Personal Journal of Leland Keith Stoker, Post 6

Moving mid-school year

Probably around the first of December, we were forced to move because someone else was to move into our place. Dad tried to find a place but was unable to find one that was appealing for a more permanent home. The house we had lived in in Springdale was vacant. So arrangements were made to move back into it for the winter. One of the problems with that was the fact that it was not in the Burley school district. It was a rural district with its own school. And no school buses.

We lived about three and a half miles form the school. There were four grades in each of two rooms at the school. My teacher was Miss Sarah Burgess. She was a super teacher. It was amazing what she was able to get done with four separate grades to teach. I got to know her even better because of the time I was able to catch a ride most of the way to school and back with her. That only left me about a quarter mile to walk if I got to the intersection before she went by.

There was a farmer/rancher by the name of Jim Bronson that lived about half mile west of the school. He ran sheep in the mountains in the summertime. One of his men had found a deer fawn and had brought it to Bronson's place. It had grown to probably a year or two old and was a pet at the Bronson's. It got started coming up to the school quite regularly. It was quite tame. Several of the older boys got started teasing the deer when it would come around. One day the deer had taken all of that it was going to take. It attacked one of the boys, knocked him down, then proceeded to give him a royal stomping. That was quite a memorable sight for a first grader. Needless to say, Mr. Bronson was required to do something with his pet besides let him come to the school. It was quite an adjustment to change schools. There was new faces, new surroundings and above all, different textbooks. It was challenging to come into a whole new environment that was in the midst of a scholastic year and get up to speed with them. Miss Burgess was very helpful and understanding with me. I feel that I owe her a great deal for not allowing me to get discouraged and lost.

Things were going along quite well until probably along in January. We got some very heavy snows and some very bitter cold weather. At that time there was no attempt made to plow out the country roads. They drifted full of snow. For awhile school continued. We had to ride horseback or go by bobsled to get to and from school. I remember Dad sometimes taking me to school on horseback in the morning and then coming for me after school during this time. Boy, that was a cold ride. Finally, it got so bad that the decision was made to close school down until the weather moderated. It was closed for about two or three weeks.

About March 1, 1937, my parents concluded a purchase of an 80 acre farm that was located just East of the farm we had rented the previous year. We immediately moved to that farm. I was again residing in the Burley school district. However, we were still only about a mile and a half from the Springdale school. It was decided that I should continue attending that school because of the extended time it had been closed because of bad weather. It was tough for a first grader to walk that distance to and from school each day. Especially when the bus usually passed by during the trek.

I pleaded to be allowed to change schools so the bus could be used. For quite awhile this pleading was ignored. Eventually, the message was received and I was allowed to change schools. What a shock! I went back to the same teacher and class that I had started the school year with. But things had changed. I was totally lost in the things they were studying. It was a real challenge to even know how to proceed, even with extra help from the teacher. Previously, in that class, I had been in the top group in all of the subjects. Now I was moved to the very bottom group and still struggled. It was a real ego blow also.

The problem was two-fold. First- they were using different books than those I had gotten used to. Second- we had missed about 3 weeks of school at Springdale. On the last day of school Miss Oberholtzer passed out the report cards. She saved mine till last and asked me to come to her desk. She handed me the card and said, “Keith, grade wise, I should hold you back because of the hard time you have had trying to adjust since you re-entered my class. However, I am passing you to the second grade because I think you can make it if you will work hard next year.” I had never even considered the possibility that I would not pass. That would really have been a blow. She then informed me I was being transferred to the Miller school for the next year. I then attended the Miller school for the next 5 years until I started junior high.

The first morning at the Miller school was full of apprehension. The faces were mostly unfamiliar. Just as the bell rang to signal the start of school, someone grabbed my shoulder. When I turned around, it was Miss Burgess from last year at Springdale. She told me I was to be in her class as she had transferred to the city school district. Boy, that was good news. From then on, school never was too difficult.

Lesson in Democracy

One lesson was learned in that class. A few weeks after school started, Miss Burgess said we should elect a class president. Nominations were opened and two of us were nominated, myself and Bonnie Hill. The names were put on the board and slips of paper were handed out for ballots. I wanted the job but didn't think it was right to vote for myself. I voted for Bonnie and when the ballots were counted she won by one vote. So much for the first lesson in democracy.

