Part 10

Then one day it happened. When the banker’s head showed above the level of the floor, every printer made a break for cover—that is, got quickly out of range of possible feudal bullets. The banker did not come up with his hands in the air. Nor did Reynolds lay aside his gun, as he had done a few days before while discussing matters with a woman. But then, it was said, the woman had no grievance with the editor. She merely wanted to know how he had found out so much about her man and the other woman — things that would be helpful in the matter of obtaining a divorce. And so far as we—the printers — were to know, the banker might also have had no grievance with the editor. It was apparently only a business discussion.

As an indication of the stakes Reynolds was playing for, I cite this case. A tired, overworked, Commercial street business man—and family man—was reportedly seen crossing the river bridge with another man’s wife. The incident rated only five lines. Somehow the tired merchant got hold of a first copy of the afternoon paper—and it was said, paid $500 to have the objectionable five lines lifted before the edition was printed. And I still think Reynolds had engineered matters so that the overworked merchant could have a look-see in plenty of time to act.

I had set that five line item. But I balked, later, when I got a “take” attacking one of Atchison’s foremost professional men, involving a woman, who, of all women, in her most respectable churchy connection, should have been above reproach. I gave that “take” and my “string”—type set that morning—to a printer whose case was next to mine; and called for my time.

Nannie Reynolds, the publisher’s pretty 18-year-old daughter—she was really pretty—gave me a statement of the amount due me. Ordinarily, it would have been the foreman’s place to attend to this matter, but, unfortunately, he was in jail—said to have been put there because of his position on the paper, but more likely for a night’s celebration. Oldtime printers thought they had to go on periodical “busts” to ward off lead poisoning caused from handling so much type. And, incidentally, I had declined to take the foreman’s place—that is, the foremanship of the Times, while the ranking man was confined in the City bastile.

I took the statement Nannie had given me down stairs to Scott Hall, who was to be the cashier of a new bank not yet formally opened, in that building—but he had been paying the paper bills. Scott said he had paid out all he was going to until more definite arrangements could be made. I went back to Reynolds. He grabbed up a full blank newspaper sheet and wrote in six-inch letters diagonally across from corner to corner: “Pay this man $17.65.” Scott Hall reluctantly went into the vault and brought out the money. He said, “This IS THE LAST. You can count yourself lucky in getting away now.”

I learned later that the tall Irishman who so bravely took my “string,” did not profit by it. In fact, there were no more payments. And, with the publisher in the penitentiary and a portion of his printing plant in the Missouri river, the Times also was no more. Atchison’s enraged “good” people did not overlook any bets. Reynolds was caught in a Federal net, charged with irregularities while president of a defunct Atchison Live Stock Insurance Company.

Reynold’s wife died a few months after he was taken to Leavenworth. He was permitted to come home for the funeral, under guard, of course. Nannie had neither brother nor sister. Thus, she was now left entirely alone. It is always a very sad thing for a beautiful young girl to be left out in a cold world alone.

While in the pen, Reynolds wrote a book, “The Kansas Hell.” In fact, he wrote two books—the other one, “Twin Hells.” He had been in the pen in another state—Iowa, I believe. After his release from the Kansas penitentiary, John N. Reynolds drove into Wetmore with four large gray horses hitched to a spring wagon, carrying his books and four male gospel singers. He made a stand in front of the old Wetmore House, and sold his books. He spotted me in the crowd, nodded a greeting, and later gave me a hearty handshake—and a copy of his Kansas Hell.

Like Howe, and Runyan, and Twain—all good newspapermen—my formal schooling was negligible. I did not work up to the big school in Wetmore, on the hilltop. Also I did not graduate. I do not know if I got as high as the eighth grade, or even far along in the grammar school. The one-room, one-teacher school down town had no grades. But I do know I wouldn’t study my grammar. And I now know too that this was one regrettable mistake.

