Part 7

Allright, Buddy. You shall have it. But I must warn you, Old Pal, that you will, like as not, have the jitters instead of a laugh. But you have asked for it. As the desired mirth-provoking story, this one will likely be a flop. Buddy must know that while those old escapades, incidents, or what-nots, always carry well with the ones who have lived them, when transported in word-pictures across the years to a new audience, by a limping artist, they very often fail to click.

Halfway convinced that I could still be murdered for this thing, I have decided to write a few paragraphs about the old swimming hole and the gang—and some girls. However, I do not falter. Going on the theory that when the sweetness of life is over what comes after cannot greatly matter, I assume the risk—deliberately court danger.

Regardless of the ever-present smell, that tanyard, located in a bend of the creek just west of where the town bridge is now, was made a sort of rendezvous for all the town boys. A dam was constructed across the creek, and there was a Damsite Company, fully officered. The pond — long, wide, and eight feet deep made a fine swimming hole.

Michael Norton, a diminutive Irish boy, was our life-saver. Shy of qualifications, he was given the post for no good reason at all—unless it was that his willingness greatly exceeded his size. Michael was a queer lad. He always crossed himself three times before going into the water, and his lips would work in a funny little way without saying anything. Furthermore, it was characteristic of the little fellow to round out his sentences—especially when earnestness or excitement spurred — with, “so I will,” or with, “so he did.” And sometimes it would characteristic of the little fellow to round out his sentences—especially when earnestness or excitement spurred — with, “so I will,” or with, “so he did.” And sometimes it would be “You bet.”

E D Woodburn

Lawyer

HOLTON, KANSAS

January 21 1936

Mr. John T. Bristow, Wetmore, Kansas

Dear John:--

This morning I took time to read “THE OLD* SWIMMING HOLE” which you wrote for the Wetmore Spectator. As usual, you are very interesting and your article will be enjoyed by all of the citizens of Wetmore and community who lived there in the long ago.

It is too bad, John, that you ever quit the paper business. It seems to me that you naturally belong to that honorable “tribe.’* I have laid away your articles as I will enjoy reading them again and again. I have often heard it said that it is one of the signs of old age when one begins to hark back to our childhood days. Maybe so. I am not denying that age 13 probably creeping upon you, but I still insist that I “am as young as I used to be.” We try to keep in touch with the younger generation and to be and become interested in the things of today but, in fairness and in strict honesty with ourselves, we will have to admit that you and I and others of our age are inclined “to cast our eyes, like a flashing meteor, forward into the past.”

Keep it up, John, and when you have anything to write remember, I will appreciate a copy of the good old Wetmore Spectator containing your article.

Yours very truly,

E. D. Woodburn

At that time the deep slough south of the railroad tracks, instead of turning abruptly at Kansas avenue and paralleling that street to the creek as it does now, flowed straight across to a point fifty yards down stream. The narrow strip of land between slough and creek formed the north bank of the old swimming hole. Trees and bramble shut out public gaze fairly well, but they did not make a dependable screen against prying eyes.

Ten yards farther down stream from the mouth of the slough was the old ford. Still farther down stream there was then and is now a mammoth elm tree that has budded and shed its leaves sixty times since that day. Tramped firm by cow hoofs, and free of weeds, this bit of ground marked the spot where our townspeople often went for a few hours loll in the shade, and where in the surrounding grove even picnics were sometimes held. It was here also where, on one Independence Day, a fine English lady from the old Colony essayed to pet a horse on its nether end and was kicked in the bread-basket. It was so phrased by our elders then.

In the old days there was in use in the church a hymn-book containing a song entitled “Beautiful Gates Ajar.” “Dutch” Charley Kumbash, with the jarring note of the horse’s vengeance and the lady’s name fixed in mind, said: “It wass now for her the Peu-ti-ful Kates Achar.” The lady was a Mrs. Gates, daughter of John Radford—later, Mrs. “Paddy” Ryan.

Starting from the friendly shade of that great elm, where they had gone to while away a little time, and stopping at the old ford for a wade in the water, a bevy of girls, wandering aimlessly about, fell upon the boys’ domain.

