Part 11

After getting settled in bed that first night, I told my sister about the check in my desk, and also told her that I wanted her to see that it be paid, if, and when, it would appear appropriate to do so. I was remembering at the time the case of Myran Ash and Ella Wolverton, south of town. Ella had waited on him in his last sickness, and in the meantime picked up Myran’s check for $1,000. His relatives tried, but failed, to prevent her from cashing the check.

When I boarded the train at Wetmore that same day, Charley Fletcher, the conductor, coming down the aisle gathering tickets, stopped stock-still, and backed up a few steps, when he saw me. He wouldn’t touch my Mo. Pacific pass until I had explained that it had been in the office all the time during my sickness.

After first calling on my doctor, I stopped in Atchison long enough to buy a suit of clothes and other needed articles. I had left home wearing an old suit, “borrowed” from Ed Murray. On leaving the clothing store I met, or came near meeting, Mr. Redford, bookkeeper at the Green-leaf-Baker grain elevator, whom I knew quite well, having shipped grain to the firm. Taking to the street, he shied around me, but he had the decency to laugh about it—and told me that I would see Frank Crowell, of the firm, at Galveston, if I were going that way. The Kansas Grain Dealers Association was to hold a meeting in Galveston two days hence.

On my way to a barbershop down the street, I had a chat with my doctor again. He was standing on the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps leading up to his office, grinning. He said, “Well, your conductor came along while I was standing here, and I asked him what did he mean by bringing that smallpox patient down from Wetmore?” Dr. Howe laughed, and said, “You know, I thought that poor fellow was going to collapse on the sidewalk, and I had to tell him quickly that you couldn’t give it to anyone if you would try.”

There was one small spot on my jaw that had not properly healed, and I had asked the doctor earlier, in the office, if he thought it might cause the barber to ask questions? He said, “No, no—just go in and say nothing.” But after we had talked awhile on the sidewalk, he said, “You better hunt a fire before you go to the barbershop. Your face is as spotted as a leopard.”

At Galveston, I met Mrs. Poynter—she was our Bancroft correspondent—with several of the grainmen’s wives. Usually very sociable, she acted as if she were looking for a chance to run, and I backed out of a rather embarrassing position. Evidently not knowing of my smallpox siege, Secretary E. J. Smiley gave me a cordial ham, even laughed as if he were remembering the illegal grain contract which he and my local competitor had virtually forced upon me, “for benefit of the Association” — a similar one of like illegality, which had, reputedly, within a few weeks therefrom, got someone a 30-day jail sentence at Salina. Other acquaintances in the grain dealers party acted as if they could get along very well without me—and I troubled them no more.

Back home, the people gradually stopped their shying, and in the week I waited for the County Health Officer’s instructions for fumigating the house, I talked matters over with the family. For the peace of mind of our town people, it was decided that everything in the smallpox house should be burned—and my parents and my sister would go to Fresno, California, where my brothers Dave and Frank were in business.

My Aunt Nancy, with her husband, Bill Porter, drove in from their Wolfley creek home, and had dinner with the folks the day I was to start the fires. Bill Porter said it would be rank foolishness for us to burn the stuff. I said, “All right, Bill; drive by this afternoon and I’ll load your wagon.” He said, quickly, “Don’t want any of the things — on account of our neighbors.”

Several years later, the Porter family all had smallpox—and Bill, the elder, died of it. And Bill, the second — there is a third Bill Porter, and a fourth Bill Porter now — tells me that not for six months thereafter did they have callers. Had I loaded his wagon that day of my fire, the loss of my uncle would have made it regrettable—but I don’t think that I would have allowed him to cart away anything, even had he accepted my offer.

Jessie Bryant’s three-months old daughter, Violet, was first in the Porter family to have it, and she was thought to have contracted the disease in a rather peculiar way. Jessie was holding the baby on her lap as she read a letter from her husband, Lon Bryant, who was working in Nebraska, saying he would have to move from the place he was staying, on account of the people in the home having smallpox.

