by this time. Though, as late as 1880, I, myself, shot a deer on
that same run. Also I recall having seen one band of antelope, that
fleet-footed little animal of deer family which could outrun the wind
even in its then unhampered sweep across the prairies. I was too young
to identify the little ruminants, but my father said they were antelope,
and he was a hunter of the Daniel Boone type—in fact had hunted in Dan’s
old territory, and he knew his game.
Here I will say the Indian, Na-che-seah, was the leader of that hunting
party. He was tall, lithe, and straight as an arrow. In later years,
with generous expansion of body, he was known as Big Simon. He died May
27, 1934. As I looked upon the still form of this good Indian, in his
wigwam, on the day of the funeral, my mind drifted back across the
years to the time of our first meeting—but instead of fear, it was now
reverence that gripped me. Big Simon was a man of authority among the
Indians for a great many years—though, contrary to newspaper reports,
he was never chief. About his age, Big Simon would say, “Hundred years,
maybe. Don’t know.” With the passing of Big Simon, Commodore Cat is the
sole surviving member of the old, old tribe. He too may have been one of
those blanketed redmen back there on that deer trail six decades ago.
The redman’s medicine was an invigorating tonic for my father’s
frayed spirits. It seemed like God had sent that Indian just at the
psychological moment — when my father’s depressed spirits needed
bolstering so very much, when an anodyne for his ills was to be had by
the blending of two agencies for making leather. Though he had never
up to this time regarded it as a commercial agency, my father knew
of course that sumac contained tannin. If the Indians could tan their
deerskins with it, he reasoned, why couldn’t he mix it with oak bark and
tan his calfskins?
I shall always believe that it was something more than blind chance that
brought the paths of white man and red man together at that particular
spot. Undoubtedly, the Great Spirit was in control. The movements of the
Indians up to that time were of course dark, but timed just right. And
praise be, there were Indians—amongst them an Indian like Eagle Eye, who
could make himself understood. The big break for my father was in the
sumac patch close at hand.
After ten years absence from his old haunts and the business he loved
so well, the fire in my father’s blood had cooled. Now he felt the old
flame leap. The black oaks and the sumacs beckoned. And to his eager
nostrils rose the odor of a tanyard.
Almost at once after that meeting with the Indian, still nosing a
tannery, my father was hot on the trail. With the characteristics of a
thoroughbred, he doggedly followed his lead, picking up new hope as
he went at almost every jump, into the woods of three counties. In a
particularly fine stand of wood over in Jackson county, he “treed” his
quarry. Looking up into the trees, his senses all aflame with eagerness,
and I might say standing on his hind legs — upright anyhow — he barked,
“Eureka!”
Then, having gone there on invitation of the owner to view those fine
black oaks, standing tall, with their big boles close together, he said
more rationally, but still with considerable enthusiasm, “It ’ s enough!
By God I’ll have that tannery now!”
My father had now declared quite emphatically, though perhaps a bit
inelegantly, that he would establish a tannery here in Wetmore. It was
not idle talk. He experimented, and in due time the tannery was a going
concern. Not immediately, however. Capital had to be provided, and it
took time to bring materials. The tannery was an “open” yard in the
bend of the creek just west of where the town bridge is now—a sort of
makeshift affair, operated only in the summer months. But in one respect
it was regular. It had the tanyard smell.
The black oak-sumac mixture made a fine grade of leather—much
better than leather made with straight oak bark, and superior to the
present-day chemically tanned leather. My father tanned only calfskins.
His surplus stock was sold to L. Kipper & Sons, wholesale dealers,
Atchison, Kansas.
I want to say here that those inviting black oaks, earlier mentioned,
made it easy for my father to graciously accept his friend’s apology,
on the plea of forgetfulness—and when he went to deal for the trees John
Wolfley said, “Why, yes, of course you may have them. You know, Bristow,
much as I prize my trees, I couldn’t refuse an old friend like you.”
He glanced toward me, and now I’ll swear there were mirthful crinkles
playing about the man’s eyes.
The black oaks were cut in the spring when the sap was up, then the bark
was spudded off the trunks of the trees. All available black oaks within
a radius of twenty-five miles of Wetmore were cleaned up in three years.
The last tan-bark came from the Wingo farm near Soldier, twenty miles
away—wagon haul. That was considered a long haul in those days. The
roads here then were no more than winding trails across country,
radiating in every direction from town, like the spokes in a
wagon-wheel. And there were almost no bridges. The creeks were forded.
