King's Business - 1958-08

JUN IOR KING’S BUSINESS edited by Martha S. Hooker

stories, pea pah, contests . . . and much more!

Fiction by: Fred Cowell

A

& ismyname

Y es, Higgins is my name. I was bom 67 years ago in the little four- room house on my father’s south­ ern, but none-too-productive, farm. The empty bam was burned 10 years ago but the little house in which I was bom is still standing— a monument to the rugged country life of the days long-since gone by. How well I can recall the sunny hours of my childhood. Often memory delights to bring back the days when my father, mother, brother Tom and I lived a carefree if rigorous life on the prim­

itive, little homestead. Before break of day we arose in order to get the chores done before Tom and I went to school. First the cows were milked, then the horses, pigs and chickens were fed and finally the kindlin’ for the day had to be brought in and placed in the wood- box. After all the work was done we sat down to breakfast. I can see and taste those breakfasts even now which often consisted of my moth­ er’s golden pancakes. Never, since my childhood, have I eaten pan­ cakes that tasted so good— those

large brown fellows that almost covered the plate, with a square of country butter melting in the cen­ ter and com syrup running out in all directions of the compass toward the sunny-yellow edges. B reakfast over, Tom and I combed our hair at the broken mir­ ror that hung near the tall unpaint­ ed wooden pump. This was the final touch before we started on our two-mile walk to the little frame, weather-beaten, one-room school- house that rested on a pile of stones at each comer, the only foundation

22

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online