Having the distinction of being the only enterprise of the kind in this part of the West, that tanyard was made a sort of port-of-call for all comers—local and transient.
“Lord” Perry graced the tannery with his august presence one day. He was of the old English Colony folk and drunk or sober, proclaimed himself a British peer. He was a “remittance” man.
On this occasion, after riding in from his Colony home, Perry had stopped up town and was comfortably full when he reached the tanyard. He slipped the reins over his horse’s head and asked me to hold the animal while he held audience with Jim Cardwell. “Hand if you let ‘er go,” he warned, “Hi’ll cut y’r hears hoff.” I dropped the reins as soon as he was in “spirited” conversation with Jim. The “Lord” soon forgot about me—and the horse also.
“Lord” Perry had the poise and the marks of the gentleman he represented himself to be. Also he loved his drink, and indulged himself freely. When he had taken on about so much, he would invariably mount a chair, or anything handy that he could climb upon, and attempt to make a speech, always prefacing his harangue with “Hi’m a gentleman hand a scholar, by-god-sir, by-gosh!”
In this instance, Perry had climbed upon the tank-boat which was standing on edge. After making his usual salutory and puncturing it with his long arms waving hither and thither, he stood for some moments groping for words which did not present themselves with what might be called kaleidoscopic rapidity. Then one of the gang—designated here as the one intrusted to ‘old the Nobleman’s ‘orse — casually leaned against the prop, causing it to topple from under the distinguished Englishman.
His Lordship then lost some of his aristocratic poise and a modicum of his temper. A nervous person, with bombastic tendencies, he literally exploded when he hit the well-tramped terrain about the tanvats. To be accurate, he made a rather awkward display of himself in a furious outburst of Anglo-American profanity, in which he branded, correctly, a certain member of the gang as a “Blarsted, ’ artless hupstart!”
“Tut, tut, my Lord,” said Jim. “It was an accident.”
“Haccident, my hye!” retorted Perry, sharply. Jim Cardwell then felt it incumbent upon himself to offer something to assuage his Lordship’s agony, to pour balm upon his troubled soul. Good old Jim! How could we have managed without him. He once move proffered his bottle. And another drink was directed with grace down the Perry gullet.
At the tanyard there were six vats, each, four by six feet, which were set three feet into the ground, with the tops about one foot above ground.
A wild black cherry tree, at this time loaded with ripe cherries, stood close to one of those vats. On account of its fruit and its fine shade it was the delight of all the boys. Especially was it inviting to my little brother Davey Cullom, who, though fourth in point of spacings from being the baby or of the home, was still his mother’s darling little curly-headed man.