The little Fresno, California miss was ushered into my presence. My sister then went back outside to continue with the watering of her flowers. Standing off at a reasonable distance, Connie Jean Moser, from across the street at 1010 Ferger, said, “Aunt Nannie told me to come in and get acquainted with Uncle John.” Attracted at once by the little visitor’s proud carriage, pleasant expression of face, and trim little body not burdened with too many clothes, I told her that for me this should be a real pleasure.

Little girls, from three to six, in all their innocence, have always made a hit with me. This is not to say I do not appreciate them when they are older. But in general they lose a lot when they get smart. And here now was beauty and apparently innocence at its best. A little reserved at first, Connie Jean declined my invitation for her to sit with me on the sofa, where I had been writing on a tab. She climbed into a chair, twisted, and got settled with her little bare feet sticking straight out at me. She told me her name, her age, and where She lived—and that she had a boy friend named David.

Not wanting to lose an interrupted thought, I picked up the tab and wrote a few lines. This done, I now found Connie Jean Moser, four years old, sitting close up by my side, on the sofa. She asked me to read what I had written. I said, “Oh, Connie, you wouldn’t understand it.” Then she commanded, peremptorily, “Read it!” I told her I was writing a book, and if she would promise to read every word of it when she got big enough that I would send her the book.

“Oh, a book,” she said, happily, a light breaking in upon her understanding, “I could take it to school like Oralee.” Oralee Johnson, ten years old, is Connie Jean’s next door neighbor. I told Connie that Oralee, when four years old, had paid me several rather affectionate visits when I was in Fresno six years ago—but Oralee was getting too big for that now.

“Yes,” she said, “Oralee is big. ”

Connie Jean squirmed and twisted on the sofa, as children will, causing the straps sustaining her little sun-suit to slip off her shoulders, annoying her to the point of alarm. I said, “Don’t let the straps bother you, Connie—you will not lose your suit.” She smiled, and her blue eyes opened wide. “If I would lose ‘em,” she said, “it would be too bad—got nothing under ‘em.”

A very good man once said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.”

Published in Wetmore Spectator—Seneca Courier-
Tribune—Goff Advance—Topeka Daily
Capital—October, 1931

By John T. Bristow

A half century ago England got rid of some of her surplus inhabitants by sending them over to this country to “root hog, or die” as the old saying is. They drifted in here “like lost leaves from the annals of men.” Colonies were planted in numerous sections of Kansas. Nemaha County, with her great sweep of vacant rolling prairies, inviting, snared one of those colonies.

The settlement known as the old English colony was on section twenty-five, in Harrison township, five miles northwest of Wetmore. The section was purchased from the Union Pacific railroad company by the Co-operative Colonization Company, of London, about 1870.

The London Colonization Company had about six hundred members. They drew lots to determine who would be the lucky—or unlucky—ones to come over first, expenses paid.

John Fuller, John Mollineaux, George Dutch, John Radford, Charles McCarthy and John Stowell were the original six to enter upon the duties of conquering this land—virgin wild land it was. Except John Stowell, all these men had families, but they did not all bring their families over at first.

An eight-room house was built in the middle of the section and all managed to live in it for a while. It was called Llewellyn Castle. Later, lean-tos were built on two sides of the big house, and finally, some smaller buildings were erected around the original house. The men were supplied, meagerly, with funds to equip the farm.

The idea of the Company at first was to make a town in the center of the section, and cut the land up into 10-acre tracts. They seemed to think that ten acres would make a respectable sized farm. The town of Goff, a mile and a half away, got started and the Colony town project was abandoned. Also the 10-acre farm plan was changed to forty acres. The lumber for the improvements was unloaded at old Sother, a siding on the railroad a mile and a half south of the Colony section. There was a postoffice at old Sother. Nothing else. Not even a station agent.

Later arrivals of the Colonists included the Wessels, Beebys, Perrys, Coxes, Ashtons, Trents, McConwells, G ates, Morden, Hill, May, Conover, Weston, Helsby, Weeks, Mrs. Terbit, and others. Still later, other members of the Colonization Company come over after the local Company had ceased to exist –gone bankrupt, it was charged, because of the extravagant management of the non-producing misfits sent over here to start operations. At this late date it could not be ascertained just what was the text of the contracts between the parent company and the members sent over here. But the impression is that if all had gone well additional lands would have been acquired to accommodate other members. The members, however, kept on coming regardless of the lack of advance preparation.

They scattered out on other lands, mostly around the Colony—usually 40-acre tracts. They were miserably poor. And the privations were many. Mrs. Terbit, having no mode of conveyance, used to walk all the way in from the Colony and carry home on her shoulder a 50-pound sack of flour.

Isaac May settled on the 40-acre tract one mile south of Wetmore, which is now the home of George W. Gill. May lived in a dug-out. John Stowell settled on the north eighty of a quarter five miles southwest of Wetmore—known as the Joe Board place, and still later owned by Charley Krack.

George Cox settled the south eighty, which is still in the Cox family—now owned by George’s son Fred, of Goff.

The Colony project was a glorious and ignominious failure from the very first, with romance and intrigue ever in the ascendancy. Those poor Englishmen were as green as the verdant prairies of springtime that lay all about them. And the inexorable hand of Fate pressed down on them heavily. They were besieged by droughts, grasshoppers, prairie fires, blizzards, rattlesnakes—and, worst of all, an abiding ignorance of all things American. When Llewellyn Castle was torn down in later years, a den of rattlesnakes—twenty two in number—was found under the house.

Tom Fish told me that the snakes were offer heard flopping against the floor, underneath, while the house was occupied.

Those poor misfits had not a chance. And it was little short of criminal to send them over here so empty handed and so illy equipped for the duties imposed upon them. But they were now all a part of the big, sun-filled Golden West. And they were too poor to go back.

Many are the causes advanced for the downfall of the Colony project, but the one cause on which all seem to be unanimous, more or less, is that “They were a bunch of rascals.” This is probably an error—or partly so, at least.

Internal friction with a very shady but treeless background undoubtedly played its part. But I would rather suspect that the main cause was ignorance, or to put it more kindly, a lack of knowledge. Tom Fish, our faithful mixer of British-American juris-prudence—three times Justice of the Peace backs me up in this contention. Says Tommy, “They just didn’t knower anythink about farmin.” Our Tom attended their meetings back in London at the Newman street-Market street headquarters.

But whatever the facts, and admitting that there were among the Colonists no replicas of the man who walked along the Galilean shores two thousands years ago, still I do not subscribe to the general belief that those Colonists were all rascals.

Had they succeeded, handicapped as they were, it would have been a miracle—and only in ancient history do miracles spring fullblown from questionable beginnings. A condition soon developed among the Colonists on section twenty-five where it was “every fellow for himself and may the devil take the hindmost.” True, there was a lot of poor management and some shady, if not to say crooked, transactions. And it appears one man did rather “Lord” it over the others—took the lion’s share of everything.

George Cox, a carpenter—they were practically all tradesmen was sent over to superintend fencing the Colony lands. And, very much to the merriment of the natives, he did that fencing in the dead of winter, when the ground was frozen. The postholes he and his countrymen dug that winter cost the Company one dollar, each. Such frozen assets were, of course, conducive to the downfall of the Company.

But George Cox was not the fool that his ice-bound fence would indicate. The real fault was on the other side of the big pond. The Company sent Cox over here in midwinter to build a fence. He was without funds. The larder at Llewellyn Castle was low—distressingly low. And his brother Englishmen needed immediate succor. There was money for George Cox only when he worked. And he couldn’t afford to put in all his time that blizzardy, snowbound winter hanging onto the coat-tail of one of his brother countrymen while the bunch of them played ring-round-the-stove in that old Colony house to keep from freezing, as he once told me he was compelled to do. So, then, what was really wrong with George’s congealed fence idea?

Like other Englishmen, after coming here, George Cox had a lot to learn, of course. He was the complainant in a lawsuit involving the ownership of a cow. John J. Ingalls was attorney for Theodore

Wolfley, the defendant. The illustrious John J. queried, “What color was your cow, Mr. Cox?”

“Bay,” said George. The court laughed, and told Cox to try again. “Well,” said George, “I ‘ave a bay ‘orse, and my cow’s the same color as my bay ‘orse.”

Then, from over the seas, came the jovial Mr. Murray, clothed in authority and a superabundance of ego—English to the core. He had been sent over here to make an audit of the Company’s estate. Murray stopped first at Wetmore and partook freely of Johnny Clifton’s “alf-and-alf.” He was a free spender and made friends here readily.

In pursuance of his duties, Mr. Murray said to those Colony delinquents, “Wots the jolly old idea of all this reticence? Hits most happallin! I want to see the books, by-jove.” One of those derelicts exclaimed with a little more mirth than was becoming, “I-si, just listen to ‘im, fellow! Wants to see the books, ‘e does! That’s rich! Si, mister we don’t keep henny books!”

Then in unison they shot words at Mr. Murray which were the same as “You get the hell out of here.” Murray demurred, and not having read the storm signals quite right, he bellowed, “Ave a care! Want that I should report you for this hincolence? Hits very hunwise for you to hact this wy!”

But when the old shotgun was brought out from its hiding place an awful doubt of his own wisdom assailed the jovial Mr. Murray. Those true sons of Briton actually chased the auditor away with a shotgun.

In employing the hit-and-miss English words here I am relaying them to you as best I can from memory as I caught them from one, maybe two, of the original six, many, many years ago. The quoted words are not my own. If you could have known the men and could apply either the Stowell or Radford pronunciation and accent you would improve it a lot. And don’t forget to speed up a little.

There are now few of the old-time typical English with us. And the language of those who came over a long time ago has become Americanized to such extent that the younger generation here have no conception of just how delightfully funny was the talk of a fresh Englishman. However, some of those who came over as children and Even some of the American born who had good tutors retain a percentage Of the pronunciation, but the inflection and speed which characterized their ancestors have been lost.

After the collapse of the Colony enterprise the unallotted part of section twenty-five fell into the hands of Captain Wilson, of London.

He was an officer in the Company. Later, Captain Wilson’s interest was acquired by William Fish, also of London, and a member of the Company. In England William Fish was superintendent of the Great Northern railroad. He came over here in 1881. He was a pensioner, and did not renounce his allegiance to the Crown.

Captain Wilson thought a lot of the Colony scheme. He was to have given his fortune at death to the first male child born on the Colony section. That honor fell to Alfred Wilson Mollineaux, first son of John Mollineaux, born 1874. While conversing with Alfred Mollineaux a few days ago, he said to me, “But since I didn’t get me ‘eritage I’ve dropped the Wilson part of it. Wot would be the good to bother with it now?”

The Mollineaux heirs are the only descendents of the originals holding an interest in section twenty-five in recent years. Alfred now owns the south 80 of the northwest quarter. Harry sold the north 80 two years ago to Otto Krack. Otto paid $6,000 for it, including the growing crop. The old house on the place, built more than a half century ago, is the original John Mollineaux home. The other lands in the section have long since passed to new owners.

There are now only two of the old Colonists living. William Wessel, familiarly called “Teddy,” came over in 1873. He is 89, and lives with his daughter, Mrs. John Chase, in Goff. William Conover lives with his son Edward, on a farm adjacent to the old Colony section. He is 89.

I took a drive about the old Colony section a few days ago seeking to refresh my memory and gather additional data for this article. At Goff I found Teddy Wessel in the Sourk drug store. Still living over the broken dreams of the past, Teddy exploded, first-off, “They were a bunch of damned rascals.”

In course of the interview I asked Teddy if he knew anything about a racy romance at Llewellyn Castle many years ago. “I should say I do,” he said. He had a momentary flash of it. That was all. Then his mind began to fag. Laboriously, tantalizingly, the tired feelers of his mind went fumbling into the dark pool of the past, trying desperately to capture the lost details, but the whole works went under—ebbed away like a fadeout in a movie.

George Sourk, who was sitting by and coaching the old fellow a bit, said, “You’ll have to give daddy a little time, John. He’ll remember it all right.”

Daddy swam up out of it all right and sure enough recollections were upon him with a bang. But the main topic was still submerged and in its place was an ugly memory that should have been dead long ago. “They were damned rascals,” is all he said.

It is assumed that my very fine old friend’s poisoned arrow was aimed only at the shades of the original six, or, at most, only those who had the actual management of the Colony affairs.

Teddy Wessel’s run of hard luck started before he left London. It seems he bought something—or thought he paid for something—he didn’t get. But Teddy can thank his stars that there was at least one crooked countryman in his close circle. Teddy trusted a friend to purchase first-class passagenfor himself and family. The friend bought cheaper tickets on a slower ship, and pocketed the difference. The fast ship passed the slower one in mid-ocean and was lost, together with all on board, when one day out from New York.

A happy—and I believe equitable—solution of the matter would allow the reader who had a friend or relative among them the privilege of exempting such one, and thus still leave Teddy some targets for his arrows. For my own part, I think I should like to exempt that little nineteen-year-old boy, John Stowell. In later years, after he had come to Wetmore and engaged in business, I worked for John Stowell in his lumber yard, and in his brick manufacturing plant, and finally, as type-setter on his newspaper. He was not a crook.

I grew up along with those bally English and I think I knew them pretty well. They were not all rascals. The Colony section was only five miles away from Wetmore as the crow flies. And as the crow flew then so did I gallop my mustang along the prairie grass lane while carrying mail between Wetmore and Seneca, passing Llewellyn Castle on the way.

There were few fences in the way then. Just prairie grass and wild roses and more prairie grass. And lots of prairie chickens. I have seen acres of them at one time on the hillsides in the vicinity of Llewellyn Castle.

There was no blue-grass then. And no timber along the route anywhere until the Nemaha was reached just this side of Seneca, at the old Hazzard place.

And later, in 1887, when I was a compositor on T. J. Wolfley’s Seneca Tribune, and made drives home with Sandy Sterling’s livery team, practically all of the twenty-six miles of road was still only a winding trail.

Willis J. Coburn, the contractor for that Star mail route, went with me on the first trip. He took me to the home of his old friend, John Radford, who had then left the Colony and was living on the old Scrafford place adjoining Seneca on the south. I put up with “Old Radidad”—as we afterwards called him when he came to live in Wetmore—for about a month, and while they treated me kindly, I didn’t like their English ways.

And when I announced my intentions of throwing up my job Willis Coburn said I should then put up at the old Fairchild Hotel, which was on a side street north from the upper end of the main street. It was a stone building. Besides being immaculately clean, the Fairchilds were related to the Jay Powers family in Wetmore and that made a bond between us that held for the duration of my mail carrying activities. There were two stops on the way—one in the Abbey neighborhood, and one at old Lincoln.

As compensation for my services as mail-carrier, I was paid fifty cents each way, up one day and back the next—twice a week. And I was glad to get that. Our mail-carriers here in Wetmore, covering about equal distance, with only two hours on the road, draw about seven dollars a day.

When Willis Coburn offered me the job I was short of the required age, sixteen, and I was wondering how I would get by without swearing to a lie, when our good old postmaster, Alvin McCreery, solved the problem for me. When he swore me in, he said, “Now, don’t tell me your age.” He shook his head, negatively, and repeated, “Don’t tell me your age.”

At the Radford home in Seneca, I learned enough about the old Colony to make a book, but much of it is now shrouded in a fog of haze. On the occasion of our first trip, Mr. Radford and Mr. Coburn discussed Colony matters freely in my presence. It was July, and it was out on the border of the big orchard which came right up to the back door, under the shade of an early harvest apple tree, where they sat and talked.

I have to admit that at the time I was more interested in the golden fruit hanging on the apple tree than I was in the conversation, but I got enough of it to know that there would be a good story in it, if I could but remember more clearly. Mr. Radford’s agile mind ground out astonishing facts as steadily as a grist mill that afternoon. Whatever else may be said of John Radford, he was an educated man. And he had a wonderful sense of humor.

As I remember it, or partly remember it, the high light of the afternoon’s conversation—the thing that tickled the men most—was a racy romance that had budded, bloomed, and died at Llewellyn Castle. The male participants were of course Wetmore men—one artisan, one professional. But somewhere along the time-worn trail between that old apple tree and my present quarters, separated by three and fifty years, the details of that affair are lost. And like the characters who made it, that romance has crumbled into dust—is now a part of the past.

