This page has been validated.
and neck in the swimming pool, scratched his bare legs on blackberry briars. He learned how to drive horses, how to handle a hay fork or a hoe, how to sharpen and repair the farm tools. The "shop" was the most interesting part of the farm to him; it was there he invented and manufactured a device for opening and closing the farm gates without getting down from the wagon.
Then, when he was 14, an event occurred which undoubtedly changed the course of his life. Mary Ford died.
