My friends - Today, we are returning to our review of the narratives of Dr. Gordon Wilson, in his delightful book, "Fidelity Folks". Fidelity is better known to us as New Concord in Calloway County, where Dr. Wilson was born and grew to adulthood, after which he taught school for a time in Fulton County and later moved on to Western Kentucky University, where he became the Chairman of the Department of English. He was a well known and superb story-teller, as we have found in our reviews of his narratives. Today's item is entitled "Feeling Big." -B +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Feeling Big -Dr. A. Gordon Wilson "Fidelity Folks" Children of today probably feel as big when they are allowed to do things slightly above the level of their ages as we used to at Fidelity; the only difference between them and us is that the styles have changed, and, consequently, the things that made us feel grown up now appear insignificant to our children. I have tried to remember this feeling of importance and have not always succeeded, even with myself, who used to do all these important-seeming things. When there was a working--barn-raising,wheat-threshing, log-rolling--we small boys were allowed the great privilege of acting as water boys. Elsewhere I have suggested that a monument should be erected to the water boys of all time, from the building of the Pyramids to the present. When Father salted the meat after supper on hog-killing days, the small boy was allowed to carry the lantern and hand salt from the barrel or joints of meat from the tables or shelves on which they had been cooling. Then when we went across the fields to sit till bedtime at some neighbor's,again the boy was given the enviable task of carrying the lantern. The drum major of a college band may step higher than we did, but he feels his importance no more. We felt large when we could collect the eggs and take them to the country store, especially if Mother permitted us to buy some candy on what would be due us. Every boy liked to make up orders, and the girls were even more skillful than the boys in selling things to people who did not want them. Father usually finished out the order by purchasing all the left-overs that no good-natured neighbor would buy. But we got our reward, in the shape of a ring that left a green band around our fingers or a water pistol or some other contraption that worried the family until a few days of use destroyed the much-sought-after prize. Work on the farm sometimes brought us our first chance to earn something. I made my first fifteen cents by dropping tobacco plants and felt rich and important. After I got a little larger and dropped plants as a matter of course, without any prospect of immediate reward, somehow the poetry of the task faded. A similar experience came when I took the "down row" in gathering corn. I have always wondered whether my older brothers really could not hit the wagon with their corn or deliberately threw the ears so I would have to pick them up. Before long the down row became monotonous and even hateful. It came to be a symbol of a small boy. A friend of mine once said that an acquaintance of ours should not have come to college but should have been kept on the farm to take the down row in Corn-gathering. Since corn can be gathered only at one season, we finally compromised by suggesting that the young man could drop tobacco plants in spring, build smudge fires in summer to keep the gnats and flies off the cows while they were being milked, and pick up chips for winter kindling. Distasteful as all these tasks ultimately became, they were alluring at first, The element of daring that sometimes entered into feeling big left many a scar, for the small boy was not always able to carry out his plan. Climbing trees against parental advice was fine and daring so long as one got back down without any disasters; when a torn shirt or pants or skinned knees revealed the offender, somehow the big feeling vanished. Similarly, chewing one's first tobacco gave a large feeling that shrank pretty fast when the nicotine took effect and the world started going around. Maybe life among grownups is, after all, a sort of daring to do what was never done before - a grown-up version of feeling big. ====================================================================