Telephone Poles and Targets

When we moved to the Warr place in 1937, it marked the beginning of residence there until November of 1946. Many memories exist of that nearly ten year period. Our place was located about one and one half miles from the Unity Ward LDS church. Each Thursday during the school year Primary was held after school. We would ride the school bus to Primary and then walk home after.

There were only gravel roads to walk on and a great many rock that were just the right size for boys to pick up. After they had been picked up there was only one thing left to do with them. That was to throw them. Anything that was in sight could be a target. There were power poles on one side of the road and telephone poles on the other side of the road.

These were favorite targets. The poles themselves were primary targets but the real challenge was to throw at the insulators on the crossarms. Particularly the telephone lines. Telephone poles on this route had three crossarms on each pole. Each crossarm had about 12 insulators on it with each insulator holding a wire. Also, the telephone poles were not nearly as high as the power poles. Fortunately young arms were not too accurate nor powerful. There were a number of insulators that did get broken or chipped however.

On one occasion when I was probably 12 or 13 years old, the folks had gone somewhere leaving Jesse and I home alone for the afternoon. Dad had purchased a .250/3000 high powered rifle to use for deer hunting. We were forbidden to use it without any supervision. On this afternoon we got it out with the intent to try it out. I was standing on the back step of our house with a clear view to the south toward the road. There about 40 yards away was that beckoning target of the telephone insulators. I took aim and fired. Bulls-eye! The insulator exploded- and the wires parted. The rifle was put away immediately and two boys were really worried but didn't know what to do.

When the folks came home they noticed the wires laying on the ground. They didn't ask what happened but simply called the phone company to report the down wires. The repairman came out the next morning and repaired the line. He then came to the house. I was in the field but Jesse reported to me what happened. He said the lineman reported to Mom that it appeared the line had been shot by a rifle. She called to Jesse and asked if he had shot the line. He replied that, no, he had not done it. In actual fact he had not done it but he was not asked, nor did he volunteer, that he knew who had done it. It was never brought up again and I was too much the coward to confess my actions.

Personal Journal of Leland Keith Stoker, Post 5

The Bull

Sometime that fall I experienced something that will go with me to my grave. Dad had accumulated a few more cows by this time. He had enough that it was necessary to have a bull around. The crops had been harvested so the cows and the bull were allowed to run in the fields to clean up whatever crop residue there was. I had been warned to always stay away form bulls because they were very dangerous.

On this particular morning as I prepared to catch the bus, the folks told me that they would not be home after school. They told me to ride the bus up to the Warr's place which was just up the road about a quarter mile. It was a nice sunshiny afternoon and I completely forgot about my morning instructions. After I got of the bus I then remembered what was supposed to have happened. There was no problem. After the books were taken in the house I would walk on up there. I ambled along as only a first grader can and decided to go around the house to the back door.

The back porch door was about midship of the back of the house which was the north wall of the house. As I moseyed around the northwest corner of the house all of a sudden I looked up to see that feared bull coming through the small, east, gate into the back yard. He was almost as close to that back door as I was. With the rationale of a scared first grader I screamed and made a headlong dash for that back door. There was no question in my mind that he, too, was running for that door to get me.

After getting inside I was one frightened boy. We had no telephone and I was sure that if I looked outside through the window that bull would see me and come after me. It is amazing what one's imagination can conjure up. I sat in the middle of the house until it had gotten quite dark. There was no way the the light could be turned on because then that bull could see me. The longer that I sat there, in the dark and quiet, the more frightened than ever I became. Something had to be done. But what?

Walking up to the Warr's was out of the question. The only other choices were to stay there or go across the road to the Niewert's. They lived across and just a little west of our place. The problem was that they were an old German immigrant couple and spoke very little English. I hardly knew them. But they were close. That outweighed all the other negative aspects. I carefully plotted my escape. If I mustered up all my courage and strength, then a mad dash could be made out the south door, across the road, down the road to their place. Maybe my luck would hold and that bull would be on the north side of the house.

With that plan in mind, I dashed out of the house and made it to the Niewert's. I am afraid that I was almost hysterical as I pounded and yelled at their door. They were very kind as they came to the door and realized that something was very wrong. They took me inside and tried to comfort me. That was difficult to do with all the pent-up emotion. Mrs. Niewert then made some tea for me thinking that it would calm me down. That was one of the few words that I could understand, but I knew that I had been taught to not drink tea. She was just as sure that that was what I needed. Fortunately, just about that time Dad and Mom showed up looking for one lost kid. Never did parents look so good or welcome.

