Then I fell asleep and dreamed we went places and did things that would have taken a couple of hours in real life. When I woke up, I thought I had slept all the way to town and almost all the way back home. I was disappointed because I had planned to buy some candy while we were in town.
I looked around to see how far we were from home only to find that we were about two hundred yards from the noisy bridge, and were still on our way to town.
CHAPTER 6
PROSPERITY, ANIMALS, GROWING UP
We were about the luckiest kids in the world. We always had as much or more than the average kids in our neighborhood. And of course, we had each other. But most of all, we had parents who had the knack of teaching us how to get pleasure from working and how to make our own fun, using a minimum of worldly goods while doing it.
For instance, we played a game called "Driving the Old Sow." The equipment for playing the game cost absolutely nothing. It consisted of one beat-up tin can and a mesquite stick for each player. We spent many happy hours playing the game, especially when we had a bunch of other kids to play it with us.
Many of our playthings were not bought with a lot of money, but were the result of our parents' ingenuity and willingness to build things for us, as well as playing with us and teaching us how to live more abundantly.
We were the only ones who had a merry-go-round all our own. It was a big one—a four-seater, big enough for grown people. And we had to hold on tightly or be slung off. There was a special seat for the smaller ones so they wouldn't get slung off. And of course it was propelled by boy power.
At Christmas we got our share of toys and things, and we got candy and fruits too. We had apples during the entire year, and we got bananas a few times. But we never saw oranges except at Christmas time.
On Christmas Eve nights, before we went to bed, we placed chairs around the living room with a name in each one. Gifts from Santa were never wrapped. He put my things in the chair with my name in it, and the others likewise. Next morning no one was allowed to go into the living room until all were ready to go in.