At other times I would tease a vicious bull until he would chase after me, and just before he hit me I would laugh at him and close my eyes. He couldn't even find me, let alone hurt me. Often I would open my eyes and get him to charge again, only to lose me and miss me when I closed my eyes. Our youngest son is named Larry. And after he was a grown man, I dreamed that he and I were going some place in a Model T Ford car on a highway in Texas. It had been raining for weeks and was still raining. The highway was muddy and the ruts were so deep our axles were dragging. We were wet, cold, tired, and stuck in a mud hole. Then the truth came to me. I got in the car and called to Larry to get in out of the rain and take it easy. He was puzzled, but he got in the car, sat down, and asked, "Why?" I told him, "Relax and rest, I'll wake up in a few minutes and everything will be all right. I'm dreaming all this. We're not stuck out here in the mud. It's not raining on us. There are no unpaved highways in Texas and no Model T cars on them. I'm dreaming that you are out here in this wet and cold with me. You are not really here. You can't even hear me talking to you. You are lying up somewhere in a nice warm bed. Come to think of it, so am I." I woke up sometime later and found things to be just the way I had described them to Larry in my dream. Another time I dreamed that Ima, my wife, and I were touring in the mountains. We had stopped at a lookout point and were looking into the valley below. Dinosaurs were grazing down there and walking around. One cute little fellow, with a neck about as long as four telephone poles, came toward us and stuck his head up over the rock banister where I stood. Ima had gotten scared and ran to the car. I called to her, "Ima, don't be afraid. Come back and let's pet him. You know we're dreaming because these things have been extinct for thousands of years. Come on, he won't hurt us and we'll be the only people living who ever petted one--or even saw one." In high school we were told that a long dream might take place within a few seconds. But I already knew it from first-hand experience. I was about nine years old when I had such an experience. One day I was riding in the back seat of our Reo car. Papa was driving at about his regular speed of twelve miles per hour down a country road. I was sleepy but still awake when we crossed Dry Callie Creek on a noisy bridge. Then I fell asleep and dreamed we went places and did things that would have taken a couple of hours in real life. When I woke up, I thought I had slept all the way to town and almost all the way back home. I was disappointed because I had planned to buy some candy while we were in town. I looked around to see how far we were from home only to find that we were about two hundred yards from the noisy bridge, and were still on our way to town. CHAPTER 6 PROSPERITY, ANIMALS, GROWING UP