The sumac — that innocent little flaming bush, over which young and
inexperienced writers are wont to revel — was cut with corn-knives and
left spread on the ground until dry. The leaves were then stripped off
the stems with a little corn-sheller, the kind that fastened on the
hand. The sumac stems were drawn through the closed shelter and the
leaves were caught upon a large canvas. Like harvesting tanbark, that
was work which had to be done in season—not too soon, not too late.
The time to get busy was when the sumac began to show a tinge of
coloring late in the summer, after maturity. But, as the Indian had
said, when the big splash came — when the sumac thickets took on a
blaze of coloring, that dark crimson hue, as if Nature had spilled the
life-blood of the waning summer to glorify the last minute splendor of
its passing—it was then time to quit. The leaves would no longer remain
on the stems to carry through the drying process. Yes! That was it!
“Catchum ‘fore go red!”
My father made Eagle Eye a pair of boots with leather tanned by the new
process. He gave them to the Indian, Eagle Eye wanted to pay for them.
He had Government money and he had ponies. When money was refused, he
thought a pony would be about right. Maybe two, three or even a herd of
ponies would not be too much. But my father said, “No, just bring me a
deerskin sometime.”
The Indian brought him a green buffalo hide. At that time all swell
turnouts—horse and buggy conveyances — included a buffalo robe. When, in
time, the hide had been tanned and made up, my father found himself
in the rather awkward position of owning a buffalo robe without the
turn-out. But even so it was not a worthless treasure. On cold, stormy,
winter nights—they were bitter cold then—it served as an extra bed
coverlet for a quarter of a dozen of his boys, with, at times, an
additional neighbor boy or two thrown in for good measure.
Buffalo were quite plentiful only a hundred miles or so west of here
then. But our Kickapoos did not often venture west of the Blue River.
Hostile Indians roamed that territory. The Pawnees were the worst
Indians the whites had to contend with on the old Overland Trail
between the Big Blue and Fort Kearney. Eagle Eye’s gift was all the more
appreciated because he had braved the hostile Pawnees to get a suitable
present for his “Paleface” friend.
The boots my father made for the Indian were of the tongue pattern,
with morocco tops and small high heels. The tops were scalloped with
half-moons over red sheepskin. A big red heart was fashioned in the top
front. Eagle Eye was very proud of his boots. They were, I believe, the
first boots to be worn on the reservation.
But, in time, one of those boots ripped. The side seam gaped near the
ankle. The Indian had been walking through wet grass when he came to the
shop to get the rip sewed up. He tried to pull his boot off. It stuck
tight. My father did not have a bootjack. He always said he did not like
to have his perfectly fashioned boot-counters ruined by the use of a
boot-jack. He had a better way.
My father turned his back to the Indian, and told Eagle Eye to stick
his boot between his—the shoemaker’s—legs and push with the other foot.
“Harder, push harder!” cried the human boot-jack. When the boot finally
came off, a first-class shoemaker took a header into a pile of lasts and
other rubbish in the corner of the room. He came up with a skinned nose.
The Indian—who had now come to call himself Eagle Eye when in the
presence of my father—did not, of course get any kick out of hurting his
“paleface” friend, but it was plain to be seen that pleasant thoughts
were engaging him. An Indian laughs rarely, if ever—not the old
Indians two generations back, anyway. But he had his moments of extreme
pleasure.
When the rip was repaired, the Indian had a hard time getting his
water-soaked boot back on. My older brother, Charley, said to me, “Eagle
Eye will have to sleep with his boots on tonight.” The Indian heard. His
copper-colored face again registered anticipated pleasure. He actually
smiled a bit as if he saw real humor in the thing.
“Huh!” he grunted, as he raised his foot and thrust it to the fore with
much vigor, “Pushum squaw maybe! Heap fool squaw all time say Eagle Eye
not smart!”
A TWOTIMER We were having company for supper. Little Dorothy Bristow.
four year old daughter of my brother Frank and wife Cecile, told August
and Hulda Bleisener they need not be afraid of the silver, that she and
her aunt Myrtle had cleaned it that afternoon.
But—hold your laugh.
