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DESERT CHIVALRY

THE WIFE--AT GOODSPRINGS

MONEY MUSK

GONE WITH THE WIND

WHITE CHRISTMAS

UNCLE NICK'S BOOMERANG

SHORT CHANGED

SUNSHINE AND ROSES Because of World Unrest and conditions with the Printing Fraternity what they are, this job has lain on the shelf for over a year. Most of the articles are dated, and appear just as written and published. Later unpublished articles remain as written at the time of preparation. Except for 1 story, and a few "Notes" the issue bears the date of January, 1948--and with situations running back into pioneer times.

This foreword is being written in California--in the shadow of Campbell mountain, a 1700-foot detachment from lofty Sierra Nevada range, 25 miles east of Fresno, on Christmas Day, 1947--six days before my eighty-sixth birthday.

I am writing on an envelope--and a used one, at that--out in the open, in Anna's and Virginia Anne's rose garden, at the ranch home of my nephew, Sam Bristow, from whose orchard came the choice oranges sampled by our Wetmore friends at Christmastimes.

I am writing in the rose garden for the same reason I Imagine Gray's Elegy was written in the Country Churchyard--for privacy. My nephew's home is filled with relatives, seventeen by actual count, waiting for the call to a turkey dinner.

Then, too, I want to get in a word about this most unusual Christmas Day--something seldom seen in my cold climate home state. As a rule you just don't write on a tab out in the open, nor pluck roses in the wintertime, back home.

Though, on Christmas Day, 1937, I cut four lovely long-stemmed perfectly developed Radiant Beauty roses from a single unprotected plant, the one blooming plant among hundreds, in my rose garden in Northeast Kansas. And, to make it appear all the more unusual, Radiant Beauty was brought out in 1934 as a hot-house rose. Also, I needed a little data--and I got it from Sam in the rose garden. And this seemed the opportune time to write a few lines.

It will not, of course, be a "White Christmas" here as is likely back home--never is in the San Joaquin valley. Sunshine and Roses enhance the beauty of the day here. But farther up--up in the high Sierras, up toward Mount Whitney, the highest point in the United States, only a few hours away, there will be snow aplenty today, tomorrow--and forever.

This book is not my memoirs. It is not a family tree. It is not a complete history. But it is, sketchily, all of these things. The book is not a connected narrative. The articles, each complete within timely as of the date of the situation. Also, some of the characters depicted as living at the time of the writings have since died--but the stories are printed as originally written. And for clear understanding the articles should be read consecutively, as they appear in the book.

These feature articles, pertaining mostly to Wetmore and Northeast Kansas, have all been written--some by request--for the home papers since my retirement from the newspaper field, in 1903. The first one, "The Boy of Yesteryear" was printed in W. F. Turrentine's Wetmore Spectator, May 29, 1931.

One or more of these articles have been printed in George and Dora Adriance's Seneca Courier-Tribune--and, later, in Jay Adriance's Courier-Tribune; General Charles H. Browne's Horton Headlight; Will T. Beck's Holton Recorder: Ray T. Ingalls' Goff Advance; Senator Arthur Capper's Topeka Daily Capital; and the Atchison Daily Globe. And all of them, with twelve exceptions, have appeared in the Wetmore Spectator. The twelve exceptions are recent writings--since the Spectator's demise--rounding out topics previously introduced.

Pictured with the writer in the forepart of this book are two of the principals of the old Spectator force during o ur newspaper regime through the "Gay Nineties." While referred to often in the articles they had no part in the writing thereof. Regretfully, they were both dead before e beginning of these writings.

Besides these two capable assistants, our printing office had something no other paper could boast. Our "itchyfoot" Devil--for a short time only--was a personality of high adventure. Like Nellie Bly, of magazine fame, and Ed Howe of Daily Newspaper fame, Bert Wilson, better known as "Spike" Wilson, went around the world. But unlike Nellie, backed by a magazine in a race against time; and Ed, teeming with newspaper dollars, our "Spike" bummed his way, with a minimum of work--mostly dish-washing--all the twenty-five thousand miles around the globe while still in his teens. "Spike" aspired to become a printer for the advantage it would afford him in his desire to see the world. A journeyman printer could always get a lift from any country newspaper in those days. Old Busbee, Nationally known "tramp printer" dropped in on us one time. He was given a day's work--and a half-week's salary. He tried to discourage "Spike"--and maybe he did. But I think his woe-begone looks was the greater influence. Busbee came this way three times within my recollection. "Spike" Wilson was the stepson of "Mule" Gibbons, who came here with his family from Corning in the early 90's--and several years later moved to Holton.

