on the south range to make spectacular prairie fires, racing at times,
all the way to town—and would even sometimes jump the creek and menace
the town.
Here is one more of the many incidents attributable to the free grass
range. Without refrigeration in the early hot summers the farmer’s wives
had difficulty keeping butter made from grass-fed cows fresh until it
could be brought to market. On the whole the women managed exceedingly
well under trying conditions—it was before the day of screens on the
homes—but there were some that didn’t know how, or just didn’t seem to
care.
At that time I was clerking in Than Morris’ store, along with Curt
Shuemaker, George and Chuck Cawood. We had already accumulated a full
barrel of off-grade butter that would have to be sold for soap-grease,
when Morris told us all that should a certain woman bring in butter
again for us to reject it. It so happened that it fell to the lot of the
“cub” clerk to wait on her. Morris and the three other clerks stood by,
grinning. I carried her jar into the side room, and without uncovering
it, brought it back and told the woman we could not buy it. She appealed
to Than, saying, “Mr. Cawood here,” nodding toward me, “took my butter
away and got it all dirty, and now says he won’t buy it.” Morris knew
what to look for—and it was there for all to see. He said, “Look!”
pointing to the uncovered jar, “ Cawood didn’t put those wigglers in
your butter. Don’t bring us any more of that stuff.”
The woman insisted that “Mr. Cawood had dirtied it up”—and Morris paid
in full, gross weight. And she was permitted to take the whole mess back
home, along with her purchases. I was thankful that Morris, in dealing
with her, also called me Cawood—minus the “Mister.”
Still calling me “Mr. Cawood,” this woman later told me she had
rheumatism—that she had, unfortunately, spilled her cooling bucket in
the water well, and that her man would no longer allow her to cool her
butter in the customary way — suspended on a rope deep in the well.
After she had passed on, the second Mrs. L. made good butter—so good in
fact that the town customers called for it by name. But even this could
not correct the damage done to my delicate stomach during that summer
in the Morris store. I have never tasted raw butter since that time. And
with me, after that sheep herding experience, mutton is also taboo. Old
Morgan’s sheep were scabby.
Again, while clerking in the Morris store I was put to the test—and
though this has nothing whatsoever to do with the free grass range, I
am sure you will observe that it is neatly wrapped in fast green. A Miss
Sumerville, a relative of the Zabel’s, visiting in Wetmore—I believe she
was from Pennsylvania—asked for variegated yarn. I told her we didn’t
have that kind, but I would show her what we had. I admit that I was not
very bright on some matters — but at that, I wasn’t as dumb as one of
the standbys that I could have named.
Morris said, “Show her what you have in that drawer over there,”
indicating the drawer holding the variegated yarn. After I had made
the sale, Morris complimented me for selling the little lady a lot of
something she didn’t want. He said, “When you don’t have what they want,
always try to sell them something else.” He henkie-henkie-henkied in
a manner which passed as a derisive laugh. “Keep awake, young man,”
he said, “and you’ll make a salesman in time — maybe as good as Cawood
here,” indicating Chuck.
With George Cox and his two sons, Bill and young George, I helped build
that Holland corral earlier mentioned — and a small bunk house. And it
was here where I mixed it with the rattlesnake I had been admonished
so often to keep a sharp eye out for. Note Note how well young America
obeyed the injunction. I saw the rattlesnake coiled by the roadside as
we were coming in after the day’s work, with ox-team, piloted by a Mr.
Green who had brought the outfit up from Atchison to haul the lumber out
from town. I jumped out of the wagon, and hit the snake with a rock.
It flopped, then lay still. I thought it was dead but to make sure I
prodded it with a stiff prairie weed—and learned pronto that the
stick was a mite too short on one end. That rattler lashed out at me,
overreaching by the fraction of an inch, with its neck or body falling
across my wrist. My hands were scratched and blood-stained from
handling the rough pine boards—fencing came in the rough in those days —
and Mr. Green insisted that he saw the snake bite me “with my own eyes.”
And to prove it, he spotted a snagged place on my hand where he was sure
the snake’s fangs had struck.
