Thrown Rider Turns Entrepreneur #T

...I sold the brute and got all my money back, with a bit of increase.  Beginning of my business life.

So concluded D. W. Lacy's horse story.  The preacher continues:

Business life was among my brothers as they always seemed to have some need or desire for money, and I had a bit as I was inclined to be rich some day.  A loan, yes, with interest.  Miserly mind.  I'll loan you five dollars for a pair of trousers (worth that much) and a lock box for business purposes. Business venture that opened my eyes on how to:  It worked then and was some help later when I learned to pray. . .  During the great depression 30s and early forties.

My business life venture had to include a Model T Ford automobile.  Not much to look at, but then I was interested in its possibilities as a race car.  It had been remodeled with about anything that would fit where, after it was twisted, bent, and bound together with a bit of baling wire, if necessary, and it was generally necessary in those days to have a spool of that kind of mending material for emergencies experienced along the road when far from help of any kind.  I do believe that the Ford was brought into existence by Henry Ford as a powerful stimulant to the creative powers of the lower middle class people who were unable to pay for road service when caught far from town or home.

The directions to successful traveling included an odd type of jack & handle, a small patching kit with which to mend an inner tube.  Of course there was a handle that could be used for other purposes after patching inner tubes on hot days.  Distance travelers often patched as many as ten or twelve tires in one day.  Oh yes, I almost forgot, a pump of sorts that could be used for inflating the tire; after all that perspiration loss and energy waste the handle could be used to beat the devil out of the car itself, or at least, that was the thought.  I saw a deep dent lengthwise on a car's front fender.  The driver's wife explained when the driver was too embarrassed to do.  She merely said: "It wouldn't run, so Lester gave it a beating."  Because these were depression days in the 30s, that old car wore its scars with pride for many years.  The fender was patched up with a ball peen hammer, pushed back into an acceptable position and wore this sign:  "Its quilted."

Temper tantrums were then found as observed by some as noted, but how times have changed.  Too many times the driver with auto trouble takes a swig out of a bottle, does a little exercise with blasphemous words and then beats the devil out of his wife, scares the little kids nearly to death then leaves them all until his guilty soul lets him crawl back to his family without apology.  Happy change when the two footed demon is safely incarcerated in jail. . . I do think that all society owes itself an apology for the nice places they have for these fellows to sober up in (drunk or just ungoverned tempers).

Part of my business life of running away from our home of ten children.

Here ends that particular document.  The last sentence could be misconstrued, I suppose.  He was referring to leaving his childhood home, not his own children, of whom he had far fewer than ten.
Also, Dad is no longer here for me to nitpick, but if he were, I would point out that by the time he left home at seventeen, his five older siblings had already flown the nest.