Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-06-29


bench she was standing on tipped
ana threw her on the ground. Bones
were broken, and in St. Francis
Hospital she lay waiting for them to
mend. But before they could do so,
pneumonia came and my second
mother was no more.
The water tower jumps up ahead
OF me, and my mind goes back to
the time that Dave and I dumped
by it twice a day; and to the time
sold its story to Jesse L. Lasky.
On boy! I was a businessman that
day.
We pass the white schoolhouse and
l think of my greatesttriumph. When
won the prize in spelling-Pil-
grim's Progress - certainly the
dreariest book ever written. think
OF what happened next year when
a new teacher came among US and
offered a prize for the one who turned
IN the best showing for nine months
OF spelling. won the prize that
year, too. The same damned book.
1t Just about soured me on trying to
do my best.
Studying was hard work in those
days. We moved our lips and whis-
pered the words of the book to our
selves in such an intense effort of
concentration that when we were
gong full tilt, the schoolroom sound
ed like hive of bees. One day a
girl, much older than I, who was
going to the seminary in town, came
out to our house to stay over Satur-
day and Sunday. She brought her
books along so she could study and
be ready for her schoolwork Mon
day morning. After a while she sat
down in chair by the window and
got her book ready. To my aston
ishment, I saw she wasn't moving
her lips. She was just sitting there
holding the book and looking at it.
Now and then she turned a page. I
stared and stared at the mysterious
ways of higher education.
Our car goes down swale and
l see the exact spot-at least think
1t IS the exact spot-where had the
only fist fight of my life. Where I
actually struck a person. I wonder
If Harlem Kennedy remembers it.
I look down the draw and think of
the white weasel that I trapped just
about there-the one the One Horse
Farmer told the world about.
The car pulls into the drivelot and
the door to the house opens and Nell
lie Logan (Spide's wife) comes out,
and their son Lloyd Logan and his
wife Opal, and their children, Rob-
ert and Kenneth (Spide and Mel
lies grandchildren. They are the
ones who run the Croy farm. am
home. My feet are on the very soil.
After chatting a while, Spide and
l walk out over the farm, just as Pa
and used to do. There's the very
place Jim Vert used to come with
his dehorning chute and his long
thin-bladed, hump-backed saw. I
can-so potent is memory-again al
most see the blood squirting out on
Jim's hands.
There is no longer anybody like
Mr.. Shannon, the neighborhood man.
of-all-jobs. The farms have grown
larger; no one would dream, now, of
trying to make living off forty
acres. When we need a man to
work by the day, we go to town and
pick him up there. Usually he's a
pretty poor worker. We miss Mr..
Shannon.
And there's where the tree stood
with the turtledove nest in its arms.
The turtledove killed with a stone
and saw the dirt on its dead eyes
and, later, saw the starving young
ones fall out and be no more. When
my friends tell CORY hunting stories,
have my own ideas running in my
head.
And here's the spot where the
drummer for the nursery company
offered Pa five dollars a day lust
to drive him around and introduce
him to his neighbors. And the spot
where Pa refused. It was the first
time ever realized Pa was doomed
always to be poor.
AS I walk l realize more and
more that the farm and I are insep-
arabic; that whatever is deep in me
came from its roots.
There is similar pattern between
US. The farm has been up and it has
been down; and God knows have!
The black Aberdeen-Angus are do
ing fine, and so are the Hampshires.
I turn to Spide. II see you have
some Shropshires."
Lloyd thought he'd try out
some"
"Well," I say with the manner of
an expert delivering the findings of
a lifetime, don't be too sold on
them. They're tricky"
Going home is a time of adven-
lures. And no two times are the
ever the same, as no
two days in our lives are ever the
same. Once arrived the day be-
fore very exciting time; at least,
it's exciting to US. The Women's
National Corn Husking Contest
which originated in our county and
which, until the war, was held ev-
cry year. The National Corn Husk-
ing Contest was originated bv Hem