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One of the first things I remember is rushing down a steep hillside on my way to school half a mile away. Vola Grillet and I usually went together and she later introduced me to a girl called Elaine Dixon who lived a few houses away. Although Elaine attended a different school we were great friends, and most of our time, other than school hours, was spent with one another. My mother had made me several pairs of shorts with blouses to go with them as she found that they were much easier to wash and keep nice than dresses which I always managed to tear and make filthy. At first Elaine kept to the overalls that she wore and poured scorn on my shorts, but soon realised the greater advantages they presented in the way of climbing and running, and so persuaded her mother to make her a pair. All the older people round the district were quite disgusted with our mothers for letting us run round in trousers like boys, but our mothers thought of the harder washing when dresses were involved and decided to bear their disgust with fortitude.
After seeing one of the Tarzan pictures, then in vogue, our one ambition was to be able to do some of the things he could do. We immediately set to work digging two holes about 3 feet deep and about 7 feet apart. In each of these holes we set up two poles standing about 6 feet high. My father came at intervals and watched our efforts with a thoughtful frown. We quaked in our shoes lest he decide it was dangerous and give orders for it to be taken down. However, as it was well out of the way and out of public view, there was nothing said against us proceeding. At last the great day came when it was completed. We found things not as easy as they seemed, and blessed the forethought which caused us to erect our bar over a thick carpet of long grass. After many falls in which we escaped breaking out necks by a miracle, we found ourselves able to do backward and forward somersaults and various other monkey tricks on our marvellous bar, and so the novelty of this grew rather stale, and we took up acrobats. After becoming rather proficient at these and inventing further varieties of our own, we decided to look round for new adventure. We would take our lunch and after warning our mothers that we would be late home, start off to explore the surrounding country. Although many things presented attractive adventure for the day, none of them seemed lasting until one day we came upon a great expanse of slum hills with pools of deep marshy mud which had formed along the side of the creek encompassing two sides of the sand hills. After determining this to be our future camping grounds while away from home, we turned back home for tea.