The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-08-05

| thee. We shall mingle with thee and
become thy brother and thy friend"
"Ros'' Stubs as a Boy.
The people of Hesper love now to
tell or RIOS Stubs. John Stubs boy"
Ihose who attended meeting the first
DAY the Stubbses came to Hesper re-
member well the speech made by the
head of the family. And next in their
memory is the face of a little red head
ed boy who walked to the front of the
church hesitatingly with a glow of col
or on his freckled cheeks.
He wasn't a bit handsome" said one
who had worshipped in the little Qua
ker meeting house that day. His nose
looked like one big freckle. His red
hair stood on end as il he were scared
to death. And his homespun clothing
told little story about the misfortunes
his father had had
Every body called him RIOS" And
they usually rated him from their first
description as a pretty miscellaneous
youngster. Jest overlooking with en-
ergy, said Mr.. Davis, whom all the
town of Hesper and those who lived
adjoining, call Uncle Sam"
Young Stubs First Enterprise.
When young Walter Roscoe Stubbs
went to work in earnest he planted a
three acre field in hedge plants. The
idea of selling hedge plants for a liv
ing come to him one day when he was
bantered by one of the boys in the
neighborhood to tramp down three
year-old hedge in his bare feet. Stubs
did il, but never was bantered into it
again.
He bought seed that was shipped in
from Texas and other southern states,
planted 1t and then sold the young
bushes. Hedges were a fad in those
days and the scheme was profitable.
He sold the tender plants at $3.50 a
thousand and by so doing brought his
first pony.
That first pony meant the beginning
of brief horse trading career. And 1t
was in these transactions for the next
five years that showed to the people of
Hesper that ''the red headed Stubs
boy was a pretty clever shaver after
he had come back to the fold.
Ran the Binder at Night.
During a harvesting season, under
kind leadership of Uncle Sam" Davis,
young Stubbs profited more by the ex-
perience than the majority of farm
hands. The next year when the crops
were ready for the scythe, he had
found a partner in Theo. Conger. an
old settler. Conger put up the money
to buy a self-binder, piece of farm
machinery new in that day. Walter
Roscoe Stubs was to engineer it.
The implement had been bought at
Lawrence. Stubs had gone down
returned to Hesper with the machine,
he saw more business ahead of him
than he could ever think of doing in
the sunlight.
So the boy utilized the nights. Many
Of the old settlers about Hesper tell
of the harvest season when young
Stubs could be seen working through
the night hours with his new binder.
One of the hands ahead of him with
lantern, lighting up the way for the
team.
Barclay Thomas, who still lives two
miles south of Hesper, employed
Stubs to cut and bind his wheat that
season with the new machine. In re-
calling the incident, Mr.. Thomas said:
THE way Ros went after business
with that binder showed me plain
enough that he would make his mark
in the world. 1 had had a taste of his
sagacity in trading horses and bought
hedge plants from his nursery.
As the Old Settlers Remember Him.
The old settlers of Lawrence who re-
member Walter Roscoe Stubs when
he first came to town. say that he
wore a Prince Albert coat and the hat
of the Quaker. Others say that he still
wore the homespun of the Hesper
housewives. And Mr.. Stubs himself
says he doesn't remember-thal
clothes were least in importance to
him in that epoch Of his life.
1OAIS " COlC6C was HiSl III hio
mind. Making enough money to keep |
him there was next. He went to the |
university as soon as he arrived in |
town, only to be disappointed on ac- |
count of his meager education at the |
Hesper district school. So he went to |
night school at a business college at |
Lawrence and prepared himself for the |
course.
He knew that $500 would not last |
very long. With his characteristic |
he called on ]. H. Glathart. |
a carriage and implement dealer, whom |
he had known several years. Glathart |
had been attracted to the boy by his |
clever trades and his money making |
When young Stubs put |
his plans before Mr. Glathart he was |
willing to do all he could to help him. |
And it was arranged then and there |
that young Stubs was to take out |
buggies and implements through the |
during the day and sell them
to the farmers, returning in the even |
ings when possible to attend night |
school at the business college.
1t wasn't long after that until he be- |
came a partner in the business He |
of this later, in order to give |
more time to his studies when he was /
fitted to begin his work as a freshman |
at the University of Kansas.
Goes to College.
Walter Roscoe Stubs. as a student, !
was little known. Those who do re- |
Say he was a good spender |
and for that reason disposed of a snug |
little sum of money that would have |
kept him a year longer in college had |
he been parsimonious.
But he left his studies because of a |
lack of funds and a strong ambition |
to make money. For ten years he |
planned to return to his alma mater. |
Each year that passed increased his |
business and responsibility. Each year |
made it more impossible for him to |
leave his work to go back to his stud |
les.
From the day he left his books he be- |
came a man of affairs. Just as he had |
succeeded with the hedge bushes, the |
horse trades and the turkey wheat so |