Once it got Bill.
A huge, uprooted tree swept against the ferry with such force that the ropes broke and the boat was carried downstream, taking Bill with it. After a quick trip, the ferry grounded on a submerged sandbar. Neighbors gathered and conferred and hurried about, trying to rescue Bill. He stood on the ferry violently cursing the rescue crew and acting, in general, as though they alone were to blame for the high water and his predicament.
Holiday Menor came to Jackson Hole about 1905. He lived for a number of years with his brother, Bill. But the disposition of each was cut on the bias, and the two disagreed over a neighbor. So Holiday took up land on the east shore and built his houses directly across from brother Bill, and let the river run between them. Like a great many individualists, Bill and Holiday considered strong hate a mark of character, so they did not speak to each other for 2 years. Nevertheless, they were proud of each other, and the name of one always cropped up in the conversation of the other, mixed well with curses. And each watched across the river for the other, to make sure all was right on the opposite shore.
One Christmas the brothers were invited to the Bar B C Ranch for dinner. It was Holiday’s birthday. Neither knew the other was to be there. When each arrived he was given a strong drink of whiskey to insure amiability. The 2 brothers shook hands over the Christmas table. Ever after they were on speaking terms.
And sometimes they spoke too freely, shaking fists and cursing each other over the river. There was much gusto in their living.
Though Bill read hardly more than the daily paper that came to him, Holiday subscribed to a number of magazines. He read 7 long months of the year and “talked it out” the other 5. He argued politically with everyone, whether they would argue or not. “Now, mind you, I’m telling you, this ain’t W. D. talking, this is H. H. Menor talking, by God.” And for emphasis he would bang things with a stick of stove wood. Once he came down on the red hot stove with his bare fist and for a short while political views were unimportant.
Gradually the land was taken up by a homesteader or Government leaser, and the Menors were surrounded with neighbors. Then, as now, persons living 10 or 15 miles away were considered close neighbors. Everybody in the valley knew everybody else, or at least knew stories about him. For Holiday to have a close neighbor other than Bill was intriguing. Mrs. Evelyn Dorman, a Pennsylvania woman, homesteaded on the east bank, and her buildings were only a quarter of a mile below Holiday’s. She called him the Patriarch of the Ford, and he called her the Widow down the River.
To have Mrs. Dornan ask how he prepared some dish filled him with pride. He enjoyed giving away his recipes. He would say, “You take two handfuls of flour, that is, and a pinch of salt, that is ...” All his recipes were generously seasoned with “that is’s”. He was an excellent cook and loved to have his friends eat with him.
But there was the rooster episode.
Bill had a beautiful barred Plymouth Rock rooster; a huge single-combed domestic fowl with graceful feathers in its tail, and pride in its walk. But Holiday’s rooster had only two feathers in its tail, its body was completely bare, and it had no pride.