My wife had put pickled cling peaches on the table. Now, everyone knows
how hard it is to get the meat off a pickled cling peach. I shoved
one into my mouth and was doing the best I could with it when Myrtle,
looking across the table, said with shocked overtone, “Did you put that
whole peach in your mouth?” She of course had not seen August put one in
his mouth—but, no matter, August shot his out onto his plate right now.
TEXAS CATTLE AND RATTLESNAKES Not Hitherto Published—1947.
By John T. Bristow
When harvesting sumac, often barefooted and always barehanded, we boys,
sons of the tanner, had to keep a sharp lookout for rattlesnakes—and
Texas cattle. We were repeatedly so warned by our parents. Also, it was
generally understood that all children should “watchout” for Indians.
This, however, did not greatly disturb us after we had made friends with
Eagle Eye.
Then, one day, while cutting sumac for the tannery, with my brother
Charley, near a timbered ravine three miles out southeast, close to the
Oliver Logue farm, a long-horn steer, out of a large herd, chased me up
a tree early in the afternoon and held me prisoner in the treetop until
the riders, Abe Williams and John Taylor, came to round up the herd for
the night.
I thought that steer would surely butt his horns off, the way he
rammed that six-inch tree. He would back off, paw the ground, shake his
slobbering head, and come snorting at the tree again and again. After
quieting down, he grazed fitfully and frightfully close to the tree—and
he came trotting in several times with something ugly on his bovine
mind, I’m sure. Even now I wonder is it possible for an enraged cowbrute
to have red eyes.
The day herder, at ease, on a ridge a quarter mile to the west—probably
reading a Frank Merriwell baseball story—was letting the herd feed
north, and so long as the cattle did not attempt to go over the rise
to the east, out of sight, Wes Shuemaker would have no occasion to ride
down my way. And it would have been futile for me to have tried to call
him, with a south wind blowing forty-fifty mph.
My brother was safely on the other side of the ravine close to trees,
but he slipped out the back way and went home. I knew he was doing the
right thing. And I knew too that I would remain in the tree until the
arrival of the riders. Those Texas cattle behaved nicely for mounted
men, but they could not abide a person on foot.
I really had no business on that side of the ravine, with those cattle
feeding there—but I guess I was, as always, a little too venturesome. I
knew that herd had some bad actors in it. In fact, I had been warned to
never get off my horse when riding as relief herder of that same herd,
on several occasions. And one time while all alone at the dinner hour
my mount, in jumping a ditch, broke the saddle girth and spilled me on a
rattlesnake infested prairie, amongst those longhorns—with not a tree in
sight.
However, nothing untoward happened. Had my luck been running true to
form, there should have been at least one rattlesnake coiled on the
margin of the shallow ditch into which I squeezed myself, and waited in
misery for the day herder to return. As I lay in the ditch I just had to
recall the time, a short while before, when a rattlesnake, coiled by a
cowpath, struck as I trotted past—barefoot, of course—and got his fangs
hooked in my trouser leg, requiring two wild jumps to dislodge his
snakeship.
The herd was owned by Than Morris and Abe Williams, the latter a brother
of Mrs. Jake Wolfley. Morris and Wolfley were brothers-in-law. John
Taylor, herder, was a son of Hebe Taylor, of Atchison. John Taylor was
later bailiff of the Nemaha county court, in Seneca. And he was the
father of Earl W. Taylor for whom the Seneca American Legion Post was
named. Hebe Taylor also, at one time, ran cattle in the open country
southwest of Wetmore — with Ed. Keggin.
Charley went straight to the Morris general store in Wetmore and
told Than of my predicament, and Morris immediately rounded up two
cowpunchers. John Taylor, working with a herd to the southwest, chanced
to be in town, and rode out with Abe Williams.
The herd had grazed on past my tree-perch. The unruly steer did not
follow, but if the critter was capable of the sound thinking I was
willing to credit him with, “I betcha” he always wished he had. A
good cowhand could play a tune with a cattlewhip on a critter’s rump,
under dead run. And John Taylor was good. He lashed his short-handled
10-foot whip overhead to the steer’s rump, right and left, with rhythmic
timing, making the hair fly with each crack. The steer’s hindparts,
seemingly trying to outrun his foreparts, swung to the right and swung
to the left with clocklike regularity—and he thus wove himself deep into
the herd, bawling “bloody murder.”
When told of John Taylor’s adroitness with the whip, my father said,
“I wouldn’t care to tan his hide”—meaning the steer’s, of course.