President Grant's Congress -- 1876 --memorialized the state legislatures to have County Histories written for the benefit of posterity. Nemaha County has had three--but not one of them touched on the subjects covered in this volume. Usually local histories are compiled for profit -- colored, biased; boosting individuals who are willing to pay for a write-up.

There is no angling for profit in this work.

These stories are now printed in book form to preserve them for their historic value. The book is not for sale. It is my gift to the home folks.

The books are costing me about ten dollars a copy--and, naturally, I won't have enough of them to be passed out promiscuously. I shall place them in the schools, and libraries, and with the newspapers in the county--and with friends here and there, where all the home folks can have the chance to read the book, should they so desire. I am sure that I have more friends than I have copies of the book, and I trust that those who do not receive a copy will not feel that, in my estimation, they do not rate one.

Wetmore It was not an excess of water, as one might suppose, that gave Wetmore its name. Nor was it, as some have been led to believe, because a certain Captain Wetmore, with a number of soldiers during the Civil War chanced to camp over night at our ever-flowing mineral spring. Art Taylor says his grandmother told him that such was the case.

It has been generally understood all along that the town was named after a New York official of the railroad which came through here in 1867. Confirmed, this would seem to kill the Taylor version of it, by at least two years. The matter, I believe, was settled for all time a couple of summers back when a New York woman, returning by automobile from the Pacific coast, called at the Wetmore post office to mail some letters. She told Postmaster Jim Hanks that the town was named after her father, who was an official of the railroad--and that she had driven a hundred miles out of her way to have her letters bear the Wetmore postmark.

I have seen Wetmore grow--and slip. Compact at the time of my entry seventy-nine years ago, occupying less than a half block, the town spread out through the years to a space of one-half mile by nearly one mile--not quite solid. The town became a City in 1884, with Dr. J. W. Graham as first Mayor--and at its peak had a population 687. The population at this time--1948--is 373.

There is not a person in this City today who was here when I came. Gone, all gone now. And nearly all dead. Something more than a tinge of sadness accompanies this thought. There is not a building of any kind standing that was here when I came--not a tree but what has been planted since that day. In truth, there is nothing, not a thing left, save the eternal hills and the creek which flows through the south edge of the City that antedates the time I came here.

Yet, I do not feel old. And should any of my friends choose to wish me anything, let them wish with me that I never do grow old.

The Mineral Spring To enlarge a bit on our ever-flowing mineral spring! It was--and is--near the creek in a natural grove of big trees at the southwest limits of Wetmore. Nathaniel Morris, an early-day merchant, had an analysis of the water made--and talked of developing the spring into a health resort. The water was pronounced medicinally good -- mostly iron, I believe. But, beyond attracting large celebration crowds, his dream was never realized. However, Morris induced the railroad to run in an "excursion" train of flat-cars canopied with heavy-foliaged brush against a blazing summer sun, on the occasion of one Fourth of July celebration. Green leafed brush also covered some of the stands on the south margin of the grove. Green brush was the standard picnic coverings in those days.

Then, later, Charley Locknane, Jay W. Powers, and Jim Liebig, undertook to popularize the spring--and incidentally, make some money for themselves. They invested considerable money in improvements. Locknane was a budding promoter with considerable nerve--and a pull with the railroad. He caused a special excursion train to be run out from Kansas City, .50 fare for the round trip. Also, Charley organized a Girl Band of twenty pieces, which furnished music for the opening picnic--and many occasion thereafter. The Girl Band gained national acclaim. Locknane was State Deputy for the Modern Woodmen of America--and took his Girl Band to the Head Camp at Colorado Springs in 1901, and to Minneapolis in 1902. The members were: Dora Geyer, Mollie Neely, Nora Shuemaker, Mabel Geyer, Phoena Liebig, Iva Hudson, Daisy Terry, Blanche Eley, Kate Searles, Truda Berridge, Edith Lapham, Pearl Nance, Maude Cole, Jennie Scott, Belle Searles, Grace Maxwell, Ruby Nance, Myrtle Graham, Mrs. Ella Rice and Mrs. Carrie Glynn, of McLouth, Kansas, were numbers five and six in the line-up as written on the back of an enlarged photograph now in possession of Mrs. P. G. Worthy--formerly Myrtle Graham.

