The school term
could not begin earlier than July, for it must wait until crops were
laid by, for the students ranged in ages from six to twenty years, and
the larger boys were needed on the farms. Then it was the time for the
potatoes to be gathered, and tomatoes hung red upon the vine and were
ready for pulling. The fall period of the farm was on.
The progress which Sergeant York was able to make in all the years of
his school life would be about equal to the completion of the third
grade of a public school. He was not sufficiently advanced to become
interested in reading and self-instruction before he was called to the
army. He had been but a few miles away from the valley, where the men,
as do other men of the mountains, live in the open of the farm and
forest and think in terms of their environments. The need of an
education had not come home to him.
It was thus equipped that Sergeant York came into the presence of the
generals of the Allied armies and sat at banquet boards with the leading
men of this country in politics and business.
But never in the experiences that have been crowded into the past two
years of his life has he met a situation he could not command, or one
that broke his calmness and reserve.
Clearly and quickly he thinks, but those thoughts flow slowly into
words.
Pages:
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102