The Time Harvey Leach Got Sick

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The Time Harvey Leach Got Sick
By Hal Haralson, Attorney
Austin, Texas

Loraine, Texas is a small (pop. 700) farming community in West Texas. It was small fifty years ago when Harvey Leach got sick.

I don`t know what he had. What illness, that is.

That`s not what impressed me. It was the action of the people of Loraine that made an indelible impression on this ten-year-old boy.

Poppa took me with him and we rode our Ford tractor twelve miles to get to Mr. Leach`s farm. We lived eight and a-half miles north of town and he lived four miles south.

I could not believe what I saw. I didn`t know there were that many tractors in the world

It was like the scene from the movie "Witness," when all the Quaker farmers arrived for a barn raising.

It was one of those times in the cycle of planting cotton that required plowing, or losing a crop.

The farmer`s adjusted their "sweeps" to the width of Mr. Leach`s row. The tractors fanned out to different fields and went to work. Small dust devils followed the tractors all over the farm.

The wives were there and had platters of home grown food laid out at noon and all the men drove their tractors in and feasted on this smorgasbord of local dishes.

By the time the sun had gone down, the Leach farm was ready for the coming season. Every inch was plowed.

I`ve never forgotten that day. Harvey Leach got well. But when he needed help, his neighbors all halted work on their own farms and came to his rescue.

That was another time.

It still exists in the small rural communities of our State. Something similar to this happened following September 11.

There are still times when the misfortune of our neighbors calls forth the compassion in us all.

Judy reminded me that this was different from the Quaker happening after the barn was raised. The Quakers danced. Baptists would never do that.