beautiful girl, and a beautiful singer—and while she had a wonderful
head of hair, quite as long as the “Kid’s,” its rather too blonde shade
ruled her out. So the “Kid,” with the requisite dark hair, was given a
place in the spot-light—and Coral did the singing behind the scenes.
Sorry, I can’t tell you what event or setting that tableau portrayed.
There was much more to the show, speaking parts and superb acting. And
though clearly the “Kid” and I were “it,” the whole show was titled
“Beauty and Beelzebub.”
At the picnic, my adversary, the rich man’s son, said to me, “I see
you’ve got a new girl. How come?” I said, “Yeah—likewise you. Thanks
for the assist.” After I had started to walk on, he called, “Hey, John,
whatsha mean by that?”
He was with Lou Kern. Hattie and Lou Kern, and Nina and Emma Bolman,
were four Netawaka girls that were popular with our Silver Stocking
crowd; as were also Caroline Emery, living in the country northeast of
Wetmore, and her visiting friend, Mamie Blakeslee, a former neighbor
whose home was now in Savannah, Mo.
Mamie Blakeslee was a strikingly pretty girl.
I shall now dwell a bit on a personal incident in connection with this
beautiful girl. It was away back in 1884. I don’t think the girl was
on my mind that day when I went to St. Joe. But, in St. Joe, I ran onto
Bill (Hickorynut) Bradley who was on his way to Savannah, and he asked
me to go along with him. One Oliver Bateman was to be hanged for the
murder of two little girls who had caught him in an embarrassing act.
The railroad was offering excursion rates, and the sleepy old Missouri
town was decked out in celebration colors, with refreshment stands all
along the lane from the jail to the gallows in an amphitheater in the
nearby woods—everybody on the make.
Unlike Hickorynut, the hanging did not interest me, but the thought of
seeing Mamie did. I called at the Blakeslee home on the outskirts of
Savannah — it was a farm traded by G. N. Paige for the Blakeslee farm
near Wetmore—on the pretense of wanting to see Mamie’s brother Edwin,
who had been my schoolmate in Wetmore. He was not at home. I remained
a reasonable time with Mamie, aiming to work up a little courage, and
maybe ask her to go places with me—but lost my nerve.
Two hours later I met Mamie, with another girl, on a downtown street
near the St. Charles hotel. Mamie said there was to be skating at the
rink that night, and would I like to go? I certainly would. So now,
after all, we would be going places together.
I called at the Blakeslee home for the two girls, and the ‘skating was
going fine. Then, of a sudden, Miss West told me that Mamie was in a
jam. Her steady, a traveling salesman, had unexpectedly dropped in on
her — and, for some reason, likely well founded, Mamie had not intended
to let him know about her going out with another fellow.
I told Miss West that we could fix that all right, if she herself did
not have a steady sticking around somewhere. Miss West laughed, and
assured me she did not have a steady. “If agreeable,” I said, “you
shall now be my company, and, to all appearances, Mamie shall be the
hanger-on, free to desert me for her steady.” Miss West laughed again,
though she looked as if she were a little concerned about my reference
to Mamie as the new hanger-on. Well, it was a slip. It was a term often
applied to the extra girls in our Silver Stocking circle.
While visiting in Wetmore before this, Mamie had gone to a dance in
Netawaka with a local man who proved to be not to her liking, and she
had quit him cold at the dance hall door. Though it would hardly cause
a ripple now, it was then considered about the worst thing that could
happen to a young fellow’s social standing. I do not wish to identify
him—yet I must give him a name to be used in Mamie’s pay-off to me for
liberating her at the Savannah rink.
In the substitution of names, one is liable to innocently hit upon
somebody’s real name, and to avoid the possibility of making this error,
I shall give him the surname of his business partner, and go through
the customary formality of saying that any similarity in names is purely
coincidental. The man was half-owner of the livery stable from which
we all got our “rigs” that night. And, anyway, the partners left here
together for the state of Washington many, many years ago, and there
should be no chance for repercussions now.
