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My brother Ed, as husky as anyone that Kansas ever grew, always was aggressive. He was a boy who managed to make more money than a lot of Ellis men. But he surrendered some of his money-making chances to become an apprentice in the machine shops of the Union Pacific there in Ellis. Ed was going to learn a trade.

Certainly, in our town it was thoroughly accepted that a sound way to keep a boy out of mischief was to require him to use up some of his energy in work. It was the same with horses; when they were not worked, they bucked and kicked and made a lot of trouble. Even so, us kids had fun. My father gave me my first gun when I was fourteen, and at the railroad shops they cut it down to fit me. I was a good shot. Of course, I always loaded my own shells; we all did. Later on, for a Christmas present, my father gave me a dozen brass shells. He was quite liberal with us kids, but he was never so foolish as to suppose that it would be a kindness to permit his sons to loaf while their parents worked from dark to dark. I was in high school when Ed was an apprentice, but when the summer vacation began I got a job myself.