pond swept the opening down stream. Girls coming—a lot of them, too
many to count. The boys ducked. Henry, who chanced to be in the top of
a small elm tree ready for a dive, found the bottom of the pond with his
proboscis in no time. One crafty little fellow, well plastered with mud,
was caught wholly unawares, taking his siesta on the bank, cut off from
the pond. As one having lost all sense of decency, he darted this way
and that way in front of the girls—and then, like an ostrich, hid his
head in the low forks of a tree, with back exposed to company. Well now,
maybe it is that the ostrich, when he sticks his head in the sand,
hopes that he might be taken for another bird. Shall I name this ostrich
imitator? Well—maybe later.
“Let them come!” yelled Henry Callahan, in a braggadocio way. “Who
cares! We used to swim with the Peters girls—and that didn’t kill us.”
“Yeah,” drawled Timothy Doble, in his usual draggy voice, “but remember,
we had our pants on then—and that made a lot of difference.”
Timothy was so right about this. It certainly did make a lot of
difference. Incidentally, I may say I have not thought of this boy for a
long time. And Gaskel was his me—not Doble. But the boys all called him
Doble because he was at one time—a considerable time—in a fair way to
have Archibald Doble for a stepfather. However, Bill Kerr, young school
teacher, stepped in and married the widow Gaskel, who was nearly twice
his own age. That marriage did not endure.
Before going on with the main show, let us go back little—maybe a year,
maybe two or three years. This tanyard pool brought the swimming hole a
mile and a quarter closer to town—and it was hailed with delight by le
barefoot boys. Prior to this, the town boys did their swimming in the
“prairie pools” out south. But the pools had their bad features—hazards
fraught with disturbing elements.
In the first place, one-third of the distance to the pools was across
the big bottom south of Spring creek which skirts the town. The bottom
was covered with a rank growth of sloughgrass, and, in the early summer
months — the natural time for swimming—after the grass had burned
off, needle-pointed stubs were very damaging bare, feet, and caused
utterances of many an “ouch” and not infrequently a “damnit”—and this
unholy language emanating from youngsters barely past the trundle-bed
stage. But the little sinners could swim—every one of them.
The prairie pool patronized most, if it were not filled with soil, as
are all the other pools now, would be close to the public road, on the
Grant Dale forty acres—open territory then. Directly north of this was
the Barney Peters forty-acre isolated prairie farm. We could always
count being accompanied by one or more of the four Peters — Bill,
George, Jim, and John. And on rare occasions two Peters girls, Bertha
and Mary, would invade our privacy.
The pool was about 50 by 25 feet in dimensions with a minimum depth of
eight feet. It was edged with a sort of “greasewood” growth of brush
which grew in clusters at the water’s edge three feet below the rim.
Often water snakes could be seen sunning themselves on branches which
curved out over the water. It was a most disquieting feeling to have
one of those four-foot fellows slither across one’s back. They were not
poisonous. Still they were snakes.
The Peters girls did not often come upon the scene. But when they did,
it was more disturbing than to be raked over the back by those snakes.
The south side of the pool offered the best place for the snakes to sun
themselves — and as soon as the water was agitated by the bathers coming
in from the north side, as they always did, the snakes would drop off
into the water and make, blindly, for the opposite side and disappear
under the north bank. Some of the snakes seemed to sleep more soundly
than others, and, on a good day, the snake parade to the north side,
while not continuous was, seemingly, never ended. Were it true, as
claimed in the old days, that those snakes passing over one’s back would
make hair grow wherever they touched the bare skin, I would have more
hair on my back than I now have on my head.
And occasionally a turtle would drop off those bushes into the swimming
hole. It was said by oldtimers that should a turtle nip you that it
would not let loose until sundown. Other oldsters said it would hang
on until it thundered. The adventurous youngsters—usually ready to try
anything—never, to my knowledge, tried to find out which way was right.
With brassy skies and prolonged summer droughts; with thunder clouds few
and far between, made it too risky. At that time swim-suits were unknown
here — maybe just not used—and always after a swim with the Peters
girls, we would have to walk home in our wet pants.
That chain of water holes along a three-mile treeless water course, was
said to have been “buffalo” holes. But this I was inclined to doubt,
after seeing the remains of true buffalo wallows in Western Kansas. My
Uncle Nick Bristow said there were no buffalo here when he came, and
that so far as he knew no one before him had seen any. But in my time,
the whole plains country west of the Blue river was swarming with them.