Mamie knew that I was familiar with the Netawaka incident—in fact, it
was I who did the shifting with Sidney Loop to get her back home. When
Miss West had delivered my message, Mamie broke away from her steady,
rolled gracefully around the hall, and plumped herself down by my side,
saying, “Thank you so much! It gets me out of an awful jam! And I want
you to know that this is no Dr. Fisher deal!” I wondered? You know a
girl, in competition with other girls, might strive for long to vamp a
certain good catch—which is always a girl’s privilege—and then when the
chance offers, find herself tied up for the time being with someone that
right away stinks.
The Blakeslee family formerly lived on a farm four miles northeast of
Wetmore, directly north of the old Ham Lynn farm. Mamie’s father, Nelson
Blakeslee, often called at my father’s shoeshop for a visit. One time
they planned on chartering a car together and shipping to California. I
did not know Mamie then—but have since wondered what might have happened
had they gone through with their plans.
Evidently Mamie did not make the most of the opportunity afforded her
that night back in Savannah. She married Frank Schilling, of Hiawatha.
There were some dark surmises that she stole Caroline Emery’s beau.
“Stole” is an ugly word to be written in connection with this sweet,
conscientious girl—as I knew her then. I would rather believe that Miss
Emery’s beau was a man of rare good judgment. I have not seen Mamie
since that night at the skating rink in Savannah. Now widowed, she lives
in Fairview — thirty minutes away from Wetmore.
Back again on the main theme: In the days which followed, I said to
myself—thought it with vengeance, anyway—that I would like to see the
color of the hair of any d—d RM’s son that could make me give up this
one, meaning the “Kid,” of course. And may I say that for once I now
believed I had my girl matters well in hand.
But, believe it or not, still another son of that same rich man tried
his darndest to edge in. At this time the younger boys had the habit of
lining up on the outside of the church, at Epworth League meetings, and
grab themselves a girl, with a polite, and sometimes not so polite, “May
I “see you home?” After the third “No, thank you,” from the “Kid,” the
RM’s son told her to go to that place which is sometimes politely called
hades.
Mrs. Pheme Wood, a well meaning soul who had been an intimate friend of
our family since the first day we came here in 1869, and who apparently
took a special interest in my welfare, stopped me one day while passing
her home, and said, “There’s something I want to ask you. Of course I
don’t believe it, but I’ll ask anyway. Were you out sleigh-riding with
Myrtle Mercer the day her father lay dead in the home?”
Myrtle was the afore-mentioned “Kid.”
I had not intended to name her just yet, but her identity would have to
come out soon anyway, as she figures in this story to the end. And then
some.
“Well,” I said—but got no further. Pheme broke in, “It came to me pretty
straight, and one would think—” I stopped her with a promise to ‘fess
up, if she would not run to my mother with it. “Oh that,” she laughed,
remembering a kindred incident, “was for your own good.” She had gone
to my mother on an errand of mercy. That she had her wires badly crossed
did not deter her. She said she had it on good authority that I was
about to marry the aforesaid Old Girl, who was much too old for me; and
that my mother ought to use her influence to prevent it.
Myrtle’s father, John W. Mercer, section foreman, aged 39, had died
suddenly of a heart attack while milking his cow one morning in
February, 1888. And naturally, the family—the mother and five girls—had
to make preparations for the funeral. Myrtle had a badly sprained ankle
— acquired while ice-skating with George Peters on the creek near her
home—but she managed to hobble up town, taking her baby sister Jessie
with her. I followed them into the store, told Myrtle that I would get
a sleigh from the livery stable and take them home. After driving the
girls three blocks directly to their home, I picked up the Old Girl and
we drove for an hour or more. I knew that Frank Fisher would charge me
$2.00 anyway, and I wanted to get my money’s worth. I was seen picking
up the “Kid” at the store and later seen driving with the Old Girl,
and someone had imagined that the two girls were one and the same — and
that’s how the story got started.
When explained, Pheme could have no criticism of Myrtle, nor of me
either for driving her home. But, being a woman of the old school, she
was bound to have her say. She said, “It looks like you should have had
more respect for Myrtle than to go joy-riding with that other girl at a
time like that.” I was not sure that she didn’t have something there. I
said, “Remember, not a word to my mother.”
“Ah, go on,” she laughed.
I might say here, before passing this incident, that after the family
had split up a few years later, Myrtle was sister and mother too,
as well as guardian, for Jessie. And speaking of pretty girls, this
attractive little one had the makings of a real beauty that in later
years just about topped them all.
