Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 131

now that Mordecai Brown’s hand is reaching out to you in the distance and he is wishing you good luck.”

Young and Old

Charles Kingsley

When all the world is young, lad,

And all the trees are green;

And every goose a swan, lad,

And every lass a queen;

Then hey for boot and horse, lad,

And round the world away!

Young blood must have its course, lad,

And every dog his day.

When all the world is old, lad,

And all the trees are brown;

And all the sport is stale, lad,

And all the wheels run down;

Creep home, and take your place there,

The spent and maimed among;

God grant you find one face there,

You loved when all was young.

The Ohio River had a gray, pewter look that spring, as if even the water were tired. Mordecai Brown stood on the wooden walkway outside Redland Field and watched the slow drift of a barge pushing upstream. His knee ached in the damp. It always did now. Some mornings it felt as though the joint had rusted overnight.

He shifted his weight and winced. “Thirty-seven,” he muttered. “Feels like fifty.”