But the phantom of the bally old thing, elusive though as a half-formed thought awakened by a stray wisp of forgotten fragrance, still hovers over section twenty-five. And if memory were but a trifle more elastic I could entertain you with something more than the tattered shreds of Llewellyn Castle’s most charming romance—a jolly old love-spree staged and destroyed by the heartless hand of Fate.

MORE ABOUT THE COLONY FOLK

Not Hitherto Published—1947.

By John T. Bristow

The Colony folk, men and women, came to Wetmore to do their trading—and to sip ‘alf-an-’alf, beer and whisky. At that time there was quite a lot of immigration from England, and Britons were scattered about over the prairies in all directions—and in general they were all regarded as Colonists.

William Cawood, with his two sons, Walter and Prince, came direct to Wetmore from Scarborough, England, in the spring of 1870. Other members of the family—George, Charley, Emma, Kate, and their mother—followed in the fall.

William Cawood was a large man—a man of means, a man of dignity, ideas, and mutton-chops. In England he was a contractor and builder—and a good one, too, it was said. Here, he built his meat-market, and his residence, his horse stable, his cow barn, and his pig sty, all under one roof. The structure, founded upon pine studding set in the ground, was on the alley end of four lots north of Third Street and west of Kansas Avenue. The boys at school across the street to the east thought a new telegraph line was coming to town. In later years, wondering if my memory had served me well, I asked Prince Cawood if it were true that those studding were set in the ground? He said, “Every one of them.”

Walter Cawood was a large man like his father. He played an important part in the making of this story—or rather this incident. An outstanding episode of the early days was a free-for-all fight on the main street in Wetmore, with Colonists predominating. It was the year 1870—maybe 1871. Can’t be sure about the exact time. That brawl is recorded in local history as “English Boxing Day”—though in England, the day after Christmas is known as Boxing Day, This one occurred on a muggy summer day.

At this time Wetmore’s main street was flanked with three buildings on the south side, and four on the north side, in blocks one and four—all well toward the west end. Lush prairie grass still grew on the east half of those two blocks. A long hitchrack was in the center of the ungraded street.

I do not recall what it was that started the fight. Perhaps it was the old Colony hatred, refreshed by drink. Those Colonists were continually fussing among themselves. A little fellow with a piping voice—I think it might have been Bilby—led off by striking a brother Englishman on the mug. He yelled, “Tike that, you bloody blighter!” They were on the south side of the street in front of John Clifton’s saloon. The little fellow started to run away. He dodged under the hitchrack and stumbled in the street almost in front of my father’s shoeshop on the north side. The big man who had taken the rap on the face was soon upon the little runt. Then multitudinous inebriated Englishmen, and at least one German—Bill Liebig—fell in without waiting for an invitation.

It was a battle royal—everybody hitting somebody, anybody. Blood and blasphemous epithets, in awkward delivery, flowed freely. When the battle had run its course a dozen men, maybe more, were prone upon the ground. A stocky little woman came out of the saloon and met the bruised and bleeding aggressor. “Hi ‘opes,” she said, “you’re now sart-isfied—my cocky little man. Been spoilin’ for a fight this long time.”

Walter Cawood appeared to be the big shot of that melee. He was young, powerful, and extremely handy with his fists. Those tipsy brawlers went down before his punches as if they were babies. Walter was the big shot in one more unsavory mixup—it really stunk—before going back to his dear old England to stay. Single handed, he captured a whole family of half-grown skunks. He brought them home for pets, with the view of taking them back to England with him. - Walter said, “Aw, blemmy—the bloody little ones, they -ad been eatin’ on summick quite putrid.”

The next best skunk collector of that time also was a Britisher. Teddy Masters, a diminutive Englishman who was farming the Jim Noyes place over on the county line, with a man named Briggs, chanced to be helping with the threshing on the John Thornburrow farm, when it rained and stopped the work. Three of the threshing crew—Irve Hudson, Ice Gentry, and “Zip” Bean—with Teddy, came to town in a spring wagon. On the way in they saw a skunk by the roadside. One of the men told Teddy to jump out and catch it—that skunks made fine pets. He carried the skunk to town in his hat. Someone told Masters that Dr. John W. Graham would pay well for that skunk. “Er, rippin’,” said the diminutive Englishman. “A chawnset to grab a little lunch, rine or shine, eh? Could do myself well wiv a bob now.”

Dr. J. W. Graham owned a drugstore on the south side of the street. He also owned a fine bird-dog named York. They were nearly always together. With the skunk still in his hat, Teddy found Graham’s door locked. Someone across the street told him to throw the skunk in at an open window. He did so. A little later, on entering the store, Dr. John W. sat himself down to work out some materia medica puzzles, sniffing a little on the side, while York was nosing about a bit. When the dog found the object of his search, a rising young physician literally exploded.

Teddy did not wait to collect his bob.

Though John Stowell, the boy member of the original influx of Colonists, did command me—I was in his employ at the time—to go out on a chicken foraging expedition one bright moonlight night, neither he nor I was troubled with conscientious scruples. We were both quite sure that we would never have to answer to God or man for our actions — I hasten to say, in this particular instance.

Also, if Will Gill and Augustus Anderson were here they would tell you that they not only saw me enter a closed but unlocked chicken house and come out with six chickens, two at a time, and that they themselves helped me carry those chickens to the rendezvous where they were to be roasted — innards, feathers and all.

In explanation, John Stowell “burned” the brick for his two-story building across the street from the Worthy lumber office—the present location of the Catholic recreation hall. The brickyard was on Stowell’s land south of the creek just west of the town bridge. Old Hagen, an experienced brick-maker, was brought here to burn brick for the John Spencer building—with Masonic hall above—on the alley south of second street, facing on Kansas Avenue; and the Ed Vilott building on the alley south of the present McDaniel picture show location, also facing on Kansas Avenue. For these two buildings, Hagen burned two kilns of brick on the north side of the creek, west from the mineral spring, on the present Don Cole land.

My brother Sam and I worked on the Hagen brickyard — and learned a few tricks. John Stowell said he believed we could do the brick-making as well as Hagen, and if we were willing to tackle the job he would “chawnsit.” Sam did the moulding, and I did the off-bearing, carried the green brick to the drying yard—the same positions we held on the Hagen yard. Together we set the brick in the kiln for burning. And we plastered the kiln, top and sides, with mud before starting the fires.

The material used in both yards was common top-soil mixed with sand—ground in a horse-propelled mill. Sand for the Hagen yard came from a pit about where Frank White’s barn-lot is, across the street from his residence. Sand for the Stowell yard came from a pit on the north side of the quarter section at the northeast corner of town. It was a treacherous pit. It caved in one time between loads when I was hauling—and it frightened me so badly that I drove back empty. And never again did I go into that pit.

Incidentally, I may say that it was claimed later a good brick-clay was found on the John Thomas farm, a half mile east of town. A promoter made the discovery. He planned to build a brick manufacturing plant at the point of discovery, and have a railroad spur run out from town—provided, however, that the town people foot the bill. Also he wanted to sell his expert knowledge at a ridiculously high figure. When it was pointed out to him that a couple of “greenhorn” boys had made fairly good brick from ordinary dirt, without financial sweetening, he gave up the venture.

At the Stowell yard I had the day shift and Sam headed the night shift during the burning procedure. For fuel we used old fence rails—mostly. And it took a lot of them. Rails fed into the five 16-foot fire tunnels to better advantage than any other wood that could be had. Wherever so many rails came from I do not recall. Likely from farms whose owners were making the change over from the old worm-fence to barbed wire, which came along about that time. Besides the firemen—three to the 12-hour shift — there were always crowds of spectators at the yard, in the early evenings.

Stowell was feeling pretty good over the splendid progress we were making, and he said to me one evening, out loud so that all could hear, “I think we ought to give the boys a chicken roast tonight.” Then, to the crowd, “Wot you say, fellows? ‘Ere two of you boys go along with John and bring back a ‘alf dozen chicks—I command John to go.”

Will Gill and Gus Anderson fell in with me. The boys named a place in the north part of town where they thought we might get the chickens without incurring too much risk of being caught. We were now passing John Stowell’s home on the corner where Cleve Battin lives. I said, “Oh, that’s too far. Why not see what Laura (Stowell’s wife) has in her chicken house here on the alley?” Will Gill said, “Why, this is Stowell’s place. We ought not steal his chickens. He might recognize them—and that would spoil all the fun.”

And, by-golly, those two boys refused to put foot on the Stowell lot—and I had to do all the dirty work. I couldn’t blame them though, because it was bright moonlight and the door of the chicken house faced the Stowell residence only a few rods to the south. But it was, probably, just as well. They wouldn’t have known where to find the choice chicks, anyway. And besides, I knew that, let ‘em squawk, Laura and the children were going to stay put. Back at the yard, the word got around that we had stolen Stowell’s chickens — and the whole gang broke into a “Chessy-cat” grin which didn’t come off during the whole evening. Stowell busied himself with the roasting, without outward signs of recognizing a chick.

John Stowell was very methodical and punctual in the conduct of his newspaper. He was reasonable in his demands of his help—and mighty fine fellow to work for. He often paid me extra when particularly pleased with our accomplishment. He insisted only that the forms be closed by six o’clock on press days. We usually printed the paper after supper, so that Stowell might address the papers for mailing—and then, too, in the winter, we could get a better print while the office was warm.

One time Stowell brought a roving printer upstairs to the composing room, having promised the fellow $5 to show me how to print in two colors from a solid cut. I told John that I thought I knew how it was done. He said, “By-jingo, maybe you can learn something, anyway.” Turning to the two-color man, he said, “Show ‘im, Mister.” But it was I who did the showing.

I looked up a cut of our then new frame school house — a carry over from another ownership—and explained how I had printed the building in brown, the yard in green, and the sky in blue, with a fleecy white cloud overhead in the background, all done with three impressions, from the solid cut. Stowell said, ‘“Ere, Mister, ‘ere’s your five dollars.” The fellow said, “I think you ought to give this to your printer—he’s gone me one better in the matter of colors.” Stowell said, “‘Ere John, I’ll give you $5 too. It’s been worth it to me.” And I said, “I think you ought to give this one to my brother Sam. He engraved the wood cut, showed me how to mix colors, and was helpful in figuring out a way to print it in three colors.” Sam was the artist in our family. Stowell said, “By-jingo, I’ll give ‘im $5 too. ‘Ow’s our supply of boxwood?” He had another three-color print in mind.

At the time of this episode, I had only one helper — Stowell’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Alice. Alex Hamel and John Kenoyer, part time type-setters, were not working that week. Alice was that sort of girl who would do pretty much as she pleased so long as her papa would stay downstairs and attend strictly to his editorial, and his hardware business.

This day Stowell stayed downstairs until the thing happened—then he rushed from the editorial office on the first floor in front, eighty feet back to the rear, then up the stairs to the second floor, and back again eighty feet to the composing room. Alice, who knew her father better than I did, whispered, “Oh, Lordy, he’s mad as a wet hen. Don’t give me away, please!”

John wanted to know, “Oo was it that ‘ad offended little Miss ‘Utch?” Neither of us had the answer. Coral Hutchison, a frequent and I may say most welcome caller—preferably on any day but Thursday—and Alice had put in a couple of hours visiting, as young girls will. And this was Thursday afternoon, our press day. I asked Alice to speed up her work a little so that we might make the deadline before six o’clock. It did no good. I had to speak to Alice a second time, not harshly, however—and Coral, apparently understanding the situation, left. But when she passed the editorial office downstairs, Stowell said she was crying.

After John Stowell had gone downstairs that day, Alice said, “If he asks you again—and I know he will—tell him what you told me about Coral after she had been up here last week. That would tickle him, and he will forget all about her tears.”

Well, John Stowell did ask me again. He really wanted to know. And I told him, shielding Alice as much as I could. He said, “I understand. You did right. Make ‘er pay attention to ‘er work. But I just didn’t like to see a nice girl like little Miss ‘Utch leaving my place of business, crying.”

I squared myself with John by saying—and meaning — that it would be a grievously short-sighted thing for any young fellow to knowingly offend “Little Miss ‘Utch. Besides being “some” girl, she would likely some day be an heiress. But, then, even so, this fact was something less than a comforting thought to one very fine young local merchant who fancied himself well entrenched in her future matrimonial plans. When he began talking about what they could accomplish with her papa’s wealth—she quit him, cold.

“Little Miss ‘Utch” was the daughter of Charley Hutchison, but everybody except Stowell called him “Hutch.” I knew Charley quite intimately for a dozen years before I learned that his name was really Hutchison.

What I had told Alice about Coral that day is not in itself worth repeating here. But it offers a chance to introduce an outstanding success story—a success in the redemption of waning manhood, as well as in a financial way. Also, this injection does not strictly belong in this story — but, in line with my adopted hop, skip, and jump reminiscing technique, I shall try to make it fit.

I told Alice that Coral was the only girl who had ever asked me to come and see her sometime when her papa wasn’t around. And I might say she was in deadly earnest about this. Her papa would not permit her to entertain me in the manner she had in mind. It was not that he disapproved of me. In fact, it was on his invitation that I was in the presence of the girl at the moment. Also, her papa was at the time just outside the hearing of the conspirators.

My brother Charley, Clifford Ashton, and I, were cutting sumac for my father’s tanyard on the Hutchison land south of the big barn. Charley Hutchison had followed his four-year-old daughter out to the barn that day to prevent her from going through her stunt—the thing she wanted me to witness. Charley saw us in the sumac patch, and came out, bringing Coral with him. He said he had a big watermelon patch close to the barn, and invited us to help ourselves to the melons—then, and thereafter whenever working in the vicinity. He also said he had to watch Coral closely — that whenever she would get the chance she’d climb up to the beams in the big barn and jump off into the hay. Hay hands were bringing in the harvest at that time — and of course the barn was opened up.

Bees were buzzing around broken melons in the patch, and the little girl, apparently frightened of them, tried to hide her face against my legs. Charley said that while they — the father, mother, and child—were visiting his people in Ohio, after having attended the Centennial (1876) in Philadelphia, Coral had sat down on a “live” beehive and got stung so badly as to make her very sick; the swelling in her face almost closing her eyes.

Charley Hutchison’s father was a wealthy brewer back in Ohio. Charley acquired the drink habit. When his family thought they had him shut off from the liquor supply, he would sneak into the storage cellar, bore a hole in a whisky barrel, and suck the stuff out through a straw.

Charley was sent out here, in the hope of curing him of the drink habit. He was given a section of land on Wolfley creek, three miles northwest of Wetmore—and supplied with money to improve the land. I think he was then left wholly on his own. I do not recall ever seeing any of his people out here.

Charley Hutchison came here in 1870, and was about 21 years old—a modest, likeable young man. He spent most of his first year here, in town. He lived at the Hugh Fortner Hotel—and while rooming there, lost $500, which he had placed under his pillow. There was no bank here then.

When Charley loafed downtown—which was much of the time that first year—he made my father’s shoeshop his headquarters. The shop was on the north side of the main street, opposite John Clifton’s saloon on the south side. Charley was really trying to taper off in his drinking, and seldom entered the saloon. He tried to avoid the amenities of the drinking gentry. He would sometimes, when alone, take one drink, and then come across to the shoeshop.

Though not a relative of ours, John Clifton was the step-son of my Uncle Nick Bristow, and he often dropped in at the shoeshop. My mother worked with my father in the shop. She asked John Clifton to not encourage Charley in his drinking. Clifton said “Hutch” was really doing fine, and that he would help the boy all that he could.

Then a girl came down from the prairie country in the neighborhood of what is now Goff—”Pucker Brush” it was called then—to work in Peter Shuemaker’s new hotel. Anna Mackey was a nice looking girl—too nice looking, Charley said, to go out with the landlord’s “drunken” son. It really worried Charley. He said one day, “I believe I’ll try to stop it.” He did. He married Anna. And never again did he take a drink. My mother and Clifton both took credit for helping him over the hump. But I suspect it was the girl from the prairie country who had transformed him short off into an abstainer.

Charley Hutchison was the only one of several whom I knew that were sent out here from the east, when this country was new, for a like purpose, that made good. There was no finer man than Charley Hutchison—a conscientious, upright Christian gentleman. Compared to “Jersey” Campbell, a New Jersey drinking boy, located on the best half section of land south of Goff, Charley Hutchison’s performance was phenomenal. But then, maybe there never was an “Anna” in Jersey’s life. Charley Hutchison sold his land to Fred Shumaker, and moved to Wetmore in the early eighties. He built the home now owned by Mrs. James Grubb.

