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Jepson Field Book Transcriptions · Jepson Herbarium
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66_184 Boyhood Scenes, a few out of among thousands impressed upon the mind of a lad forever, the rest gone within a day, these few entrenched in the memory _ altho_ their significance at the time was not apprehended or understood: - -1: One winter my family lived in the village, Vacaville. Always exploring I wandered into the hills northward from Callen St. where we lived. It was the springtime; water filled the rain pools; tadpoles flourished in them. As I came back from my walk I passed the poor house of a widow woman. Her son, a lad of my own age, was in the little field near his mother_s house, bending over the water of a little pool and poking idly with a stick at the tadpoles and the new swarming water life. My instincts were democratic and I stopped to talk with him. Not raising his head toward me, he only mumbled in an unfriendly way and then turned with a glowering look towards a man |
66_185 that was just then entering his mother_s gate. Many men entered that gate. The mother, perhaps destitute, was a prostitute. At the time I knew nothing of that, of course, but recalling now what passed on there at that time the fact is certain. And never shall I forget the crouching lad, refusing fellowship with me, and turning sullen eyes towards the man of lust approaching his mother_s door. 2. Getting an education. It was thought a fine thing to go to school; to learn just to read and write. It was valued and striven or_ labored for; great sacrifices made to attain. Nowadays a school education is forced on everyone and few value it. Though so many have the power to write, or I would better say, have been taught to |
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