3
Vacation is over. I have to go live with my sister Minnie, who is now married, and attend school. Father has to travel to Indian territory on business, and Sally is going home to her folks for the winter. I want to stay with Brother, but Father wants me to go to Sister Minnie. He is always worrying about me keeping my chest covered and my feet dry. You would think I was a little kid. I won’t see my home or my ponies or Sally for nine months. But Father says we will all be together again soon. Nuts, I bet the kids where I am going, in Sabetha, Kansas, are a bunch of sissies. Bud says they don’t have anything but milk cows. Who wants a milk cow? We always used canned cream, it’s better.
And so in the autumn of 1903 it is my first time to take a train trip by myself. To leave Father, Brother and Sally is sad. They are so good to me. Even the thrill of eating in the diner by myself and wearing my special cowboy clothes won’t make up for the loss I feel at leaving everyone and everything I love, but Father said it is best.
It helps some not having to carry a lot of clothes, just the cowboy clothes I’m wearing and Sunday clothes in a light suitcase. Father has sent my sister money to buy me a new outfit for school. Bud is going to take me to the train in Father’s buggy. So I say goodbye to my ponies and Sally as Father takes my suitcase to the buggy. He seems to be in a hurry and there are tears in his eyes when he tells me goodbye, take care of yourself and Sister Minnie and be sure and write. If I ever wanted to cry, this is the time. Having Brother Bud to talk to real fast is all that saves me from being a baby. Brother puts me on the train in a nice big chair, gives me my ticket, promising to take care of my new saddle and ponies. He assures me that everything in my room will be kept just as I left it and that he will look after Father. Just how is something beyond me, as Father is going to Indian territory. With the train beginning to move, we shake hands. Bud gives me a friendly pat on the head and is gone. Oh God, why do I have to go to my sister? I don’t even remember her. If it weren’t for hurting Father and Bud, I would get off at the first stop and rustle for myself.
My sister is at the station to meet me, where she makes a show of herself mushing all over me, then to a horse and buggy owned by a friend, where she introduces me as her baby brother. This is bad enough, but when she says to her friend Marjorie, “Father, you know, doesn’t have any idea how to dress a boy. . . . Those horrible clothes will be discarded for real boys’ clothes,” I want to sock someone. But what can a fellow do with a dumb sister? My first day and night with Sis are terrible. I inspect the yard, both front and back. Not one horse in sight. My beautiful cowboy clothes and fancy boots are in the closet. I won’t be able to show them to any of the kids. The damned knee pants with shoes are to be worn even to school.
My room is a little place upstairs, which I don’t mind so much, only there is nothing to see from the window except houses. I am lonesome and lost. All I can think of is how sad Father looked when he told me goodbye and Brother Bud’s last remark of how “Father wants you to have a good education and then we will have a lot of good times, so try and put up with Sis until next spring when you will be home for vacation.”
Here in a big bed where no one could see or hear me, I cried myself to sleep, which wasn’t being a man like Bud had always taught me. I didn’t even cry when the antelope almost killed me, but this was different. I was only a small boy of eleven and so alone and lonesome.
It was inevitable that Sis and I would have one real row, which came, of all things, about my hair. There was one spot that grew straight up and stayed that way. So Sally used to just brush around and everything was all right, but Sis said I had a cowlick. This was news to me, as a cowlick was where we put out salt for range cattle to lick. Where she found out about a cowlick, I don’t know. So her idea was to wet my hair all over, then split it in the middle and brush down the sides. She wanted to make an impression on my new teachers, whom I was to meet on my first day of school.
I looked just like a fat baby’s bottom. This was our first and only battle, but from then on she left my hair alone.
School wasn’t bad the first day. Sis went with me. After that, I was on my own. I saw one boy looking me over the first day. I learned he was the school bully. The third day he knocked one of my front teeth out. It wasn’t all one-sided, because when a teacher pulled us apart, I was on top polishing his nose with my fist and he didn’t look so good. Sister’s new clothes were in bad shape with blood, mostly mine. The professor looked us over, trying to decide who was the worst, and said, “Do you fellows want to shake hands or shall I take you both on?” We shook hands and went to my house to see my beautiful boots. How many kids I took upstairs to see those boots I don’t know, but if my pony and saddle had been up there, Sis would have really gone nuts.
The winter has passed, spring is with us and school is about out. Sister Minnie is going to have a baby. She looks like she swallowed a watermelon and is as cranky as an old hen about to hatch. She will peck at anything, and her poor husband catches the dickens from all angles. I’m hoping Father or Bud will send for me soon. To get home is all I ask.