Mr. Green crowded those normally slow plodding oxen, and we actually
came to town by fits and spurts on the gallop. He wanted to buy whisky
for me, and seemed awfully distressed when I refused it. He was so
exercised over the matter that one easily could have believed that it
was he who was in need of a generous slug of the stuff — and I’m not so
sure that he didn’t get it. Anyway, I was ready to go out on time the
next morning. Mr. Green was not. And you can bet your life I never again
tried to poke a diamondback with a stick too short on one end.
Incidentally, I may say there were other close calls and near misses—not
to overlook the one August day when a seven-button, (seven-year-old)
rattlesnake actually made a ten-strike on my bare foot. And though
always to me a bit hazy, I can now assure you that this is no dream.
Just why I would stand still by the side of the hole into which I had
poured water in the hope of drowning out a ground squirrel, and watch
that snake slither up through the grass, coil and strike, before going
down the hole, has always been something for me to ponder.
It was said in the old days that snakes would charm their prey—mesmerize
a bird so that it could not fly away. Well, here for once was a
“charmed” fledgling that did “fly” away—too late. The charm was broken
the moment the snake struck, and though I was only six years old, my
brother Charley said I let out a terrific yell, and cleared a wagon road
in one jump. Even now I wonder does one ever get so frightened that both
mind and body refuse to function?
And here is a solemn truth you will likely find hard to believe. For
several years thereafter, come August and dogdays, my right leg would
become spotted like that rattlesnake. In a previous article I told of
this same rattlesnake encounter, and my Aunt Nancy Porter asked me why
didn’t I mention the fact of those recurrent spots? I told her that I
didn’t want to weaken the story with anything hard to swallow, however
true it might be. Then she said, “Well-I, could tell them that it is
true, that your mother—” her sister—”told me that it was the gospel
truth.” And there were no better Baptists than that pair. Still, in this
day of freedom of thought, you can doubt it if you wish — but you would
be wrong.
WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE Little Josephine Cole, not yet three years old,
trying to catch an evasive cat in our home, shocked her Aunt Myrtle
by saying, “Damn that cat.” My wife was telling Mrs. Morrison, our
neighbor, about it, When Dick Morrison, the husband, spoke up saying, “I
said those very Words about our damned old cat while the child was over
here yesterday.” It has wisely been said: “Out of the mouths of babies
come Words we shouldn’t have said in the first place.”
DONE IN CALIFORNIA Not Hitherto Published—1948.
By John T. Bristow
As sequel to the foregoing old-time cattle riding story-experienced in
my younger days on the gently undulating plains of Northeast Kansas, I
here record a contrasting up-to-date cattle riding experience I recently
had on a far away mountain range. But in this last ride I did not race
my horse and crack my whip for the sheer fun of it—as of yore.
Until Sunday, April 18, 1948, I had not been on a horse for fifty-five
years—not since the opening of the Cherokee Strip, September 16, 1893,
at noon, when, with my brother Dave, and Dr. David H. Fitzgerald, and
Charley Rice, I rode sixteen miles in fifty-six minutes to locate a
claim on Turkey creek, seven miles southwest of the present city of
Enid, Oklahoma. In that race we were led—for a price — by “Ranaky Bill,”
an Oklahoma outlaw.
While going up the mountain, the name of other notorious outlaws—the
Daltons—was mentioned by my nephew, Sam Bristow, with whom I was riding.
Sam owns “Dalton Mountain,” some sixty miles east of Fresno, California,
where it is said those desperadoes were in hiding a long time ago.
The Dalton gang of bank robbers—following in the wake of the Jesse James
gang whose hideout was in Missouri — operated mainly, I believe, in
Kansas and the Indian Territory, in the late ‘80’s. At any rate, the
Dalton bank robbers came to grief at Coffeyville in southern Kansas,
with three of the gang killed by a sharp-shooting local hardware
merchant, and law enforcement officers. Grat and Bob Dalton were killed.
Emmett Dalton was badly shot up — was captured, convicted, and given a
life sentence. President Theodore Roosevelt pardoned him. I have a
faint recollection that sometime prior to the Coffeyville raid, the news
dispatches stated that the Daltons—under assumed names—had shipped
their horses to the Far west. And it is not at all improbable that our
old-time Kansas and Indian Territory band of desperadoes rode their
horses to the saddle-back near the top of my nephew’s 3500 foot
mountain, from which eminence they could have guarded the approach in
all directions.