They were shamefully slaughtered by eastern outfitted crews, for their
hides. I believe that Zan Gray ’ s novel, “The Thundering Herd, ” was
inspired by the big herds of buffalo in Southwestern Kansas.
Then there were the “second” pools, a longer wash, one mile farther
south, fed partly by the Bradford spring, which we would patronize
in dry times when the stream connecting the “first” pools would stop
running.
Back at the tanyard pool: Those girls, full of high spirits and gay
chatter, scooped up our clothing, such as it was, and stood on the bank
laughing at us. Save for the one with head so nattily ensconced in tree
crotch, all were in water up to necks, and thinking some rather ugly
thoughts, we were, I can assure you, most miserable. Miserable, however,
does not fully define the plight of the featherless bird on the bank.
Then, holding a yapping little dog to a bulging bosom, a Good Samaritan
came moving in. Her smiling face was framed in a lovely orange bonnet.
She interceded for the boys. The girls were adamant, heartless. For
her pains, the intermediary was called “Mother Fuzzicks”—then, and
there-after. She was in truth the mother of the brave Indian fighter
mentioned in an earlier article.
In all fairness to those girls I should say that they were, probably,
possessed of the idea that their appearance in this manner might cure a
certain habitue of the water hole of being neglectful of his duties at
home, and maybe cause him to choose better company as well. They could
not be censured for that. They were nice girls, those intruders.
It was our life-saver who undertook to solve the problem for us—the
little fellow of multiple peculiarities, the most pronounced of which,
as you have been informed, was displayed in his crossing himself three
times before going into the water.
I rather think that one, maybe two, of Michael’s older sisters were
among that hilarious lot. But as to that I cannot be sure. Much water
has gone over the dam since that day and on some points things are a
bit foggy. It is one of the tricks of memory—that parts of a recalled
incident will stand out clearly while other parts remain, shadowy and
tantalizingly, just outside the grasp of the mind.
So, then, of those damsels I make no identifications — this on account
of much fog. Still, casting back through the mists of many years, I can
sense enough of the old thing to cause me to suspect that I could almost
spit on one of those erstwhile trim maidens, now grown stout, from where
I write. Not, however, that I would want to do so at this late date.
With a mischievous twinkle in his pale blue eyes, Michael said: “Lave
them to me boys. By-gorry I’ll show them a trick with a hole in it; I
will so I will!” Much stress was laid upon the last phrase. It contained
the true Irish accent. A trick with a hole in it! An old saying, of
course — much used then.
Manifestly, Michael had decided, as any fine boy of the period would, to
deal modestly with the girls—or, at least, with as much modesty as the
exigencies of the situation would permit—but he had reckoned without
taking into account the destructive forces of Time upon discarded
tinware.
Someone, pointing to a stick on the bank, said, “Take that and wallop
‘em good!” It was a portion from the butt end of a well seasoned sumac.
“Aye, I have it!” mouthed Michael. At the same time he fished out of the
mud at the edge of the pond an old weather-beaten dishpan, one of many
that had been used in the tannery for various purposes. This he swung in
front of him.
Then, with surprising alacrity and apparent confidence in himself and
the implement of his veiling, he bounded up the bank, pivoting at the
top long enough to cast a reassuring look over his shoulder to his
buddies in the water. The gang beamed approvingly on their savior.
Michael advanced on the intruders, shouting in a rather thin voice,
“Drop the rags, and scram!” He waved his cudgel. No results. Michael
didn’t like having his efforts go for naught that way. The laughter
went out of his eyes. His Irish was up. He resisted an impulse at
belligerence. Then, “Vamoose, I tell you, or bygorry you’ll be knowing
the feel of this shillelagh!” Now, however, his belligerent interest was
superseded by new elements.
The girls did not budge. Not then. They laughed mightily. All but one.
The Good Samaritan shook with suppressed laughter. Her orange bonnet
bobbed in fine harmony. The little doggie barked. With deep concern
and echoes of mortification trailing in her voice, the laughless
one, stepping forward—it was now observed that she held in her hand a
shillelagh of her own, once again of magic sumac origin—exclaimed, “Holy
horrors! Look Michael! Your manners! There do be a hole in your shield!”
This he took to indicate her desire for him to depart — as, indeed, it
did. And Michael, our defender, “took water.”