Let me say here that Alice Stowell was an attentive little type-setter when she worked for me after I had bought The Spectator—and that Coral Hutchison still was a frequent and most welcome caller. Also, they had learned that it was important that visitors be seen and not heard on press days. Coral continued her visits to the office long after Alice Stowell had married Marsh Younkman, and moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma—and after Myrtle Mercer had taken Alice’s place in the printing office. Coral seemed to like the smell of printer’s ink—and she continued her regular visits long after she married Charley Locknane.

While still quite young, Coral Hutchison was the town’s top pianist and singer, a distinction she held throughout the years against all comers. She even competed favorably, in song, with the girls from the Colony, whose reputation as singers was widespread. The younger generation of Colonists were superb entertainers, anxious at all times to compete against or team up with the young people from town, at their lyceums held in the Wolfley school house. Wetmore had a “literary” society, which gave entertainments, usually charging twenty-five cents admission—while the Colonists always gave their shows for free.

Then, the time came when they combined in one big show, an epochal achievement, at Wetmore—drawing two of the cast from the Colony. Ted Fish was a specialty man, singing comical songs. His favorite rendition had to do with the loan of a friend’s girl, the refrain running, “Hand ‘e wounted me to tike ‘is plice and do the best I cooud.” I’d heard him sing it several times before at their lyceums. Coral Hutchison was also a specialty singer—on a much higher and more pleasing musical plane, however. John Stowell, long removed from the Colony, blacked his face, rattled the bones—and played the concertina.

Bill Dutch, of the Colony, was leading man — and a mighty good one too. Our own Miss Jane Thomas was leading lady—equally good. The play was a “heavy” drama. I might say the whole cast except myself, was exceptionally good. As to my own part, you shall be the judge. It was not a speaking part. Months before this, I had blundered in a speaking part on the stage—carelessly called a word what, by all the ethics of decency, it should not have been called. It provoked uproarious laughter—at my expense. And on a subsequent appearance upon the literary stage I drew a concerted giggle before I even had time to open my mouth. It completely unnerved me—for all time. I was so “befuddled” that I couldn’t say a word, and I didn’t have the gumption to graciously bow myself off the stage. I bolted off. And that’s how I became a writer. It’s safest, anyhow.

When you blunder, you can always—if smart enough to detect it—scratch it out. But spoken words, once said, can never be recalled.

The director, “Lord” Richard Bingham, was an Englishman — not related, and unknown to the Colonists—who had dropped in here from, nobody knew where, or why. He seemed to have a perpetual thirst for strong drink—and the money with which to provide it. He was a remittance man — which is to say he was a scion of a wealthy old country family, sent over here on a monthly allowance, as riddance of a costly nuisance.

Director Bingham was apparently well educated, did not talk the “Cockney” language of the Colonists — and had some dramatic ability. He directed this home-talent show without pay—and did a pretty good job of it. All he asked was a “little more McBriar,” his favorite brand of whisky. And after he had “steamed up” on a generous quantity of the nameless stuff from the local “speak-easy”—licensed saloons were out here then—anything and everything was “good old McBriar.”

The show went over so well in Wetmore that the management decided to repeat it at Capioma—and maybe go on the road with it. But, in the nick of time, it was recalled that Henry Clinkenbeard, our photographer—or rather our taker of daguerreotypes—had sponsored an all home-talent minstrel show which also had gone over big here, but when tried out on the road, proved a financial failure—and the road idea was written off.

All due to an outburst of alcoholic conviviality, Mr. Bingham saluted Miss Jane on the takeoff for Capioma, assuring her that she would not fail to “knock ‘em cold.” He did not go with the show. The management willed that he remain in Wetmore where he could have ready access to Charley McCarthy’s “blind-tiger” and enjoy to the full “a little more” of his favorite “McBriar.”

The day of our Capioma appearance was cold. There was bright sunshine, with a foot of snow on the ground. The whole cast—including Henry Clinkenbeard and his brass band—went in several lumber wagons, arriving in Capioma in time for supper at the Van Brunt farm home. I believe his name was Jerry. Anyway, he was the father of Tunis and Teeny. The show was held in the hall over the Van Pelt store, in town, diagonally across the road west from the Van Brunt farm home.

I was taken along as assistant property man — and doubled in brass (b-flat cornet)—but the cramped space for stage and dressing rooms in the rather small Van Pelt hall developed a better spot for me. I was made the custodian of the leading lady’s train—carried it in my two hands just so from dressing room around sharp turns to the stage, and paid out its many folds, at entrance, in a manner to avoid entanglement.

The twelve mile ride in open wagon, with bright sunshine bearing down on the reflecting white snow, had done things to the girls’ faces. However, the wise ones had fetched along cosmetics to make themselves presentable — but our leading lady said she never had, and by the eternal bonds of respectability, she never would use make-up. Although conceded to be the privilege of stage-women, nice girls didn’t paint their faces in that period. And although our Jane did eventually make Hollywood, I suspect the day never came when she would use make-up.

Though a native of Wales, with maybe a dozen years in this country at that time, Jane Thomas did not retain, markedly, the old country manner of speech. She was endowed with a delightful little twist, all her own—that is, something apart from that of other members of her family, which was neither Welsh nor pure English. Jane was a pretty girl. Her slight elegant body, draped in silk with something like six feet of the train trailing in the wake as she moved majestically across the stage, gave her a queenly quality. And she still looked lovely despite her shiny nose. She was, or rather had been before his demise, my brother Charley’s girl.

Published in Wetmore Spectator and

Seneca Courier-Tribune — October 11, 1935

By John T. Bristow

In glancing over the current issue of The Courier-Tribune I notice that the good citizens of Seneca are putting on a Biblical show this week. That’s fine. Whenever I hear of home talent aspiring to portray those ancient characters on the stage I become interested right away. It recalls to mind the time when I myself was, briefly, in the cast of a local entertainment of that sort held in the old school house here in Wetmore many, many years ago.

It was a show the likes of which Wetmore had never had before, nor since—a show that stands out in memory as the one classic of the times—a show that rocked the whole countryside, rocked it with near volcanic convulsions.

Considering the extraordinary performers and the conduct of an audience which ran wild, this little review is not offered as something worthy of emulation. Nor is it to be construed as criticism. Rather, it is something to be contrasted with the newer interpretations and renditions, something to be compared with present-day reactions as against old-time unbridled responses.

As aforesaid, with other local talent—grownups, and some lesser lights, including an injection of members of “that tanyard gang”—I was cast for a minor part in that show. To give you the right slant on this last mentioned group of my theatrical co-workers, I should say here that my father operated a tannery in the old days, and “the gang” — frequenters of the yard—included just about all the happy-go-lucky youth of the town, vividly alive, and callow. Collectively, we made quite a record—something short of enviable, it now pains me to relate.

It was my dear old Sunday School superintendent who had selected me for one of her characters in this Biblical show. I had been marvelous—so she said—in her Sunday School, committing and reciting as many as twenty Bible verses on a Sunday morning, for which I would sometimes be given a little up-lift card. She said that my good work in her Sunday School was guarantee enough for her that I would handle the part assigned me creditably. I would not need to attend rehearsals. All that I should do was to have my good mother make for me a heterogeneous coat according to specifications. She would instruct me at the last minute so that I wouldn’t forget.

I was to take the part of Joseph—Joseph, the boy. And, although a bit irregular, and I might say diabolically devised, to save the stage-carpenter the trouble of making a pit to cast me into, one of my Hebrew brothers—I think it would have been Judah, who, off stage, was a big Swede — was to have batted me on the “bean” so that I couldn’t protest when he and my other naughty brothers would sell me to the Egyptians, and thus banish me to the Land of Bondage. I wouldn’t need to rehearse? Oh, no, of course not! And as it turned out I didn’t perform, either.

The show was going strong. The audience applauded and yelled itself hoarse. After a particularly exciting scene, Rolland Van Amburg, the town clown, jumped up from his seat and yelled, “It’s the best thing Wetmore ever had—I’ve had my money’s worth already! Come and get another quarter!” Van was ably assisted in this demonstration by one William Morris, leading merchant.

The sponsoring lady was in high glee—happy daze. She said to her puppets, “It’s taking! Oh, dear children, we must give them this one again!” She flitted about from one to another, saying, “Oh, girls, please do hurry!”

The scene which had so excited Van was a tableau draped in naught but thin mosquito bar and set off by the best soft mellowing light effect that could be had with the oil-burning lamps, depicting some Biblical event with strictly private and as time goes quite modern interpretations. Embroidered beyond the original concept, it exhibited in silhouette some of Wetmore’s fairest damsels—some who will read this and blush—in an amazing state of dishabille. I should like to—and probably will—hear from Montana and Idaho, and even faraway Hollywood, on this statement.

A wag in the audience who was not man enough to show himself, like Van, yelled, “Take down the bars!” The audience roared! The sponsoring lady beamed! Things got to going so good for the director that she began pulling surprises on the performers. Wholly without warning, she ordered Clifford Ashton to take off his shirt. That young Englishman, ever obliging and obedient, had about completed the job when Dr. Thomas Milam cried out in his most dramatic voice, “Put that shirt back on, you idiot!”

The woman, who was my Sunday School superintendent, overhearing the Doctor’s remark, forthwith gave another curt command: “Off with that shirt, Clifford—off with that shirt!” The voice carried, full and resonant, through the calico partitions to the rear of the auditorium. That command became a phrase which was hurled at Clifford as long as he lived here. He is now in Seattle, Washington.

As already stated, I was to have taken the part of Joseph. I had a sort of vague idea that my beautiful coat of variegated hues was to have been torn from my person by my brothers to show to my old man as evidence of a lie they were going to tell him. And not knowing what turn of mind the now deliriously happy director would take next, I beat it—went outside and thought I would see the show through the green shutters which covered the old school house windows.

Outside, I found that other deserters had preceded me. Bill McVay, a grown young man, bewhiskered for the occasion, with a flowing white beard the likes of which has seldom been seen on this earth since the days of Moses, said, in his drawling voice, “I could drink all the whisky the old town’s got and it wouldn’t faze me—but that thing has bumped me off my feet. She’ll have to get someone else to take my part.”

Actually, I was afraid to remain in the cast, fearing, the way things were happening, fast and furious like, that I might be persuaded against my will to appear before that hilariously responsive audience with greatly reduced apparel. I really was in a dangerous spot. The plot called for partial forced disrobement. Knowing the hyenas who posed as my brothers, and knowing also that those brothers had caught the spirit of the producer in a large way, I had the feeling that when they would have finished with me, working in that free atmosphere, that it would have been sans pants for little Johnny.

It should be borne in mind that the director of this very extraordinary show was an extremely odd woman, very religious, and sincere—and, having ideas of her own, she had the courage to mirror them bounteously in her work.

The show was all right, of course. Biblical, and all that. And, viewed with an eye for the beautiful, it was all that Van said it was. But coming as it did in an age of many clothes for women, it was a revelation.

ODD CHARACTERS — COLORFUL, PICTURESQUE

Not Hitherto Published—1947.

By John T. Bristow

The discussion of odd characters was going strong when I entered the corner grocery store one evening. I did not join in the discussion for the simple reason that the range of observations did not go far enough back to take in the really odd ones—as I knew them. Had I told what I’m going to tell now, without supporting evidence it would, perhaps, have branded me as a prevaricator, and I wouldn’t have liked that. But I’m taking no chances now. Supporting evidence is at hand.

Speaking of odd characters, Wetmore had ‘em in the old days—in numbers. In truth, this assertion takes in just about everyone, except of course Thee and Me—that is, if Thee are still living. The odd characters dominating this story were Mr. O. Bates, Mr. Peter Shuemaker, and Mr. Jim Riley.

But first, an opening paragraph introducing a fourth character that shall be nameless—that is, in spelled out letters. I think I shall call my man Mr. June, and guarantee that I have not missed his real name more than thirty days. Also, he had a brother in the business, and the firm-name was June Bros.—only this is one month away from it, in the springtime.

Mr. June came into my printing office to arrange for some advertising—and also to get a load of fire insurance. I wrote fire insurance on the side. He was bringing a stock of clothing from his store in Atchison, and putting it in the Bates grocery store below the printing office, in the Bleisener block.

Mr. June inquired of me about our fire fighting facilities, and as to whether or not we had waterworks. When I told him we had no waterworks and practically no fire protection, he almost let his portly Jewish self fall off the chair. He promised, “The first thing you should have waterworks when I come.”

I told Mr. June that he was moving in with a man who had the agency for a sure-shot fire fighting hand grenade. This seemed to hit him a little off guard—but he rallied, and said he would investigate. It is presumed that his investigation was satisfactory. He moved in right away. Also, he might have heard about Mr. O. Bates’ ineffective demonstration with his hand grenades. They had “fizzled” on him a while back.

The clothing stock had been in the building only about sixty days when a mysterious fire occurred at 11:45, in the night—old time. It started in the oil room under the stairs leading up to my office. I was working late that night, with a shaded coal oil lamp on my desk. When I looked away from my work, I was startled by a solid wall of smoke which had come up through a stovepipe hole in the rear end of the room and stood only a few feet away from my desk. Alex Hamel had been working with me, but he had left the office some time before that. Also, Myrtle Mercer had been working that night, and I had gone out to take her home—leaving the office in total darkness while I was away.

Alex Hamel and Bill McAlester, a barber, were first to show up after I had rushed out and yelled “Fire!” It was not long before a crowd had assembled. Some gave their attention to the fire in the building, while others rushed up stairs to my office, against my protest. There was no fire in the printing office. “Chuck” Cawood dashed a bucket of water on my shaded coal-oil lamp, and rushed out of the room, yelling, “I put it out—I’ve put it out!” Chuck’s water had also ruined an order of printed stationery ready for delivery. Others milled about in the dark and “pied” several galleys of type we had set for the paper which was to come out the next day. The clothing stock was carried to the street—and the fire was put out before it had done much damage. Since there were two occupants of the store room, no one could say with certainty whose fire it might have been.

The Jew’s insurance was canceled in due course. He said, “If I don’t got insurance, I’ll not stay in a town which don’t got waterworks.” I reminded him that he still had Mr. O. Bates, with his hand grenades. It was but a short while before this that Mr. O. Bates had acquired the agency for his hand grenades. He planned a demonstration in the public square, by making a pyramid of wooden boxes, about ten feet high, early in the afternoon as a sort of advertisement for the event to take place after dark. This advertising stunt brought him humiliating repercussions.

The square was filled with people. Mr. O. Bates, a gabby auctioneer who really knew how to make a spiel, gave them a good one. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen. I have here the greatest fire extinguisher ever devised! But you don’t have to take my word for this! You shall see with your own eyes! Why, my friends, I wouldn’t hesitate one moment about building my bonfire right up against my own home.”

Then he backed off a few paces from the burning boxes and threw a grenade at the fire—but it failed to connect with the solid bumpboard, which had been placed in the center to break the glass bottles, and passed through the mass as a dud. He then tried again, hitting the bumpboard, but instead of quenching the fire, it made a decided spurt upwards. Then, with a huge grunt, Bates, threw them in as fast as he could, resulting in further spurts of blaze upward — up, up, and up!

It was then boos for Mr. O. Bates. He was a sadly confused man, numb with bewilderment. He stammered, “I’ll fetch a man here who’ll show you that they will do the trick.” At a lesser publicized exhibition, Bates—and his man—had extinguished the fire quickly. Rumor had it that “Frosty” and “Cooney” had emptied the chemicals out of his grenades, and had filled them with coal oil.

Mr. O. Bates had unbounded faith in his grenades. He actually wanted to build his bonfire almost smack-up against the frame hotel building on the corner where Harry Cawood’s store is now. But “Uncle” Peter Shuemaker wouldn’t stand for that. “Uncle” Peter was a wiry little man of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry—much set in his ways, with a quick tongue with which to defend himself. He was always on the defense.

“Frosty” Shuemaker had said, with reason, “Granddad, don’t you let that old windjammer light his fire near the hotel. You don’t know what might happen,” and “Uncle” Peter had snapped, “Goway, Forrest—who’s asking you for advice?” But, I think, “Uncle” Peter had “smelled a mouse.”

Mr. O. Bates — pompous, windy, and positive — told “Uncle” Peter that the proposed demonstration would do his hotel no more harm than for him to allow Jim Riley to ride his horse in and out of the hotel office—an occurrence that still rankled. “Uncle” Peter flew off the handle, so to speak, and spluttered, “It’s no-sicha-na-thing! I never permitted that lousy drunken pie-stealing galoot to ride into my hotel! And just who would pay me for my hotel if it should burn down? By-GODDIES, you couldn’t do it—Mr. Bates!”

