Interview with Roy Wilhelm, December 24, 1992

'''Roy''': Well, finally there was one old man over there, an old Mexican man, come to [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Pa]] and [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Haight]] and says, "Why don't you boys go into the sheep business, that's where the money is, if you have stock, why you're all right.  Unless you can cash in on your share of this grass, you just as well give it up.  Well, they couldn't go into the sheep business, they couldn't even pay taxes,  He says,  "I'll tell you what, now these old sheep are doomed to die, maybe she's pregnant, and in the spring she would have just as good a lamb as any other sheep but she won't live.  She won't have teeth; she can't keep up, she'll die.  So every sheep man knows 'em they can go through and they can tell you just which ones won't.  He says,  "I'll let you have all that are in my herd for a dollar apiece, and pay for it when you can, I won't get nothing otherwise.  When you can!  Someday; years!  And I'll spread the word to the others and some of 'em 'll take it up."  And some of um did.  And said,  "You boys have raised all this feed."  They were working son of a guns, but they'd raised this feed cause they had nothing else to do and then nothing to feed it to, see, and that's what they did.  They bought those sheep on time, dollar a head.  They went in the sheep business that way.  After a few years, [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Pa]] said it never dawned on him until suddenly, he was a riding along and he had a new [[:file:Zemira George Wilhelm's saddle.jpg|saddle]] and a new fat horse and following two herds of sheep to the mountains, check book in his pocket, he still thought he was poor.