Siphoning Gas

Before we moved from Springdale, Dad bought a 1933 Dodge truck. He used it to haul sugar beets and potatoes. It was also our only means of transportation. It was even used as transportation to drive down to Ogden, Utah area to visit relatives. He had gasoline delivered out to the farm by a local fuel dealer for use in the truck. It was the only gasoline powered vehicle on the farm. This was put into a 55 gallon drum.

During the summer after we had moved to Unity, I watched Dad use a piece of garden hose to siphon gas from the drum into a 5-gallon can. He would then pour the fuel into the tank on the truck. This was intriguing to a six year old. I tried it several times but was unable to get the gas to come out. It would start up the hose and I could tell it was coming up. But I couldn't get it to come over the top.

One Sunday afternoon I thought I had it figured out. What needed to be done was to suck harder and longer. I got the equipment in place and placed the hose end in my mouth. Then I exhaled all the air that would go out and then sucked from the very depths of my lungs. Here come the gasoline. Right into my stomach.

That was instant disaster. I was immediately violently ill. After choking and gagging for a few minutes, I could hardly walk or even see and had a terrific headache. Jesse guided me on a staggering trek to the house. Dad and Mom took over and called the doctor. He told them to feed me raw egg whites to make me upchuck. The thoughts of it was almost enough to make it work and the real thing did make it work. Another disaster averted.

Personal Journal of Leland Keith Stoker, Post 4

Moving to Burley

In the spring of 1936 we moved about five miles closer to Burley. This was to a rented 80 acre farm in the community and ward called Unity. I remember quite a few memorable things about that time. At this location there was electricity. That is the first experience, in my memory, of having lights that would really light up the room. This brought the new experience of having radio. Dad's parents had moved to a farm where there was no electricity. They had a radio but no way to use it. It was loaned to our family and was a real experience. Radio had regular programming on it much like television has nowadays.

During the day there were programs that were of a serial nature. Some were of the soap opera type. There would be regular newscasts and music shows. In the evening would be prime time shows. These would come on once a week. They would consist of comedy, drama, music and occasionally sports. One of the favorites would be boxing announced live.

I remember Dad and Mom's concern with moving to a larger place. The one in Springdale had 40 acres and this one consisted of 80 acres. We didn't move there until spring. The entire place needed to be plowed. This was quite an undertaking with horse drawn equipment. Also, Dad was concerned because he only had four head of horses. It took three head to pull the plow. This left only one horse to pull the harrow to smooth and work down the clods for a seed bed. There was no money to buy another horse nor to hire anyone to drive the extra team.

After a lot of discussion, Dad decided, with a lot of reluctance on Mom's part, to have me ride our tamest horse pulling one section of harrow behind it. Even though I was only about four months short of my sixth birthday, I still vividly remember the first day out on the job. It was a cold, windy, spring day. We started early in the morning and worked until noon. As dad unhooked the horses to take them in for their noon feed, I remember asking him how much we had done. His answer was, “about an acre”. I really didn't comprehend what was meant by an acre, but could see that we surely had a lot of work ahead.

Starting School

That fall was the beginning of school for me. I don't really remember the very first day of school but remember very vividly some of the first days of school. At that time we did not pre-register at all for school. I started at the Miller School in Burley. After just a day or so, they transferred me to the Overland School. Shortly thereafter the transfer came to the Southwest School. Apparently no one wanted me because there were only three grade school in the city of Burley.

I was in Miss Oberholtzer's class. There probably was never a more timid and shy first grader than I. School was exciting and came fairly easy for me. Reading was particularly enjoyable. It has been a very enjoyable endeavor ever since then and continues today. There was only one subject that ever really gave me any trouble. That was art. For some reason that was tough in the first grade and never did get much better. I have always enjoyed looking at artistic things but when it came to drawing them- well there must be a short circuit between my eyes and my hands. The things the eyes behold do not transfer to the paper or canvas.

Personal Journal of Leland Keith Stoker, Post 3

Rocking truck

One summer, while living at Springdale, Dad's sister, Aunt Jane, and her husband, Uncle Marvin Venable, came to visit us. Along about noon Dad had to go out to feed the cows. I walked out to the corral with him. As we were walking back we passed by a truck that was parked in the yard. We noticed that the truck was rocking back and forth, apparently by itself. Dad thought that Uncle Marvin was trying to play a trick on him by rocking the truck. No one was visible so Dad go down on his hands and kneed to look under the truck. He thought that he would be able to see the prankster feet on the other side that way. Still he could see no one. He crawled nearly half way under the truck. Still no results.