The dance pavilion was well patronized between celebrations--and the town populace turned out of evenings for a stroll to the spring. It was really popular. Then a flood, an unusually big flood, swept the park clean of all improvements. The large frame dance-hall came to anchor on a projection of land on the present Bill Winkler farm nearly a mile down the creek. The town jester said that as the pavilion floated away the piano was automatically playing "Over the Ocean Waves."

The mineral spring is still here--but that's all.

At one of the big celebrations about the turn of the century a farmer brought his family to town in a spring wagon. He tied his team on the town-side of the picnic grounds, leaving a three-year-old child asleep in the wagon. When the parents returned after taking in the picnic, the child was gone. Then the picnickers began a search which lasted throughout the night. All roads were covered for four or five miles out. One searching party went four miles west on the railroad track--then turned back, believing a small child could not travel that far. The section men out Wetmore found the mangled body of the child in a small wash by the side of the railroad about a half-mile beyond the point abandoned by the searchers. An early morning freight train had bumped it off a low bridge. Then there was much speculation as to how a small child could have traveled that far--even hints, unwarranted suspicion, of foul help. Then there was a story afloat about the conductor whose train had struck the child. When told of the killing, it was claimed, he cried and said had he known a child was lost along the track he would have walked ahead the train.

Wetmore in 1869-70 There were only eleven buildings and thirty-four people Wetmore when I came here with my parents from our Wolfley Creek farm home in the fall of 1869.

There was one general store owned by Morris Brothers. Uliam Morris, with his wife Eliza and daughter Nannie, and his brother Nathaniel, lived over the store. Kirk Wood had a blacksmith shop, a small home, his wife Euphemia and two children, Riley and Jay. Kirk's brother Jay lived with the family. M. P. M. Cassity, lawyer, owned his home and rental house, had a wife--off and on--and a son, George. Martin Peter Moses Cassity's second marriage with his Griselle , the birth of Eddie, and the final parting, were after we came.

James Neville, section foreman, had a residence, his wife Sarah, and five children--William, George, Mary Ann, Jo Ann, and Mahlen. Dominic Norton, section hand, had six motherless children -- Anna, Kate, Bridget, Ellen, Mollie, and Michael. Mike Smith, a plasterer, lived with the Nortons in the section house. Ursula Maxwell, a widow, with her son Granville and daughter Lizzie, lived in her own home. Ursula's daughter Maggie, married to Jim Cardwell, was also temporarily in her home at this time. Samuel Slossen was building a hotel. He had a wife and a son, George. And there was a railroad station, and an agent named Catlin. Also a school house, and a teacher--John Burr.

The family of Peter Isaacson, deceased, in a farm home separated from the town by a street, were considered as town folk. Here lived the mother and four of her children--Andy, Edward, Irving, and Matilda. Anderson had two children, Oscar and Emily, living in the home. William and Alma were born later.

Andrew J. Maxwell, with his wife Lizzie and two children, Demmy and May, and, at this time, the estranged wife of Elisha Maxwell, lived on a homestead adjoining town-and, like the Isaacsons and Andersons and Alfred Hazeltine, were regarded as town folk. Elisha Maxwell, brother of Andy, lived part time with his mother in town, as did also his wife. Elisha's wife was the daughter of Matt Randall, then living near Ontario, seven miles south-west of Wetmore. There was much in common between the town folk and those borderites. Let it be a picnic or a dog-fight they were all on hand. Altogether they made one big-shall I say--happy family. This, however, strictly speaking, would not be quite right. Gus Mayer built the first residence in Wetmore--the Neville dwelling on the corner where the First National Bank now stands. His daughter Lillie was the first child born in the town--though Irving Isaacson was born earlier in a temporary shack near the present depot before the town was established.