While father bought the hides from the lost dead of all those big
herds—sometimes the losses in the early spring were heavy—he tanned only
a few of them. He didn’t like to tan a mutilated hide, nor the hide of a
branded critter—and he wouldn’t tan a grubby murrain hide.
Thus it was, I herded the cattle that produced the hides that made the
leather which I helped make into shoes—all while still in my teens. My
apprenticeship as a shoemaker began by holding a candle for my father to
work by, at night. And if you could think it was not a wearying task for
a sleepy boy, you can think again. The light would have to be shifted
from side to side with each stitch as he sewed the soles on shoes. By
midnight he usually ran out of “endearing” terms by which to bring me to
attention—and he was willing to call it a day. Sometimes my mother
would relieve me of this chore, but too often at such times she would
be engaged in sewing up the side seams of a new boot, with awl and waxed
thread. While I did a lot of repair work satisfactorily, I made out and
out only three pairs of shoes. And though always behind with his orders,
my father very wisely demanded that I make them all to my own measures.
Might add that we boys, sons of the tanner, and other rough and ready
town boys—just to be doing something of our very own—tanned, in the
big leather vats, squirrel hides, coon skins, and, of all things, two
rattlesnake skins. Wes Shuemaker proudly wore the belt made of those
rattlesnake skins for a long time.
Dr. Holland was another Atchison man who, in partnership with his
brother-in-law, Mr. Prunty, of Soldier, ran a large herd southwest of
town. His corral, a 10-acre pine board enclosure, was in the northwest
corner of the Harry Cawood quarter. The land was then owned by Billy
Cline, of Soldier. Where there were no corrals, a night herder would
have to stay with the cattle.
The Bradford spring—now known as the Joe Pfrang spring—gushing up from a
hilltop, was the main attraction for those early day cattlemen. Just how
the free range was divided up to carry several individual herds, without
clashing, I do not know—but there were no cattle feuds, and no gunplay.
NOTE—The values in cattle, as with everything else, ran low in the old
days. An instance: In 1861, Bill Porter had a hard time raising money
to pay taxes on two quarters of land. Unable to borrow $7.20, the
troublesome amount, he walked and led a big fat cow to Leavenworth, and
sold her for $7.50. In marked contrast, Garrett Bartley of Powhattan,
son-in-law of Bill Porter, the second, reports a neighbor of his
recently sold a 2,000 pound cow on the St. Joseph market for $540.00.
I think the herds corralled here and grazed around the Bradford spring
were bought for as little as $5 to $8 per head. This year—1950—Joe
Pfrang, present owner of the Bradford spring and surrounding acres,
bought, in May, a bunch of 700-pound steers for approximately $160.00
each—and after running them on pasture, the same wild grass, with some
acres now planted to tame grass, sold them in the fall off grass, for an
average of $270.00; a gain of about $110.00 per head. These steers were
Texas-bred cattle, too. But they were not “longhorns.” Herefords never
are. And likely the Pfrang 1,000-pound steers, out of the feed lot, with
300 pounds added weight, would have sold for about $487.50 each. It was
a great year for the cattlemen. Beefsteak in the old days in Wetmore was
ten cents a pound for the best cuts.
There were, however, some angry threats between the cattlemen and Old
Morgan, an outsider, who had run in four thousand sheep on them. I
helped shepherd that flock, And I discovered early that by looping a
pebble in the cracker end of my cattle-whip, and sending it over them a
little to the outside of the straying sheep that I could bring them
back into the fold without effort. Also, the singing noise of the pebble
thrown over the flock would divide the sheep into two bunches. I really
became quite good at this thing, and played with the discovery a lot
— until one day when the missile did not sail true, and a sheep had to
hobble home on three legs. We were in the hills south of the creek. The
poor little lamb got no help until after the flock had passed over
the bridge at the east end of town. Old Morgan usually met us there.
Luckily, he was tuned up properly and did all the talking. He threatened
to sue the township for permitting a hole to remain open in the
bridge. This, I like to think, was the one black mark against my rather
diversified career. A sheep herder in a cattle country rated pretty low.
Cattle would not graze after sheep. I quit Old Morgan before the season
was over.