You must believe me now when I say to you that the
never-to-be-dispensed-with three-time act, peculiarly and persistently
the boy’s very own, was delayed somewhat.
“You bet!”
MISS INTERPRETED My mother cautioned my sister Nannie when a very little
girl as she was going out to play, to look good for snakes. After she
had returned, Nannie told her mother that she had looked everywhere and
did not see “ary snake.” Asked what would she have done had she found
one, Nannie said, “I would of bringed it to you.”
THE “CIRCUS” LAYOUT Published in Wetmore Spectator,
January 10, 1936.
By John T. Bristow
Now, I trust “Buddy” will be satisfied with the foregoing narration
of events at the old swimming hole. He really should be. He is in
it—figuring inversely, up to his neck.
Since the actual distance from the swimming hole to the tanyard was but
twenty steps—and I mean literally steps—there should be no difficulty
in making the switch over. Those twenty steps did, however, at times,
present physical hazards. They were dirt steps carved out on a rather
steeply inclined bank, up which the tanner’s sons carried water in
buckets from pond to tanvat. Barefooted, with pants rolled up to our
knees, we would dig in with our toes when going up with the filled
buckets, always spilling a little water on the way, until those steps
would become a veritable otter’s slide. As a boy’s bare heels, in the
old days, were poorly fashioned for digging in, the water carriers would
then have to use the longer rope-protected path provided for making the
descent with the empty buckets. One slippery slide on one’s backside was
a hint that it was time to make the switch.
But a rehash of the “circus layout” as my Old Pal puts it, is maybe
going to be disappointing, as I can now think of nothing in this
connection to pin on Buddy. However, I suppose it might have been
considered—for recreation purposes only—as a sort of adjunct to the
tannery. The trapeze, horizontal bars, and spring-board, were only about
fifty feet removed from the tanvats. And then, too, the lot had the
tanyard smell.
Ringling Brothers wagon circus had recently made a stand here, and the
“fever” among the local youngsters was running high. Activity about the
lot was both spirited and awkward, with a lively bunch willing to try
anything—once.
The real trouble was, we had only one Star performer. Charley Askren
was, before he got injured in a fall, a trapeze and bar performer with
the Dan Rice circus. He was a welcome instructor. And though he could
still do some wonderful stunts, I think there are none I want to mention
here, except maybe the time he let me slip through his hands in a rather
daring act, the fall to the ground breaking my left arm.
This statement, without qualification, would hardly do justice to my
old team-mate. Had we made it, the act would have been a honey. And had
Charley not said, grandly, to a “skirted” audience, “This is going to
be good. Keep your eyes pinned on this Johnny boy, the G-R-E-A-T and
only—,” in real circus ballyhoo fashion, it might not have been a flop.
Charley used a lot of circus terms in his work with us.
The trouble was, I “weakened”—just a wee bit, to be sure—at the moment
when I took the air, and after making a complete turn came down also
a wee bit tardy for Charley to get a firm hold on me, in his head-down
swinging position. Had he caught me by the wrists, he would have tossed
me, on the third swing, face about, back to the bar from which I had
made the takeoff.
In practice, another boy — usually George Foreman, brother of Mrs. L. C.
McVay and Mrs. R. A. DeForest — would stand by to right me, in case of
a slip. George was tall and very active. Sometimes we would change
positions in this act. I know now that this would have been a grand time
for me to have called out, in the usual way, “Let George do it!”
Sure, we had a well-filled straw-tick which was always placed under the
weaklings—but who was there among us that would have wanted to have
it brought out in the presence of lady visitors? Of the two lady
spectators, one was a redhead. She fell in love with Charley—and married
him. Charley had done a lot of impressive flipping and flopping to gain
his position on the bar for the act. The redhead’s younger black; haired
sister (Anna) was the better looking, and near my age—but, as of the
moment, I did not shine as I hoped I might. And then, too, I had that
broken arm to think about. Dr. Thomas Milam “splinted” it up drum-tight,
according to ancient practice—but, by midnight, he had to do it all over
again.
Then, my Dad came onto the lot, and without any coaching whatsoever,
did some pretty tall kicking. Not the circus kind, however. The “circus”
paraphernalia was then moved up town to a vacant spot alongside Than
Morris’ corn cribs on the lots west of where the Dr. Lapham home now
stands. But it was no go. The tannery was the natural place for such
things.