The rich man’s sons were all fine boys—I think—but in view of their
penchant for camping on my trail, the only compliment I wish to pay them
now is to say: They did not play poker.
My trusted friend did not marry the girl I loaned him. She went with
her parents and three brothers to Arkansas — and married down there. The
trusted friend went to the Far West, made his stake, and married into a
quite well-to-do family—and lived at Yakima, Washington.
The Old Girl got her man too—an out-of-town man — after she had quit
fooling around with the younger fry, and went with Davey Todd to
Kansas City to live. She became a helpless invalid—and then, not
having prepared himself in a financial way for such eventuality, Davey
literally and figuratively had his hands full. But, to the best of his
ability, he was good to her—carried her around as if she were a baby.
How do I know? Well, the “Kid’s” sisters, -Jennie and Kathy, neighbors
while here, helped him a lot in giving her needed attention.
And now Euphema Wood speaks again. Commenting on this unfortunate
affair, she said to me, “Now you can maybe appreciate all the grief I
saved you.”
Many years later, I met the mother of the girl whom I designated for
this writing as My Best Girl, on the train out of Kansas City going to
Atchison, her home at that time. I knew the girl had married a man whom
the family were pleased to call a Southern aristocrat, living at Bald
Knob, Arkansas. He was a merchant who carried the sharecroppers—mostly
descendants of Ham—on his books until harvest time, virtually owning
them. This gave him status in his home community, particularly with
the colored folk — and in traveling North this mark of distinction was
greatly exaggerated. From what the girl told me, while on a visit
back home, I think Mr. Walker was a worthy man—but that aristocracy
appendage, I liked it even less than I liked the means that had been
employed to push me out of the picture. It is a word that should never
have been coined. I was pleased that the girl herself made no use of it.
In the course of our talking over old times in Wetmore, the mother said,
“I never could understand why those two did not marry,” meaning her
daughter and the boy who had succeeded me. I said, “If you really want
to know,- I can tell you why. He just didn’t have the money to do it the
way she insisted on having it done, an expensive wedding, and all that.”
She, the mother, already knew why I had first gracefully tapered off,
and then backed away from it all—for the girl had told me that her
penitent mother had wanted to kick herself for speaking out of turn.
And the “Kid?” Well, wait and see. Might have to skip a few years,
though. I had not yet made that stake. In reminiscing, one is permitted
to wander about over all creation—provided, always, that he carries
along for blending purposes at least one principal character already
introduced: and makes sure to come back “home” before becoming
hopelessly entangled in a wilderness of clearly unrelated matter.
The “Kid” figures prominently in this episode.
While in Kansas City, I ran onto a street hawker selling fake “diamonds”
for one dollar each. Just for the fun of it, I bought one of the things,
brought it home and presented it to Myrtle Mercer, who was now working
in my printing office, merely to see how a diamond would affect a girl.
After showing me that her heart was in the right place, she darted out
the door before I could stop her, ran down the steps to the Means store,
and showed it to Lizzie Means; then beat it out the back door and ran
across to show it to Mamma Alma. This lady was the wife of Dr. J. W.
Graham.
Mamma Alma was sharp as all getout. Lizzie Means was a shrewd business
woman, but she had a less inquisitive mind. And I guess Myrtle was
pretty sharp too, after the first ecstatic shock had passed.
Myrtle came bounding back up to the office, and bawled me out: “Mr.
Smartie, that is going to cost you a real diamond—and a good one, too!
And I want it right now!” She had reason to believe I was holding out on
her.
I said, “All right, all right—but you can’t have it now.”
Cloy Weaver, my printer, who had been out on an errand, had come into
the office by this time. He stood there with his mouth open, wondering
what it was all about. Cloy had a girl in Stockton, California, and was
aiming to leave the next day for California to marry her. As I needed
him, and as he had told me he had a wife in the Philippines — he was a
veteran of the Spanish American War—I tried to show him that this would
be a bigamous trick. He agreed. Cloy was always agreeable. He remained
with me a while longer—and married Edna Hudson.
Lizzie told me later in the day that the bogus diamond had her fooled,
too. She laughed, “By golly, it did sparkle real prettily, didn’t it?
