Page:The Country Boy.djvu/190

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182
THE COUNTRY BOY

shine and rain, sickness and good health, had always been just the same, willing and obliging, working hour after hour that he might enlighten me so that I could avoid some things that he had learned through hard knocks. I saw in him the finest type of the Western pioneer who had educated himself by his own efforts, who had come to Oregon in the early days; who had grown up with the State; who had been identified with its very earliest politics; who had risen in the esteem of his fellow-men to a high position; a man whose honor had never been questioned; a philosopher, a mathematician, a scientist, a poet,—in fact, the highest form of a scholar. He had been my champion against all comers who believed that I should have done manual labor, while he was satisfied if I would only draw pictures.

I was to leave this man perhaps forever, as his features commenced to show the letting down of the physical man that had made him so alert in the years past.

Finally we looked down the track toward Portland, and we could see the headlight on the engine that was to take me away. We