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Carol Tallman Jones
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 ROSEBUD IN THE DUST© 1990 by Carol Tallman Jones OF A YOUNG COWBOY BESIDE HIS WIFE Near Rosebud Indian Reservation in the year Nineteen-and-ought Roy Scherer cried his first tear on a central South Dakota plot. He wrangled cows till he was thirty; married his love at twenty-eight; grew to love the land and nature; learned when to ride and when to wait. Depending then on Mother Nature he tilled Dakota dry land soil, raising grain and five strong sons who learned to thrash, to love, and toil. He prayed for rain when it was scarce; for patience when he had no more. Prayed for love when it was plenty and for prosperity when they were poor. During those times the Great Depression took its toll on child and man, and drought, and dust, and famine swept the Nation and his land. He swallowed dust and swallowed pride to keep his sons and Elva fed. Took his wagon into town for government cheese and meat and bread. He followed then the meager harvest; worked each day from dawn to dusk hand-seperating wheat from chaff because he knew, then, that he must. The cowboy hat he'd worn so proudly covered up with dust so fine; he hung his chaps up on a nail in eulogy of "better times." He wiped away a single teardrop -- his last South Dakota rain -- sold the farm and moved his family to Idaho to start again. There on the slopes above Snake River he saw fruit growing on the tree like manna from the Heavens; the cowboy saw and he was pleased. The boys and Elva found employment in the grassey orchards there and through all the sweat and toil, at least no grain dust in their hair. Sheep were plenty there on Jump Creek where Roy worked for Archibald, and then again in Forty-seven, his urge to own his own land called. The Owyhee Heights were calling with her fertile farming lands just northwest of Homedale near Snake River's bed of sands. His kinship there with Mother Nature lasted over twenty years when he retired on an acreage near sheep like worked in younger years. And on that acreage bloomed a rosebud -- watered oft with sweat and tears... Through the dust of Time his footsteps made their print o're ninety years.
ON A WALL THERE HANGS A PHOTO
YET FAR BEYOND LIFE'S DUST IS STARDUST Respectfully written for my friends, the family of Roy & Elva Scherer 
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