The burning of the things was mostly done that afternoon, but the fumigation would carry over into the next day. To avoid an extra scrubbing of myself, with change of clothing twice, I planned to stay that night in the house, and held back one bed and some bedding. It was in the same room I had occupied, and was first to be fumigated. It would get another dose of brimstone the next day, after the room would be cleared. I opened all windows and one outer door, but the room did not air out readily. The brimstone had penetrated the bed covers so as to make them squeak under touch, and I could hardly get my breath in the room. It was almost dark, and quite cold. I could not sit by an open window, through the night. Then I thought of a roll of linoleum in the kitchen. I put one end of the rolled linoleum in the bed and stuck the other end out the window. With the coat I had worn that day wrapped around my neck, I got in bed, covered up head and foot, stuck my face in the funnel, chinked around with the old coat, and got through the night very well—with little sleep, however.

Our close neighbors did not show undue fright. In fact, they volunteered assistance while the home was under quarantine—but they had the good sense to limit their visits to the middle of the road in front of the house. My brother Sam got out before the red flag was posted, and took refuge in his mobile photo gallery. My father got caught, with my mother, in the kitchen—and remained there and in a connecting bedroom until permitted by the proper authorities to go to his shoeshop. And there, save for one lone kid, he had no callers, for the duration—but, with the help of this boy runner he kept the supply line open to the quarantined house. Louie Gibbons, half-brother of “Spike” Wilson, our old Spectator’s celebrated “Devil,” after spending forty years in Minneapolis, Minnesota, got the urge to see what Wetmore and Holton looks like now—and, after flying to Kansas City, dropped in here for a day recently. When he found out who I was, and I learned who he was, he said, “You know, I used to carry groceries over to your home in the east part of town when you had smallpox.”

Oldtimers who have often heard the expression, applied to persons of dubious ways and stupendous blunders, should not miss the climax in this last paragraph. After I had cleaned myself up with doubly strong solution of corrosive sublimate — which, by the way, salivated me — I called on our neighbors, Don and Cass Rising. Don had been choreboy for the folks while holed up. My face was not pitted, and Don said that I must have had smallpox very lightly, or maybe not at all. I told him I had protected my face because I figured that it would be about all I would have left after the expense of the thing—but if he would send his wife out of the room, I would show him. My hips, and even farther back all the way round, were badly pitted — still very red, almost raw. When I showed him, Don yelled, “Cass, Cass—come in here!” I started to pull my pants up, but he grabbed hold of my garment, saying, “No, no — don’t!” Then he shoved my trousers down even farther than I had dropped them.

And the lady came in.

CORRECT VISION Little Donna Cole was whimpering in my wife’s arms as Myrtle was carrying her niece to the child’s home after nightfall, with a half-full moon lighting the way. Myrtle said, “Oh, Donna, you must not cry—don’t you see the pretty moon?” Donna stopped her whimpering and after a moment, said, “I can see half of it, Aunt Myrtle.”

GRAPES — RIPENED ON FRIENDSHIP’S VINE Not Hitherto Published—1947.

By John T. Bristow

In the preceding article I mentioned an illegal contract literally shoved down my throat. The purpose of this article is to shed further light on that incident—and to show how it got me pulled into court, as star witness. And then too, as a whole, the article gives a “bird’s eye” view of a small town pulling for the good of the town—according to selfish individual tastes.

There is no malice in this writing, no sore spots. But there are some blunt facts. To leave them out, or gloss over the bluntness, would destroy the comedy — then the writing would have no point. There are some “humdinger” situations in it—and I don’t aim to lose them. But, believe me, there is no chip on my shoulder. When one approaches the cross-roads where he can go no farther, when his interests are all centered around the stark grim business of clinging to life, he wants nothing so much as tranquil waters on which to drift leisurely down the remaining days of his existence. I repeat, this article is not meant to be critical.

