An old poor boxer wanted to go to Los Angeles. But he had no money, nothing but his persevering and enduring punching-ball. He didn’t want to sell his punching-ball and so he went on foot.
He went day by day on a long, long country-road, without eating anything, so he broke down on the third day.
After some time a man, called Heath Barkley, found the boxer laying on the road. Heath picked up the boxer and went with him to his house in the Big Valley.
When the boxer awoke, he got food and after some hours he was all right again.
Heath saw that the man was a boxer and he wanted to learn boxing, too. So he asked the boxer and Jim taught him boxing. Within a week Heath was a perfect boxer and therefore full of happiness.
Then Jim told him, that he had to go on to Los Angeles. Because he was so grateful, Heath gave Old Jim a race-horse for getting to Los Angeles in a short time.
Jim said goodbye to Heath, who was ever so sad because of Jimmy’s departure.
Jim rode through the Big Valley and in a few days he was in Los Angeles. There he got a job as a sport-journalist and earned a lot of money.
One day he was involved in a traffic-jam and had an accident. Both, the horse an Old Jim died, left was nothing, but the punching-ball.
The next day Heath Barkley read in the Big Valley Express that Old Jim has died. He was very sad about this and decided to go to Los Angeles to look for a good place to bury his old friend and to give him a good funeral.
But one night in Los Angeles a gangster took away all the money Heath had. About this he got into a deep desperation, took the punching-ball and went back to Big Valley on foot.
Because he had no more money, he stole food in a ghetto. But the owner of the food shot him down.
Heath fell down with the punching-ball in his hand and died in the ghetto, in the ghetto…………..and the punching-ball cried in the ghetto…………in the ghetto………….. .
©by René Bernd Brunotte