I may say I’m “powerful proud” that my meddlesome letter-writing Aunt Nancy took it upon herself to notify our Texas cousin of my intended visit. That rather unusual chance meeting is paralleled by another chance meeting — which opens the way for bringing into this writing my distinguished Kansas cousin. I had an engagement to meet J.L.Bristow at the Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence, when he was Fourth Assistant Postmaster General — later, U. S. senator from Kansas. He was of my father’s branch of the Virginia and Tennessee Bristows, a third cousin to me, and up to this time we had never met. He was billed as principal speaker at a Republican rally in the Bowersock Opera House that night. Upon my arrival in Lawrence about noon, I discovered he was registered at the Eldridge House—but I could not locate him. I went out to the Kansas-Nebraska football game, and got a seat by a man who seemed to be deeply interested in the game. We conversed in an off-hand way when he was not up on his toes rooting for the Kansas team. From the conversation I inferred that he was a newspaper man, like myself. But, unlike myself, he was a college man. Not being a college man, I could not get interested in the game. It was brutal. When we had fetched up at the Eldridge House, this football enthusiast—now surrounded by politicians—said to me. “I am told by the clerk here that you were looking for me, and it seems you failed recognize a relative when you had found him.” He was my man.
Might say I first learned of my Kansas cousin when he was owner and publisher of the Salina Daily Republican, and I was publishing the Wetmore Spectator. A Kansas City printing firm addressed a letter to J. L. Bristow, Wet-more, Kansas—one initial off from my own. It was delivered to me. The contents of the letter showed that it should have been sent to the other newspaper man in Salina. I mailed it to him. He came back promptly wanting to know from whom did I get my name? One more exchange letters told us both exactly who we were. We both claimed kin to old Ben — of Virginia, Kentucky, and New York fame—though I do not now recall his specialty. But it’s a safe bet it had to do with politics. My father was a first cousin of J. L.’s father, a Methodist minister, living in Baldwin, Kansas. My illustrious cousin Joseph has climbed high up the ladder of political fame — and who knows his limit? I shall not lose track of him.
After I would have returned from Pensacola, Florida, and spent a day in Nashville with Uncle Tom and Aunt Irene Cullom, and their three daughters, cousins Lora, Clevie, and Myrtle, it was planned to give a party for me at Aunt Harriet’s country home, the day set for one week hence — when they “allowed” they really would show me some Tennessee girls. Here, I think my Wetmore Auntie had been meddling in my behalf once again. Well, no matter. If it was meant that the girls at the coming party would grade upwards in looks from the first showing, it surely would be worth coming back for. Cousin Maggie Lovell, a fifteen-year-old beauty, told me the girls would turn themselves loose at the party—and, she said, “The woods are full of ‘em.” The girls of the advance showing had been rather on the reserved order—I might say very lady-like. Still, I imagine there were missies in that group who would have been pleased to start something. Also, I imagine they were the flower of the flock.
All Southern girls at that time were supposed to be pretty. The climate, and the care in which the girls were taught to shield their faces from the sun was believed to make for superior beauty. My mother said that in her day no girl would ever think of going out without her sun-bonnet.
Admittedly, the South is blessed with some extremely beautiful girls. But, after extensive searching, may I say that—exempting cousins of course—I did not find it overwhelmingly so. I am convinced that it takes something more than climate and ribbed sun-bonnets to turn the trick; and that the South has no monopoly on this something. Also, I further find that the strikingly beautiful girl is, like -prospector’s gold, where you find her. And for my money give me the sun-kissed girl from the wide-open Kansas range.
Unfortunately, I was called home, and did not have the pleasure of attending the party—and was compelled to send regrets, from Nashville, by mail. Also, I missed the chance to see Jim Spain call up the spirits. But then it was only a half promise. When I asked Jim if he would hold a seance for me, he said, “Reckon I might—but generally I aim to do it only for the hill folks.”
“But,” I said, “you fooled my mother and my Aunt Nancy when they were down here not so long ago.” He said “Yes—I did. But you know they grew up here in the South where most everybody believes in ghosts.
“My mother used to tell us kids that there was no such thing as a ghost—but she said it in such a dispirited way as to cause me, as young as I was, to doubt if she fully believed her own words.
I grew up in a generation which talked freely, pro and con, about ghosts. And, believe it or not, I have actually seen Erickson’s ghost—that is, until the apparition faded away into something tangible, as “ghosts” always do if given time. There was a time here when I — and other youngsters of like caliber—looked for Erickson’s ghost in every dark corner. And I think that if I should even now go through the woods on the old Hazeltine farm adjoining town, at night, as I often did in the early days, I would involuntarily keep an eye peeled for the ghost of Jim Erickson, a murderer and suicide, of May 10, 1873—buried, without benefit of clergy, mourners, or even regulation coffin — on top a high hill just south of town. To mention only one of the several proclaimed haunted houses—which always go hand in hand with ghosts—Jim Erickson’s ghost cut up a good many capers here in the early days, particularly where “it” was often “seen” on the margin of the big swamp lying between town and the high hill. Let there come a foggy night someone was sure to say: “Erickson’s ghost will stalk tonight.” A party of three young couples—boys and girls — set out one night to trap old Jim, or whatever it was that haunted a vacant house of many rooms, which sat on a high hill near the swamp—but, would you believe it, they were disturbed by another couple who had preceded them—and all fled the scene in a rout. Actually, some brave people — grown-up’s—positively refused to venture south of the creek on foggy nights. It’s not a promise—but I may, at some future date, write the Erickson story for the Spectator readers.
And I can well believe Jim Spain had the situation as to ghosts stalking among the oldsters of his generation in the South sized up correctly. However, the bright kids of today should never be troubled with any such hallucinations.