Dalton Mountain is an attraction for patrons of a large Dude Ranch close
by, in the Kings river area—something to talk about only. No dude could
ride a horse up that mountain—particularly none of the thirty New York
“dude” girls who rode the canyon trails thereabout for several weeks,
recently.
Also, I recall the time when Jim Dalton, after killing Sheriff Charley
Batterson and escaping from the Marysville jail, was captured by a posse
led by Constable Charley Andrews, near the Buening school, eight miles
southwest of Wetmore—my home town. After serving time, it was said,
Jim Dalton went to Los Angeles and made an honorable “killing” in the
manufacture of ovens for bakeries. I do not know if he was a member of
the old gang. Probably not. But it has often been considered that he
was.
But we were not riding via a series of switchbacks to the top of Dalton
Mountain especially to view that historic spot. From the saddle-back,
looking to the north down a tree-studded canyon, and looking back over
the trail we had traveled, we could see at a glance much of Sam’s 1480
acres, of mountain pasture land, trees and rocks. And from this lookout
we could locate nearly all of his ninety-eight head of cattle that had
wintered there during the worst winter drought that California has had
in eighty years, while other valley ranchmen were feeding $40 hay to
$100 cattle, or shipping their stock to pastures in other states—some to
the wheat fields of Western Kansas. The north slope of Dalton mountain,
shielded from the burning sun, is what saved the day for Sam. Campbell
mountain, almost in Sam’s dooryard, was picked bare. Sam bought
fifteen of the cattle taken off that range. In his pasture, those newly
purchased cattle did not graze with the other stock. And this is where
the trained McNabb shepherd dog, Spike, comes in. I shall give Spike a
line, later.
When Sam was saddling the horses before loading them in the truck for
the 35 mile drive up into the mountains, from his 80-acre valley ranch,
his wife—Anna—came out to the barnyard, and said to me, “Don’t let Sam
talk you into making that hard ride all the way up to the top of the
mountain. When you get tired, turn around and come back.” Excellent
advice—but that was the one thing I couldn’t do. We were already coming
down when I began to tire, and a quick reflection on Anna’s injunction
told me that to turn around then would have availed me nothing. And
though I had had it done to me many times in my younger days, that hard
four hours horseback ride up the mountain and back did not produce the
saddle-weary spots my relatives were expecting.
For identification purposes, let’s say Sam’s son Robert, 21-year-old
ex-GI, an exemplary young man, and Sam’s daughter Virginia Anne, 13
years old, each own a dog — Spike and Curley. When loading the horses
into the truck both dogs were “rearing” to go. Spike, the trained cattle
dog, told us by signs and in perfectly understandable dog language that
he wanted to ride in the cab. But he was forced in with the horses—and
after he had made the rounds of the pasture, he climbed in with the
horses without argument for the return trip. In the pasture, the dog
would run ahead and spot segregated bunches of cattle, then come back,
point out the stock, and stand “at attention’” awaiting orders. Sam said
should he tell Spike to “Go get ‘em,” the dog would be off right now. He
said it was almost impossible to get the cattle out of the hills without
a trained dog. Sam paid $50 for the pup, and trained it himself.
Sam had said he would not take Virginia Anne’s dog along with us, that
Curley would likely pick up a deer trail and follow it for hours, which
might delay the return trip.
He planned to drive back by the Kings river road through the Dude
Ranch to show me the place where the new irrigation ditch now being put
through past his valley ranch — to take San Joaquin river water from the
lake formed by the recently built Friant dam—goes under the Kings
river, ninety feet below, through a 27 foot circular cement tube nearly
three-eights of a mile in length. From the 100 foot bridge spanning the
irrigation ditch one could look down 90 feet to the bottom of the ditch,
and up nearly a 100 feet to the top of the ridge of dirt deposited by
the big dragline. We had seen the west approach to this siphon on coming
out from Fresno the evening before.
Sam says he frequently sees deer in his pasture—particularly one big
buck—always before the hunting season opens, but never when he is
permitted to shoot them. With the advancing years, it seems the deer,
as well as man, are taking on wisdom. Hunters say that as soon as the
season in California opens the deer make a break for the National Parks,
where they are protected.
