‘A Ribbon For Baldy’ by Jesse Stuart

A Ribbon For Baldy by Jesse Stuart, 1956

The magic trick:

Using a brief aside to add gravitas to an otherwise fairly silly story

These Jesse Stuart stories are wonderful antidotes to the modern news cycles. Take a trip back in time and enter a child’s world where the most important thing to worry about is coming up with an outstanding general sciences year-end project for school. This isn’t mere fluff though. Yes, the stakes seem low, but maybe they’re not. Our narrator drops in a brief aside about his reputation among his classmates. He talks of riding a mule to school, of having to wear his mother’s shoes. It’s a small section of the story – not even its own paragraph. We never return to the point. But it’s enough to give gravitas to what is otherwise a fairly silly “school days” story.

And that’s quite a trick on Stuart’s part.

The selection:

Then, like a flash – the idea for my project came to me. And what an idea it was! I’d not tell anybody about it! I wouldn’t even tell my father, but I knew he’d be for it. Little Baldy wrapped in the white coils of mist had given me the idea for it.

I was so happy I didn’t care who laughed at me, what anyone said or who watched me eat fat meat on corn bread for my lunch. I had an idea and I knew it was a wonderful one.

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