JUNIOR KING’S BUSINESS edited by Martha S. Hooker
this time
big stories!
A Bible parable and the
wanted to keep the range wide open for their cattle to roam anywhere they wanted to without being stopped by fenced-in farms. Once in a while, some farmer would take courage and come in anyway. He’d get permission from the government to settle on a piece of land. Then he’d bring his fam ily and try to make a home for them. He was never welcome by the big ranchers and usually was warned time and again to leave. And if he didn’t, they’d try to drive him out in one way or another. This they had done to Mr. Good man who had settled with his fam ily on Owl Creek. Mr. Goodman was on his way to Stagecoach Junction, a small town where he had to go to get groceries and supplies. His farm was a long day’s drive. In order to get there, his faithful team of horses would have to pull the wag on over many, many miles of prairie country and through many hills and over several creeks. He was about halfway to Stage coach Junction and nearing Crooked Creek when one of the big ranchers across whose range the road led, saw him. His name was Jack Hard man. He stopped his horse, sort of stood up in the stirrups of his saddle and watched for a few mo ments. Then he said to himself, “Well, if it isn’t that fool farmer, Goodman.” As he watched the team and wagon drop out of sight over the brow of the creek bank, he was trying to make up his mind just what to do to show his hatred for this man who dared to have a farm anywhere in this part of the coun try. Then his mind made up, he
COW-COUNTRY
FARMER by Leonard Eilers
H i, boys and girls! This is your good friend, Leonard Eilers. And I’m sure glad for this time when I can read a wonderful story to you out of that great book, the Bible. For today I picked out one called the Good Samaritan. It’s found in Luke 10:30-37. So just sort of come up close to our imagi nary campfire and relax and listen. Everybody ready? O.K., here I go. “And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Je rusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. “ But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had com passion on him. And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pour ing in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him,
Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come, again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go and do thou likewise.” You know, Jesus told this story in answer to the question, “Who is my neighbour?” asked him by a man to whom Jesus said, “ . . . Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” And what an interesting story it is. Yes sir! And you know, it brings back to my mind some thing that happened years ago back on the western plains. So just sit back some more. I’ll put another armload of wood on the fire and then tell you all about it. N ow this happened in the days when the West was made up mostly of big cattle ranches. A farmer was something almost un heard of in those parts. The reason for that was that the big ranchers didn’t want anyone coming in and plowing up the prairie, planting grain and putting up fences. They
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JANUARY 1957
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