I watched him for several minutes. He got up some pretty good speed on slope down toward creek. But then hill began, and lower part of hill was almost vertical. The tricycle wheels moved slower and slower, but Davie's legs were still pushing. Davie wasn't giving up.

About that time I thought to tell Mamma, and she realized what I had not: if a car should come swooping down that hill, it would mash Davie and his tricycle flat before driver even saw them. Mamma was off like a shot, and I was able to observe result of two objects with same trajectory traveling at different rates of speed.

Davie was surprisingly docile once Mamma landed on him, and it appeared he had been defeated, but he had not. His views were unchanged. He still thought going was better than staying and going places on wheels was better than anything else.

One Sunday afternoon when he was nine he began showing results of these training exercises. It was a raw March day, when snow had melted and soil just thawed, turning field beside house into icy clay gumbo. Which gumbo was several feet deep. Davie -- who by then had let us know that David, not Dave and never again Davie, was his name of choice -- David took truck out into middle of gumbo and deliberately mired it up to its hubcaps. All afternoon we'd hear truck roar and spin, roar and spin . . . a five-minute silence, then roar and spin, roar and spin. A miserable, cold, windy afternoon, and even David would be driven in to warm his freezing hands and get a drink of water.

David's reports were always cheerful. Early announcements explained how truly hopelessly mired he'd gotten truck. Later reports described efforts with chains, boards, and gunny sacks, all performed with his bare hands in freezing mud.

"It's halfway out!"

Much roaring from field.

"It's almost there, just a few more tries."

Sounds from field as of a truck in its last agonies.

"It's out! It's out! I got it out!"

A look at kitchen clock. "I guess I have time to get it stuck again before dark."

Go STEAMIN’ DOWN THE TRACKS WITH VIOLA HOCKENBERRY, a storytelling cookbook -- and find Montana country cooking, nostalgic stories, and gift ideas -- at Janette Blackwell’s Food and Fiction, http://foodandfiction.com/Entrance.html -- or visit her Delightful Food Directory, http://delightfulfood.com/main.html