One night when I come home late from school, Sis meets me at the door with “Why are you so late? Bud has been here two hours waiting for you.” My heart sank. But her next words did it. “Bud has gone to the stockyards and won’t be back. He said if you came home in time, to go to the yards, where he has several cars of horses to feed and water which he’s taking to Indian territory. If you get there in time, he’ll take you with him.”
This is all I need, all I have been living for. Grabbing a fast drink of water, I am out the door when I remember my manners and say my goodbyes almost on the run, leaving her bawling. I have no time for this foolishness. On a high trot, I start for the stockyards, which are over three miles from our house on the other side of town.
Taking the center of the road to avoid anyone on the sidewalk, I never slow up until in sight of the stockyards, where I can see a long freight train in the yard with a caboose on the end. Nearest me and close to the loading rack are several empty cars. All signs indicate that Bud has started to load and that I am in plenty of time.
Life is good. I’m back with my pal. All I have to do is find him, which is a cinch because he’ll be somewhere around the loading chute. And there I do find him and inundate him with a few thousand questions such as “Where is Father, where is Sally, do you have my ponies and saddle and where are we going?” The guy doesn’t have a chance to talk. He’s just as glad as I am, so everything is swell.
“Father is fine, we’re going to meet him day after tomorrow. It’s time to load out, we’ll talk on the caboose, here comes the switch engine to spot our first car. You work the fence like always, and I’ll cut the first load into the chute.”
Bud’s words were like music to my ears, and loading was easy as pie. Bud had only some eight cars of horses, all wild except five saddle horses for his own use. My ponies and saddle he left home, explaining he would get me an outfit in the territory where we were going.
After loading, we went over to the caboose while the switch engine hooked our horses onto the front end of the train. From the upper windows of the caboose you could look along the entire length of the train. Bud had bought a couple of pies, a flock of sandwiches and some soda pop for me, because he figured I would make it. If I didn’t, he could throw the pop away. Boy, was it good to be with him, on a big, long train going someplace new. Bud said it was plenty tough there. What difference? I was with my family.
We arrived at Minco Indian Territory early in the morning, about two o’clock. By the time the switch engine got around to spot our cars to unload, it was about three o’clock. Unloading would be easy, as the minute the door was open and one horse came out, the rest would follow fast. I’m in heaven and having a wonderful time. When we climb up to the unloading platform, Bud says, “Pard, climb up on that walk and see that all back gates are fastened good, because if this bunch of wild horses should get away, we will never get them. Just be careful, it’s dark as hell.” Doing something I have done many times before, I run down the walk to the runway. I have to climb down, cross the runway, climb up, then down on the other side of the fence and examine the outside gate. This would be fine, only it’s dark and I’m in a hurry to get back to Bud before the horses start out of their cars. So where I should have climbed down, I jump off into space, expecting solid ground. Instead, I land in the middle of the stinkenest and deepest hog wallow in the whole world, I guess. That particular section of the stockyard was reserved for hogs, and me, I’m in the middle of it.
How long I yell, I don’t know, but Bud and one of the brakemen pull me out in nothing flat. Having fallen forward when I finally quit going down, I am well muddied up almost to my shoulders. After fishing me out and finding I am not hurt, just my feelings, Bud says, “Damned if everything don’t happen to you in the spring. Just like a rose only you stink like hell. Boy, you are overripe. Come on, I’ll get you some sticks to scrape with while we unload these horses.”
After unloading, we climb in an empty furniture car in back of our horses, where Bud puts his bed roll and traveling bag, saying, “We can’t get you any clothes until morning, so you scrape while I take a nap. You have got to be clean enough that I can get you into a barber shop bath. I’ll bury what you have on and buy some new. As you are now, someone might try to bury you. Where the hell are your good clothes I bought you, and where are your boots?” I explain Sis didn’t like cowboy clothes and had never let me wear them, and I was in such a rush to catch the train I forgot all about them. He says, “We’ll have her send them on by express. She should see the lovely ones you are wearing today. She would turn over and die. Damn the pigs, why couldn’t you fall in a barrel of perfume or something that don’t smell so bad? God, Father will really laugh when he hears about this. Stay with it, Pard. By daylight I will feel better and you won’t smell so bad.” Then he goes to sleep.
By eight o’clock I have removed the worst and have cleaned my shoes the best that I could with some waste the brakie gave me. But the smell is still there, only not quite so bad, or I have gotten used to it. Bud wakes up. Cussing the railroad, he says, “It always happens. They never get anywhere in the daytime where you can unload without using a lantern. Let’s go to town and see if we can rustle some food, a bath and clothes. You carry my hand bag, I’ll carry the sleeping bag. My saddle I expressed before I left home.”
