This was the homeplace, “hot in the summer and cold in the winter,” of a Georgia farm boy who would someday sleep in the White House. Here young Jimmy Carter ran, dodging dogs, chickens, geese, and guinea fowl. The yard was swept with sand and weeded clean to keep snakes and bugs away from the house. A woodpile stacked high with hickory, oak, and pine for the fireplace and kitchen stoves took up much of the back yard, and a chinaberry tree near the house held a treehouse where Jimmy played. His father, “Mr. Earl” Carter, hurried out on farm business, and his mother, “Miss Lillian,” went to help people with her nursing skills. The back door was left unlocked.