Charley Askren came to us, as a young man, in the early 70’s. He was
a carpenter. He married Lib Fleming. And notwithstanding his serious
injury caused by the collapse of a trapeze under the Dan Rice bigtop, he
lived to be quite an old man. He died at his home in Atchison last year.
Here’s hoping that his kid co-performer — the G-R-E-A-T and only”—may
live as long.
Honesty — The Better Policy NOTE—Some seventy-five years ago I
accidentally dropped a five-dollar gold piece into one of the big vats
at our old tanyard on the creek bank near the town bridge at the foot of
Kansas Avenue which gold piece was never recovered.
The old bridge has now been removed, and a new one—156-foot span—is
being constructed over a newly dug creek channel sixty-five yards south
of the old one, on a grade ten feet above the old road. In building up
the grade between the old bridge site and the railroad, Albert Tanking,
of Seneca, operator of a County bulldozer, today—June 11, 1949—moved the
ground where the old tanvats were buried.
As he made the excavation I noticed no signs of the old sunken vats—but
it is none the less certain that my five-dollar gold piece is now
deposited somewhere along the west slope of the fill, or in the “sunken
garden” between the fill and the newly cut drain-ditch paralleling it.
After it rains on the works it is possible that I might go down there
and pick it up. But I think that I shall leave this for the kids to
exploit. It was a sort of kid’s keepsake, anyway.
That five-dollar gold piece was first given me some years earlier, in
change, by mistake for a nickel. I thought I had been cheated. I took it
back to Peter Shavey, who had a confectionery store in the old part of
the building now occupied by Hettie Shuemaker-Kroulik. He praised me for
being an honest boy—and he loaded me up with candy and oranges. And then
he said, “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to give you this gold
piece for a keepsake, something to remind you always that it pays to
be honest.” And think of it — the old Frenchman was illegally selling
whiskey and unlawfully operating a poker game in the back room.
I said, “Thank you, Mr. Shavey—but I still have not got my nickel back.”
He laughed, “Here, honest boy, here’s your nickel.” And now I can’t be
sure If Mr. Peter Shavey inspired this noble trait of honesty in me—or
if it just comes natural.
INNOCENT FALSEHOOD About twenty years ago, I was going with “Dutch”
Roderick, in his car, to Kansas City, starting at four o’clock in the
morning—and Minnie Cawood, with her two and one-half year old Ruthie,
were going along as far as Leavenworth. We stopped at the H. P. Cawood
home, and “tooted.” Minnie came out, and Harry followed, carrying Ruthie
in his arms. She was fussy, and Harry said, “Don’t cry—your partner is
out here in the car.” Ruthie said—well, had she not been such a sweet
kid as to call me her partner, I’d be tempted to say she told a “white”
lie, when she said, “I thought he would be there.”
FATHER AND SONS Published in Wetmore Spectator,
March 20, 1936
By John T. Bristow
T his, then, is the continuation of the story of my father’s tanyard;
with related incidents—hoarded memories of the old days back a half
century, and more. They are solemn reminders that “Time flies.”
That tanyard was, I might say, a howling success while it lasted.
Besides the tanyard, my father owned a bunch of boys, and those boys,
semi-obedient and helpful, really did some commendable things, but when
encouraged and abetted by the other town boys of that happy, care-free
age, their doings were not always something to be commended.
Taken by the large—including, of course, the English and the Irish
and the “Dutch,” and a couple of Swedes — they were, I must admit, a
dare-devil bunch. And I might as well confess now that I was, perhaps,
the most devilish one of them all. Anyhow, I became a printer’s “devil”
at an early age.
My father made good leather—and he knew how to get the most out of it.
Being a shoemaker, he made it up into good boots and shoes and gave his
boys a good leather dressing whenever they needed it—that is, when their
deviltry came within his notice. The Lord knows there were hundreds of
times when they escaped only by narrow margins. And had my father been
a little more vigilant, this day of which I write promised to be the
red-letter day.
There were two outstanding events that day, either of which would have
merited knee-strap activity. In case you don’t know, the shoemaker’s
knee-strap, besides being useful to hold a shoe in place while the
artisan works, is a persuasive instrument of correction when applied
with vim and vigor at the right time and place.
As already informed, in a previous article, the creek had been dammed
and there was a fully officered Damsite Company, with Michael Norton
as life-saver, whose actual services, as Jake Geyer now recalls, never
amounted to more than his crossing himself three times before going into
the water. A large wooden box, with metal bottom, used for cooking the
sumac-tanbark mixture, when not otherwise in use served as a boat on
that fine body of water.
