Alex Hamel and Bill McAlester, a barber, were first to show up after I had rushed out and yelled “Fire!” It was not long before a crowd had assembled. Some gave their attention to the fire in the building, while others rushed up stairs to my office, against my protest. There was no fire in the printing office. “Chuck” Cawood dashed a bucket of water on my shaded coal-oil lamp, and rushed out of the room, yelling, “I put it out—I’ve put it out!” Chuck’s water had also ruined an order of printed stationery ready for delivery. Others milled about in the dark and “pied” several galleys of type we had set for the paper which was to come out the next day. The clothing stock was carried to the street—and the fire was put out before it had done much damage. Since there were two occupants of the store room, no one could say with certainty whose fire it might have been.
The Jew’s insurance was canceled in due course. He said, “If I don’t got insurance, I’ll not stay in a town which don’t got waterworks.” I reminded him that he still had Mr. O. Bates, with his hand grenades. It was but a short while before this that Mr. O. Bates had acquired the agency for his hand grenades. He planned a demonstration in the public square, by making a pyramid of wooden boxes, about ten feet high, early in the afternoon as a sort of advertisement for the event to take place after dark. This advertising stunt brought him humiliating repercussions.
The square was filled with people. Mr. O. Bates, a gabby auctioneer who really knew how to make a spiel, gave them a good one. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen. I have here the greatest fire extinguisher ever devised! But you don’t have to take my word for this! You shall see with your own eyes! Why, my friends, I wouldn’t hesitate one moment about building my bonfire right up against my own home.”
Then he backed off a few paces from the burning boxes and threw a grenade at the fire—but it failed to connect with the solid bumpboard, which had been placed in the center to break the glass bottles, and passed through the mass as a dud. He then tried again, hitting the bumpboard, but instead of quenching the fire, it made a decided spurt upwards. Then, with a huge grunt, Bates, threw them in as fast as he could, resulting in further spurts of blaze upward — up, up, and up!
It was then boos for Mr. O. Bates. He was a sadly confused man, numb with bewilderment. He stammered, “I’ll fetch a man here who’ll show you that they will do the trick.” At a lesser publicized exhibition, Bates—and his man—had extinguished the fire quickly. Rumor had it that “Frosty” and “Cooney” had emptied the chemicals out of his grenades, and had filled them with coal oil.
Mr. O. Bates had unbounded faith in his grenades. He actually wanted to build his bonfire almost smack-up against the frame hotel building on the corner where Harry Cawood’s store is now. But “Uncle” Peter Shuemaker wouldn’t stand for that. “Uncle” Peter was a wiry little man of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry—much set in his ways, with a quick tongue with which to defend himself. He was always on the defense.
“Frosty” Shuemaker had said, with reason, “Granddad, don’t you let that old windjammer light his fire near the hotel. You don’t know what might happen,” and “Uncle” Peter had snapped, “Goway, Forrest—who’s asking you for advice?” But, I think, “Uncle” Peter had “smelled a mouse.”
Mr. O. Bates — pompous, windy, and positive — told “Uncle” Peter that the proposed demonstration would do his hotel no more harm than for him to allow Jim Riley to ride his horse in and out of the hotel office—an occurrence that still rankled. “Uncle” Peter flew off the handle, so to speak, and spluttered, “It’s no-sicha-na-thing! I never permitted that lousy drunken pie-stealing galoot to ride into my hotel! And just who would pay me for my hotel if it should burn down? By-GODDIES, you couldn’t do it—Mr. Bates!”
Since I have quoted Peter Shuemaker detrimental to the character of one Jim Riley, I shall now explain. Never like to leave any of the old fellows out on a limb. Then, too, there is still another reason for this elaboration. It is to keep the record straight. Some, I now learn, are inclined to question if I have quoted “Uncle” Peter verbatim. That I have you may be sure. I make no inventions. You can always bank on that. Why, I ask, should I want to feed you figments of fiction, when memory is stocked with so much of the real thing—spoken words by the old fellows, a thousand times better than anything an antiquated mind could conjure up now? And then there is always the little matter of accuracy to be considered. “No-sicha-na-thing” and “by-goddies” were his exact utterances.
Not to be confused with the Soldier creek Jim Reilly, who built a house in town on the site where E. W. Thornburrow’s home is now, this Irishman owned land up in the Capioma neighborhood—a half section north of the Patrick Hand land. Jim Riley was a substantial farmer and cattleman. He was not married. Jim bached on the farm—but spent much of his spare time in Wetmore, always pretty close to the dram shops. He was a periodical hard drinker. And a prankster of the first order.