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    This Life of Mine: A Collection of Short Stories by J.E. Gilbert
    This Life of Mine: A Collection of Short Stories by J.E. Gilbert
    This Life of Mine: A Collection of Short Stories by J.E. Gilbert
    Ebook116 pages1 hour

    This Life of Mine: A Collection of Short Stories by J.E. Gilbert

    By Sarah Quelland

    ()

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    About this ebook

    J.E. Gilbert grew up during the Great Depression and went on to become a successful mining engineer. He traveled the world for his work and met a variety of colorful characters in Alaska, Mexico and Central America, among other places. This largely autobiographical series of vignettes was inspired almost exclusively from events the author witnessed personally and adventures he experienced first-hand. “This Life of Mine” captures the grimness, wildness and unpredictability of an era when times were tough and people were tougher. Gilbert’s simple yet masterful style of storytelling frequently leads the reader to expect one outcome, only to be surprised by the often dark twists and turns encountered upon reaching a story’s conclusion. Set loosely in chronological order, from his boyhood in Utah to his experiences as an adult, these very human narratives are written with honesty, humor and a sense of preserving the past.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSarah Quelland
    Release dateNov 12, 2013
    ISBN9781310995897
    This Life of Mine: A Collection of Short Stories by J.E. Gilbert

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      Book preview

      This Life of Mine - Sarah Quelland

      One Single Day

      A fisherman I am not.

      I lack the patience and the skill.

      The fish outwit me every time

      And leave me with empty hook or broken line.

      Impatience rules my mood

      And overrides my reason.

      When scornful fish nibble on worm or fly

      And with contempt return my empty snare.

      But there was a day – one single day! 0—

      All nature was in rhythm.

      A flick of the pole sent the line out tight

      And salmon sought my lure.

      Tail dancing on the ripples

      Splattering the sunlight

      Flashing fin followed the line to my creel.

      -- That single day.

      Memories

      My sister was born that summer, so I must have been two. As years pass, concrete memories become less distinct and often obscure, but the recollections of feeling remain vividly clear.

      I remember being in our barnyard, where I had gone to look at our old sow-pig and her new offspring. I don’t remember the sow’s color or the number of piglets, their sizes, or even the raucous sounds of their squeals, but I do remember keenly my feeling of panic and near terror when that huge protective mother looked me squarely in the eye and gave me threatening glares and surly grunts.

      A large cottonwood tree grew near our house. In the deep shade of that tree, I often played for endless hours. For toys I had rocks, sticks, leaves and anything else I happened upon. One day I found, near the edge of the cottonwood shade, an anvil and a hammer which had been left there by my father after some farm equipment repairs. I struck the anvil. What a delightful sound! I quickly settled down to do really serious music making. Sitting flat on the ground, with the anvil between my legs, I pounded with delight on its shiny face.

      The summer sun warmed my back and shoulders; shadows of the cottonwood leaves played games with the incoming sunbeams; fragrance from nearby honeysuckle enriched the warm air; and honey bees flew lazily about seeking the source of the sweet fragrance. For me, a two-year-old boy, that day was a complete symphony of feelings. There were no discordant notes.

      Mighty Hunter – Mighty Little

      Walking barefoot, with the sun-heated dust squirting up around his feet, the five-year-old boy trudged down the country lane. He had been assigned the job of keeping the cows away from the newly-planted field. It promised to be a long, monotonous afternoon. He left the lane and started walking across a low, sagebrush-covered hill. He carried three willow sticks; one was pulled by a string into the shape of a bow; the other two were notched at one end and pointed at the other.

      He neared a low mound of earth occupied by a colony of prairie dogs who had perforated the mound with a profusion of tunnels. Near the mouth of one of the burrows, a sentinel stood guard, erect on hind legs, alert for danger. Just on the edge of the boy’s range of vision, a badger was digging furiously in an attempt to capture the victim inside.

      The scene was benign. An observer would see a small, dirty boy wandering slowly and reluctantly along a dirt path, daydreaming as he wandered and almost completely oblivious to his surroundings. Only an observer with gifted insight could even imagine the true personality of this adventurer. For here was an Indian brave moving stealthily as a shadow and silently as a whisper, keenly alert to his environment, in touch with all his senses as he scouted for his prey.

      He paused before leaving the trail and starting over the rough ground through the prairie dog colony. He surveyed the path with his keen and experienced gaze. He instantly spotted the activities of the colony and just as quickly planned his approach – down the side ravine, over the first ridge and back up the hill behind his victim. He recognized his quarry as it raised itself t full height, sniffing the air for his scent, vainly trying to locate him. In his mind, it had grown into a full bear – more than that – a silvertip! A grizzly!

      He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and summon his courage. They would be proud of him in the lodge tonight and sing of his bravery for moons to come. Shaking off his reverie impatiently, he commenced the execution of his strategy. Moving stealthily from shelter to shelter, he approached close enough to use his first deadly arrow. He fitted the notch to the string and had just started to pull his mighty deadly arrow when he spotted the badger crouching in the hole, hiding from his sharp eyes. It was clearly a clever trap. In a split second, he recognized the new adversary and fired his deadly arrow into the beast.

      The badger’s reactions were instantaneous; they were surprising; and they were terrifying. With the speed and fury of a dynamite blast, the badger reacted to the prick of the arrow. He whirled around in the burrow throwing blinding dirt in all directions and then charged the boy like an express train. Luckily, the boy was not in the badger’s objective. He just wanted to vanish and the boy was near his exit path.

      At that instant, the mighty Indian warrior vanished. All that remained was a small boy knocked flat on the ground, bewildered by the sudden events and sobbing with fright. In his hand, he still clutched two willow sticks, one with a sharpened point and one still drawn by a string into the shape of a bow.

      Magic of Christmas

      Until I started to school in 1922, my life had been an isolated one. I was born on a farm and there we lived a remote existence. The nearest neighbor was about a mile away; others were more distant. In as most of the family traveling was done by wagon, we had few social contacts. A trip to the nearest town and back in a wagon pulled by weary horses took all day.

      I started to school when I was six and my life began to change. I rode two and a half miles each way on an old work-weary farm horse, whose lot it was to stand patiently all day waiting to carry me back home. The school house itself was the typical one-room school house. It was equipped with a desk for the teacher, smaller school desks for the students, a blackboard on one wall and a pot-bellied stove for heat. In school, the teacher spent all day talking to us, listening to us and coaching us. We were allowed to listen to the older students recite their lessons and read thrilling stories from dog-eared books.

      The fascination of school continued through the fall and into early winter. Then the teacher and older students began talking about a Christmas Program. They decided to put on a pageant program and sing some carols. So we began.

      Day by day, step by step, we learned our songs and developed the play. We each had a part and we each memorized our role. My part was simple. Peering out over the audience I would exclaim, There’s the Star! See the star? I practiced it to exhaustion.

      Meanwhile, the teacher had produced an ancient chest filled with bits and pieces of old garments, strands of tinsel, strings of beads and other odds and ends of clothing. From these she

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