Starting out with the grain trade in Wetmore, I will say Michael Worthy had been a shipper before I got into the business. He owned and operated a small grain elevator connected with the flour mill originally built by Merritt & Gettys, and later owned by Doug Bailey, G. A. Russell, and Littleton M. Wells, on the south side of the railroad. After the mill and elevator were destroyed by fire in the eighties, Mr. Worthy built a small combined crib and grain house, with a long high driveway, on the location of the present Continental Grain Company’s elevator, west of the depot, north of the tracks. There had been a minor accident on that high driveway, and Mr. Worthy had abandoned use of it. This reduced him to the status of a track buyer.

In the meantime I had bought the Grant Means corn crib—capacity ten thousand bushels—on the north side of the tracks, east of the depot, and filled it with ear-corn, for speculation. When I moved that corn, I saved some money by shipping it myself. And that’s how I got into the grain business, as a side line, in competition with Mr. Worthy.

About this time, the Kansas Grain Dealers Association was born. The Association did not recognize track buyers. In fact, its members fought them whenever they came in competition with the elevators. Just how my competitor, with his inoperative dump, got into the Association in the first place was, of course, his own business. I didn’t care to join the Association—probably couldn’t have got in anyway, as I had no blind dump.

But I was shipping to a house in Atchison that had been forced into the Association to hold its business. I think Mr. Baker had come in only on one foot, however. Anyway, he was sending me sealed bids, and buying my corn against an Association rule which said he must not do that. It took Mr. Worthy nigh onto two years to find this out. And then, of course, it was his duty to report the matter to the Association.

I had a friend in the Mo. Pacific Agent, and whenever I would bill out a car of corn, Ed Murray would give me the waybill which ordinarily would have been placed in a box by the door on the outside of the depot for the trainman to pick up along with the car. I watched for trains, and in event the car had not been taken out, I would put the waybill in the box after I was sure Michael would not snoop.

Mr. Worthy was a devout Methodist, a religiously just man who would not knowingly do a wrong—a wrong according to his lights. He attended prayer meeting every Thursday night. His home was a half mile south of town. On a Thursday I had two loaded cars on track. That Michael had something unusual on his mind this day there could be no doubt. He had stopped by to chat a bit with me while the cars were being loaded. He handled coal in connection with his lumber business, owned coal-bins close by, and had the grace to putter around them a bit before leaving the scene. I hung around on the fringe of the depot that night until Mr. Worthy drove by, as always, in his one-horse buggy, with lantern hanging on the dashboard. I allowed time for him to drive to his home, and a little extra—then dropped my waybills in the box. And that was the night when I should have stood vigil until the wee hours.

Michael snooped. Two A. M.

On the fifth morning after that shipment I got a telegram from Atchison telling me, much as a friend might ask a criminal to come in and give himself up, to go to the Josephine hotel in Holton that day and join the Grain Dealers Association.

Also, there was a circus billed for Holton that day.

I found Michael Worthy and Secretary E. J. Smiley at the hotel waiting for me. There was much stir about the hotel, as if a general meeting was in progress. Mr. Smiley told me that he and Mr. Worthy had a tentative contract drafted, and that I might take my girl to the circus—then I was to drop by the hotel and sign up for membership in the Association, which would cost me $12 a year, in quarterly payments. I was going to take my girl to the circus anyway. Harvey Lynn and Anna Bates, and Myrtle Mercer, were in the hotel parlor waiting for me. We had planned this even before I got that telegram. I had complimentary tickets, and we could not afford to miss the circus to parley over a contract. We four circus lovers had gone to Holton with a livery team, in an open spring wagon.

After the circus, Mr. Smiley asked me if I had any objections to the contract? I told him that inasmuch as I was being pushed in with scant knowledge of what it was all about, and that in deference to my friends in Atchison who were urging me to get in PDQ, that I would sign on the dotted line—and trust to luck. It seemed to be Mr. Worthy’s field day, and he would have had his own way, anyhow. It looked as if it might rain, and I did not want to waste time quibbling over the matter. If need be, I would gladly forego shipping altogether for the life of the contract—which was six months, with renewal privilege — rather than get my friends in trouble.