Willie sent out a low whistle of warning. Eyes from all parts of the pond swept the opening down stream. Girls coming—a lot of them, too many to count. The boys ducked. Henry, who chanced to be in the top of a small elm tree ready for a dive, found the bottom of the pond with his proboscis in no time. One crafty little fellow, well plastered with mud, was caught wholly unawares, taking his siesta on the bank, cut off from the pond. As one having lost all sense of decency, he darted this way and that way in front of the girls—and then, like an ostrich, hid his head in the low forks of a tree, with back exposed to company. Well now, maybe it is that the ostrich, when he sticks his head in the sand, hopes that he might be taken for another bird. Shall I name this ostrich imitator? Well—maybe later.

“Let them come!” yelled Henry Callahan, in a braggadocio way. “Who cares! We used to swim with the Peters girls—and that didn’t kill us.”

“Yeah,” drawled Timothy Doble, in his usual draggy voice, “but remember, we had our pants on then—and that made a lot of difference.”

Timothy was so right about this. It certainly did make a lot of difference. Incidentally, I may say I have not thought of this boy for a long time. And Gaskel was his me—not Doble. But the boys all called him Doble because he was at one time—a considerable time—in a fair way to have Archibald Doble for a stepfather. However, Bill Kerr, young school teacher, stepped in and married the widow Gaskel, who was nearly twice his own age. That marriage did not endure.

Before going on with the main show, let us go back little—maybe a year, maybe two or three years. This tanyard pool brought the swimming hole a mile and a quarter closer to town—and it was hailed with delight by le barefoot boys. Prior to this, the town boys did their swimming in the “prairie pools” out south. But the pools had their bad features—hazards fraught with disturbing elements.

In the first place, one-third of the distance to the pools was across the big bottom south of Spring creek which skirts the town. The bottom was covered with a rank growth of sloughgrass, and, in the early summer months — the natural time for swimming—after the grass had burned off, needle-pointed stubs were very damaging bare, feet, and caused utterances of many an “ouch” and not infrequently a “damnit”—and this unholy language emanating from youngsters barely past the trundle-bed stage. But the little sinners could swim—every one of them.

The prairie pool patronized most, if it were not filled with soil, as are all the other pools now, would be close to the public road, on the Grant Dale forty acres—open territory then. Directly north of this was the Barney Peters forty-acre isolated prairie farm. We could always count being accompanied by one or more of the four Peters — Bill, George, Jim, and John. And on rare occasions two Peters girls, Bertha and Mary, would invade our privacy.

The pool was about 50 by 25 feet in dimensions with a minimum depth of eight feet. It was edged with a sort of “greasewood” growth of brush which grew in clusters at the water’s edge three feet below the rim. Often water snakes could be seen sunning themselves on branches which curved out over the water. It was a most disquieting feeling to have one of those four-foot fellows slither across one’s back. They were not poisonous. Still they were snakes.

The Peters girls did not often come upon the scene. But when they did, it was more disturbing than to be raked over the back by those snakes. The south side of the pool offered the best place for the snakes to sun themselves — and as soon as the water was agitated by the bathers coming in from the north side, as they always did, the snakes would drop off into the water and make, blindly, for the opposite side and disappear under the north bank. Some of the snakes seemed to sleep more soundly than others, and, on a good day, the snake parade to the north side, while not continuous was, seemingly, never ended. Were it true, as claimed in the old days, that those snakes passing over one’s back would make hair grow wherever they touched the bare skin, I would have more hair on my back than I now have on my head.

And occasionally a turtle would drop off those bushes into the swimming hole. It was said by oldtimers that should a turtle nip you that it would not let loose until sundown. Other oldsters said it would hang on until it thundered. The adventurous youngsters—usually ready to try anything—never, to my knowledge, tried to find out which way was right. With brassy skies and prolonged summer droughts; with thunder clouds few and far between, made it too risky. At that time swim-suits were unknown here — maybe just not used—and always after a swim with the Peters girls, we would have to walk home in our wet pants.