The cattle herder’s main function was to keep the herds from mixing, and
to keep the cattle clear of the creek-bottom farms and the few isolated
prairie farms; and also to keep them out of mischief in general, such as
running down careless boys—and free of dogs. A dog could always start a
stampede. And a cattle stampede was something to be dreaded, in the old
days. When those Texas cattle and dogs mixed there was sure to be loud
bellowings and a great clashing of hoofs and horns. I have a clear
picture of my Uncle Nick’s herd of longhorns, after running themselves
down, milling about on the range adjacent to his Wolfley creek
farm—milling in a compact bunch, when one could look out upon a sea of
horns; nothing but horns.
It was quite the thing for local men who had a little cash, or backing,
to take a hand in the cattle game. My Uncle Nick Bristow and Roland Van
Amburg contracted for a large herd of those longhorns from Dr. W.
L. Challis, cattle broker of Atchison. The cattle were fresh from
Texas—brought up over the famed Chisholm trail. Uncle Nick and Van
divided the herd, and after running the cattle on grass, tried to carry
them through a rather severe winter on prairie hay alone. Those fresh
longhorns would not eat corn. The cattle were so weakened by spring that
when turned out on grass they mired down in creeks and water holes all
over the range. They died in bunches, almost to the last head. And while
that cattle deal cost my Uncle his farm, Van said it cost him only
his “britches.” Roland Van Amburg was a grand old sport, with a
great capacity for seeing the “funny” side of life—and up or down,
financially, he was always the same cheery Van.
Other men got out of their Texas cattle speculations less lucky. Dave
Garvin, besides losing a lot of his hard-earned money, had to take
the “rest cure” for nearly a year. However, those who confined their
speculations, within their means, to native-bred cattle made money. John
Thornburrow, starting from scratch, amassed a small fortune. Charley
Hutchison, a mere boy, scion of a wealthy’ brewer family, sent out here
from Ohio to sober up, and put on a section of wild land, made a pile
of money from his herds — and more, he became a teetotaler, a solid,
honorable citizen. Fred Achten, a fifteen dollar a month farm hand,
built the foundation for the Achten Empire, the largest land holdings in
the country, largely on cattle and free grass.
Also, John Rebensdorf, a German farm hand, after marrying Christine
Zabel and settling down, made plenty of money running cattle on free
grass. Rebensdorf was oddly a thrifty man. By no means an inveterate
tippler, he liked, occasionally, to pay for his own beer—and drink it
himself. Time and again I have seen him ride into town, tie his horse at
the rack in the middle of the street in front of the saloon, go in,
and, elbow himself a place at the bar, order three quart bottles of
beer—always three bottles. When he had leisurely emptied the third
bottle he was ready to pipe. “I’ze zee richest man in zee whole
country.” And, at that, the man was not far off in his calculations.
One time, John Rebensdorf and his brother-in-law, Albert Zabel, of
German parentage, were engaged in a spirited argument—on a street
corner, in my hearing — over something which had to do with cattle and
free grass, Albert, a fine Christian gentleman momentarily suffering
a lapse of piety, called Rebensdorf all the fighting names in the
book—that is, all the names that would rile an American, without
perceptibly ruffling him. Albert worked himself up Into a white heat,
but he couldn’t bestir John. Rebenstorf would say, “No, Albert, you
iss wrong.” He repeated this, meekly, several times. Finally, when
Rebensdorf, wearied of the argument, started to walk away, Albert
yelled parting shot, “You old sauerkraut, you know I’m right!” Then “zee
richest man in zee whole country” turned quickly, came blustering back,
shaking his big fat fist, and roared, “By gosh, you call me sauerkraut!
Now I fight!”
Also, the residents would often—that is, in season, cut hay off the
prairie that had been more or less grazed. One summer my brother Sam and
I hauled into town $315.00 Worth, at $2.50 a ton, measured in stack—and
much of this was done at night, by moonlight, owing to high winds making
it impossible to handle the loose hay by day. Owners of cows in town, as
well as in the country, always aimed to have enough hay stored to carry
their stock through the winter, but often the supply was found to be
short, especially when the winters were unusually severe. Then the
speculators who had stored hay against such eventualities, would have an
inning—maybe get $3 or $3.50 a ton, in stack. One especially energetic
man in the Granada neighborhood, with a couple of confederates, put up
an unusual amount of this free hay one season, inside fire breaks—then
a prairie fire in the late winter destroyed all the outstacked hay
belonging to his neighbors. Then bedlam broke loose among the natives.
Still there were no killings.