Perplexed, we walked on to the house. They were having a good laugh at our expense. They had watched it all through the window. Being inside the house where the dishes rattled and the furniture moved, they were aware of an earthquake in progress.

“Chocolate”

One of the home remedies to take care of many ailments for growing children at that time was the use of laxatives. It was thought that use of them would help to clean out poison and infection from the system. Our family relied on one called E-Lax. It was a chocolate flavored candy type laxative. Seldom did we get any candy so it was a treat to be given Ex-Lax.

One spring day, while living in Springdale, Mom was out working outside. Jesse and I were in the house. We had a small pantry where groceries and other household items were kept. I knew that the Ex-Lax was kept on a high shelf in this pantry. I climbed up to where it could be reached and found a never opened package and about half of another one. Boy, did it look good.

Jesse was on the floor watching all the endeavors. He wanted some so I gave him a few little squares. But being in control and having succeeded in the hard part of the job, I gobbled down the lion's share of a package and a half of Ex-Lax. It really tasted good.

Mom came in about the time the last of the “candy” was consumed. She was really bent out of shape over what we had done. Of course now Jesse was a full fledged partner. I can't remember whether she was upset more over the disobedience or the loss of all the E-Lax. I am sure she was concerned over the quantity of product we had ingested. I think she thought we had taken equal amounts.

Well, it didn't take long to find out who had taken the most. Jesse had a mild case of the “runs”. But Keith, very shortly, showed how the division went. My stomach hurt and I was “loose as a goose”. Over the next couple of days I spent almost all my time sitting on the “pottie”. By the time it was over I think there was just a straight shot through.

Before this incident happened, I really liked chocolate. Afterwards, for many years, I couldn't stand to taste anything made of chocolate. About the time I graduated from high school chocolate again started to taste good. Now it is a favorite.

Personal Journal of Leland Keith Stoker, Post 2

First time milking a cow

Dad had two or three cows at this time. On numerous occasions I had requested to help him milk the cows. This seemed to a 5 year old to be an interesting thing to do. The answer was always that I was too young or too small. One day, in the springtime, Jesse and I were out where one of the cows was staked out on a ditch bank. The temptation was too great to resist. That cow had to be milked to prove it could be done. The only thing at hand to use for a container was Jesse's cap. After a few minutes the cap had a pretty good sized pool of milk in it. Triumphantly we trudged to the potato cellar, where Dad and Mom were cutting seed potatoes, to show off this new found skill. The elation was short lived as I was greeted with cold stares and harsh words for wasting milk and ruining a milk-dripping cap.

Living in the Depression

This was depression times and I was somewhat aware that money was very hard to come by. In spite of the trying circumstances I don't ever remember being hungry. I do remember Dad, on occasion, complaining about a steady diet of potatoes. Sometimes a hog would be butchered or a steer would be slaughtered. Then for a while we would have meat on the table There was no freezing of meat then so meat had to be bottled or used up quite rapidly. On special occasions there sometimes would be homemade ice cream. Seldom would there ever be any ready-made desserts or anything else. Most of my clothing at that time was made at home.

Dad had an old car but no money with which to buy gasoline. I remember walking on the road to church and sometimes being picked up by a neighbor, Axel Johnson. He had a truck and we would ride in the back of it. The church was about three miles away.

Harvesting grain

When it came time to harvest the grain, it was cut by a machine called a binder. This machine had a reel over a cutterbar with canvas drapers behind the cutterbar. These drapers would carry the grain, stalks, heads and hall, to the side of the machine. There it would accumulate in a cradle until there was enough to make a bundle. Then it would automatically put a twine around the middle of the bundle and tie it similar to a hay baler. Then the bundle would be kicked off into another cradle. When there were four or five bundles in the cradle, it would be dumped by a foot pedal. On the next round the operator would dump each time next to the accumulated dump from last round. This way the bundles were more or less windrowed into piles.

Then workers would go through the field and “shock” the bundles. This was accomplished by picking up the bundles, one at a time, and standing them on their cut ends. Two would be stood together and the tops would be leaned together. Then another and another would be stood up in a circle around the first two. Each bundle would have the top leaned into the two first ones all the way around the “shock”. Generally twelve to fifteen bundles would be in each “shock”. Each bundle was probably twelve to fifteen inches in diameter at the place where the twine went around it.

