MEGORY'S DAY
The first day of May was a local holiday in Megory, held in honor of the
first anniversary of the day when all settlers had to be on their
claims; and it was raining. During the first years on the Little Crow we
were deluged with rainfall, but this day the inclement weather was
disregarded. It was Settler's Day and everybody for miles around had
journeyed thither to celebrate--not only Settler's Day, but also the
advent of the railroad. Only the day before, the surveyors had pitched
their tents on the outskirts of the town, and on this day they could be
seen calmly sighting their way across the south side of the embryo city.
Megory was the scene of a continuous round of revelry. Five saloons were
crowded to overflowing, and a score of bartenders served thousands of
thirsty throats; while on the side opposite from the bar, and in the
rear, gambling was in full blast. Professionals, "tin horns", and
"pikers", in their shirt sleeves worked away feverishly drawing in and
paying money to the crowd that surged around the Roulette, the
Chuck-luck, and the Faro-bank. It seemed as though everybody drank and
gambled. "This is Megory's Day", they called between drinks, and it
would echo with "have another," "watch Megory grow."
Written in big letters and hung all along the streets were huge signs
which read "Megory, the gateway to a million acres of the richest land
in the world." "Megory, the future metropolis of the Little Crow, Watch
her grow! Watch her grow!" The board walk four feet wide could not hold
the crowd. It was a day of frenzied celebration--a day when no one dared
mention Nicholson's name unless they wanted to hear them called liars,
wind jammers, and all a bluff.
Ernest was still in the East and no one seemed to know where he was, or
what he was doing. The surveyors had passed through Megory and extended
the survey to the county line, five miles west of the town. The
right-of-way man was following and had just arrived from Hedrick and
Kirk, where he had made the same offer he was now making Megory. "If" he
said, addressing the "town dads" and he seemed to want it clearly
understood, "the C. & R.W. builds to Megory, we want you to buy the
right-of-way three miles east and four miles west of the town."
Then Governor Reulback, known as the "Squatter Governor," acting as
spokesman for the citizens, arose from his seat on the rude platform,
and before accepting the proposition--needless to say it was
accepted--called on different individuals for short talks. Among others
he called on Ernest Nicholson; but Frank, the Junior member of the firm,
arose and answered that Ernest was away engaged in purchasing the C. &
R.W. railroad and that he, answering for Ernest, had nothing to say. A
hush fell on the crowd, but Governor Reulbach, who possessed a well
defined sense of humor, responded with a joke, saying, "Mr. Nicholson's
being away purchasing the C. & R.W. railroad reminds me of the Irishman
who played poker all night, and the next morning, yawning and stretching
himself, said, 'Oi lost nine hundred dollars last night and seven and
one-half of it was cash.'"
The backbone of the town was beginning to weaken, while there were many
who continued to insist that there was hope. Others contracted
rheumatism from vigils at the surveyor's camp, in vain hope of gaining
some information as to the proposed direction of the right-of-way. The
purchasing of the right-of-way and the unloading of carload after
carload of contracting material at Oristown did little to encourage the
belief that there was a ghost of a show for Calias.
In a few days corral tents were decorating the right-of-way at intervals
of two miles, all the way from Oristown to Megory. In the early morning,
as the sound of distant thunder, could be heard the dull thud of clods
and dirt dropping into the wagon from the elevator of the excavator;
also the familiar "jup" and the thud of the "skinner's" lines as they
struck the mules, in Calias one and one-half miles away.
A very much discouraged and weary crowd met Ernest when he returned, but
even in defeat this young man's personality was pleasing. He was frank
in telling the people that he had done all that he could. He had gone to
Omaha where his father in-law joined him, thence to Des Moines, where
his father maintained his office as president of an insurance company,
that made loans on Little Crow land. Together with two capitalists,
friends of his father, they had gone into Chicago and held a conference
with Marvin Hewitt, President of the C. & R.W. who had showed them the
blue prints, and, as he put it, any reasonable man could see it would be
utterly impossible to strike Calias in the route they desired to go. The
railroad wanted to strike the Government town sites, but the president
told them that if at any time he could do them a favor to call on him,
and he would gladly do so.
In a few days a man named John Nodgen came to Calias. Towns which had
failed to get a road looked upon him in the way a sick man would an
undertaker. He was a red-haired Irishman with teeth wide apart and
wildish blue eyes, who had the reputation of moving more towns than any
other one man. He brought horses and wagons, block and tackle, and
massive steel trucks. He swore like a stranded sailor, and declared they
would hold up any two buildings in Calias.
The saloon was the first building deserted. The stock had not been
removed when the house movers arrived, and in some way they got the door
open and helped themselves to the "booze," and when full enough to be
good and noisy, began jacking up the building that had been the pride of
the hopeful Caliasites. In a few weeks a large part of what had been
Calias was in Megory and a small part in Kirk.
It had stopped raining for a while, and several large buildings were
still on the move to Megory when the rain set in again. This was the
latter part of July and how it did rain, every day and night. One store
building one hundred feet long had been cut in two so as to facilitate
moving, and the rains caught it half way on the road to Megory. After
many days of sticking and floundering around in the mud, at a cost of
over fourteen hundred dollars for the moving alone, not counting the
goods spoiled, it arrived at its new home. The building in the beginning
had cost only twenty-three hundred dollars, out of which thirty cents
per hundred had been paid for local freighting from Oristown. The
merchant paid one thousand dollars for his lot in Megory, and received
ten dollars for the one he left in Calias.
This was the reason why Rattlesnake Jack's father and I could not get
together when he came out and showed me Rattlesnake Jack's papers. It
was bad and I readily agreed with him. I also agreed to sign a quit
claim deed, thereby clearing the place, so she could complete her proof.
