Library Collections: Document: Full Text

It was ordained that wisdom should flow from the mouths of babes. Perhaps it is ordained, too, that a greater knowledge and understanding of preventable defects in the human strain shall proceed out of the lives and work of these boy-men; that the work of and for, and with them, and with the younger children at The Training School, shall clear the way, as they have cleared the Scrub, for the emergence of society into a wider clearing.

LIFE AT THE COLONY
THREE BOYS AND A TEAM OF MULES

The man and woman in a rowboat on the Colony lake, came from behind a small island. A few moments before, they had heard loud yelling, which continued. As they came into open water, they saw on the near shore, a team of mules stalled in the soft sand with a heavy load of dirt. There were three boys with the team. Billy, strong and lusty, twenty-two years old, mentally six, was in charge of the team. His helpers were Tommy, thirty-five years old, mentally five, and Oscar, thirty years old, with a mental age of two. It was Billy who had been making all of the noise.

The man and the woman quietly watched proceedings for a while. Billy would climb up in the wagon, gather up the reins, yell at the mules, who seemed never to be of the same mind at the same time. Each alternately made an effort to move the load, but it didn't budge. Billy seemed to be getting a little louder as his unsuccessful efforts continued, and it seemed to the man in the boat that he had started a little of the talk that mules are said to understand, but he had only reached the initial "D -- -- ," when he caught sight of the boat and finished with a milder expletive than he had perhaps started. The near mule presently reared up and came down with his right foreleg over the tongue. Billy was disgusted. Tommy was amused and laughed. The third boy showed no interest. Billy got down, unhooked the mule, straightened him out and hitched him up again. Several times the same performance was gone through; mule up in the air, right leg over the tongue, -- Billy disgusted and expressing himself volubly, with some restraint, however, in the selection of his expletives. Finally the mule came down and Billy's disgust was supreme when he yelled, "Now he's got both legs over." The mule seemed satisfied, even more so, for he stood quietly while Billy fussed, fumed and scolded and again unhooked him.

The man had been quietly rowing over to the shore. He got out of the boat, walked over to the boys and suggested that it might be a good idea to shovel off part of the load. The hind wheels were deep in the sand, but Billy said, "I got to get this load over to the fill, like they told me" and he again went at the mules to pull the load out of the holes.

During an interim of getting the mules straightened out again, the man volunteered his help, took the reins, and by good luck got both mules to pull together and the load moved, -- but not far. So, after considerable gentle urging and trying to explain to Billy that part of the load would be in good place where the wagon had dug the holes, Billy took his shovel and scraped a few shovelfuls to the holes and then began to scrape the sand of the road into them, making new holes to fill up the old ones. He was very busy with his shovel and worked fast.

During all of this time, Tommy had never ceased talking and laughing, with no effort to help. He merely stood leaning on his shovel. The third boy just stood where he had been left after Billy had told him to give a lift with the wheel while he tried to get the load moving. The boy's effort to help the mules was done by getting in front of the hind wheel and exercising what strength he had in the opposite direction.

In the meantime, the woman in the boat had come up and joined the party, and Tommy was busy telling her all about it and enjoying the situation immensely, remarking that -- "Billy's style was cramped when he saw you out in the boat."

As a polite and satirical suggestion to Tommy that perhaps he should be using his shovel instead of leaning on it and talking, the man remarked to Billy who was working furiously with his, "Billy, I think that shovel of yours is getting pretty hot. Tommy has a cold one. Maybe you better change off with him." Billy caught the suggestion, missed the satire, and was little inclined to see anything funny in it. He threw aside his own shovel and took Tommy's. Tommy caught the humor of it. He merely stood and laughed heartily at the idea of a hot shovel. Finally, Tommy was induced to use Billy's shovel, after giving it ample time to cool, in lightening the load, and both boys worked at it.

Oscar was probably not expected to be of any material assistance, but as he stood idly by, the man suggested to him that he pick up some of the stones in the wagon and carry them back to help fill up the holes. In fact, the man picked up a few himself and showed Oscar how to do it. From that moment, while the process of unloading was going on, he never stopped his journeying to and fro, between the holes and the wagon, carrying a few pieces in his hands each trip from the wagon and dropping them gently into the holes.