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Show length of his left pointer fingernail as a scarred reminder of his axe-cutting days on cedar wood and brush when he was a boy. An.d there were prominent half moons on his well-shaped, oval fingernails. Trail taught and camp conscious, John K had been touched by few refining influences in his childhood of near poverty. His school and church experiences had been so limited as to be almost nonexistent in his life. His mother's occasional singing and accordian music, and her reading of the scriptures were the finest elements of his childhood. Yet they had been spaced throughout the busy homestead years when feeding her children had been her prime concern, and providing for them left so.little time for more of refinement. Leaving home when he was but thirteen, he had found none of the finer elements in the coarser type of labor he espoused. His mother made sure that he and the rest of her children were baptized into her church when they became eight years old. But the privilege of attending worship services, or being active in the church had been impossible in the more malleable years of his life. Having to a great extent missed the association and companionship of his father, John K found it easy to follow the trends of his associates. Since his world was one of muscle and struggle, his recollections of the early teachings of his mother were sometimes overshadowed. He would occasionally have a good time with his friends in a beer hall or a saloon when he was back in town, 69 |