The first time I ever saw Moses Walkingstick was the day Harrison got hurt. Several of us boys were roofing a corn crib for Mr. Seth Vest, on Pounding Mill Branch. We had worked all summer, cut tobacco all the way from Hanging Dog Creek. Now we were doing this roofing job up near Granny Squirrel Gap.

Around mid-day, Harrison jumped off the roof onto a pile of old boards and ran a rusty spike up through his foot. It was half as thick as a railroad spike and it came all the way out the top of his boot--stuck up through the laces about two inches.

Harrison was only twelve years old but he was already on public works. He stayed with our family while he picked up jobs hereabouts. He was from over in the Cowflats Section. Only a few families lived that far back, where the land is too steep to clear. What work there was that high up was in timber, and logging camps wouldn’t hire no one under the age of fourteen. War jobs never reached our mountains, even though the war had been going on for some years.

I thought for sure Harrison would pass out as Mr. Vest pulled the spike out of his foot. He never cried one tear or whimpered once. I would have cried--most likely screamed my head off. He did throw up in the weeds where he lay a little while later--trembled all over, even his face. We all gathered around to look at the wound, after he got his boot off. Only a few drops of blood dripped from the bottom. I saw this black hole in his foot, covered with a mix of rust and blood. Beads of sweat as big as saucers covered his ghost-white face. I felt his pain in my belly.

Harrison hobbled the rest of the day. Mr. Vest put him to pulling nails so he wouldn’t have to be on the foot so much. He limped so bad by supper time, he could hardly make his way up on the porch. After we ate, his foot hurt him something fierce--no way could he get any ease. I saw a red streak running up by his ankle almost clear to the knee. We took turns rubbing his foot, trying to ease the pain some, but if it helped any, I couldn’t tell. I saw the torment in Harrison’s face.

"A wound that don’t bleed to clean itself is hard to heal " Mama said.

Dad wanted to give him some white whisky to ease him off some. It took courage to ask her, but Mama poured out a half-a-teacup, from the bottle Dad brought from the corn crib. She used a splinter from a stick of stove wood as a wick to burn the alcohol off the liquor.

"When you do that, woman, you do away with everything that’s good in it," Dad said while we watched the bright blue flame dance above the cup. "For sure the pain-killing part just went up in smoke."

His words faded like the flame as the alcohol burned off.

Mama turned the handle on the sieve like she had to get the flour ready for supper right then and now.

We put Harrison in a chair in front of the fireplace and built a fire even though it was still early fall. I sat beside him for a spell but we neither one felt like talking.

I helped Dad, when he went to the shed for his cobbler’s tools and fixed the boot. Dad had a worried look on his face. He pulled the boot off his shoe anvil and handed it to me. " Take this to the boy. It may make him feel better, to see the new sole we’d put on."

"It may be a long time before he needs this boot," I said.

"Maybe never."

"You don’t mean he could die?"

"I mean just that. Or else loose that foot."