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Show in my father's house/ 166 the 'respectable' folks in their modest homes on the "right side" where we lived. Above us, on the bluffs at either side of the Indian Reservation, lived the casino owners, doctors and lawyers in their sprawling mansions. The mothers worked out stories for us to tell the town-folk^ Aunt Helga's children implying that their parents were divorced, Aunt Sarah and children saying they were 'separated' and my mother stating that her husband was a traveling salesman. "Just let them think what they want to," Aunt Helga said. "And we are separated - most of the time," Aunt Sarah reasoned. "My husband certainly does travel," declared my mother. "And he's been known to sell a bushel of peaches now and then." More Mormon logic. Even now, I cannot gauge whether the people of the town actually believed us when we explained our family circumstances. Such an influx of Allreds must have inspired notice for our town was like most small communities in its capacity for gossip. And with our fair skin we shared a tendency to blush, so lying brought on an infusion which my classmates noticed right off. After a time, I couldn't decide which made me so uncomfortable - the lying or the blushing. Entering school was an ordeal, for the mothers had to work out different paternal names for the school record: "J. Allred" for Aunt Sarah's brood; "R. Clark Allred" for Aunt Helga's; and Rulon Allred for my mother's children. I worried that the principal - a kindly, harried-looking man - would make some comment to my mother on the amazing number of Allreds on the school records, or that he would |