If it had not been for the ravenous grasshoppers — 1874 — and other calamitous visitations upon us in those pioneer days it might not have been so, but the fact is, I quit school at the age of fourteen to help my father earn money to take care of his family while he himself was industriously engaged in bringing in new recruits for the school. The tenth one was the only girl—and to be brought up with a bunch of “roughneck” boys, she was a pretty good kid. And smart too. She studied her grammar in the first school house on the hilltop.

Nannie and my brother Theodore are, besides myself, all there are left of the once big family. They are, and have been for forty-five years, living in Fresno, California — now at 1005 Ferger avenue. Theodore was the seventh son, but contrary to ancient superstition, he has displayed no supernatural talent. He is now, and has been for forty years, in the employ of the Southern Pacific railroad, at Fresno. Theodore was the last born of twins. Willie, the first born—and sixth in line—died when about a year old. And Joseph, my youngest brother, lived only nine months.

Me, I was just a darned good printer—a “swift,” if you please—trying, lamely, to fill an outsize editorial chair. And it was Myrtle Mercer—later my wife—who, as compositor, took the kinks out of my grammar. The hard and fast printer’s rule to “follow copy if it goes out the window,” was something to be ignored in my office. And though she has been dead now since 1925, that ever helpful girl still is, in a manner, taking the kinks out of my grammar—I hope. The pain of shop-acquired grammar is that one never knows for sure just how faulty his English might be.

Getting back to the dominating character of this story, during that morning call at The Spectator office, Mr. Henry stepped over to where The Girl was setting type, saying, “I should know, Miss Myrtle, without asking that you must have enjoyed the Peak trip.” Their eyes sparkled as they talked it over. Though months and years had passed since the day he made the trip with the Handley girl, Mr. Henry was still feeling the exhilaration of it.

The Spectator office was over the W. H. Osborn shoe store on a corner across the street from the DeForest mercantile corner. Hardly had Mr. Henry gotten back to his store when Myrtle, looking out the window, exclaimed, “My gosh—the chaperon! Look out below!” Seeing the chaperon heading for the shoe store, caused Myrtle to say to me, “It looks as if some of you brilliant fraters of Faber could have foreseen the damage to be done by that foolhardy plunge down the gravel slide.” She had picked up the term, “fraters of Faber,” in the parlors of the Alamo hotel when the party was welcomed by Mayor Sprague, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Pike’s Peak Press Club.

The shoe merchant’s wife had taken care of the store during his absence, and was still on duty. Somehow, during the hour’s visit, the merchant slipped a pair of new shoes to the chaperon—as was quite proper, since he had led her down that gravel slide. But his wife seemingly was not an understanding woman. She followed the chaperon to the railroad station, and recovered the shoes. No blows, no hair pulling—not at the depot, anyway.

Another time, while ostensibly vacationing in Colorado—Colorado again, I’m sure it was—Mr. Henry had a couple of fine flannel shirts washed by a Chinese laundry-man in Grass Valley, California, and they had shrunk so badly that he put them back in stock in his store. I’m positive he told me they were laundered in Grass Valley. Those fine shirts were to be taken on another outing in Colorado, and one of them got up Pike’s Peak, too—but those shirts did not find their way to Grass Valley this time. I know. I wore them.

Years after that sad trip to Omaha, and after he had thrown his fortunes in with the younger set, Mr. Henry married a mighty fine Wetmore girl, a school teacher—Miss Anna Gill. The marriage license gave their ages as over 21, which was correct as far as it went. A closer tab would have revealed his age as being somewhere around 54, and hers a full decade above the stated figure. This romance also “hung fire” for several years. In fact, it was hard to tell just when it began.

More than once have I walked with Mr. Henry the mile to her country home, when I thought my friend Alex Hamel, or maybe Rodman DeForest, or Johnny Thomas, or my brother Sam, was the top man there. We were not, of course—Mr. Henry and I—walking out together of a Sunday evening to see the same girl, but had I been pressed to make a choice of the half dozen girls who congregated there, Miss Anna would have been that one. It was not clear to all just who was going to see whom.

