It is a dangerous operation, this thing of running in unrelated episodes, and if in attempting it I should find myself up in the air going around in circles with no place to land, I shall have to call on Buddy’s buddy to “talk” me down. Though no longer in our midst, Buddy’s octogenarian buddy still lives. And it will be a pleasure to grant his request.
In reminiscing one incident calls up another, and that one still another, and so on ad infinitum—and anything of the time and place is considered fair game, if you can capture it without maiming it, or without encumbering something else. In presenting the Strange Case of Mr. Henry, I shall try to ease it in without a jarring note. But, to do this, I must go back to the “circus” lot, grab onto one of my co-performers, and work up to it through a chain of co-incidental events.
George Foreman was here at that time going to school, and learning telegraphy with his brother-in-law, L. C. (Cass) McVay. George was my closest boy friend. After graduating in telegraphy, he worked for the railroad company out on the west end of the Central Branch—and later blossomed out as a fullblown lawyer in a finely appointed Denver office, all his own. When I called on him there he laughingly remarked, “Here I am, a big lawyer in a big city—with no clients.” In later years I saw him up at Blackhawk doing assay work for a Colorado mining company. This time he aid, “I’ve found out that I am a better assayer than I ever *was a lawyer.” He went from there to Butte, Montana, still following the assay business. He never married.
His sister, Alice Foreman-McVay, with whom George made his home, came here from a highly cultured community over by the river in Doniphan county, as the bride of Cass McVay. And, being a refined lady with a fine show of modesty, notably out-classing the common herd, got the unearned name of being a “stuck-up.” But she lived that down nicely, simply by carrying on in her own sweet way oblivious to it all. Alice McVay had the happy faculty of attending strictly to her own knitting—and letting the world go by. She was, in truth, the town’s most gracious and beloved woman. And had she aspired to it, she could have been nominated as the outstanding model of social perfection, displacing one who had held that distinction from the town’s beginning.
Up to this time, our people had not been what one might call connoisseurs in the art of classifying the townfolk. In the old days, social standing was largely measured by wealth — even make-believe wealth. For example, Eliza Morris, (Mrs. Bill), as the leading merchant’s wife—and a big hearted woman—was looked upon as the leader in society, one who set the pattern. The fact that she said “bekase” for because, with many another outmoded expression, did not disqualify her—but she lost caste when she sallied forth to church wearing her new Easter bonnet wrong-side-to. But, let it be remembered, she had a way with the youngsters about town that was taking.
After her husband’s death, which occurred in the eighth year after coming here, Alice McVay could have married, in later years, Henry DeForest, the town’s top eligible bachelor, and while she greatly admired him, as did everyone else, she simply would not “desert” her three children — Harvey, Myrtle, and Louis. I was favored with this bit of information for having “tended” store for Mr. Henry while he accompanied the lady with her purchases to her home. Besides teaching me double-entry book-keeping of evenings, Mr. Henry would sometimes get confidential on other matters. He told me himself that Alice McVay’s love for her children was the one thing which caused her to forego a marriage with him. And then too, Mr. Henry was markedly devoted to his aristocratic mother, which fact might have had some bearing on what to my mind should have developed into a most charming romance. His mother spoke of him always as Mr. Henry.
Alice McVay had ample means to rear her children — and rear them she did right here in Wetmore. Then the family moved to Whittier, California. Besides his savings, Cass McVay and his brother Bill, had each inherited $7,000 from the family estate shortly before Cass died. Alice was a step-sister, and also shared in the cut.
Cass McVay was a thrifty man, a real gentleman. Aside from his position as station agent at the C. B. U. P. depot—it was a Union Pacific line then, and before that organized as the Atchison and Pike’s Peak railroad—Cass owned a lumber yard, and operated a small grain elevator, powered by a donkey. I know it was a donkey for when I would sometimes whip him up in order to lift the grain faster so that I might get off early to play, “one old cat” with the town boys, he would bray just like a donkey. Cass McVay built the dwelling later owned by Dr. Guy S. Graham. Close in now, it was considered “away out in the cow country” then. In marked contrast, Bill McVay squandered his inheritance, in drink. He had Spanish blood in his veins, along with his other short comings. Bill McVay married Johnny Thomas’ oldest sister, Jemima.
The DeForest-McVay romance was not Mr. Henry’s first. That came earlier in life. The girl was the sister of Seth Handley, who was Mr. Henry’s partner in the implement business on first coming to Wetmore. Adherence to a family brand of religion — something like that which threatened the love of the King of England and Wally — was said to have prevented marriage. She was reputedly a divorcee.
In reviewing this romance, I am uncovering no skeletons, giving away no secrets. The story has been told and retold, in whispers and snatches, with varying degrees of accuracy. Clean and beautiful beyond compare, it was not a thing to be hidden under a bushel.