The grain was cut when it was still somewhat green so it would not shatter out. After several days had elapsed and the grain had dried out sufficiently, the threshing crew would come. This was really a sight for a young boy to behold.

The thresher was a machine that was towed from place to place by a large tractor. It was then parked in a place where the straw could be blown into a large pile. After the thresher was located, the tractor would be driven to a location about fifty feet in front of the threshing machine. This would be on the opposite end from the blower pipe. The tractor would be lined up in a position so that the belt pulley on the side of the tractor would be directly in line with the drive pulley on the thresher. Then a long endless belt would be connected to the two pulleys. This sometimes took quite a while. If the pulleys were a little bit out of line, the belt would run off.

Then the tractor would be backed up until the belt was tight. The blower spout would be cranked around so that it pointed directly away from the back of the thresher to start the strawstack. Now the machine was ready to start receiving bundles to thresh.

Nearly all the tractors were big iron-tired machines with only one cylinder. They were very slow on the road. Probably four or five miles to the hour maximum. They turned over so slow with the one cylinder that you could easily count the revolutions per minute. I never did see one like that do any field work. However, it was said that some places they were used to pull gang plows.

It varied a little bit just how the thresher crew was made up. However, a typical crew would consist of the operator, who was usually the owner, and about four men that were hired by the machine owner to pitch bundles in the field. They were hired for the season and worked as long as there was threshing to be done. Sometimes the sack sewer would also come along with the machine.

The rest of the crew usually was made up of neighbors. They would help one another on each other's places to finish out the crew. Depending upon how far it was from the field to the thresher location, there were usually four to six wagons drawn by a team of horses. These would be owned by neighbors and they would drive and load their own wagon

My earliest recollections were of wooden wheeled wagons with steel rims on the outer edge of the wheel. Later, after more automobile tires and rims became available, most farmers changed to rubber tires. The rubber-tired wagons were much quieter, faster and smoother riding. Loads were not lost so often due to vibration on the rubber rigs.

With the crew in place they were ready to start threshing. There would be two wagons in the field loading and two at the thresher unloading. The others would be in transition between the field and the machine. One loaded wagon would park on each side of the machine. The one on the side where the belt was had to have a pretty gentle horse next to the belt. Otherwise the horse may get spooked by the fast moving belt.

There was a feeder conveyer that led to the throat of the thresher. With a wagon parked on each side, each man took turns throwing bundles in. They were thrown on the conveyor so that the heads went into the machine first. It was thought to do a better job of threshing if the heads went in first. The inside of the thresher looked much like a modern combine. As the bundles started into the thresher, some vertical knives slashed down to cut the twin on the bundles. Then the material went into the concaves. After that it was separated onto straw walkers and sieves. The chaff and straw went into a blower that fed into a long pipe that ended with an adjustable elbow on it. This deflected the straw down or out depending upon stack size or wind.

The threshed grain dropped through the sieves and was elevated up a leg to a metering bucket. This bucket was adjustable to weight. Depending upon the crop being threshed, it was set to the proper weight. Sixty lbs for wheat, forty-eight for barley and etc. When the bucket reached the proper weight it would dump and the grain would gravity feed down to a sack filler. This would hold two one hundred lb. Burlap sacks. One would fill while the other was being changed and sewed. All this was done by hand. Then the full sacks would be loaded on a flat bed truck for hauling to the elevator or to the granary. The metering bucket counted each dump so that the operator could tell how much was threshed each day. Each day they tried to see if the record could be broken.

For an idea how much was accomplished each day, I remember asking one operator how much could be done in one day. He told me that the best he had ever done was threshing oats. On one particularly good day, they had threshed almost eighteen hundred bushels. This probably involved a crew of twelve or thirteen men. Nowadays there are combines that are advertised to thresh a thousand bushels per hour and are operated by one man.

Women's role in the harvest

This was very hard, physical work. The women were also involved very deeply. Each farm was expected to “feed the threshers.” this always involved two meals and some crews expected three. When you hear that there is “enough for the threshers”, it is literal. Some of the neighbor ladies would work together to accomplish this task but not as much as the men. It was a huge job because each man worked very hard physically and had ravenous appetites. Also, each wife knew that her cooking would be compared to all the other neighbors. So the competition was keen to be known as at least as good a cook as the neighbor.

