My boyhood was no different from the average farm boy of the time. I was born in a log cabin. The logs were covered over by boards later. It was about 16 X 20 feet in size and had a large fireplace in one end. I was too small to remember it when my parents moved to the place when I grew up 4 miles from Fishers.

I was fortunate to have had wonderful parents, all throughout their married life there was never many harsh words. They were kind but positive about my behavior. Mother [Clara Fisher Brooks] often took me to the bedroom for any misbehavior I had indulged in, and we both kneeled down by the bed and she talked to God, and beseeched Him to forgive me. I am sure he did as it had a very sobering effect on my conscience. Father [Gustavus or Gus Brooks] took a more stern approach, but he never whipped me once.

The first time I remember was when Father build a fishpond about one acre in side in our yard which was to become my playground. (See attached picture.) Here I think I got my first lessons in nature study which has endured to the present. I learned to know what a shite polk (Little Green Heron) was, as well as the big blue crane (great Blue Heron), I learned what a snake feeder was. Dragonflies, frogs, toads, snakes, and fish were almost my playmates. It was here I found out that the center stalk of sweet flag (Calamus) could be pulled out and was good to eat also that dried root of the same had a pungent taste but it also was edible. I learned to fish and learned some of their names, such as Punkin Seeds and Green Backs (both sunfish). Winter was a time to look forward to and I learned to ice skate by the time I was six years old. Skating time was the time when all the young folks of our neighborhood had skating parties each night on it, all of which terminated in an invitation to come inside to get warm by a large fire place and Mother always served popcorn and apples.

I also learned the eave martins (cliff swallows) came back each spring to their jug shaped nests under the eaves of the barn. Incidentally, I have never seen another colony of cliff swallows in the wild since then. When I was about 8 years old, Father drained the pond and made a garden there. I was old enough so that my parent let me go alone to explore Mud Creek. I crossed the road about ¼ mile west from home. Under the bridge over Mud Creek, I found out there was a new bird nesting, it was the bridge martin (barn swallow). I found out many new things about nature there. I found a scrub red ozier (sp?) dogwood that had red twigs. I found that if I cut a twig the size of a pencil, and inserted a short piece of lead from a lead pencil in one end, and sharpened it that I could trade with some of the fewer boys at school for a yellow pencil that was real. Mother did not approve of such when I boasted of my accomplishment, a lesson of right and wrong was explained very plain to me. I know every fishing pole up and down Mud Creek for a half mile each way. The old swimming hole on the Morgan Farm was the meeting place of all the neighborhood boys.

Another diversion we boys indulged in was whipping out bumblebee nests. The ones we had mastered were large yellow ones. On the bank near the swimming hole was an old farm drag and under it was a next of small black bumblebees, so we learned that there were two kinds. (I still do not know their proper names but do know they were much more easily irritated than the large yellow ones. This nest was a group endeavor. We whipped it out. One day while we were approaching the nest some one offered the suggestion that they stung once and they die. Mr. Morgan had a large herd of cattle grazing near by so we reasoned that if we drove the cattle near the nest and someone threw a club at the nest many of them would get stung and die and maybe there would not be many left, and we could whip them out. It worked so far, but the cattle stampeded and went into the old swimming hole end that was over five feet above the water. However, we were in luck in that not one of the cattle had any broken legs, but it scared us so much that we never tried it again, and we never did whip them out.

I soon got big enough my parents let me go to Fall Creek for further exploration and I soon knew all the good fishing holes for a mile up and down that creek. It was on the bank one time when I saw my first red fox.

Some Highlights of My Life -- by Earl Brooks