Sam also said that we would call on Mrs. Bert Elwood, who has lived
in the canyon adjoining his pasture for a great many years—and get the
facts about the Daltons. But she was not at home when we stopped, on our
way out. I really wanted to obtain from her a firsthand report on the
early-day cattle business, and information about the cougar menace in
the low mountains years ago. I have been told that the cougars were
alarmingly destructive then.
The cougars are now mostly in the high mountains, though the Fresno Bee
reported two killed in the Valley last winter. Professional hunters have
kept them down in recent years. It is said a professional cougar hunter
named Bruce—his surname—has a pack of dogs that will track them down
without fail, if the scent is not more than 72 hours old. A grown cougar
will take a toll of 50 deer in one season.
Getting back to the wise deer in the parks. While “doing” the Sequoia
National Park five years ago with Major Clement A. Tavares—he was in
the service then, and that “Major” handle was pretty firmly fixed,
but “Doctor” takes precedent now—who is the husband of my niece, Alice
Bristow, I saw a deer browsing about the ranger camp. The Major took a
“movie” of it while it was walking in front of a giant Sequoia tree. A
Ranger told me it was a “wild” deer that had never been in captivity.
And I saw deer at several places by the roadside so close that I could
have almost touched them. Also we saw two young bucks “sparring” almost
under the General Grant big tree. The Major turned his camera on them.
Again, yesterday, we saw deer in the Yosemite Valley. My brother
Theodore shooed one away from a foot-path where it was nonchalantly
nibbling a mushroom. Deer are very tame in the valley.
The Yosemite Falls, seen at their best on Sunday, May 23, 1948, with
Yosemite creek in flood from melting snow, did not look to be 2425 feet
in height; not until we got up close enough to be sprayed — good. Even
the foot-path through the grove seemed to grow in length, as we walked
toward the Falls.
Many, many years ago, I heard Eugene May lecture on the beauty and
immensity of Yosemite Valley at the Methodist Church in Wetmore. When
it came to describing the Falls, he got up on his toes, reached for the
sky—literally soaring up, up, up, in an unbelievable manner. Now I find
the Falls and other notable sights in the valley all that May said
they were—and then some. There are six separate falls pouring into the
valley.
Nothing looks its size up in the High Country. The far famed tunnel
drive through the big Sequoia tree in the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, is
deceiving. It looked as if it would be a tight squeeze for the car,
but after passing through with room to spare, I could easily believe a
cattle truck might pass through it.
While driving in the Grove, with the big trees standing surprisingly
close together, the Doctor said he had been pretty much all over the
world, and had seen nothing to compare with this wonderful Grove. Just
imagine a tree 33 foot through standing 300 feet high.
When I first went up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, years ago—when
automobiles were first coming into general use—trees were hitched on
behind the cars to hold them back while coming down the mountain. And
there was a sizable wood-yard at the foothills—product of those drags.
Five years ago, I came down from the Sequoia National Park with Major
Tavares, when he put the machine in low gear and eased it down ever
so gently. But now, with everything in California moving along in
high gear, the tendency is to open ‘er up, and let ‘er drop down at an
alarming rate of speed.
Last Sunday the Doctor—yes, it was the Doctor now — brought me safely
down from the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, at a fast clip—a drop of nearly
8,000 feet in 65 miles of winding hairpin curves, done in less than that
many minutes, the speedometer showing 65 to 70 miles all the way. And I
had been told that his wife Alice was the best driver in the San Joaquin
valley.
The Park roads are really wonderful—built at the right pitch for safety,
at every turn.
The Doctor, with Alice and their two children, Clemie, eight, and Myrna,
three, plan to fly in June to Honolulu—the Doctor’s birthplace. He is
not Hawaiian, however. Alice has invited me to accompany them—but as I
have always believed air travel unsafe, I declined, with thanks.
But now, after Sunday, I think I would not balk at anything—let come
what may.
THE OLD SWIMMING HOLE Published in Wetmore Spectator January 3, 1936
By John T. Bristow
Other things may be submerged in the whirlpool of life and forgotten,
but memory of the old swimming hole, no matter where it was, or in what
generation, lives long.
Now comes a letter from one of the old “boys” living in another state
calling for elaboration of that tanyard gang’s doings. Combining the old
swimming hole with the tanyard and our circus layout—they were closely
connected — he mentions them as likely material for a story. A “funny”
story, he suggests.
