To support this translation, I offer evidence from my slow-going dismantling: sticks nipped or gnawed to workable lengths (longer ones, up to three feet, show natural breaks) and so packed in as to interlink; in the conglomeration, along with a few small rocks and cow chips, are two pull tabs, a piece of beer bottle, half a tire-mashed chrome ballpoint pen, a plastic lens cap, and a spent (bright yellow) shotgun cartridge.
A lodge built in the open woods or in a tree is typically a domeshaped structure remarkably efficient in shedding rain and keeping out predators, an abode cozy enough to attract mice, shrews, lizards, toads, turtles, cottontails—all of which a wood rat will tolerate even though it will not share quarters with its own kind. Adult pack rats regard solitary life highly enough that they exchange scarred faces and torn ears for the pleasures of hermitry. Among their ways of fighting, incidentally, is a kind of sparring in which they stand and pummel each other like tiny pugilists and, tiring, rest their paws on the other’s “shoulders.”
I have eight stacks of sticks now, and this tedious labor is wearing thin, and, worse, I’m beginning to suspect that the nest of soft fibers and grasses, which I should be able to see by now, actually lies out of sight underneath the ledge; with it are other chambers for storing food. A Kansas biologist, E. Raymond Hall, once opened a den to find four dozen hickory nuts, two gallons of hazelnuts, a gallon of wild grapes, a quart of dried mushrooms, and twenty sprays of bittersweet, with some of the food placed so the sybaritic little resident could reach it while reclining. But such a cache can mislead you: the vegetarian wood rat (unlike norvegicus, it doesn’t prey on bird eggs) is a light eater, consuming daily only about five percent of its weight.
I didn’t really think I’d scare up a woody, and that means, of course, I hoped I would. I’ve also been wishing to find a truly peculiar object stashed away (such as I’ve heard about them picking up): a pocket watch, perfume bottle, false teeth—something to make you say, “You found that in a pack-rat nest?” (In the American desert, scientists are studying thirty-thousand-year-old pack-rat middens sheltered in dry caves and crevices to reconstruct ice-age climates and vegetation that may reveal ecological effects of global changes; some biochemists even hope to extract DNA from the fossil materials.)
Not long ago I received a letter from a stranger who gave me jessie for several failures in my writing, one of them that I never include sex in my work (he wrote as if it were a subject that had never before crossed my mind), a flaw, said he, that causes me to distort topics. My first response was, let him—after a thorough reading of statutes on invasion of privacy and libel—walk into Cottonwood or Strong and start probing bedrooms and teenagers’ back seats.
I digress here to say—but not to draw any generalizations—that in my time in Chase County I’ve not heard sex discussed (animal breeding excepted), and only once have I heard something approximating a dirty joke, a story alleged to be true: a female zoologist with a keen sympathy for wild animals came to the county to help a rancher having a coyote problem; she told him it was probably but a single male taking the calves and suggested not eradication but live trapping and castration; the fellow, with only slightly less than the cattleman’s traditional deference in language before women, said, Hell, lady, he’s killing my calves—not fornicating them.
But my topic (you see how the mind wanders when engaged in the humdrum—like pulling at sticks—of inquiry): I hereby answer and forever refute my correspondent’s charge that I never write about sex: the retractable penis of a wood rat contains a small bone for an erection, and its testicles are so protected—except during breeding periods when they enlarge—that zoologists speak of its having a temporary scrotum. (Such anatomical design seems to me surpassingly practical even for man, eliminating, as it would, athletic supporters and the agony after a foot slips off a bicycle pedal.)
The female wood rat also has eminently sensible—if not desirable for womankind—physiological structures: four elongated teats a newborn can clamp on to with a distinctive diamond-shaped dental gap formed by closing its incisors; if five arrive in a litter, sometimes the odd baby out will fasten to and suckle the mother’s clitoris. For the first three weeks after bearing young, a female suddenly fleeing the nest will drag along to safety her four—or five—clamped-on young; their toothy grip is so secure and perpetual during the pups’ first twenty days before the gap disappears that, when she wants to go off alone, she must bite them in the jaw or put a foot on them to twist them loose. It may be this prospect of having offspring clinging to her nipples that makes the smaller female such a danger to her mate: following cheek-to-cheek nuzzling and several rapid-fire mountings, he will frequently beat a quick exit to escape her killing him. (One day when I was talking about wood rats and mentioned this detail to a city woman, she said, I’d kill some sonofabitch too that wanted to run off and leave me with a couple of kids hanging by their teeth from my tits.)
One of the reasons I’m not a zoologist, beyond soreness from hours of bent backs, is now manifest: as I begin to see I’m not going to uncover what I’d hoped for and my guilt about pillaging the small den increases, I don’t want to continue. I have a dozen stacks of sticks. Trying to replace the ones I’ve removed serves only to break everything so I stop, but there are still enough to keep out ancient enemies: the coyote, fox, skunk, owl, hawk, all of them except snakes—but then, they get in even the best of dens.
