Bound Boy's Son
Book One of Covered Wagon Family Books
by
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To get his mind off the candy, he asked a question
that had been troubling him for some time. “Pa, what is a Bound Boy?” He asked.
“Bound Boy. Why do you ask?”
“Well, one day, Grandpa said that you had been a
Bound Boy”
“I was a Bound Boy”. When I was your age, about six
years old, my parents couldn’t afford to keep me, so they left me with a farmer
here in Randolph County. The farmer was supposed to take care of me until I was
twenty one. I was bound to work for them all that time. When I came of age, twenty
one years old, they were to give me two hundred dollars and a suit of clothes.
Then the agreement was finished. I was free to go.
“You were adopted?”
“No. It wasn’t an adoption. I was just bound to
them, to stay and work for them. They were bound to take care of me until I was
twenty one.”
Sylvanius was silent for a time, then, he asked,
“Pa, what did you do with the two hundred dollars? That’s a lot of money isn’t
it?”
“Son, I didn’t get two hundred dollars. The Ackens,
the folks I lived with didn’t have that much money. I just left to be on my
own. I had to go out and find work where ever I could. I had saved a little
from work I had done for other farmers, but that was all I had.”
Another long silence followed. “You had no Ma and
Pa, ever?” Sylvanius asked.
“No, but I suppose that I came to think of the
Ackens who kept me as father and mother.
I never knew any other. Don’t remember ever seeing
my parents. I was told that my mother was an Indian and she and her husband
were forced to go to the Indian reservation in Oklahoma. If that was so, they
must have thought that I would have a better chance in life with a farmer than
on the reservation.”
“Who made them go?”
“The government.”
“Why?”
“Some Indians had given the settlers a lot of
trouble. Some would steal and kill. So the government decided to put them all
on a reservation just for them.”
“Was that fair, Pa?”
“No. The Indians were here first. They owned this
land before the white man came. They didn’t have a deed to any land . . . and
roamed around over it. But each tribe had a portion for themselves. Sometimes
they fought over certain territories, but they had their own ways and knew how
to live off the land. Indians are good people, too, Son. Some of them are. Just
as good as we are. When they try to do right.”
There was another long silence, then the lad asked,
“Pa, that makes you half Indian, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Son, it does.”
“Couldn’t they learn to live together?”
“Should have.”
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About the Book
Synopsis
Sylvanius Davidson Smith was born in
His life was happy and typical of poor farm folks of the times, until, when he was seven years old, he lost the sight in his right eye while playing with his cousins who had a bow and arrows. When he was eleven his father left the family, a wife and six children, taking his oldest son, a half brother to Sylvanius and the other five children with him.
It became necessary for Sylvanius’s mother to move her family to town and take in washings and ironings, trying to make a living for them. Sylvanius became her pardner by running errands for neighbors, earning a dime or a nickel, he helped a farmer weed gardens and cut wood. His mother began to call him her “pardner” and his siblings just called him “Pard”.
He had to drop out of school after the fifth grade because of a lack of money for clothes and school books. The first three years of their city life were a struggle to exist, and without help from an uncle, they couldn’t have made it through the first cold winters. It helped when he got
a paper route, but they were still the poorest of the poor until, at age fourteen, he got a job in a factory by lying about his age.
Life was getting better for the family until his mother re-married when he was sixteen. The handsome man she married was a bum, he wouldn’t keep a job, he drank and “womanized”. Pard endured supporting him too for awhile; then, decided to find his own father and live with him.
Pard, his father called him Vet, traveled with his father from
In
About the Author
Allie L. walker was born on a homestead in Arkansas
, November 19, 1918. Her parents,
Sylvester D. and Maude Smith moved their family from Arkansas to Indiana in
1924 in an old, canvas covered, farm wagon; hoping for a better life for the
family.
Allie grew up on a rented farm in Indiana. She graduated from high school in 1937 and
married Clifford E. Walker. They farmed
for eleven years, then, moved to
Matthews, Indiana. Their four children
graduated high school and married.
Allie studied writing and started recording her
family=s unusual history, THE COVERED WAGON FAMILY BOOKS. This book, A BOUND BOY=S SON@, is book 1 in the four book series. The others are MAUDIE MAY, ARKANSAS
HOMESTEADERS, AND JUST LIKE GYPSIES.