Chapter 18
Saturday morning, I wake up early so I can wash up first. Miss Barbour allows her tenants one hot water bath per week; the ewer of water is refilled daily with cool, fresh water, which I can use for drinking, and I can rinse off at the pump out behind the boarding house if I don’t manage to do it at the ranch before I leave for the day. But a hot bath is worth the price of a room away from the other hands. For bathing, the men use a small creek off behind the barn. It’s choked with devil weed but out of sight of the main house, and in the winter, I’ve heard them complain they have to break through the ice to wash up. Paco once told me the water was so cold, his balls shriveled up like the seeds in a tumbleweed. Chavez overheard him and teased, “At least now you can see them, gü