Most of these meals consisted of meat, potatoes, gravy, vegetables, homemade bread, butter, jam or jelly, and pie or cake or both. And the quantities were immense. That was the ultimate error-to run out.

Another thing that made it so hard was the fact that it was hard to judge just when the thresher would be there. If twelve o'clock came and there was only one load left to thresh, you had the threshers. But if things went a little faster than expected and they finished and got to your place at eleven forty-five, you had the threshers. There was a lot of checking progress of the threshers so that the determination could be made where they would be.

I saw my mother stew and fret a great deal over this, but she always had one of the best meals prepared of anyone on the circuit.

Climbing on the straw stack

One of the real no no's for the kids was to climb on a freshly made pile of straw. Partly because of the danger and partly because the straw was considered a valuable commodity. If it was climbed on before it settled, there would be pockets where rain and snow could accumulate. In those spots water would not run off. It would penetrate the stack and cause it to spoil.

When I was about five years old I had been warned not to climb onto the fresh strawstacks. My folks had gone over to a neighbors place for a visit one afternoon. The neighbor had a real fresh strawstack. They also had a boy a couple of years older than I. As we played outside there was a real desire to climb on that strawstack. I remember climbing to the top of it with the neighbor boy. After we had stood there for a few moments he jumped to slide down the stack. He hit a seam, where the straw had slid down after piling up from the blower, and disappeared. I hollered at him several times. When there was no answer, I hurried down from the stack and went to the house. I told them that the neighbor boy had disappeared. Everyone jumped and ran to the strawstack. I showed them where he had disappeared. Luckily they were able to find him before he suffocated. I couldn't understand why they were praising me. I thought I was in big trouble for climbing on the strawstack.

Personal Journal of Leland Keith Stoker

*Brief description:  The following excerpts are from Grandpa Stoker's personal history.  It is several pages long so I have broken it into "chapters" for easy reading and searching.  Please enjoy, and disregard any typos!
-Michelle Clemens

 Personal Journal of Leland Keith Stoker

Introduction

I am starting to write this on February 15, 1985. I will try to recollect as much as possible of my earlier life and then attempt to keep it up on a more regular basis.

I was born on July 7, 1930. The mind is a little foggy on the exact details, but have been informed that the birth took place at home. Home was a small house in Roy, Weber County, Utah. As recent as last year this home was still standing.

My parents are Lee Hammon Stoker and Ethel Elizabeth Blanch. Better parents can not be found. Their industry, integrity, compassion, and demonstrated love cannot be surpassed. It is hoped that references may be made that will demonstrate some of these qualities that they possess.

At a short year of age, our family moved to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. Early the next year we moved to Burley, Idaho. This was a time (1932), when the country was in a deep depression as far as economics were concerned. The move was made in bitter cold weather in the middle of February. The few head of cattle that Dad and his brother, Herman, had accumulated were driven, over the snow and ice, to their new home.

My first personal recollections begin with the home we first moved into. It was a small frame house located in the rural community known as Springdale. The home was located about 10 or 11 miles Southeast of Burley. We lived there until the spring of 1936 or until I was about 5 ½ years old. It had no electricity. Consequently, coal oil lamps were used for light. The water was pumped by hand from a well located out in the yard. Water was carried by the bucketful into the house for culinary uses. The toilet was located at the end of a path or for little kids a little pottie under the bed.

5^th Birthday

Several events happened that I remember while living in Springdale. I remember my 5^th birthday. The reason it is remembered is that our family went to visit Dad's parents. They had moved to a place a couple of miles away. When we arrived Dad's younger brother, Ivan, informed me that it was my 5^th birthday and that I was supposed to be spanked on birthdays. He administered the “present”.

Ants

Another time at this location mom had a meeting to go to. It was in the springtime and Dad was irrigating. It was decided that he would take me with him to the field for the afternoon. The sun was shining but the wind was blowing cold. At my continuing complaint about being cold Dad told me to lie down in the shelter of a high ditch bank out of the wind It was comfortable there with the sun shining brightly on me. Soon I was fast asleep. The next thing I was aware of, was stinging feelings all over my body. At my screaming Dad came to see what was the matter. He laughed as he peeled all my clothes off to get rid of all the ants. I had lain down in an ant-bed.