Alex Hamel’s most cherished memory of his suit was the fact—so he told me—that while walking out in the night with Mr. Henry and the girl, arms in arms, Alex on one side and the tall stately highbred gentleman (Alex’s description) on the other side, he had reached over and kissed Miss Anna. Alex did not say whether or not she had inclined her head toward him for the reception of that kiss in the dark.

It was no comedown for the “highbred gentleman” when he married the harness-maker’s daughter. Mr. Henry died, in retirement, in 1917. His widow and son Carroll, later, moved to Boise, Idaho. Augusta Ann DeForest died in 1895. Her husband, Isaac Newton DeForest, had died ten years earlier.

During a ten days stay in Los Angeles, following Christmas (1947), at the home of my nephew, W. G. Bristow, and his wife Ethel, and visiting the Weavers — Raymond, Nellie, and Miss Cloy—Tom DeForest called with a new automobile and drove me to his home at Santa Anita, a restricted residential section in the foothills, where I met his wife Hilda, his daughter Mary, and his son Tommy. He also drove me over to the west side to call on the Larzeleres — Ed, Mabel, Ella and her husband Lester Hatch, and their daughter Miss Drusilla, who writes feature (society) articles for the Los Angeles Sunday Times. Tom, son of Moulton and Mary (Thomas) DeForest, is in possession of the original DeForest family bible. From those records, and from Tom himself, I verified facts set forth in this article.

Tom DeForest has a $50,000 home only a little way up the canyon from the famous Santa Anita race track. After showing me through the home and we were on our way out, Tom spied some freshly baked pumpkin pies on a table. I imagine they were pies baked for a family outing “below the border” in Old Mexico, where Tom said they were going the following morning for a three-day fishing trip. He said, “I think we ought to have a piece of pie and a glass of milk before we go over to Larzelere’s.” While eating the pie, Tom expounded glibly, as only a DeForest could, on his liking for pumpkin pies in general and particularly the one we were eating—and his detestation of the so-called pumpkin pies made from squash. As we were going out the door, his wife whispered to me, “I made that pie out of Tom’s despised squash which he grew himself here in the garden.” Tom has an extra lot back of his residence where he digs in the good earth to keep himself fit.

T. M. DeForest is a former Wetmore boy who made good. He told me that when he landed in Los Angeles about 1908, Ed (Bogs) Graham, another Wetmore boy, staked him to a meal ticket. As we were driving past the business location — confectionery store, I believe — of Ed’s twin daughters, Marion and Maxine, very close to the Larzelere home, Tom said he had a warm spot in his heart for the girls because of the lift he had gotten from their father, long since dead, when things looked pretty blue for him.

Tom DeForest started his restaurant career with a push-cart, peddling hamburgers and beans of evenings, while studying law during the day — just to please his father. The hamburger and bean business grew beyond all expectations—and Tom soon forgot about his father’s wish that he study law. Tom did not travel the streets with his push-cart. He stored it back of a bank building in the daytime, and brought it out only of evenings — keeping late hours, and quite often “wee” hours. When he housed the business at 2420 North Broadway, it became “Ptomaine Tommy’s Place.” And it continued to grow. The name made it famous. Tom told me he could sell the business for $100,000—but he didn’t know what to do with the money. Then, too, I suspect, the complicated income tax demands was also a deterrent. That’s what has stopped Jim Leibig — another Wetmore boy who has made good, at Santa Ana — from turning a big profit. I think Jim could clean up with as much, or maybe more, than Tom.

Tom DeForest has leased the business to his former help for a percentage of the profits. He goes to the place only once every day now, (12 o’clock, noon), to check up — and gather in the cash. Pretty soft, Tommy—pretty soft.

Now, was there ever another man like Henry Clay DeForest? Certainly not in Wetmore. Mr. Henry was my hero, had been so since the time of his partnership here with Seth Handley, when I was eleven years old, “under foot” much of the time in their establishment. And I should have liked very much to have seen his romance with Seth’s sister materialize. Although I had seen her but once, I had come to think of her as an exceptionally desirable lady, a lovely personage like her wonderful brother Seth. And though it came to naught, I still think it was, in a way, the most beautiful romance that I have ever known; with the lady waiting—waiting unto death for the clouds to roll by.