Since I have quoted Peter Shuemaker detrimental to the character of one Jim Riley, I shall now explain. Never like to leave any of the old fellows out on a limb. Then, too, there is still another reason for this elaboration. It is to keep the record straight. Some, I now learn, are inclined to question if I have quoted “Uncle” Peter verbatim. That I have you may be sure. I make no inventions. You can always bank on that. Why, I ask, should I want to feed you figments of fiction, when memory is stocked with so much of the real thing—spoken words by the old fellows, a thousand times better than anything an antiquated mind could conjure up now? And then there is always the little matter of accuracy to be considered. “No-sicha-na-thing” and “by-goddies” were his exact utterances.

Not to be confused with the Soldier creek Jim Reilly, who built a house in town on the site where E. W. Thornburrow’s home is now, this Irishman owned land up in the Capioma neighborhood—a half section north of the Patrick Hand land. Jim Riley was a substantial farmer and cattleman. He was not married. Jim bached on the farm—but spent much of his spare time in Wetmore, always pretty close to the dram shops. He was a periodical hard drinker. And a prankster of the first order.

But as time went on—and as he prospered—Jim decided that he could change the baching situation for the better if his sister, whom he had left in Ireland years before, were here to keep house for him. He made the trip back to Ireland, but when he got there he learned that his sister was married and lived in California. He then made a hurried trip to the west coast—and in due time the sister, with her husband and several little Ketchums, became members of the Jim Riley household on the farm here. And through the hand of Fate title to the Riley lands later passed to the Ketchums.

As Bates had said, Jim Riley did ride his horse into Shuemaker’s hotel. And as “Uncle” Peter had spluttered, Jim did swipe his pies—baked for a big dance supper. Riley carted them out on the street in a wheelbarrow, and passed them out to anyone who would take them. But he paid. Jim always paid. His reputation for doing that was well established. Like the time when someone went into Rising’s general store and said Jim Riley was out in front smashing up a consignment of crockery that had just been unloaded on the high front porch, giving a war-whoop every time as the crocks he was throwing crashed in the street, Don Rising said, “Let him have his fun. He’ll pay.”

Also, Jim Riley did deliberately back his wagon up to the post supporting Shuemaker’s prized birdhouse, hurriedly threw a logchain around the post—and drove off, giving one of his famous war-whoops. “Jim’s on another bender,” the oldtimers said—but I knew he was just plain drunk.

Jim Riley dearly loved to torment Peter Shuemaker. And he liked to play hide-and-seek with the town marshal. But most of all, Jim loved his drink. And it was while burdened with a mixture of the two that he met his death — in 1887. While making a hurried getaway from the marshal his team of mules, under lash, turned a street corner too quickly, threw Jim out his spring-wagon—and broke his neck.

And that bird-house—it was a three-decker, about a yard square, with entrances on all four sides, perched on top of a 10-foot post out in front of the hotel. Here the martins of that day nested and multiplied in such numbers as to greatly overcrowd their living quarters. In the late summer months the new broods would have to take to the roof.

Jim’s log chain, applied at the height of the nesting season, broke up all too many bird-nests to suit “Uncle” Peter—and it just about caused his to lose his religion. “Uncle” Peter took his newly-found religion seriously enough, but when suddenly angered he was a mite forgetful. Lapsing back into pre-conversion times, his overworked byword—by-goddies—was shortened up a bit, and with it went a blast of other sulphurous words telling the world what he meant to do to that scoundrel when and if he could ever lay hands on him.

Peter Shuemaker was practically the sole support of the Baptist Church here for a time, in the old days. The Church membership was poor, and there came a lean time when the members wanted to close up shop—but “Uncle” Peter said no, “By-goddies,” he’d pay the preacher himself.

Having lost his wife, Shuemaker, in his late eighties, and always a bit on the contrary side, was now, with descendents in his home, a little hard to get along with. But he hit it off fine with his preacher. Then, one Sunday morning, when a beautiful camaraderie between preacher and parishioner was running high, the Reverend announced something special, a surprise, for the evening services. That surprise proved to be “Uncle” Peter going shakily down the aisle, altarward, with a feeble old woman, an octogenarian from God only knew where, clinging to his arm. She was an “importation.” Thus, one perceives, that in casting his bread upon the waters it had indeed been returned to “Uncle” Peter manifold. And for his descendents, who were keeping a watchful eye on his modest savings, it was as a devastating bombshell topping a most disturbing surprise. Son-in-law Don Rising “swore” the old gentleman had been “sold down the river.”

The marriage did not endure.

But, at that, “Uncle” Peter fared better, spiritually, “than did the preacher who showed him the way. The Reverend George Graham, evangelist, had pitched his gospel tent on the triangular spot of vacant ground across the street east of the Catholic Church in Wetmore back in the middle 80’s. With him was a buxom woman, with rosy cheeks — who sang quite well. And what with her good singing and George’s impassioned pleas for repentance they garnered a good harvest—very good, indeed.

The Reverend Graham invoked, with the wrath of Jehovah of old, all the terrors of hell upon unbelievers. Together, they slew the sinners. Even some quite good people were swayed into the belief that they ought to make amends and strive to measure up to the high plane of this super exhorter—and thus make sure of following through to the Great Beyond. There were among them converts with Methodist leanings, and converts with Baptist leanings — even one young lady was possessed of the gift of tongues. When it was all over here, the converts went their several ways, as the preacher had advised—or rather they began to map a course by which they might make the takeoff for the long journey. Then, with the second stand away from here — somewhere down around Lawrence — the preacher and the lady were publicly exposed for unholy conduct.

And yea, verily, the Reverend had a family somewhere abroad in the land.

Repercussions hit hard back here. The one great wrong done our converts was, as you might expect, heaped upon them by the unbelievers who had been consigned to the everlasting fire of brimstone by the now fallen preacher. As is usual with emotionally recruited converts there was some immediate backsliding, or cooling off, but when “twitted”—that’s what they called it then—by the ungodly, the stampede back to normal got under way and was, in the days that followed, made complete—save one. “Uncle” Peter was seemingly the only one of the many who could bring himself to believe that religion was religion—something pure, and worth keeping, even though it had been delivered to him through the channels of a dirty carrier.

There is an old saying that “one should give the devil his due.” I’m sure that, regardless, the magnetic George did a power of good in his revivals here. While, it is true, his converts did not choose to “join-up” after the crash, until the backwash of that scandal had become tempered by time, they did, however, accept the opportunity to come into the fold under another standard bearer. And, unfortunately for the Baptists, the Methodists were first to hold a revival—and reap the harvest. And the girl who was “called” upon to babble in tongues, gave up the pursuit when it was evident that she was fooling no one but herself.

At the time of the exposure, I was temporarily working for Bill Granger on his Centralia Journal, and boarding at the old McCubbin House, down by the tracks. Ed Murray — later, Mo. Pacific agent in Wetmore for many years—was clerk at the hotel. Professor Roberts, principal of the Centralia Public Schools, was the third person present when the Evening Daily newspaper was brought in. After reading the exposure article, I passed the paper to Mr. Roberts, with comment that I had attended Graham’s revival meetings in Wetmore. Mr. Murray had his say about preachers in general, and about one Reverend Locke in particular—of the latter, quite complimentary, however.

As he read, Mr. Roberts said, “Say—you, a newspaperman—here’s something you ought to commit, for future use.” For future use? He meant, let us hope, only as a model for phrase building to be used on occasion. That Mr. Roberts, he was a mighty clever young man—quite young, then. It was a long time ago, sixty-one years to be exact — but I still remember.

The newspaper report was vague as to the exact nature of the preacher’s misstep, and I shall not attempt to state it here lest I might do someone an injustice. So, then, let’s let George do it. The paper quoted him, thus:

“I have the consolation, small though it be, of knowing that though my bark goes down amid the turbid waters of Illicit love the shores of Time are marked with many such wrecks.”

Prettily phrased. But no further comment.

NOTE — This is okayed, “No-sicha-na-thing.” “By-Goddies,” and all, by Hettie Shuemaker-Kroulik, (70), granddaughter; and by Peter Cassity, (80), grandson. And they go further, saying: The $1,000 he paid to rid himself of the woman, plus what it had cost him to get her (preacher’s reward) just about cleaned “Uncle” Peter. And Cassity says the pies swiped by Riley numbered exactly forty. Jim paid double, as always—and liked it.

And now wouldn’t it be nice if I could say here that Cassity was one of those converts? I’d say it, anyway—if I weren’t afraid Peter would tell on me.

MY BEST INVESTMENT

Not Hitherto Published — 1947

By John T. Bristow

Girls — Girls — Girls

After mulling the old thing over, I know now that the boy who sat with me in the reserved section at Evangelist George Graham’s meetings, as intimated in the foregoing article, was not Peter Cassity. It was his brother Bill. Pete tells me that he was farming at the time over on Wolfley creek and did not attend the meetings regular—but don’t ever think Pete did not remember his raising, when he did get in.

Bill Cassity had the nerve and the Biblical knowledge to stand up in a big way for his Maker. That boy had an almost irresistible line, and it was, at times, questionable whether the minister, or the converts—with Bill well out in the lead — were doing most in the matter of gathering in the prospects.

When my uncle, the Rev. Thomas S. Cullom, minister of a Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife Irene, and two daughters, Lora and Clevie, paid a visit to their Wetmore relatives in 1908, the Reverend told me that in his Church, and throughout the south, it was customary during revivals to have “exhorters” stationed in the congregation to give supplementary support to the minister’s pleas for the redemption of lukewarm and tottering souls.

I asked him if his exhorters ever broke in on his impassioned pleas in a discordant manner—that is, a little off key? “Cert’nly,” he said, with fine southern accent. “My exhorters are very devout workers for the Lord, and sometimes when filled to overflowing with the Holy Ghost, they say their lines and then keep right on exhorting and sometimes steal the whole show.” This ungodly reference to his Church as a show was made with a wink and a grin.

And so, with the old time revivals here, the minister’s exhorters, under another name of course, sometimes ran away with the show. This brings us back to Bill Cassity, first born of Newton and Anne Shuemaker-Cassity. Bill did just that on at least two occasions in the Evangelist’s revival here. He had the Christian training to do it courageously.

While still a young man, Bill Cassity went to Colorado, worked in the mines and smelters, at high wages, and ordered the Spectator sent to him there — and later to Los Angeles. Bill came home once, told me he liked his work in Colorado, or rather the big wages—but he did not like the characters he had to associate with. In California, still on the right side of the laws of God and man, Bill pushed his penchant for righteousness a little too far for his own good. As a detective, self-appointed or otherwise, he learned much of the ways of the Los Angeles underworld—and, it was said, the boys took him for a ride and failed to bring him back.

And again, some twenty-odd years ago, Than Gustafson, a former Wetmore man, older brother of our Fred Gustafson — and in a legal way Fred’s brother was also his brother-in-law, the two Gustafson boys having married sisters, Adelia and Ophelia, daughters of S. M. Hawkins—is supposed to have been taken for a one-way ride by the Rocky Mountain crooks. He left his home in Denver, a wife and two children, one evening in line of his duties — and was never heard of again. Than Gustafson evidently knew too much for his own good.

When in gangdom, it is wise to be dumb.

Under the old system, in revivals, the first converts either appointed themselves or were delegated to work among the congregation as boosters for the minister—something like Uncle Tom’s “exhorters.” They would go out in the audience, usually in pairs, and plead with you, cry, and sniffle over you—an actual fact—in a manner that would - make you feel mighty cheap. The boy who respected them, loved them through long associations, was struck dumb.

One particularly sanctified woman—no one could ever doubt her sincerity; I had known her for years, and she was always so—with redoubled sniffling tendencies as of the moment, accompanied by the prettiest girl that ever walked down a church aisle or any other avenue in Wetmore, a girl whom I had just about given up as lost to a certain rich man’s son, on account of her papa’s preference for the other boy, and because “papa” said I played poker, made a firm stand in front of me one night. I knew before the old girl began to sniffle that, on account of the young girl, I would, sooner or later, find myself in a front row. More than one boy went forward in that meeting because he did not have the heart to disappoint them—and maybe there was also the attraction of a girl. Girls were more susceptible to the worker’s pleas.

The older woman talked rapidly, between sniffles, in terms only partly understood by me—but the girl’s radiant smile told me much. I would not permit them to march me up to the front, as other workers were doing with prospects, but I promised to sit with the young girl in the reserved corner on the following night—and see what would happen.

I hope the good people will pardon me for mixing my worldly activities with the more decent church sittings — but this seems the opportune time for me to ‘fess up. In this story I mean to come clean—tell everything, and have as little of the old hero stuff in it as is consistent with the making of a good story.

I had been to church—Methodist protracted meeting — and then dropped in on the boys in the DeForest store at the virtual close of a little poker game. Even now I hate to think what Henry DeForest would have done to us had he known his dry goods counter was serving as a poker table. One man, Willard Lynch, dropped out while the deal was in progress, and said I might play his hand.

This was to be my first poker game. Also, it should have been my last—but it wasn’t. Not that it ever became an obsession with me. But, in general, it is not an elevating attainment—and it is something which any self-respecting young man can very well do without. It was, however, my last game in Mr. Henry’s store. I wanted to retain, at all costs, his respectful opinion of me. And the other boys finally saw the error of their ways — and changed their meeting place. On the cleaner side, I will say that I never learned to shoot craps, never bet on elections, ball games, or the horses; never drank or caroused, wouldn’t feel “at “home” at the popular cocktail party; was never in court as complainant or defendant—and was only once in my whole life in court as a witness, at which time, had I told the Whole Truth as I was sworn to do, I could have been jailed for my ignorance. I was an untutored member of the Kansas Grain Dealers Association, which was under investigation. Also, I want to say in the outset that this poker stigma was not the thing which had lowered me in the opinion of “Papa.” It was the more powerful evil—money—of which I had none. But there was one bright spot in the clouded picture. The rich man’s son looked a lot better to “Papa” than he did to the girl.

Well, in this, my first poker game, I picked up four natural aces, and if you know only as much as I knew then, you would consider it a top hand. No one had told me they were playing the joker wild, “cut and slash.” I bet a nickel. Alfred Anderson called, and raised me a dime. Two of the other boys called Alfred’s fifteen-cent bet—and the dealer, Sidney Loop, (clerk in the store), dropped out of the play. I thought my four aces were good for ten cents more, and not possessing a loose dime, I dug up a five-dollar bill. Alfred was up on his toes, and said, “You aiming to bet all that?” I replied, “No—only aiming to call your dime raise.” Still upon his toes, a little higher now, he said rather anxiously, “If you want to bet it all, I’ll call it—you can’t bluff me.” I took one more look at my hand—and not one of the aces had gotten away. And then I said, “All right, I’ll just bet it all.”

Now, if you know the game, you are maybe expecting to hear that he had a set of fives, including the joker of course. But it was not Alfred who held them. His four kings were not good. It was the dealer, the man who had dropped out because I had dropped in, who had five fives.

But this I did not know until two days later, not until after I had gone to church again and contributed $5.00 to Mrs. Draper’s fund for buying Christmas candies for her Sunday School kiddies. Alfred’s sister Phoeba, as personal representative of our dear old Sunday School Superintendent, took my contribution with gracious acknowledgment, as though it were not tainted money. And Mrs. Draper—the less chivalrous boys called her “Mother Corkscrew” because she wore her gray hair in ringlets at shoulder length—came to me on the double quick, shrieking her praise of me, and intimated that this generous gift might get me places.

Alfred said that inasmuch as he surmised he had been cold-decked out of the five—thankfully with no aspersion attachment—that I should have at least given the donation in both our names. But that would have been risky. Alfred was a rather white “black sheep” in a very religious family, and Sis would most likely have wanted to know how come? The fact that Sidney and Willard were keeping company with sisters at that time may have had nothing to do with the introduction of that cold deck. And then again it might have. Sidney said the fellow needed “taking down” a bit — and that it was planned to give the losers back their money. A fat chance they would have of getting their money back now.

