I had rushed out and yelled “Fire!” It was not long before a crowd had
assembled. Some gave their attention to the fire in the building, while
others rushed up stairs to my office, against my protest. There was no
fire in the printing office. “Chuck” Cawood dashed a bucket of water on
my shaded coal-oil lamp, and rushed out of the room, yelling, “I put it
out—I’ve put it out!” Chuck’s water had also ruined an order of printed
stationery ready for delivery. Others milled about in the dark and
“pied” several galleys of type we had set for the paper which was to
come out the next day. The clothing stock was carried to the street—and
the fire was put out before it had done much damage. Since there were
two occupants of the store room, no one could say with certainty whose
fire it might have been.
The Jew’s insurance was canceled in due course. He said, “If I don’t
got insurance, I’ll not stay in a town which don’t got waterworks.” I
reminded him that he still had Mr. O. Bates, with his hand grenades. It
was but a short while before this that Mr. O. Bates had acquired the
agency for his hand grenades. He planned a demonstration in the public
square, by making a pyramid of wooden boxes, about ten feet high, early
in the afternoon as a sort of advertisement for the event to take
place after dark. This advertising stunt brought him humiliating
repercussions.
The square was filled with people. Mr. O. Bates, a gabby auctioneer who
really knew how to make a spiel, gave them a good one. He said, “Ladies
and gentlemen. I have here the greatest fire extinguisher ever devised!
But you don’t have to take my word for this! You shall see with your own
eyes! Why, my friends, I wouldn’t hesitate one moment about building my
bonfire right up against my own home.”
Then he backed off a few paces from the burning boxes and threw a
grenade at the fire—but it failed to connect with the solid bumpboard,
which had been placed in the center to break the glass bottles, and
passed through the mass as a dud. He then tried again, hitting the
bumpboard, but instead of quenching the fire, it made a decided spurt
upwards. Then, with a huge grunt, Bates, threw them in as fast as he
could, resulting in further spurts of blaze upward — up, up, and up!
It was then boos for Mr. O. Bates. He was a sadly confused man, numb
with bewilderment. He stammered, “I’ll fetch a man here who’ll show
you that they will do the trick.” At a lesser publicized exhibition,
Bates—and his man—had extinguished the fire quickly. Rumor had it that
“Frosty” and “Cooney” had emptied the chemicals out of his grenades, and
had filled them with coal oil.
Mr. O. Bates had unbounded faith in his grenades. He actually wanted
to build his bonfire almost smack-up against the frame hotel building
on the corner where Harry Cawood’s store is now. But “Uncle” Peter
Shuemaker wouldn’t stand for that. “Uncle” Peter was a wiry little man
of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry—much set in his ways, with a quick tongue
with which to defend himself. He was always on the defense.
“Frosty” Shuemaker had said, with reason, “Granddad, don’t you let that
old windjammer light his fire near the hotel. You don’t know what might
happen,” and “Uncle” Peter had snapped, “Goway, Forrest—who’s asking you
for advice?” But, I think, “Uncle” Peter had “smelled a mouse.”
Mr. O. Bates — pompous, windy, and positive — told “Uncle” Peter that
the proposed demonstration would do his hotel no more harm than for him
to allow Jim Riley to ride his horse in and out of the hotel office—an
occurrence that still rankled. “Uncle” Peter flew off the handle, so to
speak, and spluttered, “It’s no-sicha-na-thing! I never permitted that
lousy drunken pie-stealing galoot to ride into my hotel! And just
who would pay me for my hotel if it should burn down? By-GODDIES, you
couldn’t do it—Mr. Bates!”
Since I have quoted Peter Shuemaker detrimental to the character of
one Jim Riley, I shall now explain. Never like to leave any of the old
fellows out on a limb. Then, too, there is still another reason for this
elaboration. It is to keep the record straight. Some, I now learn, are
inclined to question if I have quoted “Uncle” Peter verbatim. That I
have you may be sure. I make no inventions. You can always bank on that.
Why, I ask, should I want to feed you figments of fiction, when memory
is stocked with so much of the real thing—spoken words by the old
fellows, a thousand times better than anything an antiquated mind could
conjure up now? And then there is always the little matter of accuracy
to be considered. “No-sicha-na-thing” and “by-goddies” were his exact
utterances.