And even with the handicap of being influenced by an aristocratic mother — if it really were a handicap — Mr. Henry rose, in a community dead set against such holdings, to the heights in popularity. He was the almost perfect man — a man after my own heart, and even now it pleases me no little to remember that I had selected him as my hero early in life.

SMALLPOX PESTILENCE Not Hitherto Published—1947.

By John T. Bristow

Don’t be frightened. On paper, smallpox is not contagious. That is, usually it isn’t. But I shall cite one case where it might have been. Had you been living here in Wetmore fifty years ago, it would have been about a hundred to one chance that you would have backed away from the mere mention of smallpox.

Some five hundred others did just that.

It was my first and only experience with the loathsome disease. Also it was the first — and last — case of smallpox the town ever had. There were among us, however, several sorry looking walking testimonials of what that pestilence could do to one’s face. Elva Kenoyer, in her twenties, unattached and so remaining to the end, was horribly pitted. E. S. Frager, the furniture dealer, got his pits elsewhere. Eli Swerdfeger, a retired farmer, had ’ em all over his face, and deep too. And though he was at that time making his living by doing odd jobs about town, he wouldn’t for love or money attend me. Said he had his family to consider.

And Eugene Dorcas, living in the country at the time — later in Wetmore—had smallpox so badly that the soles of his feet had come off like a rattlesnake sheds its skin. But, at that, he had nothing on me.

Dr. J. W. Graham, the old family physician, was called in—and, as a mark of courtesy to me, or perhaps more correctly as a beginning for launching his son just out of medical school on a like career, brought Dr. Guy S. Graham along with him. And, in a manner, it was Guy’s first professional case. They found that I was running a temperature of 105, and mighty sick, but no signs or even thought of smallpox—yet. The young doctor remained with me after the old doctor had gone to the drugstore to get a prescription filled. He sat on the edge of my bed, just visiting.

At that time, there was a lot of smallpox in Kansas City, and I had been there about ten days before with a mixed carload of hogs and cattle — owned in partnership with my brother Theodore—from my Bancroft farm. Also, I had occupied a seat in the railroad coach coming home, with George Fundis. He spoke of the prevalence of smallpox in Kansas City, and his fear of contracting it—and then proceeded to have his attack almost at once on getting back to his home in Centralia. He might have been a carrier. George was a stockbuyer—but before this time, he owned and operated a general store at Ontario.

On the following morning after the Drs. Graham had visited me, I noticed red spots deep under the skin in the palms of my hands. They worried me. I sent word to Dr. J. W. Graham appraising him of my fears, and asked him to not come back. And the young doctor rushed out immediately and buried his clothes. However, the old doctor was not frightened — so he said. But he called up the County Health Officer and scared the “puddin’ ” out of him.

I had Dr. Graham send for Dr. Charley Howe, of Atchison, known as “The Smallpox Doctor,” on account of his having stamped out an epidemic at Lenora with his vinegar treatment, or rather his vinegar preventive.

Dr. Howe first had a talk with Dr. Graham, and decided I did not have it. He came to see me without putting on his rubber suit. On first entering the room, however, he said, “You don’t need to tell me anything, you’ve got it, I can smell it—but I thought you were so scared of catching it, that you would never get it.”

A few weeks before this I had met Dr. Howe at the depot in Wetmore, while on his way to Centralia to see a man whom the local doctor believed might be coming down with smallpox. I had known Charley Howe for a long time — had worked with him on his brother Ed’s Daily Globe in Atchison, and worked for Charley on his Greenleaf newspaper before he was a doctor. When he stepped off the train to tell me about his findings, I hung back a little from the start, but when he said the fellow was broken out, I backed still farther away from him before he had got around to saying it was not smallpox. Dr. Howe laughed about this, and said, “Oh, you’ll never get it.”

