The Alaska citizen., 1915-08-16
JESS WIllARD'S EARLY LIFE.

My first winter In New York as had to pawn my overcoat. One day l was walking along with a fellow who was all wrapped up and he looked at my light suit and asked me if I wasn't cold.
 Say" l told him. If you'd ever got out of bed before daylight on a of COWS in an open shed. you'd think this wind was warm"
 was born on farm in Potto- wattomie County. Kansas, in 1887. l never knew my father, for he died when was only two months old. There were four of us children and started in to help mother.
 Father had been soldier in the Civil war and after it was over he left Ohio and went out to Kansas. He taught school at first, and then he opened a general store. Every body owed him. and after his death mighty few paid up.
 Mother had fifty acres and some stock, and she went into dairying, truch gardening and smallscale farm ing.
 wish I was a great writer and that had whole book to talk about mother. l can see her yet in her faded calico dress and sunbon- net, her face lean and brown, but the kindest, steadest eyes you ever saw
 She was a very religious woman a Hardshell Baptist-and she herded us to Sunday school and church as regularly as the day came around
 l liked Sunday school. The Bible stories were fine. My favorite was Samson, and I made up my mind that I would grow up just as big and strong.
 Sunday afternoons she would take her eye off us a bit, and if it was warm weather we'd slip off to some corral where there was a lot of young calves That was my first riding, and let me tell you that it's no easy job to stick to a husky bull yearling.
 l had long legs and arms, and l could wrap myself around calf better than the rest, but it wasn't one time in ten that l stuck on.
 Mother always tried to make work interesting for us boys. I hated milking, but she got me all excited about it by saying that every time l gripped my hands I made my wrists and fingers strong.
 Churning was another job l didn't like, for it was slow business pump ing that old dasher up and down waiting for the butter to come. But mother explained to me that l could not have any better way of getting muscle"
 She was d great knitter, making wristlets, mittens and comforters for the whole bunch. l would have to hold her yarn for her sometimes, and when l thought my arms would drop off she'd tell me that it was growing pains
 The best thing about being poor is that a boy gets so much good out of his mother He's closer to her, l mean.
 But my boyhood wasn't all work by any means. The Pottowatomie Reservation was near by, and the In dian kids were my playmates.
 never want to have a finer bunch of friends than Chipmunk, Broken Branch, Deerfoot, Muskrat and the rest of the crowd l ran around with.
 They taught me how to swim, fish and trap and ride, and by the time l was twelve l was as good as any of them.
 When I go through the cities now adays l see fine buildings marked Public Baths but l don't believe they have as good times in them as we used to have in the old swim min hole It was a big deep af- fair at the fork of two creeks, and there was never a day in summer that we didn't hit it on the run.
 The Hast one in" had to rub a nettle over his face, and all of us would begin undressing a half mile away.
 Lord but I've run naked through the woods a hundred times, scrap ing against thorn bushes and cut ting my feet on sticks and stones.
 The favorite game of the Indian boys was "moogaw." One boy was it" and he had to slap some other boy on the top of the head. It was a case of diving all the time, and staying under as long as you could.
 got so that l could swim under water like beaver, and l know that is what gave me my great chest expansion.
 It was at the swimmin' hole that l got my first lesson in keeping a