They occasionally attend church services when they are combined with picnic dinners. Parents seem to enjoy the school exercises in which their children participate. Most of the squatters are suspicious of strangers and resent interference and offers of aid. When government relief was first offered them, many refused it, believing the relief workers had some ulterior motive. Many small boys chew tobacco, and the girls and women use snuff.
Medical care is almost totally unknown.
The squatters use patent medicines and primitive remedies. Headaches, which are prevalent among young and old, are treated by binding the head tightly with cloths. Some women who had given birth to as many as twelve children received a doctor's care at childbirth for the first time. The children seem extremely interested in going to school and attend whenever possible, often with the most meager of lunches and sometimes without any food for the day. In solemn little groups they walk to the highways where they are picked up by school busses.