When I had signed the paper, Mr. Smiley shook his head, negatively, grinned, and said in undertone so that Michael couldn’t hear, “He’ll not want to renew it.” I pondered this for many days, and don’t know that I ever did hit upon the right solution. There certainly was nothing in the contract to alert me on that point. Had Mr. Smiley known what I had decided to do in the matter before I got home that day, he would have been justified in making that prediction.

Well, it rained. It rained “pitchforks.” And, in that open wagon, there were two mighty sloppy girls, and as many sloppy boys—and, to make matters worse, the creek was over the Netawaka bridge. Held up here, I took the opportunity to scrutinize the $3.00 package I had so recently purchased, practically “sight unseen,” and see what they had really done to me.

The contract gave Mr. Worthy two-thirds of the business, and I was to have the other third. If either of us got more than the allotted proportion, he must pay the other one cent a bushel for the excess. We would buy now at a price supplied us from day to day by an anonymous somebody having no permanent address. No matter where located, any member receiving house that we might choose, would confirm our sales. It was September, and the old corn was about all gone. Mr. Worthy had 1200 bushels contracted from Herb Wessel, and I had 3000 bushels coming in from Charley Hannah. By agreement, these lots were not to be counted on the contract.

Harvey Lynn was Assistant Cashier of the Wetmore State Bank, and should have been able to decipher any funny business—but he could see no just reason why Mr. Worthy should be given twice as much as me. Certainly not on account of that old dump.

Anna Bates said, “Why, that old dump, nobody would risk their horses on that rickety high driveway. I’ve heard lots of farmers say they wouldn’t.” Mr. and Mrs. O. Bates were operating the north side restaurant, and as waitress Anna had a good opportunity to hear the corn haulers express themselves.

Myrtle Mercer said, “I know what I’d do. You could let Mr. Worthy have it all, and then go down to his lumber office once a month, and collect. That would give you a third interest in his grain business—just for grapes. That ought to hold him.”

Harvey said, “John, I believe Myrtle’s got something there. You can’t fight with your hands tied.”

“But,” I said, “that clause saying I must buy everything offered, at a designated price, will keep my hands tied.”

Myrtle said, “Think, think, think! Let’s pray that there shall be a way around that. It’s not fair to let Mr. Worthy do all the thinking. It’s only for corn shipped. And you always fill your cribs every winter anyway.”

She was all for the grapes.

As of the moment, Myrtle’s estimate of one-third was correct — but, like a struggling corporation doubling its capital with the induction of new blood, our new set-up raised the buyer’s margin from one cent to two cents a bushel; thus reducing the little man’s share to one-sixth of the gross, with all the expense of handling and shipper’s losses falling on the promoter. And the losses—mostly on account of wet snow-ridden corn being carelessly scooped off the ground into the sheller—were unusually heavy that winter. But Michael, being the man he was, took his medicine without a whimper.

Happily, there was a way around it. An honorable way. Michael said as much himself. Actually, I did not ship one car of corn in the whole six months. But I did spring the market on nearly all the 10,000 bushels of ear-corn cribbed that winter. My crib was 16-foot tall on the high side, with doors or openings well up toward the top, and it took more to get the farmers to bring it to me in the ear. The extra money paid for the shoveling was very generously interpreted by Mr. Worthy as no violation of our contract.

Though I was the loser, a funny incident fits in here. I was bothered some by petty stealing, but never a loss of any consequence. John Irving, commonly called “Nigger John,” head of the only colored family ever living in Wet-more—and, except John, a right good colored family it was — thought it a huge joke on me. He laughed “fit to kill” when he told me that he had climbed up to one of those high doors one night about 10 o’clock, and then dropped down on the inside to the corn, and was filling his sack, “when I gets me some company.” He said a white man, (naming him) with sack in readiness, had dropped down on top of him. He laughed, “That white man, he was sure scared most to def.” Nigger John also told me that he and our deputy town marshal had bumped heads in my corn crib one dark night. “But that’s eber time,” he lied. And John was not what you might call a really bad Nigger. Other men who helped themselves to my corn were not “white” enough to tell me about it.