Until now I had only stood, by and watched a penny-ante game in the new opera house over the Morris store, where the clerks — Dave Clements, Bill McKibbon, George and Chuck Cawood, Bob Graham—and some younger fry, congregated on Sundays. And then, too, as a kid, I had been present on several occasions at a somewhat bigger game in the Neville residence on this same corner. But here I did not have a chance to closely observe the technique of the game—for I was under the table most of the time. The men played altogether then with “shinplaster” money — undersized ten, twenty-five, and fifty cent pieces of U. S. paper currency, and the breeze caused from shuffling the cards would sometimes blow the money off the table. Mr. Jim Neville said I might keep all I could get my hands on — and I think it was a sort of house rule that the players were not to contend roughly with me for the fluttering pieces. Still I think I got more kicks than the law allowed.

Also, I once saw the women playing poker in this same home—and they were using “shinplaster” too—but they were not generous enough to invite me to go down under. I do not wish to name them. Nor would I have mentioned the boys’ names but for the fact all of them have now gone to their reward. And, besides, despite the undercurrent that it was not considered strictly genteel, everybody, more or less, played poker then—even, it was said, Father Bagley, our first High Priest, would take a hand occasionally. There was a regular fellow. For him it was Mass of a Sunday morning, then base ball or horse-racing in the afternoon, without fail.

With this slow and awkward beginning it was a long, long time before I got nerve enough to sit in a private poker game as guest of a friend, in Kansas City, with a player who afterwards became President of the United States. He did not impress me as likely timber then. But, may I say, that when once in the running, he showed ‘em that he was truly from Missouri—and that, surprisingly, he could, in a pinch, run like a scared rabbit. Politics was his forte.

In explanation of the Girl-Papa-Richboy incident: I had sent a boy with a note asking the girl for her company for a dance, a private dance to be given by our select crowd, of which she was a favorite. The boy came back without a written reply—but he said she told him to tell me that she would go with me. This being rather unusual, I asked the -boy if that was all she said? “Well,” he said, “her mother said, ‘Now, girlie, you know what your father will say’ — and the girl said, ‘I don’t care, I’m going with him anyway’.” I had not known about the rich man’s son trying to edge in, and this indicated slap by her papa was a grievous blow to my ego.

I sent the girl another note, telling her in simple words—I always made ‘em simple now since having once, to no avail, slopped over ridiculously — that I had wormed out of the boy the remarks between mother and daughter, and that in consequence thereof I deemed it wise for me to cancel the date, until I could find out what it was all about. I may say I never sent but one formally phrased note to a girl in all my life—and that got me exactly nothing. That literary boy, Ecky Hamel, dictated it for me, and to make matters worse, it was to his girl. And he really wanted it to click—to ward off, in his absence, some dangerous competition.

However, I once got a neatly written acceptance to an ultra-formal and gorgeously phrased note bearing my name, which I didn’t write. I was a new boy in Seneca at the time. I met a lot of girls at the skating rink in the old Armory building on upper Main Street. Ena Burbery, pretty and agreeably alert, was good on roller skates. Ena and four other girls worked as trimmers in the millinery department of the Cohen store. Ena talked. And the girls, all but one, joined in mailing her a note bearing my forged signature requesting her company for a swank party three days hence. Ella Murphy, one of the five, boarded and roomed at the Theodore Wolfley home, same as I did while working on Wolfley’s newspaper, The Tribune. Ella said the note was formal and softly silly, and so did Ena say it was awful — but, she giggled, “I was not going to let that spoil a date, especially for a party like that.” Now, the ridiculous part of it all is, that it was an exclusive party to be given by Seneca’s upper crust, to which I had no invitation. But, even so, it gave me elevated status for a little while, in a limited way. We compromised on the rink. And the girls, whom I never did meet, sent me an apology, through Ella Murphy, for recklessly abusing my name—and getting the girl a date. Ena was the section foreman’s daughter, but that was no handicap. I myself married a section foreman’s daughter, picked her for a winner from a sizable field of promising prospects.

Naturally, I wanted to know more about the status of the rich man’s son—and I got it too, back at the gospel tent the next night. The girl said nothing at all about my poker-playing proclivities. She was too sensible to try to reform a boy. Her idea was to pick ‘em as suited her fancy—and trust to luck. Indeed, she said in rebuttal of her father’s expressed opinion of me, that if her mamma only could have kept her mouth shut everything would have been all right, and that I would have never known. “And besides,” she said, “You don’t drink, and papa does—a little; and you don’t smoke, and papa does, though he does not smoke cigarettes.” A cigarette smoker in those days was considered cheap. How times have changed. The girl had overlooked one of “Papa’s” weaknesses, but for me to have mentioned it to her then would have got me nothing that I was not now likely to get anyway.

This exchange of ideas took place in the reserved corner of the arena in advance of the regular session while other congregated young people were likely thinking of an afar off haven having streets paved with jasper and gold. Something about streets and jasper and gold ran in the lines of the old song books. Also, I dare say, some of the converts might have cringed a little at the thought of an everlasting fire of brimstone—this idea emanating from George, the Evangelist—which the wayward and lukewarm alike might, if they didn’t watch out, fall into in a last-minute rush for that afar off haven.

Every evening during his meetings Reverend Graham would institute a two-minute session of silent prayer. In - view of George’s admitted downfall at a later stand, I trust it will not now be considered sacrilegious for me to hazard an opinion that those silent periods offered the preacher an excellent opportunity to pray for grace.

It was not required by custom then for those seeking salvation to come clear down to earth, and some merely bowed their heads, rested them on the backs of deserted chairs, and whispered when so inclined. The girl and I, we did not desecrate the hallowed moment. We didn’t have to. Silence was golden. I was conceited enough just then to believe that this beautiful girl, thoroughly repentant or no, would have gone through George’s pictured purgatory for me.

And nothing happened that could be chalked up as material gain for the better life. Well, I ask you, how in the name of high heaven, could it? I’m not particularly proud of it, though. But, you know, if your chariot does not come along, you can’t take a ride. I certainly do not wish to cast reflection on the Church. The Church, as a Church, is really a grand institution. I should hate to think where we would be in a world without it. Henry DeForest, Yale graduate, said the tent doings was proselytizing.

Perhaps you would like to know how I fared in the days to come with this renewed lease on life which the Evangelist’s revival had brought me? Well, “Papa” shelved his dislike of my poker-playing, and both he and “mama” greeted me as a friend ever after. They were really fine people—I might say the very BEST, with capitals.

“Papa” had played a little poker himself—and that too, by-gosh, in our penny-ante game—and his wish for a switch in the matter of his daughter’s company was based on too slim premise to set store by, now that the girl had told him with flat-footed finality that it would not work.

And the girl? Well, I had to go away, first to Centralia, then to Seneca to help Theodore Wolfley print his newly purchased Tribune, and I turned her over to my best poker-playing friend to keep for me against the time when I might return.

Now, to do me this small favor my friend had to drop another girl with whom he had been keeping company steadily for two years. He probably saw possibilities in the change, but he was really too fine—and too ably assisted by the girl—to take advantage of a friend’s absence.

As my trusted friend and my girl in escrow were already lined up for the party that first night after my return, it was mutually agreed that—just for once—I should line up with my friend’s discarded girl, who was still free. It worked out all right—and it was wonderful to be back with the old crowd again.

Now, don’t jump at conclusions. Though she was a mighty fine girl, and good looking too, I did not find her preferable to the other girl. Just why I made it a regular habit for nearly a year, was quite a different matter.

We all belonged to an exclusive clique known as The Silver Stockings. Why so named I never learned. One unalterable requirement for the men was that each had to bring a girl—or a wife. No “stags” were permitted at our parties. This was because a certain unwanted young man had the disturbing habit of sneaking in at public gatherings and monopolizing our girls.

The thoughtful young man of that period did not think of marriage the first time he went out with a girl. In our community none but the rich man’s four sons were financially (in prospect) able to indulge in such dreams. And, besides, by this time I had had a change of heart—resolved to consider the future of the girl. After all “Papa” might have had the right idea. I figured that an attractive girl like she, would not be justified in playing along with me until I could make my stake.

And again, were I to pursue my chances—which at this time were, I flattered myself, in a high bracket—who could say with certainty that “Papa” would not someday become afflicted with a recurrent attack of that silly notion the first time that the favored son, or maybe another of the RM’s sons might strut his stuff in the presence of the girl. Then, too, something fine—alas, something very fine, was now gone out of the picture that could never be returned. I reluctantly decided to let matters drift along as temporarily planned the first night back home—and see what would happen. It was my hardest decision.

I had seen too many people trying to make a stake and raise a family at the same time. My father made more money than most—but with ten children, it was slavery for him. He worked sixteen hours a day at his trade as shoemaker—and even then he had to skimp, and work and skimp. But he took a philosophical view of matters, and on the whole his was a rather contented life. One time when he was complaining about the difficulty of getting ahead, I suggested that maybe he had erred in first taking on the responsibility of raising a big family.

He said, “Well, they kept coming and I couldn’t knock ‘em in the head.”

I said, “They didn’t start coming until after you were married—”

He yelped, as if something had stung him, “Of course not, you young upstart!” That was a time when he would have been justified in applying the kneestrap, his ever ready implement of correction, to my posterior. But my father was a forbearing man.

I said, “Gosh, Dad—I only meant to say if you had waited until after you had made your stake, you would not now be bothered with this burdensome load.”

He said, quickly, “If I had waited longer where do you think you’d be now, young man?”

Well, that was something to think about. It might have upset the whole continuity. I think we older boys reminded him too often of the excess baggage he was struggling along with—only, however, when he would begin his lamenting, usually about the high tariff.

I can think of nothing more disturbing than to be caught short-handed (otherwise broke) in a community marked by a dearth of opportunity to earn a living—-With dependents to care for. Such was our country in the early days. My parents had rubbed up against this situation on numerous occasions. However, unlike some of our neighbors, the time never came when we did not have enough to eat. But that “hand to mouth” rule of living could not rub out the anxiety.

It was an era when the ambitious young fellow was of necessity compelled early in life to begin laying-by for the “rainy day” if he did not wish to run the risk of becoming an object of charity—and who did in the old days? It was then considered about the last straw. It took a long time to lay-by a competence in the old days. The average wage-earner gets as much per hour now as was paid for a whole day’s work then—when ten hours was a day. This is not to say the young “sprout” could not marry before he had a competence. He did—recklessly. And paid the price.

It was to avoid such conditions as this that I made a firm resolve to defer marriage until I could make a stake.

I set my goal at $10,000, and when things got going good I kept right on going until this goal was more than doubled — and in subsequent years learned that it was none too much:

However, in strict honesty, I think this cautious streak was inherited rather than instilled in me by observations. My father had entertained the same cautious notions. Orphaned early in life, he made his own way—saved, and had what he called a nice nest-egg at the age of 25. He went from Kentucky over into Tennessee to visit relatives, met my mother while there—and married her the next time he came into her back-woods community. And had it not been for the cruel Civil War—and the guerillas—I am pretty sure: that I would have had a rich Dad regardless of his super-abundance of kids.

However, conditions changed for the better for father. When his boys got big enough to lessen the burden, and then in time lift it altogether, he had an easy life. My brother Frank worked with him in the shoeshop, and at the same time conducted a shoe store in the front end of the building, with our sister Nannie in charge. When Frank decided to go to California to join his brother Dave in business, he gave them the shoe stock. I had written insurance in the sum of $1,000 for Frank, and when the assigned policy was about to expire I mentioned the matter one day at the dinner table. Father said, “Oh, I don’t need any insurance.”

I renewed the policy anyway, paid the premium myself, and said no more about it. Then, some months later, a fire destroyed the old Logue frame store building across the street, in early evening—and the town was out in numbers. There was little chance of the blaze reaching my father’s shop, but he and several excited volunteers were making ready to remove the shoe stock to the street. I told him that he better just get his books and records where he could put his hands on them in case of need, and to leave the stock in the building for a while, at least. Thinking to ease his fears, I said, “You’ve got a thousand dollar insurance policy on the stock.” He exclaimed, excitedly, “Oh, that’s not enough!”

By this time—we are now back again on the matter of girls, mostly — the girl’s papa had been elevated to the Mayorality, and the family was now operating the Wetmore hotel. On one of my trips home from Seneca, after spending a pleasant hour with the girl, I dropped in on the poker game, just to greet the boys, and watch the play. I had reformed then — mostly, I think, on account of the girl. Incidentally, I may say I reformed more times than a backslider ever confessed his sins—every time, I think, on account of a girl—before finally realizing that it was not the way to build character.

The game then was in the Billy Buzan residence—af ter his wife’s death—on the corner where Bob Cress’ residence is now, west of the telephone office. It was the original William Cawood location, with the west portion of the high fence (seven-foot up and down pine boards) still standing. That high fence had enclosed four lots, and held in captivity a “pet” deer for several years. When the Mayor and a guest of the hotel came in at the front door, I slipped out the back door, as I thought unobserved by His Honor, and streaked it, in bright moonlight, to the fence and went over almost without touching. The next day the Mayor said to me, “Young fellow, I saw your shirt-tail going over that high board fence last night.” But he hadn’t. It was before the young sports had begun to wear their shirt-tails on the outside of their pants. And then again I never was guilty of that slovenly habit.

About that deer. It finally jumped over the gate at the southeast corner of the enclosed grounds—and was gone for several days. But it came back and jumped in again. Then, it made a game of jumping out and jumping in — with periodic trips to the country. Then, one morning there were two deer in the enclosure. I think the “pet” deer tried its best to domesticate the visitor — but after three days, the call of the wilds claimed them both.

Some years later—after he had spent a couple of years in Arkansas, and was now back in the hotel again, in Wetmore—”Papa” was in a tight spot at Enid, Oklahoma, the third day after the opening of the Cherokee Strip, September 16,1893. He had made the run, staked a claim, and was in line—a very long line—at the Land Office, waiting his turn to file. I had already filed on my claim. While in line, I observed soldiers, who were supposed to be on hand to see that everyone would get a fair deal, were running in people ahead of me—and a little later, a man I shall simply call Eddie—apparently in the role of chief grafter—whom I had known in Wetmore, approached me with a proposition to advance me in line for $5. I was too near the door to be interested—and besides, my brother Dave who held a filing number next to mine, promised to “wipe the earth up” with Ed if we should be delayed further. Might say here that the gang followed this remunerative activity with another dirty practice. They filed contests on claims, so that the rightful locators would, in many instances, buy them off rather than stand the expense of fighting the case. Then Dave had to give Mr. Ed that promised thrashing. It got Dave a prompt withdrawal of the contest. I was the only one of our party of four who did not have to fight a contest. My friendship, or co-operation with the crooks, whichever way you choose to look at it, had, I presume, saved me.

After I had filed on my claim, I carried the “good” news of Mr. Eddie’s activities to “Papa.” I knew he was anxious to get back home to his hotel business, where he was trying hard to re-establish himself after returning from Arkansas. He asked me to contact Mr. Eddie for him—and said, “I’ll be your uncle.”

The soldiers advanced him to near the door—and there the line became static once more, as other advancements were being pushed in ahead of him. Then Ed told me that for $10 more the soldiers would put him through the door without delay. “Papa” dug up the $10, and said, “Do this for me Son, and I’ll dance at your wedding.” Now he could call me “Son” and offer to dance at my wedding.

There are three girls prominently featured in this story, whose names I do not wish to divulge. Substituting, I maybe should call the first one Miss Beautiful, for she was all that. But from here on, until further notice, I shall refer to them as My Best Girl, The Old Girl, and The Kid.

In all too short time my nemesis, in the person of a certain rich man’s son, an older brother of that other boy, got on my trail. I do not think it was to avenge his disappointed brother, but it could have been that. He told the boys it was to prove that he was “man enough” to “bump” me.

Well, just for once, it was not a bad guess. He would be working on fertile ground. I didn’t care too much for the Old Girl anyway. She was my senior by four or five years, and naturally she would welcome a good “catch.” It was understood between us that she was only filling a vacancy, and thereby providing a way to keep us in the Silver Stocking circle. The thing I didn’t like was to be “bumped” just for the fun of it, as viewed by the RM’s son.

Mike Norton, clerk in the DeForest store, saw the rich man’s son write a letter to the Old Girl, and he thought this would be the time when the RM’s son would try to make good his boast. Three days hence there was to be a picnic in a grove south of Netawaka, and the Silver Stocking boys and girls were lining up to go in a body. Mike and other members of the circle put in two hours looking for me. The boys, and the girls too, were all for me, in this instance — but not even the King’s Horses could have stopped that boy in his purpose. The postmaster showed me the letter with the OG’s name spelled out in bold relief—and I was off at once, thinking I would now show this RM’s son that he could not do this to me.