That chain of water holes along a three-mile treeless water course, was said to have been “buffalo” holes. But this I was inclined to doubt, after seeing the remains of true buffalo wallows in Western Kansas. My Uncle Nick Bristow said there were no buffalo here when he came, and that so far as he knew no one before him had seen any. But in my time, the whole plains country west of the Blue river was swarming with them. They were shamefully slaughtered by eastern outfitted crews, for their hides. I believe that Zan Gray ’ s novel, “The Thundering Herd, ” was inspired by the big herds of buffalo in Southwestern Kansas.

Then there were the “second” pools, a longer wash, one mile farther south, fed partly by the Bradford spring, which we would patronize in dry times when the stream connecting the “first” pools would stop running.

Back at the tanyard pool: Those girls, full of high spirits and gay chatter, scooped up our clothing, such as it was, and stood on the bank laughing at us. Save for the one with head so nattily ensconced in tree crotch, all were in water up to necks, and thinking some rather ugly thoughts, we were, I can assure you, most miserable. Miserable, however, does not fully define the plight of the featherless bird on the bank.

Then, holding a yapping little dog to a bulging bosom, a Good Samaritan came moving in. Her smiling face was framed in a lovely orange bonnet. She interceded for the boys. The girls were adamant, heartless. For her pains, the intermediary was called “Mother Fuzzicks”—then, and there-after. She was in truth the mother of the brave Indian fighter mentioned in an earlier article.

In all fairness to those girls I should say that they were, probably, possessed of the idea that their appearance in this manner might cure a certain habitue of the water hole of being neglectful of his duties at home, and maybe cause him to choose better company as well. They could not be censured for that. They were nice girls, those intruders.

It was our life-saver who undertook to solve the problem for us—the little fellow of multiple peculiarities, the most pronounced of which, as you have been informed, was displayed in his crossing himself three times before going into the water.

I rather think that one, maybe two, of Michael’s older sisters were among that hilarious lot. But as to that I cannot be sure. Much water has gone over the dam since that day and on some points things are a bit foggy. It is one of the tricks of memory—that parts of a recalled incident will stand out clearly while other parts remain, shadowy and tantalizingly, just outside the grasp of the mind.

So, then, of those damsels I make no identifications — this on account of much fog. Still, casting back through the mists of many years, I can sense enough of the old thing to cause me to suspect that I could almost spit on one of those erstwhile trim maidens, now grown stout, from where I write. Not, however, that I would want to do so at this late date.

With a mischievous twinkle in his pale blue eyes, Michael said: “Lave them to me boys. By-gorry I’ll show them a trick with a hole in it; I will so I will!” Much stress was laid upon the last phrase. It contained the true Irish accent. A trick with a hole in it! An old saying, of course — much used then.

Manifestly, Michael had decided, as any fine boy of the period would, to deal modestly with the girls—or, at least, with as much modesty as the exigencies of the situation would permit—but he had reckoned without taking into account the destructive forces of Time upon discarded tinware.

Someone, pointing to a stick on the bank, said, “Take that and wallop ‘em good!” It was a portion from the butt end of a well seasoned sumac.

“Aye, I have it!” mouthed Michael. At the same time he fished out of the mud at the edge of the pond an old weather-beaten dishpan, one of many that had been used in the tannery for various purposes. This he swung in front of him.

Then, with surprising alacrity and apparent confidence in himself and the implement of his veiling, he bounded up the bank, pivoting at the top long enough to cast a reassuring look over his shoulder to his buddies in the water. The gang beamed approvingly on their savior.

Michael advanced on the intruders, shouting in a rather thin voice, “Drop the rags, and scram!” He waved his cudgel. No results. Michael didn’t like having his efforts go for naught that way. The laughter went out of his eyes. His Irish was up. He resisted an impulse at belligerence. Then, “Vamoose, I tell you, or bygorry you’ll be knowing the feel of this shillelagh!” Now, however, his belligerent interest was superseded by new elements.

