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but it was.very primitive, beautifully built adobe - no
electricity. They carried coal oit lanterns everywhere, one
room into another, when they were there, and also used them
as heaters.

SL: How do you get there?

SRL: Dirt roads, and you had to ford a stream, and if it had been
raining you didn't go there, or if you were there you didn't
leave (laughs).

·SL: Was it far from here?

SRL: No.· It was out past Saugus, the old town of Newhall, out in
that little valley out there. It's. a tributary ...

CT: William S. Hart ranch is out there..

SRL: Yes, but this was further north from William Hart.

SL: And the book said that he had Indians. from the reservation
working for him.

SRL: Yes, he did. ·Actually, he went to the reservation and
contracted families for two years at a time, so they would
come with their wives and children. I remember seeing them
so often, in what we would consider "Indian clothes." You
know, the women would have the long skirts, and so forth.
And actually this bread oven out here [points through
the northeast window of the schoolhouse to where the oven is
located] was built by those... they were Navajos.
They came, and while they were working there, they
built this oven for us, in the '30's, so that's an authentic·
Navajo oven.

SL: Did you bake bread in it?

SRL: Oh, we have, yes, and it roasts meat beautifully ... haven't
done it for a long time, but we used to. Still operational.
I keep trying to find somebody who really knows how to do
it. I know you build a fire in it (laughs) and then you
rake. it out of course, and put it in ... But how do you time
it? You can't look at it, you have to close up the hole.

CT: I think it's an art that's probably lost.
300
SL: I had a friend who lived in a big English castle and she
said they'd get that huge fireplace blazing, and they'd put

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