There were a lot of disadvantages to being little when I was growing up. I don't mean like the whipping I got from Frank. That was okay. I needed that. I mean like things I wanted to do. There were so many things I wanted to do that Mama and Papa wouldn't let me do. They would say, "You're too little." With Earl and Joel, it was different. They were not too little-- never had been. At least, if they had been, I couldn't remember it. One thing I wanted to do was go hunting with Uncle Robert and his greyhounds. I remember I went one time, but most of the times I was too little. I had to stay home and hear them tell about the rabbit hunt afterwards. I guess the time they let me go was when they weren't going very far and they figured I could keep up with the others for awhile. Anyway, Robert had some dogs that were mighty fast and well matched. It was hard for a jack rabbit to get away from them. Old Queen was his fastest one. She was his lead dog. Old Pluto was almost as fast. He would run in single file behind Old Queen, and when a rabbit began to circle, Old Pluto would begin to cut the corner to keep the rabbit going straight. A rabbit likes to circle back to his home territory. He knows the lay of the land at home and figures he has a better chance to survive. But Robert's dogs wouldn't let him circle back. That seemed to frustrate him and make him easier to catch. Robert also had about three other running dogs. They were not quite as fast as Queen and Pluto but they played important roles in the pack. They were good to spread out and help flush rabbits out of the weeds and brush. And they were also there at the end of the chase to catch the rabbit in case he dodged quickly and the two leading dogs failed to catch him. When those dogs jumped a jack rabbit, you could just about write him off as another dead rabbit. About the only way a rabbit could escape was to run into a patch of tall, thick feed where the dogs couldn't see him. Other men wanted to buy Robert's dogs at times but he took pride in owning the best greyhounds for miles around, and his best ones were not for sale. Uncle Robert was a favorite of us boys. He was Papa's youngest brother and was only eight years older than Frank. We liked just about everything about him, especially the way he paid us when we worked for him. When we hoed or picked cotton for him, he paid us as soon as we were through, and he paid us in cash, never by check. We hated checks. Some men paid us boys by check, with all our wages figured in together, usually along with Papa's. Then we had to wait for Papa to go to town and get the money, which might be as much as a week later. But not so with Uncle Robert. When time came for him to pay us boys--as soon as the job was finished--he made it a point to have a pocket full of coins so he could pay us then and there. There was no piece of paper, no writing and no waiting. And he paid each of us separately.