Not to be confused with the Soldier creek Jim Reilly, who built a house
in town on the site where E. W. Thornburrow’s home is now, this Irishman
owned land up in the Capioma neighborhood—a half section north of the
Patrick Hand land. Jim Riley was a substantial farmer and cattleman. He
was not married. Jim bached on the farm—but spent much of his spare time
in Wetmore, always pretty close to the dram shops. He was a periodical
hard drinker. And a prankster of the first order.
But as time went on—and as he prospered—Jim decided that he could change
the baching situation for the better if his sister, whom he had left in
Ireland years before, were here to keep house for him. He made the trip
back to Ireland, but when he got there he learned that his sister was
married and lived in California. He then made a hurried trip to the west
coast—and in due time the sister, with her husband and several little
Ketchums, became members of the Jim Riley household on the farm here.
And through the hand of Fate title to the Riley lands later passed to
the Ketchums.
As Bates had said, Jim Riley did ride his horse into Shuemaker’s hotel.
And as “Uncle” Peter had spluttered, Jim did swipe his pies—baked for a
big dance supper. Riley carted them out on the street in a wheelbarrow,
and passed them out to anyone who would take them. But he paid. Jim
always paid. His reputation for doing that was well established. Like
the time when someone went into Rising’s general store and said Jim
Riley was out in front smashing up a consignment of crockery that had
just been unloaded on the high front porch, giving a war-whoop every
time as the crocks he was throwing crashed in the street, Don Rising
said, “Let him have his fun. He’ll pay.”
Also, Jim Riley did deliberately back his wagon up to the post
supporting Shuemaker’s prized birdhouse, hurriedly threw a logchain
around the post—and drove off, giving one of his famous war-whoops.
“Jim’s on another bender,” the oldtimers said—but I knew he was just
plain drunk.
Jim Riley dearly loved to torment Peter Shuemaker. And he liked to play
hide-and-seek with the town marshal. But most of all, Jim loved his
drink. And it was while burdened with a mixture of the two that he met
his death — in 1887. While making a hurried getaway from the marshal his
team of mules, under lash, turned a street corner too quickly, threw Jim
out his spring-wagon—and broke his neck.
And that bird-house—it was a three-decker, about a yard square, with
entrances on all four sides, perched on top of a 10-foot post out in
front of the hotel. Here the martins of that day nested and multiplied
in such numbers as to greatly overcrowd their living quarters. In the
late summer months the new broods would have to take to the roof.
Jim’s log chain, applied at the height of the nesting season, broke up
all too many bird-nests to suit “Uncle” Peter—and it just about caused
his to lose his religion. “Uncle” Peter took his newly-found religion
seriously enough, but when suddenly angered he was a mite
forgetful. Lapsing back into pre-conversion times, his overworked
byword—by-goddies—was shortened up a bit, and with it went a blast of
other sulphurous words telling the world what he meant to do to that
scoundrel when and if he could ever lay hands on him.
Peter Shuemaker was practically the sole support of the Baptist Church
here for a time, in the old days. The Church membership was poor, and
there came a lean time when the members wanted to close up shop—but
“Uncle” Peter said no, “By-goddies,” he’d pay the preacher himself.
Having lost his wife, Shuemaker, in his late eighties, and always a bit
on the contrary side, was now, with descendents in his home, a little
hard to get along with. But he hit it off fine with his preacher. Then,
one Sunday morning, when a beautiful camaraderie between preacher and
parishioner was running high, the Reverend announced something special,
a surprise, for the evening services. That surprise proved to be “Uncle”
Peter going shakily down the aisle, altarward, with a feeble old woman,
an octogenarian from God only knew where, clinging to his arm. She was
an “importation.” Thus, one perceives, that in casting his bread upon
the waters it had indeed been returned to “Uncle” Peter manifold. And
for his descendents, who were keeping a watchful eye on his modest
savings, it was as a devastating bombshell topping a most disturbing
surprise. Son-in-law Don Rising “swore” the old gentleman had been “sold
down the river.”
The marriage did not endure.
But, at that, “Uncle” Peter fared better, spiritually, “than did the
preacher who showed him the way. The Reverend George Graham, evangelist,
had pitched his gospel tent on the triangular spot of vacant ground
across the street east of the Catholic Church in Wetmore back in the
middle 80’s. With him was a buxom woman, with rosy cheeks — who sang
quite well. And what with her good singing and George’s impassioned
pleas for repentance they garnered a good harvest—very good, indeed.
