At that time I was clerking in Than Morris’ store, along with Curt Shuemaker, George and Chuck Cawood. We had already accumulated a full barrel of off-grade butter that would have to be sold for soap-grease, when Morris told us all that should a certain woman bring in butter again for us to reject it. It so happened that it fell to the lot of the “cub” clerk to wait on her. Morris and the three other clerks stood by, grinning. I carried her jar into the side room, and without uncovering it, brought it back and told the woman we could not buy it. She appealed to Than, saying, “Mr. Cawood here,” nodding toward me, “took my butter away and got it all dirty, and now says he won’t buy it.” Morris knew what to look for—and it was there for all to see. He said, “Look!” pointing to the uncovered jar, “ Cawood didn’t put those wigglers in your butter. Don’t bring us any more of that stuff.”
The woman insisted that “Mr. Cawood had dirtied it up”—and Morris paid in full, gross weight. And she was permitted to take the whole mess back home, along with her purchases. I was thankful that Morris, in dealing with her, also called me Cawood—minus the “Mister.”
Still calling me “Mr. Cawood,” this woman later told me she had rheumatism—that she had, unfortunately, spilled her cooling bucket in the water well, and that her man would no longer allow her to cool her butter in the customary way — suspended on a rope deep in the well. After she had passed on, the second Mrs. L. made good butter—so good in fact that the town customers called for it by name. But even this could not correct the damage done to my delicate stomach during that summer in the Morris store. I have never tasted raw butter since that time. And with me, after that sheep herding experience, mutton is also taboo. Old Morgan’s sheep were scabby.
Again, while clerking in the Morris store I was put to the test—and though this has nothing whatsoever to do with the free grass range, I am sure you will observe that it is neatly wrapped in fast green. A Miss Sumerville, a relative of the Zabel’s, visiting in Wetmore—I believe she was from Pennsylvania—asked for variegated yarn. I told her we didn’t have that kind, but I would show her what we had. I admit that I was not very bright on some matters — but at that, I wasn’t as dumb as one of the standbys that I could have named.
Morris said, “Show her what you have in that drawer over there,” indicating the drawer holding the variegated yarn. After I had made the sale, Morris complimented me for selling the little lady a lot of something she didn’t want. He said, “When you don’t have what they want, always try to sell them something else.” He henkie-henkie-henkied in a manner which passed as a derisive laugh. “Keep awake, young man,” he said, “and you’ll make a salesman in time — maybe as good as Cawood here,” indicating Chuck.
With George Cox and his two sons, Bill and young George, I helped build that Holland corral earlier mentioned — and a small bunk house. And it was here where I mixed it with the rattlesnake I had been admonished so often to keep a sharp eye out for. Note Note how well young America obeyed the injunction. I saw the rattlesnake coiled by the roadside as we were coming in after the day’s work, with ox-team, piloted by a Mr. Green who had brought the outfit up from Atchison to haul the lumber out from town. I jumped out of the wagon, and hit the snake with a rock. It flopped, then lay still. I thought it was dead but to make sure I prodded it with a stiff prairie weed—and learned pronto that the stick was a mite too short on one end. That rattler lashed out at me, overreaching by the fraction of an inch, with its neck or body falling across my wrist. My hands were scratched and blood-stained from handling the rough pine boards—fencing came in the rough in those days — and Mr. Green insisted that he saw the snake bite me “with my own eyes.” And to prove it, he spotted a snagged place on my hand where he was sure the snake’s fangs had struck.
Mr. Green crowded those normally slow plodding oxen, and we actually came to town by fits and spurts on the gallop. He wanted to buy whisky for me, and seemed awfully distressed when I refused it. He was so exercised over the matter that one easily could have believed that it was he who was in need of a generous slug of the stuff — and I’m not so sure that he didn’t get it. Anyway, I was ready to go out on time the next morning. Mr. Green was not. And you can bet your life I never again tried to poke a diamondback with a stick too short on one end.
Incidentally, I may say there were other close calls and near misses—not to overlook the one August day when a seven-button, (seven-year-old) rattlesnake actually made a ten-strike on my bare foot. And though always to me a bit hazy, I can now assure you that this is no dream. Just why I would stand still by the side of the hole into which I had poured water in the hope of drowning out a ground squirrel, and watch that snake slither up through the grass, coil and strike, before going down the hole, has always been something for me to ponder.
It was said in the old days that snakes would charm their prey—mesmerize a bird so that it could not fly away. Well, here for once was a “charmed” fledgling that did “fly” away—too late. The charm was broken the moment the snake struck, and though I was only six years old, my brother Charley said I let out a terrific yell, and cleared a wagon road in one jump. Even now I wonder does one ever get so frightened that both mind and body refuse to function?
And here is a solemn truth you will likely find hard to believe. For several years thereafter, come August and dogdays, my right leg would become spotted like that rattlesnake. In a previous article I told of this same rattlesnake encounter, and my Aunt Nancy Porter asked me why didn’t I mention the fact of those recurrent spots? I told her that I didn’t want to weaken the story with anything hard to swallow, however true it might be. Then she said, “Well-I, could tell them that it is true, that your mother—” her sister—”told me that it was the gospel truth.” And there were no better Baptists than that pair. Still, in this day of freedom of thought, you can doubt it if you wish — but you would be wrong.