don't really know what was done for Old Scotch during his sickness. That fell in Papa's line of duty. I would guess that he asked the advice of a druggist or an M.D., or maybe other owners of dogs. Veterinarians were practically nonexistent. If there had been one around he would have been called an animal doctor. I seriously doubt that we did much of anything for the dog which could in any way be classed as veterinary medicine, as we know it today. All my memories of Old Scotch are pleasant ones except for those last miserable days of his life. He seemed to always be in the right place at the right time. And I don't recall that he ever once did anything wrong. There is no way of knowing how many times, if ever, he saved one of us from the poisonous bite of a rattlesnake.