The girls did not budge. Not then. They laughed mightily. All but one. The Good Samaritan shook with suppressed laughter. Her orange bonnet bobbed in fine harmony. The little doggie barked. With deep concern and echoes of mortification trailing in her voice, the laughless one, stepping forward—it was now observed that she held in her hand a shillelagh of her own, once again of magic sumac origin—exclaimed, “Holy horrors! Look Michael! Your manners! There do be a hole in your shield!”

This he took to indicate her desire for him to depart — as, indeed, it did. And Michael, our defender, “took water.”

You must believe me now when I say to you that the never-to-be-dispensed-with three-time act, peculiarly and persistently the boy’s very own, was delayed somewhat.

“You bet!”

MISS INTERPRETED My mother cautioned my sister Nannie when a very little girl as she was going out to play, to look good for snakes. After she had returned, Nannie told her mother that she had looked everywhere and did not see “ary snake.” Asked what would she have done had she found one, Nannie said, “I would of bringed it to you.”

THE “CIRCUS” LAYOUT Published in Wetmore Spectator,

January 10, 1936.

By John T. Bristow

Now, I trust “Buddy” will be satisfied with the foregoing narration of events at the old swimming hole. He really should be. He is in it—figuring inversely, up to his neck.

Since the actual distance from the swimming hole to the tanyard was but twenty steps—and I mean literally steps—there should be no difficulty in making the switch over. Those twenty steps did, however, at times, present physical hazards. They were dirt steps carved out on a rather steeply inclined bank, up which the tanner’s sons carried water in buckets from pond to tanvat. Barefooted, with pants rolled up to our knees, we would dig in with our toes when going up with the filled buckets, always spilling a little water on the way, until those steps would become a veritable otter’s slide. As a boy’s bare heels, in the old days, were poorly fashioned for digging in, the water carriers would then have to use the longer rope-protected path provided for making the descent with the empty buckets. One slippery slide on one’s backside was a hint that it was time to make the switch.

But a rehash of the “circus layout” as my Old Pal puts it, is maybe going to be disappointing, as I can now think of nothing in this connection to pin on Buddy. However, I suppose it might have been considered—for recreation purposes only—as a sort of adjunct to the tannery. The trapeze, horizontal bars, and spring-board, were only about fifty feet removed from the tanvats. And then, too, the lot had the tanyard smell.

Ringling Brothers wagon circus had recently made a stand here, and the “fever” among the local youngsters was running high. Activity about the lot was both spirited and awkward, with a lively bunch willing to try anything—once.

The real trouble was, we had only one Star performer. Charley Askren was, before he got injured in a fall, a trapeze and bar performer with the Dan Rice circus. He was a welcome instructor. And though he could still do some wonderful stunts, I think there are none I want to mention here, except maybe the time he let me slip through his hands in a rather daring act, the fall to the ground breaking my left arm.

This statement, without qualification, would hardly do justice to my old team-mate. Had we made it, the act would have been a honey. And had Charley not said, grandly, to a “skirted” audience, “This is going to be good. Keep your eyes pinned on this Johnny boy, the G-R-E-A-T and only—,” in real circus ballyhoo fashion, it might not have been a flop. Charley used a lot of circus terms in his work with us.

The trouble was, I “weakened”—just a wee bit, to be sure—at the moment when I took the air, and after making a complete turn came down also a wee bit tardy for Charley to get a firm hold on me, in his head-down swinging position. Had he caught me by the wrists, he would have tossed me, on the third swing, face about, back to the bar from which I had made the takeoff.

In practice, another boy — usually George Foreman, brother of Mrs. L. C. McVay and Mrs. R. A. DeForest — would stand by to right me, in case of a slip. George was tall and very active. Sometimes we would change positions in this act. I know now that this would have been a grand time for me to have called out, in the usual way, “Let George do it!”

Sure, we had a well-filled straw-tick which was always placed under the weaklings—but who was there among us that would have wanted to have it brought out in the presence of lady visitors? Of the two lady spectators, one was a redhead. She fell in love with Charley—and married him. Charley had done a lot of impressive flipping and flopping to gain his position on the bar for the act. The redhead’s younger black; haired sister (Anna) was the better looking, and near my age—but, as of the moment, I did not shine as I hoped I might. And then, too, I had that broken arm to think about. Dr. Thomas Milam “splinted” it up drum-tight, according to ancient practice—but, by midnight, he had to do it all over again.