But it’s going to cost you a real diamond—don’t forget that. Mamma Alma
and I are not going to let Myrtle forget it either, Ough,” she shrugged,
- “that was about the dirtiest trick imaginable. And Myrtle was so
pleased! It was a shame!” And Mamma Alma had told Myrtle that it was
high time anyway for me to be giving her a “real” diamond.
The next morning Coral Locknane—Myrtle’s best friend — came to the
office, and I don’t know what all passed between the two, but it is
pretty certain they didn’t discuss trifles. The three of us went to
Kansas City on the noon train. I said to the girls, “Shall we go to
Cady & Olmstead’s or to Jaccard’s?” I had been to both places on my last
trip, and I knew they had just the right quality of sparklers to tickle
a girl’s heart—now that I knew how a girl would react. But Myrtle,
feeling pretty sure of herself, and in high good humor, said quite
emphatically, “Neither.” She looked down the street and said, “We are
going to Mercer’s on Petticoat Lane. It’s a name I believe I can trust.
You don’t think I’d let you steer me to a place like where you got that
other thing?”
When we went into the Mercer Store, Mr. Waddington, the diamond
salesman, as it happened, pushed his portly self forward, and asked,
“What will it be, please?”
I said, pretty loudly, “A diamond ring for Miss Mercer!” That claimed
the attention of the whole house—the proprietor included.
Coral had several pretty good diamonds of her own. She took a seat with
Myrtle at the salestable in the little black velvet-lined cubby corner,
while I stood back and looked on. When Mr. Waddington told them the
price of the one they had selected, Myrtle exclaimed, “Whe-e-ew!”
Then she looked to me for approval. The modest, one carat blue white
stone was in good taste, plenty big enough for a girl. Coral’s largest
diamond—at that time—was also an even carat, and she was a great help to
Myrtle in making the selection. Coral said, “It’s not good taste to have
them too big.” Later, Myrtle said earnestly and very softly, as if the
thing had taken her breath away, “Do you really think you want to stand
that much?” Mercer’s was the highest priced shop in Kansas City—but in a
case of this kind I figured that a girl must have what she wants.
Then we separated, and I went over to the Cady & Olmstead store on the
corner of 11th and Walnut, and bought for myself—or rather paid for what
I had already bought — the beautiful blue white diamond, nearly twice as
large, which Myrtle’s sister Jennie had helped me select only three days
before. Jennie had warned me not to spring that fake diamond on Myrtle.
Said it might not set just right with her. But I knew that Myrtle was
too smart a girl to let anything make her mad at me for long.
Mr. Cady said, “You are a day early—where’s the lady?” “Yes,” I said,
“I’m early. Got pushed around a little. Never mind the lady now. Though
you may still make it a Tiffany setting, but make it for this hand right
here.” He gave me a sympathetic look. Mr. Cady was such a nice man that
I felt duty bound to tell him, as nearly as I could, what had happened
to the lady.
Sometimes even quality folk didn’t get to see Mr. Cady, in person. Well,
I did—just like I said. I still have the sales ticket, dated May 12,
1903, bearing his notation, “Will exchange Tif. Belcher mounting without
cost—or diamond for other goods any time without discount.” Signed,
“Cady.”
All this was too much for Coral. A woman with money of her own can
stand only so much. She went over to Norton’s—and bought herself another
diamond, nearly twice as big as Myrtle’s. The satisfied expression on
her lovely face was something to behold. My first thoughts were
that this might call for me to do some swapping with Myrtle. But, no
sir—she’d not part with hers. If pressed, she’d claim them both. Trust a
woman!
We had to stay the night in Kansas City with Myrtle’s sisters, Jennie
and Kathy. When she got the chance, Jennie asked me, “How did it work?”
meaning the bogus diamond.
“Well,” I replied, “it looks like it hasn’t blown the top off anything
yet.” She said, “It surely does look that way now, but I wouldn’t be so
sure of it after she sees the beauty we picked out for her.”
The two country girls had talked nothing but diamonds from the time they
had entered the apartment.
The next morning the three of us started out three ways to get our
diamonds—only we didn’t do it just that way. We went the rounds in
a group. Mr. Mercer told Miss Mercer that she had selected the best
one-carat blue-white flawless diamond in his store. And he wondered if
they might not be related. Myrtle came home pretty pleased for keeps
that time.
I’ve always counted it my best investment.