The Old Girl said she was awfully sorry—that she had promised another, naming the rich man’s son. I said, in substance—though really not sore at the OG, I think I was not in a frame of mind to phrase it just so—”Let’s see where we stand. The way things are shaped up now, I’m out—that is, barred from the Silver Stocking crowd by the rules of my own helpful making.”

She suggested that I go back to the girl I have designated as My Best Girl—said, “I KNOW you can, if you will just spunk up a little.” I had never “spunked” much with the OG.

“But,” I said, “if I should succeed in dating her, someone else would be out, and that someone is your old beau. Likely timber maybe. Then, in case your date does not choose to repeat, you might still have a chance to get back with the old crowd.”

She laughed — the OG was feeling pretty good, just then—and said, “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Now she giggled, “But, you know, I could always be a hanger-on, maybe even go with you and your girl—just in case.” A boy was permitted to take more than one girl—even a flock of them if he were unlucky enough.

Now the atmosphere around the OG’s home had changed, with exultant spirits taking a nose-dive. That letter was for the purpose of calling off a date. She was really too nice a girl to be buffed around like that — but please note that I did not hold with any such buffings. She had forfeited her chance to go with the crowd to the picnic. Now, more than ever, she wanted to go. She first took her troubles to her bosom friend, Bessie Campfield, wife of Judge Elwin Campfield. She wanted to know how could she, with propriety, get word to me that after all she would be free to go with me to the picnic. Bessie had spent some anxious moments trying to round up a courier to apprise me of that letter. She said to the OG, “I don’t know about that now. I could have told you about that fellow’s egotistical designs.”

The Old Girl lived with her aged parents, and when they would go away for the night, as they often did to visit another daughter in the country, she would have a young neighbor girl—not too young, but much younger than she-stay the night with her. The old folks were away now, and the young girl had been called in for the night.

The Old Girl was still worried. I’m now almost sorry that I ever started this “Old Girl” differential, as it smacks of disrespect — and I do not want the reader to form any such ideas. The OG first asked the young girl to come up town with her—then, remembering that her best friend had dropped a hint that the ground upon which she now stood was insecure, she decided that she was not constitutionally able to face me just then with her problem. She sent the young girl, alone.

But the Kid—that’s what they called her when we went together to the picnic, and thereafter as a member of the Silver Stocking crowd—said, “If you go with her now, you will be the biggest fool in the world. All she wants to go with you for, is to see who he takes,” naming the RM’s son.

The Kid was smart.

But please do not think the so-called Kid was betraying a trust. She was really a woman now. And, besides, she had reason to believe that, to use a homely expression, she were very soon going to get the OG’s goat, anyway.

And moreover, the Old Girl later told the “Kid,” perhaps in a gesture of discouragement, that I had gone with her steadily for nearly a year, and had never tried to kiss her. Had that not been the truth it would have been libel. -In the old days, the prudent young man did not dare kiss an old girl who was only filling a vacancy.

Prior to this, the “Kid” and I had “starred” in a local entertainment entitled “Beauty and Beelzebub” — and mutual admiration had blossomed then. She was the Angel and I was the Devil. In the tableau, the Devil, encased in a tight-fitting black sateen cover-all, with horns and a four-foot forked tail, was suspended on wires about four feet off the floor when the curtain went up. Then the Angel, up in the clouds, began the descent with song, the singing increasing in volume as she came down bare feet first, with outstretched wings, settling in front of the Devil. The “Kid” made a pretty picture, with her abundant dark hair — which, I happen to know, came down nearly to her ankles — spread over the white flowing covering whose traditional folds parted in front just enough to indicate that she dwelt in a place where shoes and stockings were taboo. The Angel departed by the same route—wire and windlass mechanism—went up into the clouds from whence she had come, with more singing, at first in full voice, then fading, fading, fading away in a manner denoting distance. In her young budding womanhood the “Kid” made a beautiful Angel — and the clear, sweet singing was out of this world.

Coral Hutchison was at first considered for the Angel. She was a beautiful girl, and a beautiful singer—and while she had a wonderful head of hair, quite as long as the “Kid’s,” its rather too blonde shade ruled her out. So the “Kid,” with the requisite dark hair, was given a place in the spot-light—and Coral did the singing behind the scenes.

Sorry, I can’t tell you what event or setting that tableau portrayed. There was much more to the show, speaking parts and superb acting. And though clearly the “Kid” and I were “it,” the whole show was titled “Beauty and Beelzebub.”

At the picnic, my adversary, the rich man’s son, said to me, “I see you’ve got a new girl. How come?” I said, “Yeah—likewise you. Thanks for the assist.” After I had started to walk on, he called, “Hey, John, whatsha mean by that?”

He was with Lou Kern. Hattie and Lou Kern, and Nina and Emma Bolman, were four Netawaka girls that were popular with our Silver Stocking crowd; as were also Caroline Emery, living in the country northeast of Wetmore, and her visiting friend, Mamie Blakeslee, a former neighbor whose home was now in Savannah, Mo.

Mamie Blakeslee was a strikingly pretty girl.

I shall now dwell a bit on a personal incident in connection with this beautiful girl. It was away back in 1884. I don’t think the girl was on my mind that day when I went to St. Joe. But, in St. Joe, I ran onto Bill (Hickorynut) Bradley who was on his way to Savannah, and he asked me to go along with him. One Oliver Bateman was to be hanged for the murder of two little girls who had caught him in an embarrassing act. The railroad was offering excursion rates, and the sleepy old Missouri town was decked out in celebration colors, with refreshment stands all along the lane from the jail to the gallows in an amphitheater in the nearby woods—everybody on the make.

Unlike Hickorynut, the hanging did not interest me, but the thought of seeing Mamie did. I called at the Blakeslee home on the outskirts of Savannah — it was a farm traded by G. N. Paige for the Blakeslee farm near Wetmore—on the pretense of wanting to see Mamie’s brother Edwin, who had been my schoolmate in Wetmore. He was not at home. I remained a reasonable time with Mamie, aiming to work up a little courage, and maybe ask her to go places with me—but lost my nerve.

Two hours later I met Mamie, with another girl, on a downtown street near the St. Charles hotel. Mamie said there was to be skating at the rink that night, and would I like to go? I certainly would. So now, after all, we would be going places together.

I called at the Blakeslee home for the two girls, and the ‘skating was going fine. Then, of a sudden, Miss West told me that Mamie was in a jam. Her steady, a traveling salesman, had unexpectedly dropped in on her — and, for some reason, likely well founded, Mamie had not intended to let him know about her going out with another fellow.

I told Miss West that we could fix that all right, if she herself did not have a steady sticking around somewhere. Miss West laughed, and assured me she did not have a steady. “If agreeable,” I said, “you shall now be my company, and, to all appearances, Mamie shall be the hanger-on, free to desert me for her steady.” Miss West laughed again, though she looked as if she were a little concerned about my reference to Mamie as the new hanger-on. Well, it was a slip. It was a term often applied to the extra girls in our Silver Stocking circle.

While visiting in Wetmore before this, Mamie had gone to a dance in Netawaka with a local man who proved to be not to her liking, and she had quit him cold at the dance hall door. Though it would hardly cause a ripple now, it was then considered about the worst thing that could happen to a young fellow’s social standing. I do not wish to identify him—yet I must give him a name to be used in Mamie’s pay-off to me for liberating her at the Savannah rink.

In the substitution of names, one is liable to innocently hit upon somebody’s real name, and to avoid the possibility of making this error, I shall give him the surname of his business partner, and go through the customary formality of saying that any similarity in names is purely coincidental. The man was half-owner of the livery stable from which we all got our “rigs” that night. And, anyway, the partners left here together for the state of Washington many, many years ago, and there should be no chance for repercussions now.

Mamie knew that I was familiar with the Netawaka incident—in fact, it was I who did the shifting with Sidney Loop to get her back home. When Miss West had delivered my message, Mamie broke away from her steady, rolled gracefully around the hall, and plumped herself down by my side, saying, “Thank you so much! It gets me out of an awful jam! And I want you to know that this is no Dr. Fisher deal!” I wondered? You know a girl, in competition with other girls, might strive for long to vamp a certain good catch—which is always a girl’s privilege—and then when the chance offers, find herself tied up for the time being with someone that right away stinks.

The Blakeslee family formerly lived on a farm four miles northeast of Wetmore, directly north of the old Ham Lynn farm. Mamie’s father, Nelson Blakeslee, often called at my father’s shoeshop for a visit. One time they planned on chartering a car together and shipping to California. I did not know Mamie then—but have since wondered what might have happened had they gone through with their plans.

Evidently Mamie did not make the most of the opportunity afforded her that night back in Savannah. She married Frank Schilling, of Hiawatha. There were some dark surmises that she stole Caroline Emery’s beau. “Stole” is an ugly word to be written in connection with this sweet, conscientious girl—as I knew her then. I would rather believe that Miss Emery’s beau was a man of rare good judgment. I have not seen Mamie since that night at the skating rink in Savannah. Now widowed, she lives in Fairview — thirty minutes away from Wetmore.

Back again on the main theme: In the days which followed, I said to myself—thought it with vengeance, anyway—that I would like to see the color of the hair of any d—d RM’s son that could make me give up this one, meaning the “Kid,” of course. And may I say that for once I now believed I had my girl matters well in hand.

But, believe it or not, still another son of that same rich man tried his darndest to edge in. At this time the younger boys had the habit of lining up on the outside of the church, at Epworth League meetings, and grab themselves a girl, with a polite, and sometimes not so polite, “May I “see you home?” After the third “No, thank you,” from the “Kid,” the RM’s son told her to go to that place which is sometimes politely called hades.

Mrs. Pheme Wood, a well meaning soul who had been an intimate friend of our family since the first day we came here in 1869, and who apparently took a special interest in my welfare, stopped me one day while passing her home, and said, “There’s something I want to ask you. Of course I don’t believe it, but I’ll ask anyway. Were you out sleigh-riding with Myrtle Mercer the day her father lay dead in the home?”

Myrtle was the afore-mentioned “Kid.”

I had not intended to name her just yet, but her identity would have to come out soon anyway, as she figures in this story to the end. And then some.

“Well,” I said—but got no further. Pheme broke in, “It came to me pretty straight, and one would think—” I stopped her with a promise to ‘fess up, if she would not run to my mother with it. “Oh that,” she laughed, remembering a kindred incident, “was for your own good.” She had gone to my mother on an errand of mercy. That she had her wires badly crossed did not deter her. She said she had it on good authority that I was about to marry the aforesaid Old Girl, who was much too old for me; and that my mother ought to use her influence to prevent it.

Myrtle’s father, John W. Mercer, section foreman, aged 39, had died suddenly of a heart attack while milking his cow one morning in February, 1888. And naturally, the family—the mother and five girls—had to make preparations for the funeral. Myrtle had a badly sprained ankle — acquired while ice-skating with George Peters on the creek near her home—but she managed to hobble up town, taking her baby sister Jessie with her. I followed them into the store, told Myrtle that I would get a sleigh from the livery stable and take them home. After driving the girls three blocks directly to their home, I picked up the Old Girl and we drove for an hour or more. I knew that Frank Fisher would charge me $2.00 anyway, and I wanted to get my money’s worth. I was seen picking up the “Kid” at the store and later seen driving with the Old Girl, and someone had imagined that the two girls were one and the same — and that’s how the story got started.

When explained, Pheme could have no criticism of Myrtle, nor of me either for driving her home. But, being a woman of the old school, she was bound to have her say. She said, “It looks like you should have had more respect for Myrtle than to go joy-riding with that other girl at a time like that.” I was not sure that she didn’t have something there. I said, “Remember, not a word to my mother.”

“Ah, go on,” she laughed.

I might say here, before passing this incident, that after the family had split up a few years later, Myrtle was sister and mother too, as well as guardian, for Jessie. And speaking of pretty girls, this attractive little one had the makings of a real beauty that in later years just about topped them all.

The rich man’s sons were all fine boys—I think—but in view of their penchant for camping on my trail, the only compliment I wish to pay them now is to say: They did not play poker.

My trusted friend did not marry the girl I loaned him. She went with her parents and three brothers to Arkansas — and married down there. The trusted friend went to the Far West, made his stake, and married into a quite well-to-do family—and lived at Yakima, Washington.

The Old Girl got her man too—an out-of-town man — after she had quit fooling around with the younger fry, and went with Davey Todd to Kansas City to live. She became a helpless invalid—and then, not having prepared himself in a financial way for such eventuality, Davey literally and figuratively had his hands full. But, to the best of his ability, he was good to her—carried her around as if she were a baby. How do I know? Well, the “Kid’s” sisters, -Jennie and Kathy, neighbors while here, helped him a lot in giving her needed attention.

And now Euphema Wood speaks again. Commenting on this unfortunate affair, she said to me, “Now you can maybe appreciate all the grief I saved you.”

Many years later, I met the mother of the girl whom I designated for this writing as My Best Girl, on the train out of Kansas City going to Atchison, her home at that time. I knew the girl had married a man whom the family were pleased to call a Southern aristocrat, living at Bald Knob, Arkansas. He was a merchant who carried the sharecroppers—mostly descendants of Ham—on his books until harvest time, virtually owning them. This gave him status in his home community, particularly with the colored folk — and in traveling North this mark of distinction was greatly exaggerated. From what the girl told me, while on a visit back home, I think Mr. Walker was a worthy man—but that aristocracy appendage, I liked it even less than I liked the means that had been employed to push me out of the picture. It is a word that should never have been coined. I was pleased that the girl herself made no use of it.

In the course of our talking over old times in Wetmore, the mother said, “I never could understand why those two did not marry,” meaning her daughter and the boy who had succeeded me. I said, “If you really want to know,- I can tell you why. He just didn’t have the money to do it the way she insisted on having it done, an expensive wedding, and all that.” She, the mother, already knew why I had first gracefully tapered off, and then backed away from it all—for the girl had told me that her penitent mother had wanted to kick herself for speaking out of turn.

And the “Kid?” Well, wait and see. Might have to skip a few years, though. I had not yet made that stake. In reminiscing, one is permitted to wander about over all creation—provided, always, that he carries along for blending purposes at least one principal character already introduced: and makes sure to come back “home” before becoming hopelessly entangled in a wilderness of clearly unrelated matter.

The “Kid” figures prominently in this episode.

While in Kansas City, I ran onto a street hawker selling fake “diamonds” for one dollar each. Just for the fun of it, I bought one of the things, brought it home and presented it to Myrtle Mercer, who was now working in my printing office, merely to see how a diamond would affect a girl.

After showing me that her heart was in the right place, she darted out the door before I could stop her, ran down the steps to the Means store, and showed it to Lizzie Means; then beat it out the back door and ran across to show it to Mamma Alma. This lady was the wife of Dr. J. W. Graham.

Mamma Alma was sharp as all getout. Lizzie Means was a shrewd business woman, but she had a less inquisitive mind. And I guess Myrtle was pretty sharp too, after the first ecstatic shock had passed.

Myrtle came bounding back up to the office, and bawled me out: “Mr. Smartie, that is going to cost you a real diamond—and a good one, too! And I want it right now!” She had reason to believe I was holding out on her.

I said, “All right, all right—but you can’t have it now.”

Cloy Weaver, my printer, who had been out on an errand, had come into the office by this time. He stood there with his mouth open, wondering what it was all about. Cloy had a girl in Stockton, California, and was aiming to leave the next day for California to marry her. As I needed him, and as he had told me he had a wife in the Philippines — he was a veteran of the Spanish American War— I tried to show him that this would be a bigamous trick. He agreed. Cloy was always agreeable. He remained with me a while longer—and married Edna Hudson.

Lizzie told me later in the day that the bogus diamond had her fooled, too. She laughed, “By golly, it did sparkle real prettily, didn’t it? But it’s going to cost you a real diamond—don’t forget that. Mamma Alma and I are not going to let Myrtle forget it either, Ough,” she shrugged, - “that was about the dirtiest trick imaginable. And Myrtle was so pleased! It was a shame!” And Mamma Alma had told Myrtle that it was high time anyway for me to be giving her a “real” diamond.

