The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-10-28
AND THE BUCK DEER.
A Tale of the Days When Big Game
Troubled the Missourians.
lkansas City Star.)

khanSaS city starr
Two miles southeast of Marshall, on
the high ground overlooking the Salt
fork, lives Nick Mooney. Nick is quite
an old man now, and his one-time ac-
tivity is changed 10 the stiffness Of
rheumatism. He came direct from Ire
land TO Saline county when Missouri
was only a baby state, and, knowing
a good country when he saw il, stopped
right there to remain. This is one of
his stories of before the war;
saline county Is foine country. TO
be sure IL is. The foinest In the world,
all considerin'. Foine as IL is, it's not
the country it was whin first / come.
In thin times twas the grand country
such as the likes of you now know
nothing about. The naygurs was free
to live without working and to spind
their time collecting the chickens from
the farmer and shootin' their erappie
games between times. Look at the
corn were raisin' now IT'S good, con-
siderin'. It's nothing at all TO the corn
in thin days. 1t grew so thick and tall
that whin We looked far off on the
high land at the sky line where the
woods and the corn fields came togeth-
er. you couldn't tell by any break in
the height of thin which was the which
u AiilLi. II the truth VI iilC lilAAlS
I'm tellin' to you whin a man had a
taste for fresh mate in thin days, did
he ride to the bootcher in the town and
put down twinty cents fur a short
pound of the bulls neck of the same?
Not for no he did not. He TUX down
the long rife from the pegs whin he
wint 10 the spring for bucket of wa
ter, an the next meal he'd be having
the toOrkey. Walk a mile anyways
an it's the deer a man could be finding.
They was plinty in thin days. They
was always a-comin' a-ravagin' and
rampin' among the crops, so that 1t
Was noosances they was. In the fall,
whin the fodder was in the shock. the
very divil would they play wild their
fondness for roughness in their ating,
KNOCKING down the shocks and cuttin
the fodder 20 pieces wild their pointed
fate. Did ever We hear OF foolish man
ketchin' a full-grown bOock deer wild
his two Imply hands? 1t was me did
that same. 1t was only the wan time
for me, for after / knowed more of the
stringth of wan finder. wake-lOOkin'
boock deer wild his soft eyes and his
trimblin' tail than I'd rayalized before.
"Whin first l come over 1 hired out
meself to Mister Lawton at the old
farm beyant the Salt fork He's dead
this long time now, rest his soul aisy
a foine. good man he was.
1T was wan day along In the fall
whin the weather was just beginning
20 have the snap Of the frost in IL, an
hour or so by shutdown il was, that
Mister Lawton he seq to me and his
little bye, Charley:
Nick, you and Charley go take the
slid and the two steers over to the
north field and bring back wild yez a
load of fodder for the stock in the feed
lott
Eve set out, we did, Charley and me-
sllf, wild the steers and the HWY slid.
1t was not the job we was likin' for TO
do after workin' all the day. 1t bein'
close TO the supper time; but the old
man had said the word to do the same.
and diyii the use there was of soin
feminist Mister Lawton. We wint, We
did. but we whit sulky. There was
bOotcher knife wild an edge yez could
shave yerself, wild layin on the slid for
to cut the binders of the corn shocks.
Do yez mind how the fodder was
shocked in thin days? From four hills
next to wan another we tied the grow
in stalks by the tasseled inds. II made
a frame so the shock would stand up
firm in the weather whin we'd piled
the fodder round it. A regular wig
wan IL was wild the little hollow space
inside for a man to crawl in and rist
himself if he were of the mind.
I'VE whit on, Charley and me, till
we stopped at the bars to the north
field fence. / tux a look over and
went mad like a wet settin' hin at what
see. Five or six shocks was down
an the fodder all scattered around
iverywheres and a big boock deer wild