The Reverend Graham invoked, with the wrath of Jehovah of old, all the
terrors of hell upon unbelievers. Together, they slew the sinners. Even
some quite good people were swayed into the belief that they ought to
make amends and strive to measure up to the high plane of this super
exhorter—and thus make sure of following through to the Great Beyond.
There were among them converts with Methodist leanings, and converts
with Baptist leanings — even one young lady was possessed of the gift
of tongues. When it was all over here, the converts went their several
ways, as the preacher had advised—or rather they began to map a course
by which they might make the takeoff for the long journey. Then, with
the second stand away from here — somewhere down around Lawrence — the
preacher and the lady were publicly exposed for unholy conduct.
And yea, verily, the Reverend had a family somewhere abroad in the land.
Repercussions hit hard back here. The one great wrong done our converts
was, as you might expect, heaped upon them by the unbelievers who had
been consigned to the everlasting fire of brimstone by the now fallen
preacher. As is usual with emotionally recruited converts there was some
immediate backsliding, or cooling off, but when “twitted”—that’s what
they called it then—by the ungodly, the stampede back to normal got
under way and was, in the days that followed, made complete—save one.
“Uncle” Peter was seemingly the only one of the many who could bring
himself to believe that religion was religion—something pure, and worth
keeping, even though it had been delivered to him through the channels
of a dirty carrier.
There is an old saying that “one should give the devil his due.” I’m
sure that, regardless, the magnetic George did a power of good in
his revivals here. While, it is true, his converts did not choose to
“join-up” after the crash, until the backwash of that scandal had become
tempered by time, they did, however, accept the opportunity to come
into the fold under another standard bearer. And, unfortunately for
the Baptists, the Methodists were first to hold a revival—and reap the
harvest. And the girl who was “called” upon to babble in tongues, gave
up the pursuit when it was evident that she was fooling no one but
herself.
At the time of the exposure, I was temporarily working for Bill Granger
on his Centralia Journal, and boarding at the old McCubbin House, down
by the tracks. Ed Murray — later, Mo. Pacific agent in Wetmore for
many years—was clerk at the hotel. Professor Roberts, principal of the
Centralia Public Schools, was the third person present when the Evening
Daily newspaper was brought in. After reading the exposure article,
I passed the paper to Mr. Roberts, with comment that I had attended
Graham’s revival meetings in Wetmore. Mr. Murray had his say about
preachers in general, and about one Reverend Locke in particular—of the
latter, quite complimentary, however.
As he read, Mr. Roberts said, “Say—you, a newspaperman—here’s something
you ought to commit, for future use.” For future use? He meant, let us
hope, only as a model for phrase building to be used on occasion. That
Mr. Roberts, he was a mighty clever young man—quite young, then. It was
a long time ago, sixty-one years to be exact — but I still remember.
The newspaper report was vague as to the exact nature of the preacher’s
misstep, and I shall not attempt to state it here lest I might do
someone an injustice. So, then, let’s let George do it. The paper
quoted him, thus:
“I have the consolation, small though it be, of knowing that though my
bark goes down amid the turbid waters of Illicit love the shores of Time
are marked with many such wrecks.”
Prettily phrased. But no further comment.
NOTE — This is okayed, “No-sicha-na-thing.” “By-Goddies,” and all, by
Hettie Shuemaker-Kroulik, (70), granddaughter; and by Peter Cassity,
(80), grandson. And they go further, saying: The $1,000 he paid to rid
himself of the woman, plus what it had cost him to get her (preacher’s
reward) just about cleaned “Uncle” Peter. And Cassity says the pies
swiped by Riley numbered exactly forty. Jim paid double, as always—and
liked it.
And now wouldn’t it be nice if I could say here that Cassity was one of
those converts? I’d say it, anyway—if I weren’t afraid Peter would tell
on me.
MY BEST INVESTMENT Not Hitherto Published — 1947
By John T. Bristow
Girls — Girls — Girls
After mulling the old thing over, I know now that the boy who sat with
me in the reserved section at Evangelist George Graham’s meetings, as
intimated in the foregoing article, was not Peter Cassity. It was his
brother Bill. Pete tells me that he was farming at the time over on
Wolfley creek and did not attend the meetings regular—but don’t ever
think Pete did not remember his raising, when he did get in.
