MY MARRIAGE
In the days that I write of there were very few women folks in the
country and a less number of girls, but there was one family who had one
girl of about seventeen years and I thought she was very attractive. I
worked about twenty miles from where she lived and used to go to see her
quite often, but she had two brothers about eight and ten years old and
they were wild as Indians and their main sport and pastime was riding
wild calves and yearlings. The girl was about as wild as them and
usually joined in those bucking contests, so when I went courting her
she wanted me to join in on the fun. As my every-day work was riding and
handling cattle, this kind of sport didn’t interest me. I was serious
and wanted to make love, so those boys were a great worry to me, as when
I wanted to court the girl the boys wanted to ride calves. One time when
I was particularly interested in talking to the girl they wanted me to
go out to the corral and ride calves, and of course I wouldn’t go, so
one of them suggested I act as a horse and he would ride me. To get rid
of him I consented. He was to get up on my shoulders, put his legs
around my neck and hold on to my shirt collar with his hands. Then I was
to start bucking, which I did. When I got to bucking my best I bent over
forward and threw him off pretty hard and hurt him some. He got up
crying and the girl was laughing at him for being bucked off. He said,
“Well, I would have rode the S.B. if he hadn’t throwed his head down.”
Anyway, I got rid of him for that day and had a chance to court the
girl.
As most any story is not complete without some love and courtship in it,
I am going to write my experience in that matter.
I was married to Claudia Toole in the year 1899. She was a daughter of
Bruce Toole, who was a brother to Joseph K. Toole, Governor of Montana
at that time. Now Bruce Toole was a very fine aristocratic Southern
gentleman and knowing that a cowboy didn’t usually climb very high on
the ladder of culture he didn’t think I was desirable company for his
daughter. So, we had to carry on our courtship secretly from the old
gent, and as about the only amusement of those days was country dancing
and as we all went to them on horseback (which usually was 15 or 20
miles) we would ride to a dance. As I could not go to my girl’s home to
get her, we would designate a certain rock or creek out on the range to
meet at and would go from there to the dance. That is where I would
leave her the next morning after the dance. Her father thought she went
to those parties with her brother, who was in on our secret, so in all
our courtship it was unknown to him and it was the shock of his life
when we slipped away and got married.
My wife had a pinto horse of her own that her father had got from the
Indians and given to her and he must have had some fine breeding back in
his ancestry somewhere as he could run like a blue streak. I usually
rode the same horse every time we went out together and the two horses
became very attached to each other. One time I had taken my wife to a
dance and ventured a little closer to her home than usual. I unsaddled
her horse and turned him loose in the pasture and rode away. Her horse
ran along the fence and put up a terrible fuss about being separated
from my horse. My wife’s father saw him acting up and wondered what in
the world was the matter with him, but he hadn’t seen me. That was one
time we nearly got caught in our secret courtship.
I was working for a large cattle company and we had a great many saddle
horses. They used to stray away from the ranch quite often and I used to
ride the range hunting them. There was an old German who had quite a
large ranch about ten miles from us, and a good many cattle and horses.
He used to try to keep in contact with me as much as possible to find
out if I had seen any of his stock and to tell him where they were. So,
he used to tell me whenever I was anywhere near his ranch to come there
and eat and feed my horse.
About three miles from this old man’s ranch was an enormous big rock
that one could hide a couple of horses behind very easily and my wife
could get up on the top of the rock and see the whole surrounding
country. That was one of our meeting places and we had a date one day to
meet at this rock at a certain hour. I could always see her and her
pinto horse coming for several miles, so I was at the rock this day
waiting for my girl and the old German was out riding this day looking
after his stock and saw me quite a distance away and came to where I
was. He spoke very broken English and of course was glad to see me and
inquire about his stock. He said, “Veil, Con—vot you look for?” I told
him I had lost a horse and was hunting for him. He wanted a description
of the horse, so if he found him he could hold him for me. Of course I
had to give him an imaginary description and I wanted to get rid of him
as I expected my girl along at any minute, but he insisted that I should
go to his ranch with him and have dinner and feed my horse. I used every
excuse I could think of—told him I was in a hurry to find the
horse—thought he might be sick and would die if I didn’t find him right
away—but he said, “Come on with me and have dinner and I vill go mit you
and hunt the horse.” Of course, that was just what I didn’t want. I had
a hard time, but finally got rid of him and went and found my girl.
Some months afterwards, my girl and I were at another rancher’s place
and quite a crowd of people had gathered there that day. The old German
came and in the general conversation he said, “Con, didth you findth
that hos you vos looking fo’ and vos he sick?” I told him I had found
the horse and he was fine. My girl was listening to the conversation and
her face turned as red as a firecracker—of course I had told her about
the meeting with the old man at the rock.