The doctor asked me if I had a shotgun? I told him Dad had one in the kitchen. He said, “You better have it brought in here. If the people try to force you away to a pest house, stand them off with it. To move you now would mean almost sure death.” Dr. Howe told my sister Nannie — she had been attending me up to this time, and thought she was in for it too—that she could continue waiting on me, without risk, if she would ring off my bed with chairs”, come into the room as little as possible, not touch dishes or anything else handled by me, without rubber gloves—and take the vinegar preventive, she would be safe. He said the danger was not so much with the first fever stage, as later.

The doctor said I should eat no solids; nothing but soft food for eight days— “ and then,” he laughed, “you’ll not care to eat solids or anything else, for awhile.” That’s when the smallpox patient erupts internally. We settled on cream of wheat, and my sister, not getting the short term well fixed in mind, kept me on that one diet for forty-two days—long after I was well enough to get out. The County Health Officer was afraid to come down from Seneca to release me. He took plenty of time, and then without ever seeing me, issued an order for my release, with a “guess so” attachment.

My sister Nannie, at seventeen, was rather plump — not bulky fat—but after the vinegar treatment she came out as slim as a race horse, and has been trim ever since. An awful lot of cider vinegar —it had to be cider vinegar — was consumed in Wetmore that winter. I believe the vinegar produced an acid blood.

On the first afternoon when the fever was making me pretty stupid, I had spent maybe a half hour sitting by the stove in Bud Means’ store, below the printing office. Near by, there was a water bucket, with dipper, for everybody’s use. I did not drink at the public bucket that day — but when it became known that I had a high fever at that very time, and was now down with smallpox, it was but natural for Bud to imagine that I had tried to cool my fever with several trips to his water bucket. And there was no imagination about the quaff he himself had taken from that dipper, after I had left. Bud told me after I had gotten out—not right away, you can bet your life—that it almost made him sick.

With Elva’s and Eli’s pockmarked faces constantly in mind, I laid awake nights to make sure that I would not, in my sleep, scratch my face, or misplace the slipperyelm poultice, done in cheesecloth, in which my face was swathed. And then, even then, it was awful, a mass of apparently disfigurating open pustules, with face redder than a spanked baby.

After my face had come back to somewhere near normal, I sent my neighbor, Ed Reitzel, up to B. O. Bass’ barber shop to buy—not borrow—a razor and mug, aiming to use them only once. Then, before I had started on that oh-so-awful looking face, I began to wonder if maybe Byron had not sent me his “deadman’s” razor, and I had to send Ed back to make sure about that. I knew that Byron, when telling one of his funny barbershop stories, was liable to do and say things off key. One time he poured nearly a whole bottle of hairoil on my head—which I had not ordered, and didn’t want—while he was looking away from his work, and laughing at his own funny story. Then I had to have a shampoo before I could go to “protracted” meeting that night.

Fixed up with Byron’s razor, I looked a little more like myself, and was now ready to hold an appointment with my girl, who was also the manager of my newspaper business, with the alternate help of Herb Wait and Jim Harvey Hyde, of the Centralia Journal. She had secured for me from General Passenger Agent Barker in St. Louis a pass over the MK&T railroad, to Galveston. George Cawood had sent me word not to show up at his store for awhile after I would get out, and I knew that all the town people were feeling the same way about me. Hence the trip to the gulf.

As instructed, Myrtle met me at the front gate of her home, handed me my credentials and the money she had gotten for me, stood off a reasonable distance, also as per instructions, and said, “You look like the devil.” The cold had enhanced the “splendor” of the blemishes on my face. If she could have said further, “But I still love you in the same old way,” it would have been a more cheerful sendoff for the long journey ahead of me.

But Myrtle was too busy trying to tell me how she had managed my business. She didn’t know it, but she herself had, in prospect, a substantial interest in the printery. Before leaving the office on that dreadful day when my fever was at high pitch—I mean actual temperature—I deposited in my desk a check written in her favor, with no ifs or ands attached, for an amount which would have come near bankrupting me as of the moment—even as I have now, since I am no longer a family man, set aside the residue of my possessions, if any, in favor of the sister who had so bravely, at the risk of her face and figure, stood by me through that smallpox ordeal.