Poppa(what Howard and his brothers and sisters called their daddy),walked out on the backporch early one morning.He called out to the children playing out in the yard,"You kids get on the wagon"."I heard up town earlier this week that the circus would be coming through Wilsonville around noon time today"."Its 9 o'clock now so we've got to hurry". "Will we see any elephants Poppa"? "You bet", was his answer. Howard's daddy new that the circus would surely stop off a Jackson's spring about halfway between Wilsonville and Columbiana the next town over, and this would be a good place for the children to get to see the animals up close, as they watered them. Hwy 25 was a dirt road back in those days and where the spring was located the road crossed a small stream there that the spring fed into.An old wooden bridge was there with wooden banisters.They served as front row seats and the children were excited that there was plenty of room left when they arrived. Wasn't long till the circus came along, wagons with monkeys,tigers,and all sorts of other animals in cages in cluding exotic birds, like they had never seen. Last pulling up the rear came the elephants along with the trainer with a short whip.The elephants were big walking along the road,each elephant holding the elephant in fronts tail. There must have been at least ten of them total. They were swinging their trunks left to right and their ears looked as big to the kids as sails on a ship.After the wagons stopped at the spring, the wagon masters carried bucket after buckets of water to let the animals in the cages on the wagons drank.The elephant trainer lead the elephants to the stream so they could drank and they almost made the stream dry up as they sucked up the water with their long trunks. In the meantime it gave all the children present an opportunity to get up close and check them out. After a short rest it was time for the circus to travel on. All the kids ran to the bridge and climbed to the top of the banister for a good seat. First came the wagons, then as before hear came the elephants bringing up the rear. After the wagons had crossed the bridge, the first lead elephant walked to the edge of the bridge and placed its foot on the boards that covered it, and gave the bridge a shake. The elephant trainer was hollowing and wiping the lead elephant on the rear, but the elephant just kept shaking its head and would back up each and every time the trainer would try to make it cross. The elephant was smart and new by how the bridge shook that it would not hold their weight. During all this time the children sitting on the banisters were laughing with all their might, each time the elephant would shake his head, as if it were telling the trainer NO. Finally the trainer had no choice but to guide the herd of elephants below the bridge and have them cross through the stream. As they crossed the children were amazed at the size of their tracks. One farmer that was present saw how amazed Howard and his friends were looking at the size of the tracks. The farmer decided that he would have a little fun. He called out to Howard and his friends and said,"You boys roll up your pants legs and walk around in those elephant tacks and you will grow up to be as strong as an elephant someday".Howard hearing this was the first to jump into the stream, stepping all around in the elephant tracks, while the farmer looked on and laughed and laughed at them, thinking it funny that they had beleived him. Unaware to the joking farmer, the joke all but turned on him in later years to come. In 1926 Howard did become strong enough to shoot a 172lb selfwood longbow setting a new world flight distant record. He was 26 years old and at this age he could draw two 100lb pull longbows at the same time. This he did on many occasions just to show others, that would ask,"How strong are you really?"The flight record was later beaten, but the strongest bow drawn and handled of 272LBS pull, stood throughout his lifetime.Jerry Hill..........
Topic: Howard Hill's archery beginnings chapter#1 (Read 634 times)
