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Every evening, as soon as the milking was over, I delivered milk from house to house. I carried a big open tin bucket full of milk and measured out each customer's share with a tin quart cup I carried with me. Wagon? I had no wagon, and if any customer wanted cream I had to make an extra trip. I delivered fifteen to twenty quarts or more each night. We had no ice at first; mother just had a little cellar, and in its cool dampness the milk, cream and butter, in ordinary weather, kept quite sweet.

Nobody paid for anything in Ellis until payday. I kept a record of my customers' obligations in a small account book carried in a hip pocket of my pants. On payday I collected at the rate of five cents a quart. For that I was rewarded. The cut that mother gave me was a cent on every quart.

Despite the taming influences of chores and money-making, I confess I raised my small share of hell. Maybe there is as much fighting among boys today; I can only say I do not think so. In the schoolyard we often had four or five fist fights in the fifteen minutes of recess. A kid who had a yellow streak would lead a dog's life; several that I knew ran away because they lacked the necessary toughness. If you could take your beating fighting back with all you had, you did not have to take so many beatings. We really had a tough environment there in Ellis. It was never any cause for wonder in me that Kansas took to prohibition early in its history. On railroad paydays the saloons were set like traps; likewise every few months when the cattle ranches paid their hands.