I think everybody has more or less trouble in their courting days, but
it seemed to my wife and I that we had more than our share. As I said
before, my wife’s parents didn’t know we were keeping company at all—in
fact, didn’t hardly know me. There was a very noted dance coming off
about 20 miles from her home that we had planned to attend, when, lo and
behold, a few days before the dance a very wealthy and refined gentleman
(and an old friend of her father’s) with a fine team and top buggy
(which was very rare in those days) came to her father’s ranch to ask
her parents to take her to the dance. They at once gladly said yes and
she in order not to tip her hand had to consent, and mind you, we were
engaged to be married at this time. Of course, with me not knowing
anything about this transaction it placed her in a very precarious
position, and she had a terrible time getting in touch with me to
explain to me what had happened. It didn’t set too well with me, but in
order to keep everything under control we agreed that she would go to
the dance with this man and I would go alone. I guess the fellow must
have had some suspicion of the way things stood, as he told her the next
day when he was taking her home that he noticed she and I seemed to feel
very much better when we had our first dance together. He tried to
question her about me and told her I didn’t even own a cabin. She acted
very innocent and unconcerned about the matter, but he must have figured
he was out of the race, because he never came to call on her again.
When we got married we had to steal away like we did when we were
courting. I borrowed a team and spring wagon and we had to drive forty
miles and the snow was about belly deep on the horses. Then we had to
wait over in Shelby until the next day to go to Great Falls. The job of
getting her away from the ranch was the hard part of it. My wife’s room
was upstairs in her home and we agreed that she would throw her stuff
out the window about eight o’clock at night and I would pick it up and
carry it to the wagon I had parked about 100 yards from the house. I
didn’t have any idea how much stuff she had until she began throwing it
out—clothes, suitcases, shoes and everything else that a woman ever
wore, and besides, she used to play the piano and she had great bales of
sheet music and every time one of those bales of music hit that frozen
ground it sounded like someone had shot a high powered rifle and the
stuff fell right in front of a window down stairs and the window
curtains were up. Her father sat reading about ten feet from where I was
picking it up. I would take all I could carry on my back to the wagon
and came back for another load, and as she was still throwing stuff out
while I was gone there would be a bigger pile than ever when I got back.
I believe she would have thrown the piano out too if the window had been
big enough, and the worst part of it was her father had two bloodhounds
and they bellowed and howled every time she threw out a fresh cargo. It
was a very cold night and I wore a big fur overcoat and every time I
bent over to pick up a package they would howl louder than ever. They
thought I was some kind of animal. I tried whispering to them to get out
and keep still and that would bring a bigger howl than ever. I was
watching her father pretty close through the window and every once in a
while he would cock his head sideways to listen and acted like he was
going to get up and come out, then would settle down and go to reading
again. During those intervals, my heart was sure pounding and I was all
sweaty with fear. I have often heard of people being very nervous when
they placed the bride’s ring on her finger, but I know that is nothing
compared to the ordeal I went through. I forgot, and left a lot of
things around where I loaded the wagon and it snowed a lot after that.
Every time my wife missed something of hers, we would go to that spot
and shovel snow. Neither one of us had any idea of what it took to set
up housekeeping and it is amazing what we bought. One thing we both
agreed on was a carpet, as we intended to move into an old cabin that
had big cracks in the floor. When we got home and checked our Outfit, it
seemed to be mostly carpet. Then I think every friend we ever had gave
us a lamp for a wedding present, so we had a whole wagonload of carpets
and lamps. We had hanging lamps, floor lamps and lamps to throw away,
but hardly anything else in the way of housekeeping. When we arrived
back in Shelby there were about 25 cowboys in town that had come to
celebrate Christmas (it being Christmas week we were married) and they
were all at the train to meet us. Most of them had a good sized Xmas jag
on and the different congratulations I got from that bunch would sure
sound funny today if I could remember them all. They were all old time
cowboys that I had worked with for years. We all went to a saloon to
celebrate the event. Each one would take me aside to pour out his
feelings and congratulations, and give me hell for stealing away to get
married without telling them. Some of the names they called me wouldn’t
look good in print but that was their way of showing their true
friendship. One old bowlegged fellow that I had known from the time I
was a kid had a little more joy juice aboard than the others. He didn’t
have much to say, but stood at the end of the bar and drank regularly
while the celebration was going on. He had one cock eye and kept
watching me all the time until he got an opportunity to attract my
attention. He nodded to me to come over to where he was. I went over to
him and he looked at me silently for a moment and said, “Well, you’re
married, are you?” I said yes, and he asked, “Did you marry a white
woman?” I answered yes, and he said “You done damn well, but I feel
sorry for the girl.” In the meantime, while we were away getting
married, my wife’s father wrote her a letter to Shelby where we had our
team and wagon and told her all was forgiven and to come home, which we
did.
I went to work for him and as he owned plenty of cattle and horses I
seemed to be just the kind of a son-in-law he needed, but we sure had a
supply of carpet and lamps that we didn’t know what to do with.
[Illustration: Con Price and Charlie Russell At Great Falls, Montana
(1903)]
[Illustration: Charlie Russell with Sandy and Dave At the Lazy KY
(1907)]