Then Mr. Greene sent for me, and at that moment I guess I felt smaller than I had ever felt in my life. I think I could have crawled through the knothole in our back porch, through which I put so many calomel tablets when I was a little kid. I thought to myself, "This time they have caught me, I'm guilty, I'll be kicked out of school, and I have no idea how severely Papa will punish me this time."
But my worry had not been necessary. I learned right away that Mr. Greene and the teachers were not looking for someone to blame for this unpleasant incident, but rather, they were looking for a leader—a Moses, mind you, to lead these students out of the study hall and into the classrooms, thereby keeping us all out of serious trouble.
I went back and took my seat in the study hall. Again one of the teachers said, "Rise and pass to your classes."
And again no one moved. Then, about two seconds later, I stood up and said, "Let's all rise and go to our classes," and every student obeyed.
They just needed a leader, and I was there at the right time. They might not have followed me ten minutes earlier. And another thing they were waiting for was one of their own to lead them, so they would not have to yield to authority.
CHAPTER 13
MY TRAVELS TO THE GULF, MCCAMEY AND DENVER
As I look back I can easily see that all the ventures our family had been caught up in through the years added up to a lot of worry for parents with a bunch of kids to feed, shelter and educate. But to me they were stepping stones to a better future. Partly because of those experiences, I was building a confidence in myself which culminated in my being unafraid to tackle most anything—either with or without money, perhaps foolhardy at times, but nevertheless, still unafraid.
By this time I had done quite a bit of running around, but most all of it was close to home. I had never seen a desert, a big river, big mountains, nor an ocean. There were other things I wanted to see too, but at age nineteen I suddenly had this overwhelming desire to see an ocean,—not just any ocean, but rather one particular ocean, the Gulf of Mexico. Now, I knew the Gulf was not a real ocean, but I reasoned that it was big enough to please me. It must look a lot like an ocean. And since I happened to know that there was a good-looking little girl spending her vacation swimming in the Gulf that summer, I made up my mind right away that the Gulf was indeed the ocean I wanted to see.
I had this Model T—whoa, let's stop right here long enough to let the younger generations know that the Ford Model T was never called Model T until the Model A came along in 1928. Up until that time they were just plain Fords, all practically alike except in 1924 they began coming with balloon tires. And in those days all cars, regardless of brand name and year of manufacture, were black.