Free Mona Kerby & Eileen McKeating by Amelia Earhart: Courage in the Sky Page A

brave,” the little girl replied, “I just didn’t have time to be scared.”
    â€œNever run away,” Mr. Earhart often told his daughters. Amelia took her father’s words to heart. Big boys and a barking dog didn’t frighten her.
    In the spring of 1903, when Amelia was five, Mr. Earhart took a train to Washington, D.C. In those days, most people didn’t travel very far from home. There weren’t any fast planes and cars. Even so, Mr. Earhart went. He had an idea that he thought would make him rich. He had invented a holder that held the signal flags on the backs of trains.

    In Washington, Mr. Earhart learned that someone had already invented such a holder. “This news is a terrible blow,” he wrote to his wife.
    Later that year, Mrs. Earhart found out exactly what her husband meant. A tax collector came to the Earharts’ home. There’s some mistake, Mrs. Earhart thought. Her husband had paid the taxes. But he hadn’t. Mr. Earhart had spent the money for his trip to Washington, D.C.
    When Grandfather Otis found out, he was very angry. He said that Edwin Earhart was not a good husband or father. What’s more, Grandfather said that Edwin would never make enough money to support his family.
    Still, the Judge’s disapproval didn’t stop Edwin from spending money the very next year. In 1904, rather than saving, Edwin spent $100. Back then, this was a lot of money. He took his family on a week-long vacation to the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri.
    For the first time in her life, 6-year-old Amelia rode an elephant and a Ferris wheel. Because she was too little to ride the roller coaster, Amelia decided to make one in her own backyard.
    Amelia learned more than how to make a roller coaster. She was learning lessons that would last her a lifetime. If you want to do something, her father explained, you must be willing to pay the price.
    Because her father spent the money, Grandfather Otis disliked him. Grandfather’s disapproval was the price Mr. Earhart paid so that his little girls could enjoy themselves.
    Amelia watched her father’s example and remembered. Years later, when she wanted to fly, she would be willing to pay the price.

2
    â€œSizz-boom-bah!”
    Millie squatted down and held her head close to the porch for a good look. She smiled. Her racer was fat and long and slinky. The leaf and the blade of grass made a perfect carriage and harness. She glanced over at Pidge. Her sister’s worm was ready, too. “Go,” Millie shouted, and the worm race was on.
    Worm races were just one of the things Amelia dreamed up to do during the summers in Atchison, Kansas. Between 1905 and 1908, Amelia and Muriel lived much of the time with their grandparents. Their parents had moved to Des Moines, Iowa. Mr. Earhart got a good job with the railroad. When he travelled, his wife went with him. The girls remained in Atchison until their mother found a house she thought was right. Besides, Mrs. Earhart thought the schools were better there.
    These times were happy. Amelia and Muriel spent hours reading the books and magazines in their grandfather’s library. They also played with their cousins, Lucy and Katherine Challis, nicknamed Toot and Katch. The girls invented their own vocabulary. A house was called a “shouse.” Grocery boys were called “garshee boys.” Grasshoppers were called “hannibals.”
    On hot summer evenings, the four cousins gathered the old skins of grasshoppers. Amelia led the way, as they slowly walked to the back of their grandparents’ house. Here they placed the grasshoppers’ skins on a tree stump.
    Kneeling, they tapped their heads on the trunk. “Kow-tou-kow-tou to the Great Ken How,” they chanted.
    Amelia struck a match to the dried grasshopper skins. While the skins burned, the girls marched around the tree stump singing, “Grumpa, grumpa, dance, dance, dance.” At the