There was a one-room school house on the site of the present City hall, with one teacher, John Burr--in 1869. I was nearly eight years old then, and my brother Charley was a little over nine. This was to be our first--and last -- school. Charley died at the age of eighteen; and I was out of school--not graduated, not expelled, but out--before the shift to the present location on the hilltop.

While our home was being built in Wetmore on the lot where Hart's locker is now, the family found shelter in a one-room, up-and-down rough pine board shanty in hollow west of the graveyard, on the Andy Maxwell homestead--the farm now owned and occupied by Orville Bryant. This little "cubbyhole" was originally built to house Andy ' s brother Elisha--known here as "The Little Man" -- and his bride.

Charley and I followed a cow-path through all prairie grass all the way from the shack -- about a half mile -- to the school house. And during that first winter, after the path had been obliterated by a big snow which drifted and packed solidly over the board fence enclosing the school grounds, bearing up pupils -- even horses and sleighs zoomed over the drifted in fence--we skimmed over the white in a direct air line to the school, with not a thing in the way.

Our parents were from the deep South, and on the farm Charley and I had no playmates other than our younger brothers, Sam, Dave, and Nick--even the hired hand on the Wolfley Creek farm, Ben Summers, was a Tennessean -- hence we brought into a school already seven-ways-to-the-bad, in language, just one more type of bad English.

Many of the other pupils were children of immigrants -- from Germany, England, Ireland, Wales, and the three Scandinavian countries -- whose picked-up English was maybe not so good as our own. In those days we learned from our associates rather than from books--that is, unconsciously became imitators--and the result, in most cases, was not promising. My mentor was a Swede girl several years my senior. "Tilda" Isaacson was neat, sweet, and sincerity compounded. She would tell me, "You youst don't say it that way here, my leetle Yonnie." This, of course, was the first runoff. In time, our Wetmore school was to rank with the best. And for all I know maybe it did then.

The old Wetmore school made history -- history of a kind. An incident of those eventful years having decidedly bad-English flavor occurred after John Burr had been succeeded by D. B. Mercer, who came to us from a homestead up in the Abbey neighborhood between here and Seneca. Mercer gave one of his pupils a well-earned whipping one forenoon. At the noon hour, the boy's older brother danced up and down the aisle in the school-room, singing, "Goodie, goodie, popper's goin' to lick the teacher."

That dancing boy was Clifford Ashton.

Soon after school had taken up in the afternoon, Mr. Ashton, late of London, walked in unannounced. He was moderately docile in presenting his grievance and the teacher, not to be outdone by this green Englishman, treated his caller civilly. The trouble seemed to be amicably settled. But the teacher's mild manner had emboldened the Englishman. As a parting stab, in an acrimonious monotone without stopping for breath or punctuation, Ashton delivered the ultimatum: "But if you ever w'ip one of my children again sir I shall surely ' ave to w'ip you."

This was a mistake -- a real "John Bull" blunder, Mercer was a large, muscular man. With a single pass he knocked the Englishman cold right there in the school room. Ashton fell almost at my feet. When he had come up out o f his stupor, still blinking and grimacing, Ashton bellowed, "I shall see a solicitor about this!"

"See him and bedamned," bawled Mercer. "Now get out!"

After he had become seasoned, Ashton was really a fine fellow, rather above the average of his countrymen in intelligence. And he reared a fine family of boys and girls -- Clifford, Anna, Eva, Stanley, Horace, and Vincent. Ashton was a carpenter.

At another time, James Neville rushed unceremoniously into the schoolroom and hurled a big rock at Mercer's head, barely missing. The rock tore a big hole in the blackboard back of the teacher. Neville was a powerful man. Just what the grievance was, and how a lively fight was averted, has slipped my memory--though I rather suspect Neville did not tarry long after he had failed to make a hit with the rock.

These two infractions, and many more, passed as being only by-plays incidental to a good school, as interpreted by those pristine patrons.

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