Bill Cassity had the nerve and the Biblical knowledge to stand up in a
big way for his Maker. That boy had an almost irresistible line, and it
was, at times, questionable whether the minister, or the converts—with
Bill well out in the lead — were doing most in the matter of gathering
in the prospects.
When my uncle, the Rev. Thomas S. Cullom, minister of a Methodist Church
in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife Irene, and two daughters,
Lora and Clevie, paid a visit to their Wetmore relatives in 1908, the
Reverend told me that in his Church, and throughout the south, it
was customary during revivals to have “exhorters” stationed in the
congregation to give supplementary support to the minister’s pleas for
the redemption of lukewarm and tottering souls.
I asked him if his exhorters ever broke in on his impassioned pleas in
a discordant manner—that is, a little off key? “Cert’nly,” he said,
with fine southern accent. “My exhorters are very devout workers for the
Lord, and sometimes when filled to overflowing with the Holy Ghost, they
say their lines and then keep right on exhorting and sometimes steal
the whole show.” This ungodly reference to his Church as a show was made
with a wink and a grin.
And so, with the old time revivals here, the minister’s exhorters, under
another name of course, sometimes ran away with the show. This brings us
back to Bill Cassity, first born of Newton and Anne Shuemaker-Cassity.
Bill did just that on at least two occasions in the Evangelist’s revival
here. He had the Christian training to do it courageously.
While still a young man, Bill Cassity went to Colorado, worked in the
mines and smelters, at high wages, and ordered the Spectator sent to him
there — and later to Los Angeles. Bill came home once, told me he liked
his work in Colorado, or rather the big wages—but he did not like the
characters he had to associate with. In California, still on the
right side of the laws of God and man, Bill pushed his penchant for
righteousness a little too far for his own good. As a detective,
self-appointed or otherwise, he learned much of the ways of the Los
Angeles underworld—and, it was said, the boys took him for a ride and
failed to bring him back.
And again, some twenty-odd years ago, Than Gustafson, a former Wetmore
man, older brother of our Fred Gustafson — and in a legal way Fred’s
brother was also his brother-in-law, the two Gustafson boys having
married sisters, Adelia and Ophelia, daughters of S. M. Hawkins—is
supposed to have been taken for a one-way ride by the Rocky Mountain
crooks. He left his home in Denver, a wife and two children, one evening
in line of his duties — and was never heard of again. Than Gustafson
evidently knew too much for his own good.
When in gangdom, it is wise to be dumb.
Under the old system, in revivals, the first converts either appointed
themselves or were delegated to work among the congregation as boosters
for the minister—something like Uncle Tom’s “exhorters.” They would
go out in the audience, usually in pairs, and plead with you, cry, and
sniffle over you—an actual fact—in a manner that would - make you
feel mighty cheap. The boy who respected them, loved them through long
associations, was struck dumb.
One particularly sanctified woman—no one could ever doubt her sincerity;
I had known her for years, and she was always so—with redoubled
sniffling tendencies as of the moment, accompanied by the prettiest girl
that ever walked down a church aisle or any other avenue in Wetmore, a
girl whom I had just about given up as lost to a certain rich man’s
son, on account of her papa’s preference for the other boy, and because
“papa” said I played poker, made a firm stand in front of me one night.
I knew before the old girl began to sniffle that, on account of the
young girl, I would, sooner or later, find myself in a front row. More
than one boy went forward in that meeting because he did not have the
heart to disappoint them—and maybe there was also the attraction of a
girl. Girls were more susceptible to the worker’s pleas.
The older woman talked rapidly, between sniffles, in terms only partly
understood by me—but the girl’s radiant smile told me much. I would not
permit them to march me up to the front, as other workers were doing
with prospects, but I promised to sit with the young girl in the
reserved corner on the following night—and see what would happen.
I hope the good people will pardon me for mixing my worldly activities
with the more decent church sittings — but this seems the opportune time
for me to ‘fess up. In this story I mean to come clean—tell everything,
and have as little of the old hero stuff in it as is consistent with the
making of a good story.
