Chapter 2

Jimmy’s Early Life

Mr. Earl loved to play tennis. Soon after moving to Archery, he built a tennis court near the house. He taught Jimmy to play tennis too. But no matter how hard he tried, Jimmy could never beat his dad! Mr. Earl also dug a small swimming pool behind the house. It was a great place to swim, except for one big problem. Sometimes, poisonous snakes slithered from the nearby swamps into the pool. The children always checked the pool carefully before diving into the water.

Jimmy spent most of his time outdoors. He didn’t have much in common with his younger sisters. Gloria was two years younger than Jimmy. Ruth, born after the family moved to Archery, was three years younger. Neither of them worked in the barn or fields like Jimmy did. They spent their time sewing, cooking, or playing with dolls. The entire family came together for meals and for church on Sunday. Sometimes, in the winter, the children played board games at the dining room table before bed. From time to time, their parents took them to Americus, fourteen miles away, to see a movie. Jimmy’s only brother, Billy, wasn’t born until Jimmy was twelve.

In this elementary school photo, Jimmy shows his world-famous smile.

During the summers, the Carters spent their evenings on the front porch sitting on rocking chairs or the porch swing. On winter evenings, they lit the fireplace in the living room. Kerosene lamps provided light as they gathered around a large battery-powered radio and listened to the big band music of Glenn Miller or to comedy programs like Amos ’n Andy or Fibber McGee and Molly. Sometimes they heard sports announcers describing faraway baseball games or boxing matches.

During the summers, daytime was work time. Jimmy spent long hours helping his father. Mr. Earl always called Jimmy Hot or Hot Shot. “Hot, would you like to pick cotton this afternoon?” Mr. Earl would ask. Hot always said yes. He wanted to live up to his father’s high expectations. “My father was my hero,” Jimmy later wrote. “I watched his every move with admiration.”

Jimmy got up at 4:00 a.m. when the big farm bell called workers to the fields. He watched farmhands gather supplies by lantern light, hitch the mules to the wagons, and drive to the fields as the sun came up. As soon as he was big enough to carry a bucket, Jimmy’s father put him to work hauling water to the field workers. He carried an empty bucket in each hand to the spring, which was usually located at the bottom of a steep hill in a boggy area. Water sloshed out of the heavy buckets as Jimmy carried them back to the workers. They gulped down the water and sent Jimmy back for more.

Mr. Earl encouraged Jimmy to earn money as a businessman. Jimmy was only five years old when his dad sent him to Plains to sell peanuts on a street corner. The season lasted about two months, starting in mid-July. At first, Jimmy sold bags of peanuts that his father prepared. As he got older, he helped prepare the peanuts. Peanut seeds grow into green, oval-shaped bushes that send tiny vines into the ground. Most vines produce about fifty nuts. When the peanuts were ripe, Jimmy pulled the vines. He washed and soaked the peanuts in salt water overnight, and then early the next morning, he boiled the peanuts for thirty minutes and put them into paper sacks before going to town to sell nuts.

Jimmy had about ten regular customers. He also sold nuts to shoppers visiting Plains. Sometimes the men playing cards and swapping stories at the gas stations bought a bag or two. On good days, Jimmy sold his entire supply by noon and returned home with a dollar’s worth of change. Other days, the card players teased Jimmy and tried to get him to do chores for them. Selling the peanuts wasn’t easy, but as Jimmy later admitted, it was good training. When he became governor of Georgia, he proudly declared, “I have always attempted to conduct my business in an honest and efficient manner.”

School

Jimmy began first grade in Plains just before he turned six. On the farm and with his friends, Jimmy felt self-confident. But when he left home to attend school in Plains, he became shy and timid. Jimmy was small for his age, and he wasn’t used to competing against other white boys. He knew a few of the children from church, but there were many he didn’t know. He gathered his courage, walked up to those he didn’t know, put out his hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Jimmy Carter.”

The school day began with a chapel service, prayer, and the singing of a patriotic song. Morning classes followed and then lunch. Jimmy’s father arranged for Jimmy (and later Gloria, as well) to eat at his Aunt Ethel and Uncle Willard’s house near the school. Sometimes Aunt Ethel was slow in preparing the meal, which bothered Jimmy. He didn’t want to miss playing baseball or other sports with the boys on the playground during recess. Jimmy waited patiently, but he was always eager to get back to school.

Jimmy could read and write before he began school. He loved reading. In third grade, he won a contest for reading the most books. As a reward, he ate dinner with his teacher, Miss Tot. Jimmy wore his best clothes for the big event. His excitement gave way to shock when Miss Tot served sauerkraut, a pickled cabbage dish. Jimmy had never eaten sauerkraut before. He thought it looked and tasted like a big mistake. Nevertheless, he ate it all. The other part of the reward pleased him more. Miss Tot gave him a framed print of a famous painting by Thomas Gainsborough. Jimmy hung it in his room. The picture more than made up for his struggle with the sauerkraut.

All the teachers encouraged their students to read. Miss Julia Coleman, the school superintendent, insisted on it. Miss Julia often singled out students who excelled. Jimmy was one of her favorites. She gave him extra assignments and reading lists. She awarded him a silver star for every five books he read, and a gold star for every ten. When he was in the fifth grade, Miss Coleman suggested that Jimmy read War and Peace by Russian author Leo Tolstoy. At first, Jimmy thought it was about cowboys and Indians. He soon discovered that War and Peace told the story of a war between France and Russia in the early 1800s. The novel is more than 1400 pages long. Even so, Jimmy took pride in reading every single page.

Jimmy’s parents encouraged reading at home too. When the children were small, Mr. Earl sat in his easy chair in front of the fireplace and read aloud. His own reading included newspapers, magazines, and farming journals.

Jimmy’s mother read constantly. As soon as the children learned to read on their own, she encouraged them to bring their books to dinner. After saying the blessing, everyone opened their books and began reading. Talking was forbidden. Years later, when he became a dad, Jimmy continued this practice with his own children.

The outdoor life

By the time Jimmy was eight years old, he did many chores on the farm. Mr. Earl grew cotton, sugar cane, and peanuts, as well as vegetables like sweet potatoes, okra, peas, corn, cabbage, turnips, and collards. Jimmy’s most dreaded chore was mopping cotton. To do this, he brushed a mixture of arsenic, molasses, and water onto each cotton plant with a cloth mop. The sticky brown poison killed the bugs that ate the cotton, but it also attracted flies and honeybees. The flies and bees followed Jimmy and his mop through the cotton field. Flies stuck to the bucket. By the time Jimmy got home, his pants were so stiff with the sticky mix that they would stand up by themselves in a corner of his bedroom.

There were plenty of breaks from farm work. Hunting and fishing were part of everyday life in rural Georgia too. By the time Jimmy was six, his father had taught him how to shoot a gun. He began with a BB gun and moved up to a Remington .22 semiautomatic rifle. Jimmy joined his dad hunting doves and bobwhite quail.

Jimmy was the best tree-climber in all of Archery, and sometimes, when the farmers went possum hunting, they invited Jimmy along. During possum hunts, he climbed high into the trees and shook the branches, knocking the possum to the ground. The men on the ground tried to capture it before the dogs did.

Jimmy and his dad were fascinated with the lives of Native Americans. They often hiked in the fields or streams around Archery looking for Native American pottery, arrowheads, or spearheads. Winter was the best time to find such things because rain often washed long-buried items to the surface. When they did discover a bit of pottery or an arrowhead, Jimmy and his dad would study it for hours before adding it to their collection. Hunting, fishing, and searching for arrowheads became lifelong hobbies.