Unlike the wood rat, a female house rat has six teats and her litter may be as large as fourteen, her gestation about a week shorter, and her estrus not seasonal but continual: in every way, she will outpro-pagate a pack rat. Some zoologists believe that floridana secures its future generations not by aggressiveness and overbreeding but by intelligently and harmoniously adapting its habitat, continuously attending its young, not fouling its nest, and perhaps even by living commensally. I’m just now remembering Wes Jackson’s paradigms: for humankind, there is surely one, beyond the gathering of glittering objects, in the wood rat.
I start down the slope, turn to look at the mess I’ve made of the den—all for the sake of my curiosity—and I go back up to the ledge, and, about ten feet from the opening, reach into my pocket and lay down, just out of sight, the shiniest dime I have.
According to the Leader
Often, when the prairie weather turned sour on me, I’d go to the back room of the county historical society in the old bank building on Broadway in the Falls and sit before the microfilm machines and scroll out past issues of the twenty-eight newspapers Chase has seen over the past century and a third, some of them only ephemeral things like Sam Wood’s six-week Scalping Knife. Usually I read the Leader, the sole survivor, founded in 1871 by William A. Morgan, husband of Minnie Morgan, the first and last female mayor of Cottonwood. The paper later bought out a Strong City competitor to become the Leader-News. Strong has also had the Valley Echo, the Advance, and the Derrick, and, in the villages, have appeared the Cedar Point Pointer, the Elmdale Gas Jet, the Matfield Mirror; in Cottonwood, the Banner, Index, Reformer, and Reveille.
While the morning rain or sleet came down against the north window of the old bank, I would disappear into those grayed pages and roam around another county. Then I’d look up, blinking, to find a noon sun and myself ready for a beer and pickled egg at Darla’s, after, perhaps, just reading in an 1880s issue about tavern food at the Dolly Varden. The jolt of these dislocations, especially when I read the maladroit and solecistic expression of a current Leader News as I ate my lunch, was like waking from a good dream with its brief sorrow of the little trip now ended.
Considering the time Americans pay to their daily or weekly gazette, historians’ often reluctant use of our broadsheet journalism is odd but understandable, given the discomfort of sitting before a microfilm reader and all the while being aware of the immense lode waiting to be examined (a similar despair can overtake you if you have a go at the deep and even more challenging records in a county courthouse). Yet, if you really want to see how life
was in America in an earlier time, to encounter it told firsthand, look to the morgue of your daily Mirror; if you would hear stories from your great-great-grandparents, then listen to your Echo. The imprint of our days, after all, is very much made by type recast. Those old six-point-Caslon chroniclers knew the tales that incline us, and, in the dim and witching light of a microfilm machine, like storytellers at a campfire, they whisper yet.
The Chase newspapers so captured me—particularly issues of the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the era that established the character of the place, the years when the county was at its summit of energy, optimism, population, and affluence—that I considered at one point how to build this book around parallel hikes over the county and down the pages of the Leader, through its six thousand issues, its hundred thousand pages that report on nearly all of the forty-eight thousand days white people have lived in Chase (for the three million or more days of the red people here, I’ll have to turn to other kinds of records).
The early papers contain mostly national news (today it’s entirely local) and packaged-in-the-East diversions; what county news does appear often tends toward now pointless single sentences: Glad to learn that the sick are getting better, or Clements is taking a rest. But every so often a county item or story glimmers briefly like a match struck in a dark room. From the Leader, here are a couple of dozen gleanings, gleamings:
A DASTARDLY OUTRAGE
This community was shocked last Monday morning by the report that C. C. Watson had attempted to commit a rape on a little girl, about 13 years old, the afternoon before. The scene of the outrage was the kitchen of Bauerle’s restaurant, where the girl works, and during the absence of Bauerle and wife.
Watson’s reputation is unsavory, but no one believed him so depraved as his fiendish attempt last Sunday afternoon stamps him.
The details of the outrage are simply horrible and unfit for publication, and, but for the timely arrival of a boy, about 15 years old, who was attracted to the room by the noise made by the girl in her efforts to protect herself, the lecherous brute would have accomplished his purpose.
Watson has a wife and three children, is about 30 years of age, and his beastly habits have placed him prominently before the public on more them one occasion. A couple of years ago he was convicted in the district court of an attempt to commit an abortion upon a young woman who lived in his family and with whom he had maintained a criminal intimacy.
Watson’s maneuvering all day Sunday is claimed by some to indicate that the outrage was premeditated. He met the girl’s father early in the morning and the two eat, smoked and drank together until the middle of the afternoon, when he left the father and went to the house where the girl worked and attempted the outrage.
Expressions of indignation are loud and deep on every hand and it would require but a slight effort to induce Judge Lynch to administer summary justice, a mode of procedure it is hoped will not be resorted to, as Watson has been arrested on complaint of his intended victim, and the law, even if inadequate to deal with such characters, should be allowed to take its course.
