Page 8 - Landscape Draft 1 copy

It was while we lived there that Dad sent me to the barn

one night after dark to get a ½ bushel pail which he used
to wash his feet. I guess I was nine or ten years old. It was

cold weather and he always hooked the barn doors to keep
them closed. I took the lantern and went to the barn. The

feed way barn door was unfastened but closed. I hesitated

about going in, but did real fast, grabbed the pail, fastened
the door and ran for the house. The next morning when

Dad went to the barn he saw a little stream of shelled corn
(their sack had a little hole in it) leading off across the field

toward a neighbor’s place. We suppose he was in the barn

when I went to get the pail. I was told never to go in the
barn at night again if I found the doors unfastened. I wasn’t
The Walt home in Soldier, Kansas
sent to the barn after night anymore.

I can remember what a nice home this was, so much fruit, Dad sold this place after we had lived there five years, for

and the folks had good gardens and crops. I learned to help a good price. He went to Chase County, Kansas where he
milk cows while living on this place, started to learn the bought 240 acres, quite level with pasture, a creek running

summer of 1904. We had lots of hogs too. I used to help through it, and good farm ground. We children liked this
feed them too. home very much. The house was a three room house but as

I remember the rooms were nice size. We had two porches.

The house also painted white as our other homes were. We

8 Part of my Life as a Story