It seems that about half the years we lived at Royston were dry years and that about half of every wet year was dry. So there were a lot of dry times when I was not farming because there was no farming to be done. On one of those occasions I rented an old blacksmith shop at Royston--nothing in it, just four walls and a roof. I think I paid two dollars a month for the use of it, which was all it was worth, considering the sandy dirt floor that came with it, and with no windows for light. It had big doors at one end for cars to come through, some of which I repaired and some I wrecked out and sold for parts. In addition, I stocked and sold a few new parts too. Wes Kennedy came into my shop one day and showed me some auto light bulbs he had bought at Sweetwater at 20 cents each. And he added, "Some places get 35 cents for them." I showed him the same kind of bulbs in my shelves which I was selling at 15 cents. He looked at them and said, "I didn't know you sold light bulbs. You mean you sell them for 15 cents?" I told him, "Yes, they cost me 8 cents, and I've got to make a little profit on them to stay in business." Of course, we laughed at Wes, and he laughed with us, for thinking he had found such a big bargain at Sweetwater, and had overlooked a bigger bargain right at home. This shop work went on for about three months. Then one day it rained and I closed up shop and went back to farming. Instead of working at a dollar a day, I cleared about $3 a day in the shop. CHAPTER 17 WORLD WAR II WAS ON--WE WENT TO CALIFORNIA Well, the Great Depression was not something we would want to live through again, but all in all it wasn't so bad. We were broke, but then, so were our neighbors. We had plenty to eat and wear--and we had each other. The lean years seemed to bring us even closer together; we had to stay together, we didn't have enough money to go our separate ways. And of course we had our children. Dennis was ten and Anita was eight when Larry became one of the family in 1942. And then when he was six weeks old, the little tyke almost left us for good. He was one sick little baby. We took him to a chiropractor who gave him adjustments and told us to feed him goat's milk. I drove all over the country looking for a goat that was giving milk. After finding one I kept looking for more goats that would be giving milk after the first one stopped. It took awhile, but then I found a man with a whole herd of goats. He didn't need them because he was going to war, so we bought all twelve of them. When we sold out a year later and went to California to get into war work, we bought goat's milk on the way out there and for eight months after we got there. In El Paso we bought milk from a man who owned a herd of registered goats. He sold goats for as much as $80 each. The ones we had at Royston were of the $4 variety. I was glad the El Paso milk wasn't registered; we couldn't have afforded it.