'T' Tracks of Two Boys and A Donkey...

...Down the Dusty Road

The dusty path between town and home was covered with tracks.  One set belonged to a barefoot boy and one set to a donkey.  Every hundred yards or so, the barefoot tracks would switch to shoe tracks that ran along side the donkey.  

Racing was a measure of the boy on the donkey against the boy on foot.  From school to the 'old man's house' was one leg of the race.  At the end of that leg, an apple awaited all three, both boys and the donkey. 

 Eating the apple and resting up for the next leg home, gave the boys a chance to visit with the old man and tell him about their day at school.  He in turn shared the stories they liked to hear about when the old man was young, and how he knew their Dad and Granddad in the old days when they were early settlers in Ward County, Texas.

"I knew your folks when they got here in a covered wagon.  Uncle George, your Granddaddy, had a way with horses and he passed that on to your Daddy, and now you boys show a real promising talent with horses, too."  He pointed out to them that the donkey wasn't quite the caliber horses he knew they were destined to own, but was a right good start.  "I jest imagine you two will be right good with cattle, too." he added as he began the yarn about how their Mama had stayed behind in a snow storm to help birth a calf. 

 "It was a sleetin and a snowin, and that wagon jest kept getting farther and farther away, and yore Ma stayed til that calf was born.  Then she wrapped it up in her slicker and carried it across her saddle while the mama cow followed.  That musta been somewhere between Odessa and Grandfalls," he told the boys as they finished their apples.  The old man spit apple seeds into the dust, and continued with his tale.  "Now, your Grandma Carroll was mighty proud of her daughter for gettin that old cow and her new calf home.  Yes siree, that Stella was quite a gal."

 

Both boys riding the donkey, rode across what passed for a bridge going across the ditch.  They would ride a ways down the ditch line looking for their Dad.  Looking into the sunset with squinting eyes, they spotted him nearly a half mile down the ditch. 

Reaching the big horse that had to be lots of hands high, the boys jumped down to help drag the clump of weeds and sticks from the ditch.  Down the ditch the water could now flow until it blocked up again, and their Dad, the Ditch Rider, would get there to untangle the debris so the water could flow again.  

Backtracking the ditch on their way home, the boys wondered what they would eat for supper. Supper was meager, but the beans and cornbread filled them up and the cool breeze of spring fluttering the worn curtains in the small house found them in bed not long after sun down. Rising early, the two boys started off to school.  Somewhat reluctant about going on this bright morning, Willard, admitted to MD that he wasn't all that keen on schooling today.  "Mrs. Brandenburg has promised me a paddling first thing every morning." he told his brother as they walked down the dusty road.  

"Why's she whipping you before school even starts, and you haven't done nothin yet"?  MD wondered aloud.

  "Well, she seems to think I'll be in her office sometime during the day for licks anyhow, so she thought it'd be a good idea to just get it over with early," Willard said as he threw rocks into the ditch as they crossed over. 

 "I'll fool her one day, and not do a single thing to get sent to the office for licks.  Think I could manage that"?, he quizzed MD.  

"Nah, I doubt it." MD said shaking his brown curly head and his laugh showing in his brown eyes.

~This true story based on recollections of Oldtimers who knew Willard, MD and their Ditch Rider Dad.  The Old timer story teller's prediction of my Dad, Willard, becoming a horseman came true.    The insert photo next to Willard's Headstone is of my Dad, his brother MD in Army Uniform and my Grandfather.  Willard and MD rest in peace just a few Tracks from each other in Tamarisk Cemetery located down a dusty road not far from 'The Irrigation Ditch' their Ditch Rider Dad rode.

~Photo of Willard on horse taken at this homestead on the same Dusty Road he and MD made Tracks

~Photo of two boys wrestling is Willard and MD. (re-photographed from early 1940's picture)

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All photos by Sue McPeak ©reserved