Allright, Buddy. You shall have it. But I must warn you, Old Pal, that
you will, like as not, have the jitters instead of a laugh. But you have
asked for it. As the desired mirth-provoking story, this one will likely
be a flop. Buddy must know that while those old escapades, incidents,
or what-nots, always carry well with the ones who have lived them, when
transported in word-pictures across the years to a new audience, by a
limping artist, they very often fail to click.
Halfway convinced that I could still be murdered for this thing, I have
decided to write a few paragraphs about the old swimming hole and the
gang—and some girls. However, I do not falter. Going on the theory
that when the sweetness of life is over what comes after cannot greatly
matter, I assume the risk—deliberately court danger.
Regardless of the ever-present smell, that tanyard, located in a bend of
the creek just west of where the town bridge is now, was made a sort
of rendezvous for all the town boys. A dam was constructed across the
creek, and there was a Damsite Company, fully officered. The pond —
long, wide, and eight feet deep made a fine swimming hole.
Michael Norton, a diminutive Irish boy, was our life-saver. Shy of
qualifications, he was given the post for no good reason at all—unless
it was that his willingness greatly exceeded his size. Michael was a
queer lad. He always crossed himself three times before going into the
water, and his lips would work in a funny little way without saying
anything. Furthermore, it was characteristic of the little fellow
to round out his sentences—especially when earnestness or excitement
spurred — with, “so I will,” or with, “so he did.” And sometimes
it would characteristic of the little fellow to round out his
sentences—especially when earnestness or excitement spurred — with, “so
I will,” or with, “so he did.” And sometimes it would be “You bet.”
E D Woodburn
Lawyer
HOLTON, KANSAS
January 21 1936
Mr. John T. Bristow, Wetmore, Kansas
Dear John:--
This morning I took time to read “THE OLD* SWIMMING HOLE” which you
wrote for the Wetmore Spectator. As usual, you are very interesting
and your article will be enjoyed by all of the citizens of Wetmore and
community who lived there in the long ago.
It is too bad, John, that you ever quit the paper business. It seems
to me that you naturally belong to that honorable “tribe.’* I have laid
away your articles as I will enjoy reading them again and again. I have
often heard it said that it is one of the signs of old age when one
begins to hark back to our childhood days. Maybe so. I am not denying
that age 13 probably creeping upon you, but I still insist that I “am
as young as I used to be.” We try to keep in touch with the younger
generation and to be and become interested in the things of today but,
in fairness and in strict honesty with ourselves, we will have to admit
that you and I and others of our age are inclined “to cast our eyes,
like a flashing meteor, forward into the past.”
Keep it up, John, and when you have anything to write remember, I will
appreciate a copy of the good old Wetmore Spectator containing your
article.
Yours very truly,
E. D. Woodburn
At that time the deep slough south of the railroad tracks, instead of
turning abruptly at Kansas avenue and paralleling that street to the
creek as it does now, flowed straight across to a point fifty yards down
stream. The narrow strip of land between slough and creek formed the
north bank of the old swimming hole. Trees and bramble shut out public
gaze fairly well, but they did not make a dependable screen against
prying eyes.
Ten yards farther down stream from the mouth of the slough was the old
ford. Still farther down stream there was then and is now a mammoth elm
tree that has budded and shed its leaves sixty times since that day.
Tramped firm by cow hoofs, and free of weeds, this bit of ground marked
the spot where our townspeople often went for a few hours loll in the
shade, and where in the surrounding grove even picnics were sometimes
held. It was here also where, on one Independence Day, a fine English
lady from the old Colony essayed to pet a horse on its nether end and
was kicked in the bread-basket. It was so phrased by our elders then.
In the old days there was in use in the church a hymn-book containing a
song entitled “Beautiful Gates Ajar.” “Dutch” Charley Kumbash, with the
jarring note of the horse’s vengeance and the lady’s name fixed in mind,
said: “It wass now for her the Peu-ti-ful Kates Achar.” The lady was a
Mrs. Gates, daughter of John Radford—later, Mrs. “Paddy” Ryan.
Starting from the friendly shade of that great elm, where they had gone
to while away a little time, and stopping at the old ford for a wade
in the water, a bevy of girls, wandering aimlessly about, fell upon the
boys’ domain.