Selected Writings
Monument to a Master
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The boy knows that in one of the trunks is an ashtray upon which is mounted a small clay bear. He lifts the cover and rummages among an assortment of carefully wrapped objects until his fingers come upon the tiny sculpture.

The piece is beautiful, wonderfully accurate in its portrayal of one of Montana’s most fascinating wild creatures, full of movement and realistically painted, and the boy  takes it in his hand and studies its form.

On a small farm in rural Montana in the early 1940s a nine-year-old boy, restless, looking for something to do, enters an unoccupied bunkhouse and peers about at an assortment of dust-laden boxes and old trunks, in which are packed leftovers of his family’s history. He holds in his hand a piece of balsa wood and a pocket knife, and he seeks a model by which he might carve an animal.
Monument to a Master
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