The Cross Timbers by Edward Everett Dale Page A

if there were eggs or young birds in it. The climb was not an easy one, because the tree had no branches for the first ten or twelve feet and the trunk was unusually smooth. Walter gripped it with his legs and arms, however, and with a boost from George eventually reached the first limb and from there on he had no difficulty.
    Walter reached the nest and called down to us that it was empty. As he started to climb down George seized a one-by-four piece of lumber about ten feet long that was leaning against the fence, dipped the end of it in a large soft “cow puddin’,” and smeared the tree trunk liberally as far up as he could reach. Walter yelled frantically, “Oh, Girge, Girge,” as he saw his descent to earth so effectually blocked.
    The rest of us laughed heartily, but when he started crying we began to realize that the incident might have serious consequences for George. Oscar and I were innocent bystanders but we might be deemed guilty by association, and our plea that we had no idea of George’s intentions when he “got Walter up a tree” as he did, might fall on deaf ears. Personally I doubted that George’s act was premeditated. It seems more likely that he yielded to temptation when he saw Walter high in the tree and the means of keeping him there so close at hand.
    Getting Walter down proved to be a difficult task. We piled a mound of hay beneath the tree and urged him to jump on top of it, but it looked like too long a drop and he refused. Finally, George climbed up partway and helped Walter down, both of them getting more or less messed up before Walter was safe onthe ground again. They cleaned up as best they could and I heard George say, “We won’t let the folks know what a mess we got ourselves into, will we, Walter?” To this Walter replied, “Oh, no! Of course we won’t!” I am sure that neither of them ever did.
    We were truly sorry when the Brileys moved to Roanoke and a year later migrated to the Prairie West. We never saw any of the family again but rumors reached us that they were doing well as wheat growers in western Oklahoma or the Texas Panhandle.
    We had numerous other playmates but none who could quite take the place of Walter and Oscar. One of them was Bob Kemp, a brother of Mrs. Jake West, whose husband had bought the old Blodgett farm. We did not play with Bob much because he had lived in Fort Worth and was more or less a town kid. Bill Mayes, whose parents lived on the prairie a short distance west of us; Surhter Boone, whose Dad lived at what was called “Boone P’int”; and the Bourland brothers, Andy, Ed, and Sam, were among our good boy friends.
    By far our closest friends during the latter years of our life in the Cross Timbers were the twin brothers, Paul and Dow Taylor, mentioned in an earlier chapter. They were lads after our own hearts, for they did not chew tobacco or smoke cigarettes as did many boys of the community. Moreover, they liked to read, never swore or used bad language, were always courteous, and yet were by no means sissies; we were therefore always glad to be with them.
    Yet, much as we liked the company of other boys and playing games with them, we were always able to entertain ourselves when alone. Perhaps the fact that we had plenty of work to do in the fields and around the house made any leisure hours sweeterand helped keep us from ever being bored. Even though we had no toys except a jack knife, a few marbles, and a homemade ball, it would never have occurred to us to ask our elders, “What can I do?” Our only problem was which of the many activities open to us promised the most fun.
    Many games can be played by only two and we knew them all, including marbles, “hide-and-seek,” pitching horseshoes, and mumble-peg, in which the loser must pull a peg from the ground with his teeth. The loser, however, had the privilege of responding to the driver’s question, “Three