The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1925-02-06
Chapter I

Cutll u0 WAS dtHiOSt ten Tile Maine
stuck to him. He had literally to fight
his way free of it. From So Big (of
fond and infantie derivation) it had
been condensed into Sobig. And Sobig
DeJong, in all its consonantal dishar-
mony, he had remained until he was
"a ten-year-old schoolboy in that In
credibly Dutch district southwest of
Chicago known first as New Holland
and later as High Prairie. At ten, by
,dint of fists, teeth. copper-toed boots,
and temper, Dirk DeJong.
The nickname had sprung up from
the early and idiotic question invariably
put to babies and answered by them,
with infinite patience, through the
years of their infancy.
1 Selma DeJOng. darting expertly
labout her kitchen. from washtub to
baking board, from stove to table. or,
/ IL at work In the fields of the truck
farm. Strengthening the numbed back
for moments respite from the close
set rows Of carrots, turnips, spinach,
or beets over which she was laboring,
would wipe the sweat beads from nose
and forehead with quick duck Of her
head In the crock of her bent arm.
Those great fine dark eyes Of hers
would regard the child perched imper-
manently on little heap of empty po-
tato sacks, one of which comprised
his costume. Selma DeJong had little
time for the expression Of affection.
The work was always hot at her heels
You saw young woman in blue
calico dress. faded and earth-grimed.
as of one who walks always little
ahead of herself in her haste. Her
4 dark abundant hair was skewered into
q unitarian knob from which soft
loops and strands were constantly es-
Gaping, to be pushed hack by that same
harried ducking gesture of head and
bent arm. Her hands. for such use.
were usually too crusted and inground
with the soil into which she was delv-
ing. You saw a child of perhaps two
years, Girt-streaked. sunburned, and
generally otherwise defaced by those
bumps, bites, scratches, and Commissions
that are the common lot of the farm
child of a mother harrled by work.
Yet, in that moment, as the woman
looked at the child there in the warm
moist spring Of the Illinois prairie land,
or in the cluttered kitchen of the farm
house, there Quivered and vibrated be-
tween them and all abount them an
aura. glow, that impaired to them
and their surroundings a mystery, a
beauty, a radiance.
slow big is baby?" Selma would de-
mand, senselessly. "How big is my
mani"
The child would momentarily cease
to poke plump fingers into the rich
black loan. He would smile gummy
though slightly weary smile and stretch
wide his arms. She, too, would open
her tired arms wide. wide. Then they
would say in duet, his mouth a puck
cred pink petal, hers quivering with
tenderness and certain amusement,
100000 bigr with the voice soaring
on the prolonged vowel and dropping
suddenly with the second word. Part
of the game. She would run to him,
and swoop down upon him, and bury
her flushed face in the warm moist
creases of his neck, and make as
though to devour him. $50 big!"
But of course he wasn't. He, wasn't
as big as that. In fact, he never be-
came as big as the wide-stretched arms
Of her love and imagination would have
had him. You would have thought she
should have been satisfied when. in
later years. he was the Dirk DeJong
whose name you saw (engraved) at the
top of heavy cream linen paper, so
rich and thick and stiff as to have the
effect of being starched and ironed by
some costly American business process (;
whose clothes were made by Peter
Peeh the English tailor; whose road