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

very end, they shouted at the top of their lungs, “Hannibal! Hannibal! Sizz-boom-bah!”
    On Christmas eve in 1906, the year Amelia was nine, her parents arrived loaded with gifts. Two presents were exactly what Amelia wanted—a boy’s sled and a gun. Of course, Judge Otis didn’t approve of such things for little girls. Perhaps this was one reason that Mr. Earhart gave them to Amelia.
    With the new sled, Amelia didn’t sit straight as girls were supposed to do. She did “belly flops” like the boys did. Once, as she was speeding down a hill, she saw a cart and a horse on the road below. Amelia shouted, but the driver didn’t hear. She couldn’t stop and she couldn’t turn. There was only one thing to do. Amelia slid between the horse’s legs.
    Amelia wanted the .22 rifle to shoot the rats in the barn. One evening, she shot a rat but it didn’t die. Amelia waited nearly an hour before she saw the rat again. This time she shot and killed it. She was late for dinner, breaking one of Grandmother’s rules. Amelia accepted her punishment—the gun was taken away.
    This was probably a good idea. The barn was shot full of holes. The man who worked for Amelia’s grandparents said, “Amelia gets an idea and, by gosh, she stays right with it. Dinner or no dinner, punishment or not, she wanted to get the rats.”
    As a little girl and as a grown woman, Amelia was often asked why she wanted to do something. She always replied simply and stubbornly, “Because I want to.”

    For her tenth birthday in 1907, Amelia saw her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. She thought it was ugly with its rusty wire and wood. The plane, called a biplane, had two pairs of wings. The pilot sat in the middle and wore goggles so that the wind and bugs wouldn’t get in his eyes. Another man started the plane by turning a big wooden propeller. Years later, Amelia wrote that she didn’t pay much attention to the plane. She was too busy looking at her new hat made out of a peach basket.
    In the summer of 1908, the Earhart girls went to live with their parents. Their new home in Des Moines was a big change for the sisters. They didn’t have a maid or a cook. Instead of attending a private school, they attended the public school. By the next year, however, Mr. Earhart was promoted to a better job. The Earhart family moved to a larger house and hired servants.
    As a family, they attended concerts and art shows. They belonged to a magazine club, sharing magazines with their neighbors. During the summers, they took vacations in Minnesota. They took trips in their father’s private railroad car. The car had a small living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Everything seemed wonderful.
    But it wasn’t. Mr. Earhart began to drink too much alcohol. Several times a week he shuffled home from work. His speech was sloppy and thick. Even though he went to a hospital for treatment, he couldn’t seem to stop drinking too much.
    Amelia, Muriel, and Mrs. Earhart didn’t let the neighbors see their sadness. They pretended everything was fine. Still, the Judge and Grandmother Otis knew that something was wrong.
    In February, 1912, Grandmother Otis died. In her will, she left her money to her four children. The will stated, however, that Amy’s share was to be held by the bank for twenty years or until Edwin Earhart died. Mr. Earhart was ashamed and embarrassed. He began to drink even more.
    And finally, in 1913, he lost his job. Amelia was sixteen years old. She had to leave her high school and her friends. The Earhart family left for St. Paul, Minnesota, where her father found work as a clerk in a railroad office.
    Since Amelia and Muriel were new, they weren’t invited to many parties. They didn’t have the money to join the fancy skating and social clubs. In December of that year, they looked forward to a party at their church. Back then, fathers brought