Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1916-03-19

world with her per capita wealth. but
I'm telling you the truth when ! say
my father, who, by the way, was a
Presbyterian preacher. had TO 20 with
out food and clothes one whole winter
because he couldn't rake up enough
money TO buy a stamp 10 write 10 the
board. Truth, SO help me Finally,
my brother Bert pawncd an old jack
knife, bought stamps and We had Il
merry Christmas ono" NOR" -- + he
whole family sitting around the table
while father prayed and We all cried.
as youngsters will cry. you know.
We were poorer than Jobs off OK.
There were three boys and we had only
one suit-one father had discarded.
We all had swcathearts though, and
We would play authors TO see who
got to wear the suit. I'D seemed to
he more proficient at the game than
the rest Of us, he won "a girl and mar
ricd her three years before my other
brother or ! got started to COurting.
| went one entire winter without ever
scing my girl, and when Bert visited
me last winter he told me that Ed
held Dickens Dombey n Son aud
Thackeray's Vanity Fair out of the
deck. That's the mcancst trick Ed
ever played me"
Nhat iTitil'fS sot.
Still YOU were better fixed in Cow
ley than We were further west. in
sumner" said Bill striker "M'vit
was so dun In Wellington that the
merchants closed their stores Al
O'Clock and didn't open them again
until in the evening ! paid print
ers 81 a week. But those were good
times To what | experienced when /
first went to Kansas in '73. | WENT
through the grasshopper siege and |
am telling you. they even ate the
paint off the houses and the varnish
of the furniture.
Railroad trains stopped running
because the tracks were so sleek. and
the chicken went to roost when
cloud of those critters passed over the
state. They didn't leave anything !
have seen them hit green cornfield
at in the evening, and in an hour.
there was not vcstige of verdant
vegetation in sight. Hens laid eggs
without yolks and they were SO
greasy they could not he eaten. You
can laugh If You want to, but they
were really six inches deep in the
streets, and we improvised a grass
hopper Scraper and dug big hole
and with team of horses rakcd them
in and burned them after pouring
kerosene over the heap. Some fellow
out in Denver claimed he had pat
ent that would rid the state Of the
pest; but lust as the people became
cnthuscd over his invention they dis
appeared as suddenly as they came
and nobody has ever seen hide nor
hair of them since Frank Greer,
talking about having only one suit to
wear ! didn't have anything but a
dress to wear until was fourteen.
ana thon only pair Of brecchcs
handed down from father. | never
put on pair Of shoes until the mid
die Of November, and many is the
time I've gone out to the harnyard
and scarf up COW To get to stand
I'm the warm place where she had lain
for the nSht. Don't talk TO me about
hard times; I'm a graduate-one
meal day-maybc; six Of us sleep
Ing I'm one room; horses starved to
death and COWS drying up in Janu-
AIRY"
Getting Pretty strong.
'll'umgh, YOU castcrners were rich
compared with us i'm Harper county
in the late seventies said Omer Ben
cdlct Father drove a yoke of oxen
o1 miles 20 Wichita, kan, 20 buy
stiNchninc to kill coyotes and to buy
material 10 make old Buck "A cud
when he lost It, why. he drove sev-
enty miles for wood with an on team
one load of wood had to last US an
Wlntor-thc rest of the time we
burned castor bean and corn stalks !
We burned every piece OF prairie coal |
within twenty miles Of our farm. We |
were 50 poor we had only two chairs |
and tomato box; and we children |
would gather prairie coal all day and |
there was a standing offer in our FAM |
lily that the one who brought in tho |
largest sack of coal would get to sit |
down TO eat | being the youngest |
necessarily never ate meal at the |
table until after ] had left home. |
IoorN-wo were so poor that there |
were times in our family that father
used to say biscuit would rattle i'm
his stomach like Il buckShot in a
washboiler. I don't remember much
about that, but | do remember when |
the folks all sat up nights rendering /
out skunk oil which father sold in Il
Wichita for 81 quart Forty right II
fat skunks would make quart 1
FATHER would borrow 81 more. pat it
with the 81 and buy u pound of
strychnine TO kin coyotes. Hard
times Why, Frank Greer and Btll
Stryker talking about hard times
they We're ir the millionaire class
everybody knows that the farther
west one went the poorer enc got, and
the harder the scratching for II living
| remember one winter when we went
without coffee and father and the
older toys parched corn, and then
mashed 1t up with the hatchet handle
in an old tomato can and made "cof-
fee out of IT, &. W. Post didn't have
anything on the Kansas pioneers in
Inc late scVentics-they made their
postum before Post ever heard of It, II
We lived on the palladium of Hope
and the old testament. mothers faith