As you drive from Topeka to the stone bridge, just before you enter
the valley, you notice what may appear to be a road extending
eastward between two fences set about thirty feet apart. The way is
rough and stony, and full of weeds and brush, and if you ask whether
it is a laid-out road, you will be informed that it is, and that
years ago road viewers went over it and established it as one of the
public roads of Shawnee County. If you ask whether it was ever
traveled, the answer will be, "no." And if you ask why it was laid
out, this will be the explanation:
William Cartmill, a tall, vigorous, turbulent Irishman, owned the
land to the north. George Franks, a hard-working, sturdy, honest,
conservative Englishman owned the land to the south. They never
agreed about anything. Franks was a church man, and loved peace and
quiet. Stern necessity had taught him the ways of a pioneer. He could
build a good log house without a nail or any other article that would
cost money, and with very few tools beside his ax and broadax.
Cartmill paid no attention to the church, and was always in a row of
some kind. He had a good heart, but he was naturally full of
devilment, and he enjoyed making trouble for Franks. He soon learned
that Franks was afraid of him, or at least he treated Franks as
though he were. The fact was, that the Englishman did not fear him,
but simply wanted to avoid trouble with him; but it was all the same
to Cartmill, and gave him an excuse for making Franks all the trouble
he could. He found Franks starting to build a fence one day along the
line, and went out and ordered him off, and yelled after him as he
went:
"You know bloody well that the line's four hundred yards further
south, and if I catch yez here any more I'll cut your heart out and
set it up on a sharp rock."
Of course, Franks was right about the line, but Cartmill quarreled
with him until it became necessary to get a county surveyor to make a
definite location and plant the corner-stone. Franks then built a
fence just two feet south of the line, and as soon as he finished it
Cartmill hitched onto it. This gave Cartmill the use of the fence and
two feet of the Franks land. Of course, Franks didn't like this, and
he tried to find some legal way to get rid of the annoyance without
bringing a direct suit against Cartmill, and so he petitioned for a
road to be laid out. The neighbors helped him with it, although they
all knew that the road never would be traveled, and thus it was that
years ago there was established a laid-out road along the brow of the
Wakarusa hills, running over gullies and bluffs where no one would or
could travel.
Cartmill used the lane for a calf pasture in the summer and a place
to shoot rabbits in the winter, and always claimed that he had the
best of the row.
To this day the lane is a rendezvous for rabbit and quail, and as the
country boys tramp through it they thank all the lucky stars for the
row between the English and the Irish.