He would smoke a pipe and I still love the aroma of a pipe to this day. He would take me to the pool hall with him and put me on the pool table and have me sing little songs and jingles that Uncle Ezra would teach me and Grandpa would lean back and laugh until the tears would stream down his face.

One of the county fairs they had while we lived there stands out above the rest. Dad bought a stage coach and he and his brother, Ezra, would shuttle back and forth from town to the fair grounds picking up passengers coming and going. They called it a `hack', and would call out, "Hack to the Fair Ground. Hack to the Fair Ground." I remember how thrilling it was to ride the merry-go-round and Ferris wheel and see all the booths.

Another thing I remember about St. John was the candy store across the street from us. My brother Bud, Russell, was small and he would pick up some stones and take them to the store and the people thought it was funny and gave him candy. I tried it one day, but it sure didn't work for me!

From St. John we moved to a place Mamma and Dad called the rattlesnake farm. We must have landed in a den of them. They seemed to be everywhere. We were living in a cook shack, which is like a trailer where the hired hands meals are cooked and where they ate while they were going from place to place harvesting grain. The neighbors and hired hands would help each other harvest their crops. Well, the snakes were so bad that the board that was used to walk up from the ground into the cook shack had to be brought up into the cook shack after using it so the snakes wouldn't crawl up into it. We didn't stay there long. One day a snake did get into the shack and that was the clincher. They sold the shack and got a wagon and team and went to a farm on the bank of the Arkansas River...the place we so fondly call the River Farm.

It was spring and with the winter snows melting and the spring rains it had caused the Arkansas River to overflow it's banks. Water was up in the house, but there was some higher ground close to the house. It was like an island for there was a ravine on one side with water in it, too. We pitched a big tent on this island and waited for the water to recede. When it did, we cleaned up the house and moved in.

Mamma got busy and put in a large watermelon and cantaloupe patch on this sandy island. That kept all of us out of mischief, for there was hoeing to be done to keep out the weeds and each evening we would make this trek to the river with a ten pound lard bucket in each hand for the larger children and one gallon syrup buckets for the smaller ones. We would all fill the buckets and pour a bucket of water, (two for the small ones), on each plant in a row. It took three to four days to water them all. We would make many trips in the cool of the evening doing that job. Each afternoon when the river was down, which was most of the summer, we would go swimming. Mamma would sit on the bank and watch. We did this for about three years as I recall. One day Aunt Clara and her children came to visit. We all went swimming and had a big time and about three o'clock they left for home. Sis and Jerry went home with them to spend a week. Mamma and I were in the kitchen talking, and Bud and Dixie were asleep. As we talked we started hearing the cow mooing and mooing. We had tied her to a tree by the river so she could eat the grass and also get a drink of water when she wanted. We ran out to see what was the matter and the river was full of water, bank to bank.

Dad was standing on the bridge at Dodge City and saw the water coming. He said it came down in two huge rolls. The first pushing debris ahead of it, and the second filled the banks to the brim. His heart almost stopped when he saw it for he knew we always went swimming in the afternoon and was afraid we wouldn't have time to get out.

Back to the melons and cantaloupes...we had a bumper crop that year. We would pick them one day and fill the wagon then Mamma and Jerre would start out about midnight and drive the wagon to Dodge City, which was sixteen miles away and sell them. They would then return about midnight the next night, rest one day, then repeat the proceedings. She took melons and cantaloupes to the fair and won all kinds of prizes. She had one melon that was as long as the wagon was wide.

The summer flew by and school started with brand new shoes after running barefooted all summer. That was too much. We had to walk 3 1/4 miles to school and so the shoes and sox came off a mile or so from home and we would hide them under bushes and put them on to come home again. By the time it began to get cool we had them broken in so that we could stand to wear them all the time. The school house was used also for church and a preacher would come through at least once a month and sometimes twice a month.