When Dwight Eisenhower was not quite five years old his mother
decided that it was time for his first venture outside of their
Abilene home town. Ida’s sister, Ike’s Aunt Minnie,
lived on a farm outside of far-off Topeka and it took a long
train ride, Ike’s first, and then a considerable horse-drawn
buggy ride to reach his relatives’ home.
The house seemed full of adult strangers to Dwight and he decided
to explore the outside environs. This is the story of an early
life-shaping experience told by Ike’s own words in a book
he wrote, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, over seventy years
later.
I began to wander around outside. In the rear of the house was
an old-fashioned well, very deep, with a wooden bucket and a long
rope threaded through a pulley. My uncle Luther found me, fascinated
by the well, and he offered a long story about what would happen
to me if I fell in. He spoke in such horrible terms that I soon
lost my ambition to look over the fearful edge into the abyss below.
Looking around for a less dreadful diversion, I noticed a pair
of barnyard geese. The male resented my intrusion from our first
meeting and each time thereafter he would push along toward me
aggressively and with hideous hissing noises so threatening my
security that five-year old courage could not stand the strain.
I would race for the back door of the house, burst into the kitchen,
and tell any available elder about this awful old gander.
Thus the war began. In the early parts of the campaign, I lost
a skirmish every half hour and invariably had to flee ignominiously
and weeping from the battlefield. Without support, and lacking
arms of any kind, it was only by recourse to distressing retreat
after retreat to the kitchen door that I kept myself from disaster.
My
enemy was that bad-tempered and aggressive gander. I was
a little boy, not
yet five years
old, who was intensely curious about
the new environment into which he was thrust and determined to
explore its every corner. But the gander constantly balked me.
He obviously looked on me as a helpless and harmless nuisance.
He had no intention of permitting anyone to penetrate his domain.
Always hopeful that he would finally abandon his threatened attacks
on my person, I’d try again and again, always with the same
result.
Uncle Luther decided that something had to be done. He took a
worn-out broom and cut off all the straw except for a short hard
knob which he probably left so that in my zeal, if I developed
any, I might not hurt my old adversary. With the weapon all set,
he took me out into the yard. He showed me how I was to swing and
then announced that I was on my own.
The gander remained aggressive in his actions, and I was not at
all sure that my uncle was very smart. More frightened at the moment
of his possible scolding than I was of aggression, I took what
was meant to be a firm, but was really a trembling, stand the next
time the fowl came close. Then I let out a yell and rushed toward
him, swinging the club as fast as I could. He turned and I gave him
a satisfying smack right in the fanny. He let out a most satisfactory
squawk and ran off. This was my signal to chase him, which I did.
From then on, he would continue his belligerent noises whenever
he saw me (and the stick). He kept his distance and I was the proud
boss of the back yard. I never make the mistake of being caught
without the weapon. This all turned out to be a rather good lesson
for me because I quickly learned never to negotiate with an adversary
except from a position of strength.
the Eisenhower Memorial Web Site