Minco has one small main street, with a couple of general stores which are just opening. The barber shop will open in a few minutes. At least that was what the colored boy says, and pointing to me he asks what is the matter with that boy. “Is he sick?” This tickles my brother. “Yes, he’s sick. Don’t he smell sorta bad?”
“Boss, he sure do. He’s dead.”
The next remark of my brother’s damned near kills me. Turning to the boy, he says, “Son, do you know where there is a blind pig?” Me, I’ve been fighting the dirty end of a pig all night, and now he wants a blind pig? But the boy quickly responds, “Sure, Boss, all you do is go to the back of that house, stick your five dollars through the slot and your package will be pushed out a little chute to the side. Come on, I’ll show you.”
“Come on, Pard, you smell too bad to leave alone. Someone might cover you over with dirt while I’m gone.”
What comes out is a pint of whiskey. What a blind pig has to do with whiskey, I don’t know. I am hungry, tired and awfully dirty. So on to the barber shop bath where Bud explains my trouble to the boss. Into the bath while Bud finds a place to lose my clothes. He buys me new ones and I begin to feel better and hope Father won’t think I am too stupid. After the bath, I don the new clothes, which fit except the trousers are too long. We stick them down in my new boots, which aren’t bad although not nearly as nice as the ones Bud had made for me. We really enjoy a good breakfast.
If I had any fear of Father being upset over the pig business, it was quickly forgotten when we met, for he seemed so glad to see me. I knew everything was good, we were all together.
Indian territory was a new country, with people from everywhere settling on the land, trying to make a living from the soil. They grew cotton, corn and any crop that could be raised by rainfall and no irrigation. Father had a beautiful piece of land, also a large horse pasture he rented. He had it completely fenced with barbed wire to hold the wild horses, which he and Bud sold to the settlers almost as fast as they could ship them in from Colorado. Bud said he never had it so good. He would sell out a shipment of horses, then go back to Colorado for more, none of which he had to pay for until sold. All he and Father were stuck for was the freight and shipping expense. The JB brand was owned by one of Bud’s best friends, who had more horses than money. He trusted my brother to pay when the horses were sold. As Father said, one hell of an arrangement for everybody.
True to his promise, Bud bought me a saddle and horse for my very own. He didn’t want to ship my ponies from Colorado to Indian territory. My saddle was out to our home ranch for safekeeping until I returned, which Father said would be in the fall. No more Sister Minnie for me.
With that one worry out of my mind, I had a swell time doing the things I liked best, traveling with Bud and on my new horse, which was bigger and faster than either of my ponies. With Bud’s help and advice, I was getting to be perfect with the rope and very seldom missed when front-footing in the corral. A compliment from Father or Bud meant more to me than money. I didn’t even mind learning to cook, as the three of us were batching. It’s fun if you don’t have to, but grows very tiresome when necessary. Doing dishes was the worst. Father solved the problem in a hurry. “Just throw them in a deep pan, pour boiling water over and leave them to dry.” The only thing wrong with this was, if they didn’t drain good, they would rust, as everything was tin. But that was better than wiping them with a rag. If too much rust, throw them away.
The two largest towns near us were Anadarko and Okmulgee. Minco, where we unloaded our horses, had the nearest yards for shipping. It was just a small place, but one I’ll never forget, especially the hog wallow. The folks who were trying to farm were a kind people, working hard and hoping for the best. Some had a little money, others were broke after building some kind of a place to live in, which often was just a hole in the side of a bank with some kind of a roof. It was called a dugout but was always clean, with the walls scraped down even and the floor being just the ground, but packed solid and firm.
Regardless of how poor the settlers were, we were always asked to stop and eat, even if only corn pone and sorghum. Many of these people Bud let have horses without any money, taking their note for a year until they could raise a crop. He would even help break them to harness if the farmer was too helpless, because all of these horses were wild and they often needed help. Father’s prediction that the Indian territory would soon be a state was very true, for in a very few years, in 1907, Oklahoma came into being and more than justified those who had faith in its future.
Something is going on which I don’t understand. Father has been talking to strange men. One day he says, “Son, we’re ready to go home. I’ve sold the whole works and, Bud, we have quite a bit of paper floating around here which we’ll put in a bank for collecting when due. You can come here in the spring with more horses or, if you think the market is shot, just come back on a visit, because some people won’t be able to pay and we don’t want the banker to press for payment.”
Having been away from home for over a year, I am thrilled to death. Even if you are a boy, the King boys and my man teacher, Mr. Young, who I liked very much, and all the nice people in town will speak. Life is awfully good.