The Washington times., 1932-05-09
CHAPTER ONE
A Boy PIOughing

A Boy PlOughing
A boy is ploughing. It is barely
dawn. Cold. The leaf trees are
black against the watery sky. The
light spreads in a clinging, silvery
web along the ground.
The boy, too, is a black shadow
moving against the pale sky in
slow. plunging jerks, as the
plough cuts its difficult way
through the deep, wild soil.
Steam rises in a white cloud
from the horses backs and the
boys mouth. There Is the strong
animal smell of sweating horses
the sharp, green fragrance Of
budding Willows; the pungent
muSty odor of waking earth.
The earth is heavy, webbed
with grass roots never before dis
turbed. The singing air is dry
and light, hard to breathe. The
boy stops to pant and whack his
numbed hands.
Wears H0meSpun Trousers
He is a thin, short boy, almost
is. His knees are knobby beneath
patched homespun trousers; hi'
wrists red and froSt-bitten below
frayed coat sleeves. But above his
narrow shoulders, his head is al
ready large and well formed. A
round, stubborn head; a round
expreSSionlesS face with small
alert blue eyes.
AS he stands there, painting
hunched against the cold, those
eyes are taking in everything. A
wild TURKEYS track. TIE sharp
cleft print Of a deer. The thin
blue column of smoke rising from
q clay-chinked cabin two miles
across the prairie. New settlers. A
waVering line O new road wind
ing to the west. Three buzZards
circling high above that road.
The boy is taking in these
things and the meaning Of all
these things. The cold. The
emptiness and loneliness Of the
great prairie. The poverty and
difficulty and danger Of life. The
constant, driving necessity OF
work.
Will Never Forget
The boy is taking them all in
He is not thinking about them
He is not making comparisons
yet. But he is taking them all
in as he takes in the air and the
feel of the soil. He is making
them a part of himself. He will
never forget them.
He will leave this world and
take his place in a very different
world, but he will never forget
the meaning Of the land; the
meaning Of men who take raw
land and make it into a nation
by their own effort; the cost OF
that effort; the cost Of work. oi
food, of clothes and schools and
horses and lands and homes.
Always he will remember these
things, instinctively. They viii
come first with him for they are
his first contacts and impressions
They have been built into his
body. his imagination, his affec
tionS.
A rabbit leaps from the under
brush. The light spills suddenly
in a warming flood. The boy
starts, whacks his tingling fingers
once more, slapS the reinS across
the broad, steaming backs.
what Lies Ahead?
"Giddap!" he calls, in a young
high shout.
Lurching, jerking, John Nance
Garner starts down the long new
4urrow of his life.
What lies at the end of thai
furrow? He isn't bothering yet
Perhaps some famous statesmen
have planned epics at IS, but ne
such weighty cogitations move
young Cactus Bill" Garner, fight
ing leader Of the Blossom Coor
Soup Hollow baseball team. ISM
that career enough for any guy
It is. They're a swell team
Maybe the world hasn't heard oi
them but they themselves know
and, in particular, one J. N. Gar
ner knowS-that they are th(
swelleSt team in the U. S. A.
OF course they do much more
than play baseball. They d.
everything there is to be dont
on a Texas frontier in the 70'S
which is plenty! Before theil
milk teeth are gone they have
guns over their shoulders anC
skinning knives in their belts
Rabbits and quail on the up
lands, squirrels and doves in thu
river bottoms. Deer somtimeS
Fish always. Hunting isn't just
fun. Back in the cabins there