The next morning Coral Locknane—Myrtle’s best friend — came to the office, and I don’t know what all passed between the two, but it is pretty certain they didn’t discuss trifles. The three of us went to Kansas City on the noon train. I said to the girls, “Shall we go to Cady & Olmstead’s or to Jaccard’s?” I had been to both places on my last trip, and I knew they had just the right quality of sparklers to tickle a girl’s heart—now that I knew how a girl would react. But Myrtle, feeling pretty sure of herself, and in high good humor, said quite emphatically, “Neither.” She looked down the street and said, “We are going to Mercer’s on Petticoat Lane. It’s a name I believe I can trust. You don’t think I’d let you steer me to a place like where you got that other thing?”

When we went into the Mercer Store, Mr. Waddington, the diamond salesman, as it happened, pushed his portly self forward, and asked, “What will it be, please?”

I said, pretty loudly, “A diamond ring for Miss Mercer!” That claimed the attention of the whole house—the proprietor included.

Coral had several pretty good diamonds of her own. She took a seat with Myrtle at the salestable in the little black velvet-lined cubby corner, while I stood back and looked on. When Mr. Waddington told them the price of the one they had selected, Myrtle exclaimed, “Whe-e-ew!”

Then she looked to me for approval. The modest, one carat blue white stone was in good taste, plenty big enough for a girl. Coral’s largest diamond—at that time—was also an even carat, and she was a great help to Myrtle in making the selection. Coral said, “It’s not good taste to have them too big.” Later, Myrtle said earnestly and very softly, as if the thing had taken her breath away, “Do you really think you want to stand that much?” Mercer’s was the highest priced shop in Kansas City—but in a case of this kind I figured that a girl must have what she wants.

Then we separated, and I went over to the Cady & Olmstead store on the corner of 11th and Walnut, and bought for myself—or rather paid for what I had already bought — the beautiful blue white diamond, nearly twice as large, which Myrtle’s sister Jennie had helped me select only three days before. Jennie had warned me not to spring that fake diamond on Myrtle. Said it might not set just right with her. But I knew that Myrtle was too smart a girl to let anything make her mad at me for long.

Mr. Cady said, “You are a day early—where’s the lady?” “Yes,” I said, “I’m early. Got pushed around a little. Never mind the lady now. Though you may still make it a Tiffany setting, but make it for this hand right here.” He gave me a sympathetic look. Mr. Cady was such a nice man that I felt duty bound to tell him, as nearly as I could, what had happened to the lady.

Sometimes even quality folk didn’t get to see Mr. Cady, in person. Well, I did—just like I said. I still have the sales ticket, dated May 12, 1903, bearing his notation, “Will exchange Tif. Belcher mounting without cost—or diamond for other goods any time without discount.” Signed, “Cady.”

All this was too much for Coral. A woman with money of her own can stand only so much. She went over to Norton’s—and bought herself another diamond, nearly twice as big as Myrtle’s. The satisfied expression on her lovely face was something to behold. My first thoughts were that this might call for me to do some swapping with Myrtle. But, no sir—she’d not part with hers. If pressed, she’d claim them both. Trust a woman!

We had to stay the night in Kansas City with Myrtle’s sisters, Jennie and Kathy. When she got the chance, Jennie asked me, “How did it work?” meaning the bogus diamond.

“Well,” I replied, “it looks like it hasn’t blown the top off anything yet.” She said, “It surely does look that way now, but I wouldn’t be so sure of it after she sees the beauty we picked out for her.”

The two country girls had talked nothing but diamonds from the time they had entered the apartment.

The next morning the three of us started out three ways to get our diamonds—only we didn’t do it just that way. We went the rounds in a group. Mr. Mercer told Miss Mercer that she had selected the best one-carat blue-white flawless diamond in his store. And he wondered if they might not be related. Myrtle came home pretty pleased for keeps that time.

I’ve always counted it my best investment.

THE VIGILANTES

Published in Wetmore Spectator,

August 28, 1931

By John T. Bristow

There was, assuredly, need for the vigilantes at one time in the Far West, where the idea originated and here there were no laws and no courts other than “miner’s courts”—impromptu courts set up by the people on the spot. But, with all the machinery of organized government functioning normally and in most instances efficiently there in Nemaha County, there was, seemingly, no call here for the vigilantes when they hanged Charley Manley.

The courier-tribune

(Semi-weekly)

Geo. C. Adriance Dora Adriance

SENECA KANSAS

Aug. 28, 1931

Mr. John T. Bristow, Wetmore, Kansas.

My dear Mr. Bristow:

We have just read with a great deal of interest your article in the Wetmore Spectator dealing with the hanging of Charley Manley. This is the first time I have ever heard of this act of the vigilantes. We are going to check through our files of April 1877 and see if we can find anything relating to it. In any event, I write to ask permission to reproduce this article in a much special issue of the Tribune we are putting out next year to celebrate Seneca’s 75th anniversary.

The article is so well written and deals with so early history of our county that I consider it admirably adapted to our purpose. The next time you are in ‘Seneca I should like to have you call at The Courier-Tribune office. I have no doubt you have a fund of other stories that would be just as interesting.

Sincerely yours,

Geo. C. Adriance

It is a tragic story — the hanging of Manley by the vigilantes. It was Mar. 31, 1877. I was a small boy when I first knew Charley Manley, just about big enough to turn a grindstone, with effort. There is purpose in this reference to the grindstone.

I remember the time very distinctly. And, with all due respect to the memory of my departed elders—the vigilantes—if, after so many years, I may be permitted to express myself freely and fully, I would say God seemed to be terribly far away from the scene that night. Before going into the details of the hanging, let us have a look into the workings of the vigilantes—that organization of men who set itself up as judge and jury and executioner. There was tactful veiling of the identity of the individual members, and little is known of the inside workings of the local vigilantes.

This much is known, however. There was one little slip — a bungle—that was, in time, the means of disclosing the identity of the local operators, but that secret was also carefully guarded until practically the last one of the vigilantes has passed on to another world beyond the reach of wagging tongues and the strong arm of organized law. There is now only one—possibly two—of the originals left.

The vigilante organization or “Committee,” as it was called, had its birth in the Far West, for the specific purpose of dealing with “road agents”—banded highwaymen and murderers. The idea traveled East and the farther it got away from the home of its origin the farther it seems to have gotten away from its original purpose.

In the sixties and seventies vigilante committees were in evidence the full length of the old Overland Trail, from California to Kansas, and the fact that Wetmore and Granada had as residents a half dozen or so of the old stage-drivers, express messengers, and pony express riders, may account, in some measure, for the local organization of vigilantes. And, if so, by the irony of fate, it was in the home of a former express messenger that the vigilantes claimed their first and only victim. It is known that at least two of the old stage employees were vigilantes.

Without question, the idea filtered in from the West. The almost constant stream of returning gold-seekers passing through Granada over the Old Trail at a time when the vigilantes were very active in the West — particularly in Montana—may have scattered the seed.

While I was out in the western mining district, a quarter of a century ago, chasing fickle fortune—which was always just a few jumps ahead of me—I heard much about the exploits of road agents, and the work of the vigilantes.

In the Old West, at Bannack, Virginia City, and Nevada, in the Alder Gulch section of Montana, where a hundred million dollars in placer gold was recovered in the early sixties, road agents plundered and killed, without mercy.

Placer gold, as many know, is free gold that has been eroded from exposed gold-bearing ledges and deposited in the sands and gravel along the water courses. It was the first form of gold-mining in the West—the lure that caused the great stampede to California in 1849. It has rightfully been called “the poor man’s gold,” because of the comparative ease in which it is recovered.

The flush times in the Alder Gulch section, which contained about twenty thousand eager gold diggers, made rich pickings for the road agents. They preyed upon individual miners, on express companies, on anyone, anywhere they could grab gold-dust, or minted gold, the money of the times. And they were killers, every one of them.

The Montana vigilantes, sworn to secrecy and loyalty, with a by-law boldly asserting, “The only punishment that shall be inflicted by this committee is Death,” undertook the job of exterminating the road agents. And in one month’s time twenty-one of the notorious Henry Plummer gang were hung. The job was pepped up a bit when the first victims squealed on the others. This is history of the Montana vigilantes. They patterned after the California vigilantes. And it is to be assumed that vigilantes everywhere were organized along the same lines.

There was a vigilante committee in Nemaha County at least nine years prior to the hanging of Manley. In September, 1868, Melvin Baughn, a horse-thief, was legally hanged at Seneca for killing Jesse Dennis, one of the deputized men who helped capture him. In writing of that hanging George Adriance said there was a vigilante committee at the time, and it wanted the officers to turn Baughn over to the committee.

Charley Manley and Joe Brown were charged with being implicated in stealing John O’Brien’s horse. O’Brien lived on the Dave Ralston place west of Granada and Brown lived on a quarter section of land west of the Charley Green farm in the Granada neighborhood, about two miles from the O’Brien farm. Charley Manley lived with the family of W. W. Letson at Netawaka. He had lived with the Letsons at Granada and at Wetmore before they moved to Netawaka. Letson and Spencer kept a general store here in the old corner building now owned by Cawood Brothers, originally built by Rising and Son.

At one of their meetings, it appears, the vigilantes decided to hang Manley and Brown. One member who lived close to Brown pleaded for the life of his neighbor. Brown had a family of small children. The discussion waxed hot — and there was a great rift in the personnel of the organization. They did not agree in the matter. The determined ones, however, went ahead with their plans for the hanging. And on the night of the execution some of the vigilantes, not in accord with the plan, spent the night at the homes of their neighbors so as to clear themselves of suspected participation in the hanging.

Charley Manley was arrested at Netawaka and was to have been given a preliminary trial in Justice H. J. Crist’s court at Granada. He was brought to Wetmore early the day of his execution and held under guard in the office of the old Wetmore House until evening. The delay supposedly was occasioned in order to bring Joe Brown to the bar of “justice” at the same time. Later it appeared the proceedings had been delayed, waiting for nightfall.

Robert Sewell, constable, liveryman, ex-stage driver and Indian fighter, was the arresting officer. On the plains, and here, he was known as “Bob Ridley.” George G. Gill was deputized as assistant constable. Dr. J. W. Graham, a Justice of the Peace in Wetmore at the time, was appointed special prosecutor by County Attorney Simon Conwell. Sewell, Gill, and Graham, with Manley, drove to Granada in a spring wagon.

On the way to Granada, all unconscious of what was in the air, Dr. Graham, seeing a tree by the roadside with a large overhanging limb, jokingly said, “Whoa, stop the team, Bob—-we might just as well hang Charley right here.” Manley laughed and said, “Oh, no—let’s all have a drink.” He passed his bottle.

Court was to have been held in the Hudson hotel at Granada. But before proceedings had started, the vigilantes, in black-face, with coats turned insideout, appeared upon the scene and began shooting up the place — with blanks. They seized Manley and rushed him away—to his doom. Pandemonium reigned, and in the excitement the president of the vigilante committee, it is said, raised a window and told Brown to “beat it.” So, it would seem, the neighbor’s plea for Brown’s life, while very costly to himself, as you shall see later, had made its impression.

Earlier in the evening, one high up in vigilantic officialdom, had taken the precaution to relieve the three constables and the prosecuting attorney of their revolvers—borrowed them “for a few minutes.” Dr. Graham says he never did get his back.

Charley Manley was taken to a big tree down on the creek west of Granada, and strung up. The tree was on the old Terrill place, now owned by the Achtens. Monoah H. Terrill, a store-keeper at Granada, was a brother-in-law of Manley. Terrill had died a long time before the Manley hanging.

Manley was buried on the Terrill place—or rather what afterwards proved to be the roadside—by the grave of his brother-in-law. Later the bodies were removed. Terrill was placed in the Letson lot in the Netawaka cemetery. Some say the body of Manley was also taken there. The Letson lot has no such marker. Others say he was re-buried in the northeast corner of the Granada cemetery. There is no marker or other visible evidence of his grave there. His grave now seems to be as irredeemably lost as was his life on that fatal March night fifty-four years ago.

It is said by those who were in a position to speak at the time, that Manley made no protest, spoke not a word when the mob took him from the room. Whether it was sheer shock that robbed him of all power to speak, to think, to feel, no one knows. Dr. Graham says that after they started away with the prisoner someone fired a gun, and he heard Manley say, “Don’t do that boys, it’s not fair.” Just what happened after that was never made public. The knowing ones didn’t seem to want to talk. There were, however, many conflicting rumors afloat—sub rosa reports, you understand. One rumor was that Manley was dead before they left the main street with him—died from fright and rough handling.

On the way out one of the vigilantes lost his cap. Someone picked it up. The same man who had “borrowed” the officers guns, acting as rear guard, rode back and took the cap. He said to the people who had followed from the court room, “We don’t want to hurt anyone—but keep back.”

Some of the men in that mob were recognized, but, as one old timer aptly puts it, no one at that time seemed to care a “helluva” lot about knowing who they were. However, as the veiling gradually lifted, it became known that the major portion of the respectable adult male citizens — and a few bad eggs—were numbered among the vigilantes. They were, mostly, fair-minded and just men. But, even fair-minded men, under stress, can sometimes be auto-hypnotized into doing strange things—and it would seem some of the vigilantes got terribly out of hand that night. From all accounts the performance was a rather disgusting exhibition of mob passion. Later criticism of the vigilantes was based very largely on the inexcusable savage demonstration attending the Manley hanging. And mistake not, there was criticism—criticism that stirred the whole countryside.

Vigilantes did not tell their wives everything. It might have been better if they had. And if the Manley demonstration had met with the approval of the good wives and mothers of the participating vigilantes, the women might have taken a hand in the general clean-up and scrubbed the burnt-cork, or whatever it was that blackened their faces, from back of the men’s ears and thus obliterated the telltale marks that lingered, like the itch, with some of the boys for several days. The women generally deprecated the hanging.

Just what evidence the vigilantes had against Charley Manley, and how authentic or damaging it was, never was made public. Nor will it ever be. Had the vigilantes permitted the trial to progress far enough to establish the prisoner’s guilt, their actions would, no doubt, have received less criticism. The friends of the vigilantes—the vigilantes themselves never talked, as vigilantes—said that it would have been difficult to produce convicting evidence as Manley was too good at “covering up.” He was credited with being the “brains” of the gang.

Two business men in Netawaka were also suspected. They evaporated. In fact, there were a dozen or more men scattered about over the country who were under suspicion.

It was rather a hard proposition to handle. The farmers—the vigilantes and the farmers, with a sprinkling of town people, were practically the same—were terribly incensed because of the thefts of their horses, and they were determined, at any cost, to put a stop to it. And while the convicted horse-thief did not draw a death sentence, the courts were efficient enough and willing enough to impose ample punishment on offenders. But the real trouble was in getting convicting evidence. And the courts could not, of course, play “hunches” in so serious a matter.

And where convicting evidence was lacking, it would seem about the best—or worst—the vigilantes could do, was to make an example of some one of those under suspicion, and hope that they had hanged the right man — a rather dangerous procedure, and hardly sufficient excuse for taking a life.

But one thing that worked then against bringing suspects into court was, that in case of failure to convict, the court costs were assessed to the complaining witness, and that meant a lot to the pioneer farmer—especially to one who had just lost his horses. At least, that is the way the John O’Brien complaint was handled.

The old court record shows that Constable Sewell traveled twenty-four miles in making the arrest of Manley, for which he received $2.40. George G. Gill, as deputy, received a like sum. The attorney received $7.50. There was also a charge of $1.00 for the keep of the prisoner, and another $1.00 for guarding him. Isaiah Hudson traveled only six miles, three miles out and three miles back, in making the arrest of Joseph Brown, for which he received $1.20. One witness, J. W. Duvall, was subpoenaed in the Brown case. None in the Manley case. And, presumably, because of the disrupted court proceedings and the loss of the prisoners, it was “considered and adjudged” by the court that the costs in both cases be charged to John O’Brien, the complaining witness.

Then, after the hanging of Manley, someone made a mistake—a very serious mistake—which, coupled with the previous disagreement, came very close to disrupting the vigilante organization. A letter, purporting to come from the vigilantes, was sent to the rebellious member. It gave the man ten days to leave the country, and warned him that if he failed to do so he would be given the same treatment as was meted out to Manley.

This was a hard jolt to the obstreperous member. And it was a harder jolt for the man’s wife. The woman opened and read the letter first, and only for that she might never have known what it was that caused her man to so suddenly develop a bad case of ague. Then, every day, for weeks, as the gathering shades of night began to fall upon his home, this man, with his wife and three small children, trailed off through the woods, across lots, to the home of a relative to spend the night.