Then, my Dad came onto the lot, and without any coaching whatsoever, did some pretty tall kicking. Not the circus kind, however. The “circus” paraphernalia was then moved up town to a vacant spot alongside Than Morris’ corn cribs on the lots west of where the Dr. Lapham home now stands. But it was no go. The tannery was the natural place for such things.

Charley Askren came to us, as a young man, in the early 70’s. He was a carpenter. He married Lib Fleming. And notwithstanding his serious injury caused by the collapse of a trapeze under the Dan Rice bigtop, he lived to be quite an old man. He died at his home in Atchison last year. Here’s hoping that his kid co-performer — the G-R-E-A-T and only”—may live as long.

Honesty — The Better Policy NOTE—Some seventy-five years ago I accidentally dropped a five-dollar gold piece into one of the big vats at our old tanyard on the creek bank near the town bridge at the foot of Kansas Avenue which gold piece was never recovered.

The old bridge has now been removed, and a new one—156-foot span—is being constructed over a newly dug creek channel sixty-five yards south of the old one, on a grade ten feet above the old road. In building up the grade between the old bridge site and the railroad, Albert Tanking, of Seneca, operator of a County bulldozer, today—June 11, 1949—moved the ground where the old tanvats were buried.

As he made the excavation I noticed no signs of the old sunken vats—but it is none the less certain that my five-dollar gold piece is now deposited somewhere along the west slope of the fill, or in the “sunken garden” between the fill and the newly cut drain-ditch paralleling it. After it rains on the works it is possible that I might go down there and pick it up. But I think that I shall leave this for the kids to exploit. It was a sort of kid’s keepsake, anyway.

That five-dollar gold piece was first given me some years earlier, in change, by mistake for a nickel. I thought I had been cheated. I took it back to Peter Shavey, who had a confectionery store in the old part of the building now occupied by Hettie Shuemaker-Kroulik. He praised me for being an honest boy—and he loaded me up with candy and oranges. And then he said, “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to give you this gold piece for a keepsake, something to remind you always that it pays to be honest.” And think of it — the old Frenchman was illegally selling whiskey and unlawfully operating a poker game in the back room.

I said, “Thank you, Mr. Shavey—but I still have not got my nickel back.”

He laughed, “Here, honest boy, here’s your nickel.” And now I can’t be sure If Mr. Peter Shavey inspired this noble trait of honesty in me—or if it just comes natural.

INNOCENT FALSEHOOD About twenty years ago, I was going with “Dutch” Roderick, in his car, to Kansas City, starting at four o’clock in the morning—and Minnie Cawood, with her two and one-half year old Ruthie, were going along as far as Leavenworth. We stopped at the H. P. Cawood home, and “tooted.” Minnie came out, and Harry followed, carrying Ruthie in his arms. She was fussy, and Harry said, “Don’t cry—your partner is out here in the car.” Ruthie said—well, had she not been such a sweet kid as to call me her partner, I’d be tempted to say she told a “white” lie, when she said, “I thought he would be there.”

FATHER AND SONS Published in Wetmore Spectator,

March 20, 1936

By John T. Bristow

T his, then, is the continuation of the story of my father’s tanyard; with related incidents—hoarded memories of the old days back a half century, and more. They are solemn reminders that “Time flies.”

That tanyard was, I might say, a howling success while it lasted. Besides the tanyard, my father owned a bunch of boys, and those boys, semi-obedient and helpful, really did some commendable things, but when encouraged and abetted by the other town boys of that happy, care-free age, their doings were not always something to be commended.

Taken by the large—including, of course, the English and the Irish and the “Dutch,” and a couple of Swedes — they were, I must admit, a dare-devil bunch. And I might as well confess now that I was, perhaps, the most devilish one of them all. Anyhow, I became a printer’s “devil” at an early age.