THE VIGILANTES Published in Wetmore Spectator,
August 28, 1931
By John T. Bristow
There was, assuredly, need for the vigilantes at one time in the Far
West, where the idea originated and here there were no laws and no
courts other than “miner’s courts”—impromptu courts set up by the
people on the spot. But, with all the machinery of organized government
functioning normally and in most instances efficiently there in Nemaha
County, there was, seemingly, no call here for the vigilantes when they
hanged Charley Manley.
The courier-tribune
(Semi-weekly)
Geo. C. Adriance Dora Adriance
SENECA KANSAS
Aug. 28, 1931
Mr. John T. Bristow, Wetmore, Kansas.
My dear Mr. Bristow:
We have just read with a great deal of interest your article in the
Wetmore Spectator dealing with the hanging of Charley Manley. This is
the first time I have ever heard of this act of the vigilantes. We are
going to check through our files of April 1877 and see if we can find
anything relating to it. In any event, I write to ask permission to
reproduce this article in a much special issue of the Tribune we are
putting out next year to celebrate Seneca’s 75th anniversary.
The article is so well written and deals with so early history of our
county that I consider it admirably adapted to our purpose. The
next time you are in ‘Seneca I should like to have you call at The
Courier-Tribune office. I have no doubt you have a fund of other stories
that would be just as interesting.
Sincerely yours,
Geo. C. Adriance
It is a tragic story — the hanging of Manley by the vigilantes. It was
Mar. 31, 1877. I was a small boy when I first knew Charley Manley, just
about big enough to turn a grindstone, with effort. There is purpose in
this reference to the grindstone.
I remember the time very distinctly. And, with all due respect to the
memory of my departed elders—the vigilantes—if, after so many years,
I may be permitted to express myself freely and fully, I would say God
seemed to be terribly far away from the scene that night. Before going
into the details of the hanging, let us have a look into the workings of
the vigilantes—that organization of men who set itself up as judge and
jury and executioner. There was tactful veiling of the identity of the
individual members, and little is known of the inside workings of the
local vigilantes.
This much is known, however. There was one little slip — a bungle—that
was, in time, the means of disclosing the identity of the local
operators, but that secret was also carefully guarded until practically
the last one of the vigilantes has passed on to another world beyond the
reach of wagging tongues and the strong arm of organized law. There is
now only one—possibly two—of the originals left.
The vigilante organization or “Committee,” as it was called, had its
birth in the Far West, for the specific purpose of dealing with “road
agents”—banded highwaymen and murderers. The idea traveled East and the
farther it got away from the home of its origin the farther it seems to
have gotten away from its original purpose.
In the sixties and seventies vigilante committees were in evidence the
full length of the old Overland Trail, from California to Kansas, and
the fact that Wetmore and Granada had as residents a half dozen or so of
the old stage-drivers, express messengers, and pony express riders, may
account, in some measure, for the local organization of vigilantes.
And, if so, by the irony of fate, it was in the home of a former express
messenger that the vigilantes claimed their first and only victim. It is
known that at least two of the old stage employees were vigilantes.
Without question, the idea filtered in from the West. The almost
constant stream of returning gold-seekers passing through Granada over
the Old Trail at a time when the vigilantes were very active in the West
— particularly in Montana—may have scattered the seed.
While I was out in the western mining district, a quarter of a century
ago, chasing fickle fortune—which was always just a few jumps ahead of
me—I heard much about the exploits of road agents, and the work of the
vigilantes.
In the Old West, at Bannack, Virginia City, and Nevada, in the Alder
Gulch section of Montana, where a hundred million dollars in placer gold
was recovered in the early sixties, road agents plundered and killed,
without mercy.
Placer gold, as many know, is free gold that has been eroded from
exposed gold-bearing ledges and deposited in the sands and gravel along
the water courses. It was the first form of gold-mining in the West—the
lure that caused the great stampede to California in 1849. It has
rightfully been called “the poor man’s gold,” because of the comparative
ease in which it is recovered.
The flush times in the Alder Gulch section, which contained about twenty
thousand eager gold diggers, made rich pickings for the road agents.
They preyed upon individual miners, on express companies, on anyone,
anywhere they could grab gold-dust, or minted gold, the money of the
times. And they were killers, every one of them.