January 15, 1885
“DAMPS”
Wm. Stone, Wm. Handcock and others were digging a well in Toledo, Chase County, and when at a depth of about 30 feet, suspended work for a few days. On resuming it Friday morning last, Wm. Stone went down into the well and was almost overcome by the “damps.” He told the men at the top to haul him up. He had hardly uttered the words before he fell over partly unconscious. Mr Handcock went down into the well and tied the rope around Mr. Stone and when they commenced to haul him up he complained that it hurt him. Mr. H. then untied the rope and fastened it around himself and told the men at the top to haul him up, which they did, Mr. Stone remaining in a semi-conscious state at the bottom. After hauling Mr. Handcock out, the question was, who would venture down to fasten the rope around Mr. Stone? All hesitated to take the risk, when Wm. Stone, Jr., a lad of about eleven years stepped to the front and demanded to be let down, and down he went. Quickly fastening the rope around his father the two were drawn up and, after considerable effort, Mr. Stone, Sr. was resusicated, but at last accounts was suffering with a severe pain in his head, as was also Mr. Handcock and the heroic little boy who rescued his father from the very threshold of death.
June 11, 1885
A PLEASANT AFFAIR
In response to invitations to a rainbow party, about thirty friends gathered at the home of Mr. and Mrs. H. Collett, at Elk, on Friday evening, February 28. After the friends had assembled they were led to the dining room where an elegant supper was spread, the table being beautifully decorated with hyacinths and evergreens.When their daughter, Miss Lizzie, presented each with a cord representing some color of the rainbow and, pointing to the table, intimated that the price for partaking of the supper would be to find who was at the other end of the cord. They all most eagerly fell to work, thinking how small the price set upon such a repast. After following the cords a short time they found they led to the parlor where their eyes fell on a lovely rainbow tastefully arranged in one corner by the skillful hands of Grace and Lizzie. After much admiration and favorable comments someone remarked that when the rainbow appears the rain is over and it would be well to go on with their work.
Turning again to their task they were confronted by a mass of cords in the form of a spider web reaching from ceiling to floor, up stairs and down, no one knew where.
It was most amusing to see Bert Campbell tangled in the web and the girls tightening upon him as a spider would a fly, while Bob Reed was crawling around on the floor, looking like he had been badly knocked out in his last week’s pillow fight. But all found their coveted prize and a jollier crowd never sat down to a feast, and when leaving the table each carried away a Japanese napkin with the signatures of all present as a souvenir of the occasion.
March 5, 1886
A SAD AFFAIR
About 2 o’clock, last Saturday afternoon, Ed. Jones, aged about 17 years, arrived in town with the information that his father, Isaac Jones, had hung himself in his granary, on Bloody creek.
A number of citizens, together with the county attorney, proceeded at once to the place and found the body hanging as described. From the county attorney we learned that the deceased had evidently stood on a chair, which lay overturned near by, while adjusting the rope to a rafter, after which he jumped from the chair, but the rope being too long his feet touched the ground, in which position he was choked to death. The deceased was about the average heighth, weighed over 200 pounds, and was 69 years of age.
The deceased had evidently made every preparation and contemplated the insane act for a day or more. He came to town on Thursday and called on all the merchants with whom he did business and settled all accounts. About 10 o’clock Friday morning he sent his son, Ed, and the only other person on the farm with him, up the creek to tell Si. Wilson that he might have the corn, for which Wilson had probably partly bargained. He also gave the boy $5 and told him to keep it until he asked for it. Upon returning from Wilson’s, the boy, being unable to find his father at the house, went to the granary and found him hanging by the neck—dead, and immediately came to town, arriving about 2 o’clock, with the terrible news.
The deceased has undoubtedly been insane, or partly so, for a long time. He has at times labored under the hallucination that his life was in jeopardy from one and another and when thus affected would arm himself, and it is only a few weeks since he made an onslaught on two of his sons, C. W. and Scott, with murderous intent, first with a shotgun, which the boys took away from him, and immediately after with a revolver, firing twice at his son Charlie, who, to prevent the old gentleman from overtaking and shooting him, was compelled to shoot the horse which he (his father) was riding.
For this the old gentleman came to town to prosecute the boys, and not finding the county attorney, who was engaged at Strong City, he met S. N. Wood, who encouraged him in his insane hallucination and had him swear to three ind
ictments, viz: assault with intent to kill, rioting, and [failure] to keep the peace. The county attorney suppressed two of these, and warrants were issued on the first.
The whole affair has been most painful to all concerned and their friends. The deceased, previous to his death, became more rational and expressed his regret, we are told, that the affair occurred or took the turn it did, and, no doubt, the thought of his being the victim of unprincipled advisers so preyed upon his mind that he was led to committing suicide.
March 18, 1886
A MAD (?) DOG KILLED