That letter was the cause of much mental and even physical misery for the woman. She suffered heart attacks at the time: And in the weeks that followed she suffered the mental torments of the damned. In relating the matter to me very recently, she said, “Every time the dog barked I would have a fit.” According to her version of it, those were the blackest days of her life. And, like a scar, she will carry its horrors to her dying day—to the grave. She knew what a crazed mob was capable of doing. As a matter of fact, she knew what a guerilla mob had done to my father’s family.

Many, many were the times that my mother—sweet, patient, administering angel—was called upon to be with that woman in her hours of great distress. And once, when the insidious thing was about to consume her, my mother brought the woman home with her for a week.

The marked member finally took the matter up with other vigilantes, and to save the sanity of the man’s wife — and no doubt to appease the man’s fears also — after all denying knowledge of the letter, the vigilantes signed a paper pledging protection to the man. The marked man — and his friends in the organization—however, had a pretty good idea who wrote that letter.

With such a document in evidence the identity of the vigilantes, which had been so closely guarded up to this time, was no longer cloaked. At least the veil of secrecy now had a big rip in it.

The hanging of Manley had a tendency to slow up activities, but it did not stop the horse-stealing. And once more the Committee set out to make an example of an accused man. Frank Gage, charged with stealing a horse from Washie Lynn, was being tried in a Justice court somewhere over in the Powhattan neighborhood — probably Charley Smith’s court. The vigilantes were in readiness to “storm” the court and take the prisoner, as they had done in the Manley case at Granada, but the plan was abandoned at the last minute.

Two horsemen, young and daring, with a whiff of what was in the air, made a hurried run to the scene. They told the vigilantes that they were about to make a mistake—that they, the informers, knew positively that Gage was elsewhere the night the Lynn horse was stolen. The high-stepping modern Paul Revere of that heroic dash still lives. The other has gone to his reward.

Gage, of course, was acquitted, for lack of evidence. Later, the real thief, convicted for stealing wheat, confessed to stealing the Lynn horse, and told where it was. Washie reclaimed the animal.

The man who was credited with being the president of the vigilante committee afterwards became a very popular and efficient peace officer of Nemaha county. And, if I understood the man rightly, I think he would have fought forty wildcats, and maybe a buzz-saw or two, before he would have surrendered, for unlawful handling, a charge of his to any set of men—vigilantes, clan, mob extraordinary, or even a regiment of soldiers.

Soon after the Manley hanging a branch of the Kansas Peoples Detective Association was organized here. Unlike the vigilantes, its purpose was not to override the law, but to assist it in capturing and convicting horse-thieves. W. D. Frazey was president and E. J. Woodman was secretary.

Now a line about the Old Overland Trail. Besides carrying a faint flavor of Manley handiwork, it was the avenue by which I myself came into this country. But I did not ride the old Concord coach drawn by its four spirited horses. I came by the slower mode of the ox-team.

The Old Overland Trail, or military road, as it was sometimes called, was vastly different from the good roads of the present time—very, very much different from the elaborate specifications for Number Nine, now building through Wetmore. It was little more than a wide rut worn deep by the constant movement of horse-drawn vehicles, including, of course, mules and oxen. There were stage-lines, pony-express riders, and heavy freighting outfits. The commerce of the West was handled over the Old Trail.

Starting at Atchison, the Old Trail came into the Pow~ hattan ridge settlement at the southwest corner of the Kickapoo Indian reservation, and, keeping to the high ridges as much as practical, it passed through Granada, Log Chain and Seneca, and on westward to Oroville and Sacramento, in California. The stage company maintained a change station on the old Collingwood C. Grubb farm—called Powhattan. Noble H. Rising was in charge of the station after it had been moved three miles north, and the name changed to Kickapoo. His son, Don C. Rising, was a pony-express rider. W. W. Letson was express messenger. Bill Evans, Lon Huff, and Bob Sewell, oldtimers here, were stage drivers.

The road made a sharp turn to the north before reaching Granada. Peter Shuemaker lived on the farm now owned and occupied by Charley Zabel, west of the turn. Shuemaker wanted the road to pass by his farm, and, at his own expense, built a cut-off in the hope that traffic would be diverted that way.

Roads in those days were built, mostly, by the simple process of going out with a plow and running a couple of parallel furrows, with the proper spacing to accommodate all anticipated traffic. Peter Shuemaker’s cut-off veered off to the northwest, across the prairies just anywhere the going seemed to be good, until it intersected the Old Trail again. And though as simple as that, road building in those days was not without difficulties. Some would want the road and some wouldn’t want it.

“Uncle” Peter’s road bumped into a circumstance when his engineer projected the cut-off across the farm of a certain female importation from the Emerald Isle. And right there Irish wit and Missouri temper mixed. William Porter, not so very long removed from the Rushville hills, was chief engineer and contractor for the prairie division of “Uncle” Peter’s cut-off. Mrs. Flannigan met the Missourian head-on, with an old horse-pistol wrapped in her apron. “Off with you, I’ll not have the place torn up,” she commanded.

Entirely unaware of the ominous clouds rolling up in the sky of his destiny, the wily William squared himself in an attitude of defiance, squinted his eyes in the peculiar manner of his people, spat out his tobacco, and said, “I carkilate I’m running this road.” Whereupon Mrs. Flannigan unbound her pistol, and replied, “It’s a fine young man you are, but I’m sorry to tell you that you’ll never see your old mother again.”

Contractor Porter decided to take fate in his own hands and change the plans of destiny as decreed by Mrs. Flannigan. He took another chew of tobacco and then meekly backtracked for a mile over the perfectly good road he had just built—and ran some more furrows. You couldn’t block a road project with a horse-pistol, or even with injunctions, in those days. There was too much open land.

The generous spacings and fine appointments of Peter Shuemaker’s cut-off—it had a corduroy bridge, over Muddy Creek, with nigger-head trimmings—were out of all proportion to the scanty travel that passed his way. And when “Uncle” Peter found that he couldn’t bring the traffic to him, he, like Mahomet, went to it. Shuemaker built a hotel in Granada.

Recollections are now about as dim as the Old Trail itself, but there is one oldtimer who asserts that it is his belief that Ice Gentry and Charley Manley were credited with being the axe-men who made the slashings on the timber division of “Uncle” Peter’s cut-off. But, says another, that may have been before Manley came into the neighborhood. Nothing certain about that, though. So many of the old fellows have their biographies so scrambled that it is hard to get at the truth. The suggestion was, nevertheless, timely. And, anyway, Charley Manley spent his last day on earth in Peter Shuemaker’s hotel at Wetmore.

As I remember him, Charley Manley was a rather quiet, pleasant mannered man. And, although a matured man himself — he was about forty, and unmarried — he made friends of the youngsters about town and seemed to enjoy their company. He could always find a way to help a boy with a few dimes.

Early in his career here in Wetmore it was settled that I was to have the job of turning the grindstone for Charley Manley whenever he needed help to grind his axe. Since that time I have often wondered why he had so much axe-grinding to do. But I thoroughly enjoyed, with all the thankfulness of a growing young boy’s” healthy heart, the dimes and quarters he gave me. And sometimes I have thought that maybe he ran in a few extra and needless grindings solely to gladden my heart.

Then came the time when Charley Manley fitted his grindstone with foot pedals. I used to sit by and watch him do the grinding without my help, and long for the dime I was being cheated out of by the introduction of that new labor-saving device. One time Charley Manley let me pour water on the grindstone while he ran it with foot-power. He said the tin can suspended over the stone, which was releasing a steady stream of water where it was needed, did not do the work so satisfactorily. He gave me a quarter for that.

With all his axe-grinding, I never knew Charley Manley to do more than chop wood on the Letson wood-pile. No coal was burned here in that axe-grinding period. Wood was brought in from the timber, a wagon-load at a time, in the pole, or in cord-wood lengths. It was chopped into stove lengths as needed, enough to cook a meal at a time. And sometimes the chopper would make the supply very scanty, or even renege on the job altogether. Then the cook would have to go out and scrape up chips. How well I know that. Aside from my axe-grinding activities I spent some time on the Bristow wood-pile in my younger days. And I am now sorry to say there were times when my patient mother would have to gather in the chips.

The last words Charley Manley ever said to me were, “Come over to Netawaka and see me sometimes, Johnny, and I’ll let you turn the grindstone for me.” He smiled pleasantly. That was while he was held in custody here the day of his execution. Poor fellow, he did not then suspect what was to be his fate. Naturally, I felt badly about the hanging—and the loss of my opportunity to make another honest dime. And the worst that I could now wish for the shades of his executioners, is that they be compelled to take turns in turning Manley’s grindstone, over there in the vast beyond, until his axe is made sharp, sharp, sharp—and then, that Charley’s ghost be licensed by Him who judges all things, to use it—provided, of course, that he didn’t steal their horses.

Published in Wetmore Spectator—

March 27, 1936

By John T. Bristow

It was sixty-two years ago. Our quiet little village, surrounded by almost continuous open country, with grazing herds all bedded down for the night, slumbered. A gentle rain was falling.

The night train brought to Wetmore a man bent upon a desperate undertaking. Jim Erickson was a resident of these parts, but had been absent for some time. He did not seek lodgings in town. Under cover of the night he walked west on the railroad track for two miles, then turned off to the timber on the south. He spent the remainder of the night in a hay stack at the timber’s edge. Here he loaded his revolver for the cold-blooded murder of his neighbor and supposedly his friend, Adolph Marquardt.

With the coming of dawn on that spring morning, May 10, 1873, Jim Erickson-plodded on foot through the wet grass from his hay-stack bed to the Marquardt home two miles to the southwest. He knocked for admittance. The door was opened. Erickson’s gun flashed, and Marquardt fell dead by the side of the door.

Just what all happened after that is mere conjecture — but rumor had it that the whole abominable affair rested with Erickson’s burning desire to break the Tenth Commandment; and as expedient to this insane impulse he deemed it important for him to break also the Sixth Commandment. And as it turned out, he just about smashed the whole category of “Thou shall nots.”

Jim Erickson took the two small Marquardt children over to the home of Peter Nelson about a quarter of a mile away. He told Nelson that he had killed Marquardt; that he had shot Mrs. Marquardt in the thigh, crippling her, so that she could not get away, and that he intended to kill her when he returned to the home. Erickson also told Nelson that he had intended to take Mrs. Marquardt away with him, but she had refused to go.

It was never definitely established that there had been any promises or understanding between Erickson and Mrs. Marquardt. If there had been any clandestine meetings, they had the good sense, or more likely the good luck, to keep it well under cover. The one certain thing is that Erickson coveted his neighbor’s wife — and that was bad business.

The Marquardt children were too young to realize what had happened. The older child, a boy of four, could say nothing but “Boom!” The younger child died two years later in the home of William Morris.

The older boy — now Adolph Nissen — still lives. He was taken into the home of Christian C. Nissen. Or rather, the Nissens came to the boy’s home, acquiring the right through due process of law. And they adopted the boy.

The Marquardts were regarded as fine people, and if there had ever been any rifts in the family, the world did not know it. Jim Erickson was a rather quiet and apparently honorable man who owned a homestead north of the Marquardt home. The Marquardt land is now owned by Mrs. C. C. Nissen, Christian’s second wife, mother of Frits Nissen, and C. C.’s other four children—Bill, Homer, George, and Mrs. Charley Love. Peter Nelson owned the intervening eighty then. Erickson was a bachelor. The residents of that settlement were all countrymen. That is, they or their ancestors had immigrated to this country from that little corner of the old world known as the land of the midnight sun—Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

There were no telephones then and the process of summoning the law was necessarily slow. William Liebig was constable. He was reputedly a very brave man, but that was one time when he displayed more caution than ". bravery. With a posse of deputized men, Liebig went to the scene of the murder—that is, they went near it. For long hours the men hung around on the fringe of the premises, watching and waiting. Finally Liebig crept noiselessly up to the house and very cautiously pushed the door open. His tension relaxed a bit. All occupants of the house were dead. Jim Erickson had killed Mrs. Marquardt while in bed. He then sent a bullet through his own head.

At that time there was a small publication at Netawaka whose outspoken editor believed in calling “a spade a spade.” His printed version of the affair, purporting to be based on revealments in the house on entry of the officers, was, to say the least, racily rotten.

Erickson’s body was brought to town and rested for a while in the wareroom of the DeForest store building. The doctors sawed Erickson’s head open, and decided that he had an “abnormal brain.” But evidently they were not satisfied with their findings. Anyhow, it would seem they craved another whack at him, as will be observed later. In making the post-mortem the doctors used a common carpenter’s hand saw. I saw them do it.

Marquardt and his wife were buried in the Wetmore cemetery. Marquardt was a Union soldier. His grave is marked with a slab bearing only his name.

There was no one here to claim Jim Erickson’s body. Neil Erickson, a cousin, lived in that neighborhood—but the crime was too horrible for him to have any part in the disposal of the murderer. Neil Erickson was a respected citizen. Neil later married Peter Pope’s widow. She was the sister of a Wetmore shoemaker named Reuter. Pope gave Reuter a cow for bringing his sister here—as a prospective bride—besides paying the woman’s way from Germany. She took with her into the Erickson home one child — Charley. I do not know if Charley was her son, or Peter Pope’s by his first wife. Likely the former. Pope had a daughter—Louise. She was old enough at her father’s death to make her own way. She worked in Dr. J. W. Graham’s home for several years. Neil Erickson was the father of Dick Erickson. Jim Erickson’s brother George came later, and lived here many years. He was an honorable man.

The town people decided that they did not want a murderer buried in the cemetery, so what was left of Jim Erickson after the doctors had finished with him, was dumped into a packing box, and he was buried on top of a high hill just south of town. This hill, then regarded as “no man’s land,” is now a part of the Bartley farm. It has been locally known ever since as Mount Erickson.

On the night following the planting of Erickson, two groups of doctors, with numerous assistants, started out to recover the body. But, as it turned out, the corpse was left undistributed—at least, for that night. Rumor had it that it did not remain long on the hill-top.

The Wetmore group, led by Dr. W. F. Troughton, was first in the field. Close on their heels came the Netawaka group. Dusk was upon them. One of the Netawaka men rode a white horse. That rider and his companions moved silently across the slough-grass swamp skirting the big hill, steadily gaining on the Wetmore men who had halted at the base of the hill. One of the local hirsute sentinels — they nearly all wore whiskers then—exclaimed, “It’s a ghost!” That was enough. The Wetmore group stampeded. The Netawaka group followed suit. And the cattle which had bedded down for the night at the base of the hill stampeded. The cattle bellowed, and what with terrified men and frightened beasts running this way and that way, pandemonium reigned supreme for quite a spell. Perhaps the cattle, too, had seen Erickson’s ghost.

TURNING BACK THE PAGES

Published in Wetmore Spectator and

Horton Headlight—1936.

By John T. Bristow

The Old Overland Trail

STATEMENT BY CHARLES H. BROWNE

Editor Horton Headlight

EDITOR’S NOTE—Nearly a year ago, J. T. Bristow, pioneer resident of Wetmore and former editor of the Wetmore Spectator, promised Charles H. Browne, editor of The Headlight at Horton, Kansas, he would prepare an article dealing with early history of this corner of Kansas, particularly as it was affected by the Old Military Road, which became the Overland Stage route to the Far West and also the Pony Express route.

It was hoped Mr. Bristow would have the article ready for the 50th Anniversary edition of The Headlight, published on October 29, 1936, but this he was unable to do. However, he furnished the article several months later, and The Headlight published it in seven installments.

The article is so unusually well written, so authentic, and of such absorbing interest that the editor has taken the liberty of reproducing it in a small booklet in order that it may better be preserved for its historical importance.

Kansas pioneers living in south-central Nemaha and southern Brown counties a little more than three-quarters of a century ago, witnessed the inauguration of a stage line over an old trail passing their very doors, so to speak.

That road, thick with horse and mule drawn vehicles and long ox-drawn wagon trains, grew quickly into the greatest thoroughfare of its kind on the face of the earth. Simply a winding trail, ungraded and almost wholly without bridges, it was by far the greatest line of vehicular traffic of all times. It was a road with a golden background. It is the major topic of this article.

At that time there were no railroads or telegraph lines west of the Missouri river. A vast wilderness, uninhabited except for Indians and a few isolated white settlements, all territory between the river and the Rocky mountains was designated as “The Great American Desert.” By many it was considered the most worthless stretch of country in the western world. An error, of course, and one agreeably noted by those living here now—notwithstanding the New Deal brain trust’s prophecy that much of this land is to revert to the desert.