Also, someone had whittled out a hand-opening, enlarged the crack between two boards on the back side of the crib—with a loss of two or three bushels of corn. When I went down one evening about dusk to close the crib, I saw a very fine old lady—a grandmother—filling her apron with my corn. I sneaked away, praying that she had not seen me.

And again, I had given permission to a crippled man to gather up some shattered corn around the sheller after the day’s run. When I went down late in the evening to close the crib, I saw the man and his wife putting ear-corn in a sack. I didn’t want to humiliate them, so I walked unobserved around to the opposite side of the crib, and made a lot of racket. The sacks contained no ear-corn when I got around to the sheller—and I knew then that they would always be my friends.

Eighty-three dollars was the largest monthly check paid me on that lop-sided contract. With the sixth and last month’s collection in hand, I asked Mr. Worthy if he wished to renew the contract?

“Lord no,” he said, throwing up his hands. “The nice thing about this track buying is, when a fellow knows he’s licked, he can shoulder his scoop-shovel, go home and sleep soundly.”

But it was not so tough on Mr. Worthy as one might think. We had been buying on a one-cent margin. Now we — or more properly he — were working on a two-cent margin, and, barring shipping expenses and losses, he would still be making a cent profit on the third on which he would have to pay me one cent a bushel. It was just galling him — that’s all. He had the old-fashioned notion that one should labor for his money.

Mr. Worthy told me later that he had made the discovery of my billing at two o’clock that night after he had gone home from church. He laughed, saying he had made several futile nocturnal visits to that box before this time. It was luck more than perseverance that had rewarded him at that late hour. A freight train that would have picked up the loads, had it not already been loaded to capacity, passed through at 11 o’clock. Also, he said he had believed for awhile that I was selling my corn on the Kansas City market—and that when I would get enough of this that I would quit. Except on a sustained rising market, the dealer shipping to Kansas City could not compete successfully with the dealer who sold to the receiving houses, on advance bids. And that is how the Association was eliminating the track buyers.

I could not realize at first what tremendous advantage this lop-sided contract would give me. On the face of the contract—no. Decidedly the opposite. Nor was it out in the open for Michael to see. In fact, it was by way of developments mothered by that contract. The Association maintained a weighmaster at all member receiving houses, who would check on member-shipper’s receipts, at 35 cents a car, if desired; but it was not obligatory. Having had some rather unsatisfactory treatment from other houses, I had now found a place where I could depend on getting honest weights. I wrote F. M. Baker, telling him that while I hardly knew yet why the urgency, I had paid for a membership in the Association; and, as I had always had satisfactory weights from his firm, I desired him to disregard the Association weighmaster.

He wrote me, saying he deeply appreciated my statement of confidence in him; that he had been accused of all manner of uncomplimentary things—stated much stronger—and that if he could ever do me a favor, he would do it gladly. Thus was laid the foundation for a real helpful friendship—but, handicapped by that lop-sided contract, it did not come into being for another six months.

On the q~t, we belonged to the same poker club.

When I got a free hand, I also got the corn. We received bids from the purchasing houses every morning, good until 9:30 a.m. Corn bought after this time would be subject to the fluctuations of the day’s market, with a new bid the next morning. Though I hardly know how it got started, it became a fixed routine for the firm’s telegraph operator and buyer, George Wolf—now Executive Vice President of the Exchange National Bank, in Atchison—to call me up after the close of the market. If I had bought corn that day on the basis of the morning bid, and it had dropped a cent, or any amount, he would book it at the morning bid. And if it had gone up he would tell me to hold it for developments the next day. Sometimes the market would go up day after day, and I would not sell until there was a break; and then I would get the last top bid.

That was grapes—ripened on friendship’s vine.

I spent a pleasant hour with George Wolf in his private corner of the Exchange National, three years ago. We discussed old times. I believe George would now vouch for all I am saying here.