Everything went along all right, until it came to signing up. Then I
suggested that as I had broken eighty acres of prairie, the railroad was
in course of construction, and land had materially increased in
valuation--having sold as high as five thousand dollars a quarter
section--I should have a guarantee that he would sell the place back to
me when the matter had been cleared up.
"I will see that you get the place back"--he pretended to reassure
me--"when she proves up again."
"Then we will draw up an agreement to that effect and make it one
thousand dollars over what I paid", I suggested.
[Illustration: Everybody for miles around had journeyed thither to
celebrate. (Page 108.)]
"I will do nothing of the kind," he roared, brandishing his arms as
though he wanted to fight, "and if you will not sign a quit claim
without such an agreement, I will have Jack blow the whole thing, that
is what I will do, do you hear?" He fairly yelled, leaning forward and
pointing his finger at me in a threatening manner.
"Then we will call it off for today," I replied with decision, and we
did. I confess however, I was rather frightened. In the beginning I had
not worried, as he held a first mortgage of one thousand, five hundred
dollars, I had felt safe and thought that they had to make good to me in
order to protect their own interests. But now as I thought the matter
over it began to look different. If he should have her relinquish, then
where would I be, and the one thousand, five hundred dollars I had paid
them?
I was very much disturbed and called on Ernest Nicholson and informed
him how the matter stood. He listened carefully and when I was through
he said:
"They gave you a warranty deed, did they not?"
"Yes, I replied, it is over at the bank of Calias."
"Then let it stay there. Tell him, or the old man rather, to have the
girl complete sufficient residence, then secure you for all the place is
worth at the time; then, and not before, sign a quit claim, and if they
want to sell you the place, well and good; if not, you will have enough
to buy another." And I followed his advice.
It was fourteen months, however, before the Scotch-Irish blood in him
would submit to it. But there was nothing he could do, for the girl had
given me a deed to something she did not have title to herself, and had
accepted one thousand, five hundred dollars in cash from me in return.
As the matter stood, I was an innocent party.
About this time I became imbued with a feeling that I would like "most
awfully well" to have a little help-mate to love and cheer me. How often
I longed for company to break the awful and monotonous lonesomeness that
occasionally enveloped me. At that time, as now, I thought a darling
little colored girl, to share all my trouble and grief, would be
interesting indeed. Often my thoughts had reverted to the little town in
Illinois, and I had pictured Jessie caring for the little sod house and
cheering me when I came from the fields. For a time, such blissful
thoughts sufficed the longing in my heart, but were soon banished when I
recalled her seeming preference for the three dollar a week menial,
another attack of the blues would follow, and my day dreams became as
mist before the sun.
About this time I began what developed into a flirtatious correspondence
with a St. Louis octoroon. She was a trained nurse; very attractive, and
wrote such charming and interesting letters, that for a time they
afforded me quite as much entertainment, perhaps more, than actual
company would have done. In fact I became so enamored with her that I
nearly lost my emotional mind, and almost succumbed to her encouragement
toward a marriage proposal. The death of three of my best horses that
fall diverted my interest; she ceased the epistolary courtship, and I
continued to batch.
Doc, my big horse, got stuck in the creek and was drowned. The loss of
Doc was hardest for me to bear, for he was a young horse, full of life,
and I had grown fond of him. Jenny mule would stand for hours every
night and whinny for him.
In November, Bolivar, his mate--the horse I had paid one hundred and
forty dollars for not nine months before--got into the wheat, became
foundered, and died.
While freighting from Oristown, in December, one of a team of dapple
grays fell and killed himself. So in three months I lost three horses
that had cost over four hundred dollars, and the last had not even been
paid for. I had only three left, the other dapple gray, Jenny mule, and
"Old Grayhead," the relic of my horse-trading days. I had put in a large
crop of wheat the spring before and had threshed only a small part of it
before the cold winter set in, and the snow made it quite impossible to
complete threshing before spring.
That was one of the cold winters which usually follow a wet summer, and
I nearly froze in my little old soddy, before the warm spring days set
in. Sod houses are warm as long as the mice, rats, and gophers do not
bore them full of holes, but as they had made a good job tunneling mine,
I was left to welcome the breezy atmosphere, and I did not think the
charming nurse would be very happy in such a mess "nohow." The thought
that I was not mean enough to ask her to marry me and bring her into it,
was consoling indeed.
Since I shall have much to relate farther along concerning the curious
and many sided relations that existed between Calias, Megory, and other
contending and jealous communities, let me drop this and return to the
removal of Calias to Megory.
The Nicholson Brothers had already installed an office in the
successful town, and offered to move their interests to that place and
combine with Megory in making the town a metropolis. But the town dads,
feeling they were entirely responsible for the road striking the town,
with the flush of victory and the sensation of empire builders,
disdained the offer.
In this Megory had made the most stupid mistake of her life, and which
later became almost monumental in its proportions. It will be seen how
in the flush of apparent victory she lost her head, and looked back to
stare and reflect at the retreating and temporary triumph of her youth;
and in that instant the banner of victory was snatched from her fingers
by those who offered to make her apparent victory real, and who ran
swiftly, skillfully, and successfully to a new and impregnable retreat
of their own.
The Megory town dads were fairly bursting with rustic pride, and were
being wined and dined like kings, by the citizens of the town--who had
contributed the wherewith to pay for the seven miles of right-of-way.
Besides, the dads were puffed young roosters just beginning to crow, and
were boastful as well. So Nicholson Brothers got the horse laugh, which
implied that Megory did not need them. "We have made Megory and now
watch her grow. Haw! Haw! Haw! Watch her grow," came the cry, when the
report spread that the town dads had turned Nicholson's offer down.
Megory was the big I am of the Little Crow. Then Ernest went away on
another long trip. It was cold weather, with the ground frozen, when he
returned.