I had been to church—Methodist protracted meeting — and then dropped in
on the boys in the DeForest store at the virtual close of a little poker
game. Even now I hate to think what Henry DeForest would have done to
us had he known his dry goods counter was serving as a poker table. One
man, Willard Lynch, dropped out while the deal was in progress, and said
I might play his hand.
This was to be my first poker game. Also, it should have been my
last—but it wasn’t. Not that it ever became an obsession with me. But,
in general, it is not an elevating attainment—and it is something which
any self-respecting young man can very well do without. It was, however,
my last game in Mr. Henry’s store. I wanted to retain, at all costs, his
respectful opinion of me. And the other boys finally saw the error of
their ways — and changed their meeting place. On the cleaner side, I
will say that I never learned to shoot craps, never bet on elections,
ball games, or the horses; never drank or caroused, wouldn’t feel “at
“home” at the popular cocktail party; was never in court as complainant
or defendant—and was only once in my whole life in court as a witness,
at which time, had I told the Whole Truth as I was sworn to do, I could
have been jailed for my ignorance. I was an untutored member of the
Kansas Grain Dealers Association, which was under investigation. Also, I
want to say in the outset that this poker stigma was not the thing
which had lowered me in the opinion of “Papa.” It was the more powerful
evil—money—of which I had none. But there was one bright spot in the
clouded picture. The rich man’s son looked a lot better to “Papa” than
he did to the girl.
Well, in this, my first poker game, I picked up four natural aces, and
if you know only as much as I knew then, you would consider it a top
hand. No one had told me they were playing the joker wild, “cut and
slash.” I bet a nickel. Alfred Anderson called, and raised me a dime.
Two of the other boys called Alfred’s fifteen-cent bet—and the dealer,
Sidney Loop, (clerk in the store), dropped out of the play. I thought my
four aces were good for ten cents more, and not possessing a loose dime,
I dug up a five-dollar bill. Alfred was up on his toes, and said, “You
aiming to bet all that?” I replied, “No—only aiming to call your
dime raise.” Still upon his toes, a little higher now, he said rather
anxiously, “If you want to bet it all, I’ll call it—you can’t bluff me.”
I took one more look at my hand—and not one of the aces had gotten away.
And then I said, “All right, I’ll just bet it all.”
Now, if you know the game, you are maybe expecting to hear that he had
a set of fives, including the joker of course. But it was not Alfred who
held them. His four kings were not good. It was the dealer, the man who
had dropped out because I had dropped in, who had five fives.
But this I did not know until two days later, not until after I had gone
to church again and contributed $5.00 to Mrs. Draper’s fund for buying
Christmas candies for her Sunday School kiddies. Alfred’s sister Phoeba,
as personal representative of our dear old Sunday School Superintendent,
took my contribution with gracious acknowledgment, as though it were
not tainted money. And Mrs. Draper—the less chivalrous boys called
her “Mother Corkscrew” because she wore her gray hair in ringlets at
shoulder length—came to me on the double quick, shrieking her praise of
me, and intimated that this generous gift might get me places.
Alfred said that inasmuch as he surmised he had been cold-decked out of
the five—thankfully with no aspersion attachment—that I should have at
least given the donation in both our names. But that would have been
risky. Alfred was a rather white “black sheep” in a very religious
family, and Sis would most likely have wanted to know how come? The fact
that Sidney and Willard were keeping company with sisters at that time
may have had nothing to do with the introduction of that cold deck. And
then again it might have. Sidney said the fellow needed “taking down” a
bit — and that it was planned to give the losers back their money. A fat
chance they would have of getting their money back now.
Until now I had only stood, by and watched a penny-ante game in the new
opera house over the Morris store, where the clerks — Dave Clements,
Bill McKibbon, George and Chuck Cawood, Bob Graham—and some younger fry,
congregated on Sundays. And then, too, as a kid, I had been present on
several occasions at a somewhat bigger game in the Neville residence on
this same corner. But here I did not have a chance to closely observe
the technique of the game—for I was under the table most of the time.
The men played altogether then with “shinplaster” money — undersized
ten, twenty-five, and fifty cent pieces of U. S. paper currency, and the
breeze caused from shuffling the cards would sometimes blow the money
off the table. Mr. Jim Neville said I might keep all I could get my
hands on — and I think it was a sort of house rule that the players were
not to contend roughly with me for the fluttering pieces. Still I think
I got more kicks than the law allowed.