Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-02-02
CHAPTER II

and Uncle Dexter, and probably an
other uncle, came. in and a bedroom
was attached. And there I was born
and there the room still stands. 1t
was shock, few years ago, when
l went back and found the room
was being used as henhouse.
I find myself hesitating to men,
ton the year, because it all seems so
fearfully long ago. It wasn't. You'd
be surprised to see how spry am.
1t was really the year Brooklyn
Bridge was built. There!
And here are some other things
that came in that year: the old Wal
dorf-Astoria was opened, the last
spike was driven in the Northern
Pacific and Joseph Pulitzer bought
the New York World. And this was
the year Mark Twain's Life on the
Mississippi" appeared.
The new room was a good hos
pital, Aunt Mandy Sewell drove up
and stayed a week and the event
went off all right. 1t was not long
until my mother was up and doing
the washing and baking and cooking
and things were back to normal.
I am sometimes asked where I
got my first name, and if it was be-
cause my parents loved the blind
poet. 1t wasn't quite that romantic.
I was named for the township in
Ohio where my father came from.
I was not given middle name.
A child's first memory is, be-
ieve, usually about people. My first
memory is about my mother and a
wholly unimportant one. We were
walking in the orchard and I picked
up an apple and put it in the pocket
of my dress. The apple became
caught-was tight in the pocket-a
tragedy to me-and my mother
worked the apple out. l expect psy-
chiatrists could explain something
or other by that. But I can't.
My next memory is of a hole in
the living-room floor. The floor tilt
ed little and my father had bored
an auger hole so that when my
mother scrubbed, the water would
drain off. I would try to look through
the hole and would wonder what
was on the other side. And always
have wondered what was on the
other side.
And now confused memory, one
quite bit more involved 1t was
that something dreadful was happen
ing. And indeed it was. My father
came riding one of the pillow horses
in from the field at a gallop and
leaped off, opened the gate, and let
them 60 in the barn lot with the har-
ness on. Then he came running to
the house and we all got into the
cyclone cave and sat wrapped in
quilts. Now and then Pa would lift
up the doors and look out. When we
finally came out, the barn had been
blown away and one of the horses
killed. So destructive are the cy-
clones of this section, and so sharp
ly defined are they, that this one
had swept through the orchard my
father and mother had set out,
and had moved half of it down and
left the other standing And there
it was, all my early days, the half
down half-up orchard, the SCARED
and twisted trees. My mother used
to talk about cher" orchard. When
she wanted to rest she would take
her chair with the leather bottom
Pa had woven and go out and sit
under one of the trees.
The Sewells made another run and
the barn was rebuilt. I remember
(another trifiing fiash) sitting on a
joist and watching Uncle Sewell
mortise hole.
l developed deep affection for
that barn, for barns do things to you.
l do not remember my first day
at Knabb School, except the dis
grace I got into. But l can still
see the schoolhouse. That, however.
is easy for it is still much as it was
then. I've often read of 1.-THE little
red schoolhouse," but I never saw
one. In our section, all country
schoolhouses were white, and for
that matter, they still are. There
it was-a coal house in the yard,
an iron pump, cyclone cave, and,
at the back of the lot, two small
structures with half-moons in the
sides. Two or three horses would
be tied to hitching-posts for the
scholars who lived too far away, or
were too small to walk. When it
was time for school to take up, the
teacher came to the door and rang a
hand-bell and that was the end of it.
The only difference in the school
house between my day and now is
that someone, with advanced ideas
on education and eyestrain, decided
that all light should come from the
south, so the north windows were
closed up. The children seem a bit
.blinky-eyed.
Horses still chomp at the hitch