Jim Cardwell, a Kentuckian — and brother-in-law of Andy Maxwell, the
Indian fighter mentioned in previous writings—who held a responsible
position as coal-heaver at the railroad chutes close to the tanyard,
when not otherwise engaged, helped the boys occasionally with the work
of maintaining the dam—and even helped my father sometimes. All this he
did out of the goodness of his heart, glad to be helpful. He was a grand
old sport, even with his one weakness. Jim loved his booze and seemed to
have a mania for sharing his bottle with others. He even gave Eagle Eye,
the Indian featured in a preceding story, a nip of his “firewater” one
day, and my father raised Ned about that. It was unlawful to give liquor
to an Indian.
Having the distinction of being the only enterprise of the kind in this
part of the West, that tanyard was made a sort of port-of-call for all
comers—local and transient.
“Lord” Perry graced the tannery with his august presence one day. He was
of the old English Colony folk and drunk or sober, proclaimed himself a
British peer. He was a “remittance” man.
On this occasion, after riding in from his Colony home, Perry had
stopped up town and was comfortably full when he reached the tanyard. He
slipped the reins over his horse’s head and asked me to hold the animal
while he held audience with Jim Cardwell. “Hand if you let ‘er go,” he
warned, “Hi’ll cut y’r hears hoff.” I dropped the reins as soon as he
was in “spirited” conversation with Jim. The “Lord” soon forgot about
me—and the horse also.
“Lord” Perry had the poise and the marks of the gentleman he represented
himself to be. Also he loved his drink, and indulged himself freely.
When he had taken on about so much, he would invariably mount a chair,
or anything handy that he could climb upon, and attempt to make a
speech, always prefacing his harangue with “Hi’m a gentleman hand a
scholar, by-god-sir, by-gosh!”
In this instance, Perry had climbed upon the tank-boat which was
standing on edge. After making his usual salutory and puncturing it
with his long arms waving hither and thither, he stood for some moments
groping for words which did not present themselves with what might be
called kaleidoscopic rapidity. Then one of the gang—designated here as
the one intrusted to ‘old the Nobleman’s ‘orse — casually leaned against
the prop, causing it to topple from under the distinguished Englishman.
His Lordship then lost some of his aristocratic poise and a modicum of
his temper. A nervous person, with bombastic tendencies, he literally
exploded when he hit the well-tramped terrain about the tanvats. To
be accurate, he made a rather awkward display of himself in a furious
outburst of Anglo-American profanity, in which he branded, correctly, a
certain member of the gang as a “Blarsted, ’ artless hupstart!”
“Tut, tut, my Lord,” said Jim. “It was an accident.”
“Haccident, my hye!” retorted Perry, sharply. Jim Cardwell then felt
it incumbent upon himself to offer something to assuage his Lordship’s
agony, to pour balm upon his troubled soul. Good old Jim! How could we
have managed without him. He once move proffered his bottle. And another
drink was directed with grace down the Perry gullet.
At the tanyard there were six vats, each, four by six feet, which were
set three feet into the ground, with the tops about one foot above
ground.
A wild black cherry tree, at this time loaded with ripe cherries, stood
close to one of those vats. On account of its fruit and its fine shade
it was the delight of all the boys. Especially was it inviting to my
little brother Davey Cullom, who, though fourth in point of spacings
from being the baby or of the home, was still his mother’s darling
little curly-headed man.
There was an erroneous notion that black cherries would make one
tipsy—in a mild way. It was also claimed that choke cherries, some of
which grew in the next bend above oh small trees like plum trees, were
poisonous. That was erroneous, too.
Davey Cullom attempted to walk around on the edge of one of those
tanvats, and fell in. The vat was filled with strong ooze, leachings
from the oakbark and sumac. With the process then employed by my father
it took four months to tan a calfskin—but Davey Cullom got his hide
tanned in about fifteen minutes. Not with the ooze, however. It was
because he could not walk, in a test, the twelve-foot length of a
ten-inch board without stepping off.
Davey told his father that he had eaten too many cherries. But the gang
knew he was fibbing. Davey Cullom was already “pickled” when he fell
into that tanvat. And had it been any place other than the tanyard,
my father could have had olfactory evidence of his offspring’s
condition—but in a tanyard, there is but one smell.