The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer

  CHAPTER XII

  THE HOMESTEADERS

  Of neighbors, I had many. There was Miss Carter from old Missouri whoseclaim joined mine on the west, and another Missourian to the north ofher; a loud talking German north of him, and an English preacher to theeast of the German. A traveling man's family lived north of me; and abig, fat, lazy barber who seemed to be taking the "rest cure," joined meon the east. His name was Starks and he had drawn number 252. He had anice, level claim with only a few buffalo wallows to detract from itsvalue, and he held the distinction of being the most uncompromisinglylazy man on the Little Crow. This, coupled with the unpardonable faultof complaining about everything, made him nigh unbearable and he wasknown as the "Beefer." He came from a small town, usually the home ofhis ilk, in Iowa, where he had a small shop and owned three and a halfacres of garden and orchard ground on the outskirts of the town. Hewould take a fiendish delight in relating and re-relating how the folksin his house back in Iowa were having strawberries, new peas, greenbeans, spring onions, and enjoying all the fruits of a tropical climate,while he was holding down an "infernal no-account claim" on the LittleCrow, and eating out of a can.

  A merchant was holding down a claim south of him, and a banker livedsouth of the merchant. Thus it was a varied class of homesteadersaround Calias and Megory, the first summer on the Little Crow. Onlyabout one in every eight or ten was a farmer. They were of all vocationsin life and all nationalities, excepting negroes, and I controlled thecolored vote.

  This was one place where being a colored man was an honorarydistinction. I remember how I once requested the stage driver to bringme some meat from Megory, there being no meat shop in Calias, and it wasto be left at the post office. Apparently I had failed to give the stagedriver my name, for when I called for it, it was handed out to me, doneup in a neat package, and addressed "Colored Man, Calias." My neighborssoon learned, however, that my given name was "Oscar," but it was sometime before they could all spell or pronounce the odd surname.

  During the month of June it rained twenty-three days, but I was sodetermined to break out one hundred and twenty acres, that after a fewdays of the rainy weather I went out and worked in the rain. Starks usedto go up town about four o'clock for the mail, wearing a long, yellowslicker, and when he saw me going around the half-mile land he remarkedto the bystanders: "Just look at that fool nigger a working in therain."

  Being the first year of settlement in a new country, there naturally wasno hay to buy, so the settlers turned their stock out to graze, and manyvaluable horses strayed away and were lost. When it rained so much andthe weather turned so warm, the mosquitoes filled the air and coveredthe earth and attacked everything in their path. When I turned myhorses out after the day's work was done, they soon found their way totown, where they stood in the shelter of some buildings and foughtmosquitoes. Their favorite place for this pastime was the post office,where Billinger had a shed awning over the board walk, the frameworkconsisting of two-by-fours joined together and nailed lightly to thebuilding, and on top of this he had laid a few rough boards. Under thiscrude shelter the homesteaders found relief from the broiling afternoonsun, and swapped news concerning the latest offer for their claims. Themosquitoes did not bother so much in even so slight an inclosure asthis, so every night Jenny Mule would walk on to the board walk, prickup her ears and look in at the window. About this time the big horsewould come along and begin to scratch his neck on one of thetwo-by-fours, and suddenly down would go Billinger's portable awningwith a loud crash which was augmented by Jenny Mule getting out fromunder the falling boards. As the sound echoed through the slumberingvillage the big horse would rush away to the middle of the street, witha prolonged snort, and wonder what it was all about. This was the storyBillinger told when I came around the next morning to drive them homefrom the storekeeper's oat bin where they had indulged in a midnightlunch. The performance was repeated nightly and got brother Billingerout of bed at all hours. He swore by all the Gods of Buddha and thepeople of South Dakota, that he would put the beasts up and charge me adollar to get them.

  Early one morning I came over and found that Billinger had remained trueto his oath, and the horse and mule were tied to a wagon belonging tothe storekeeper. Nearby on a pile of rock sat Billinger, nodding away,sound asleep. I quietly untied the rope from the wagon and peaceably ledthem home. Then Billinger was in a rage. He had a small, screechytremulo voice and it fairly sputtered as he tiraded: "If it don't beatall; I never saw the like. I was up all last night chasing those darnedhorses, caught them and tied them up; and along comes Devereaux while Iam asleep and takes horses, rope and all." The crowd roared andBillinger decided the joke was on him.

  Miss Carter, my neighbor on the west, had her trouble too. One day shecame by, distressed and almost on the verge of tears, and burst out:"Oh, Oh, Oh, I hardly know what to do."

  I could never bear seeing any one in such distress and I became touchedby her grief. Upon becoming more calm, she told me: "The banker saysthat the man who is breaking prairie on my claim is ruining the ground."She was simply heart-broken about it, and off she went into anotherspasm of distress. I saw the fellow wasn't laying the sod over smoothlybecause he had a sixteen-inch plow, and had it set to cut only abouteight inches, which caused the sod to push away and pile up on edges,instead of turning and dropping into the furrow. I went with her andexplained to the fellow where the fault lay. The next day he was doing amuch better job.

  Those who have always lived in the older settled parts of the countrysometimes have exaggerated ideas of life on the homestead, and thefollowing incident offers a partial explanation. Megory and Calias eachhad a newspaper, and when they weren't roasting each other and claimingtheir paper to be the only live and progressive organ in the country,they were "building" railroads or printing romantic tales about thebrave homesteader girls. A little red-headed girl nicknamed "Jack" owneda claim near Calias. One day it was reported that she killed arattlesnake in her house. The report of the great encounter reachedeastern dailies, and was published as a Sunday feature story in one ofthe leading Omaha papers. It was accompanied by gorgeous pictures of thegirl in a leather skirt, riding boots, and cow-boy hat, entering a sodhouse, and before her, coiled and poised to strike, lay a monsterrattlesnake. Turning on her heel and jerking the bridle from her horse'shead, she made a terrific swing at Mr. Rattlesnake, and he, of course,"met his Waterloo." This, so the story read, was the eightiethrattlesnake she had killed. She was described as "Rattlesnake Jack" andthereafter went by that name. She was also credited with having spentthe previous winter alone on her claim and rather enjoyed the wintrynights and snow blockade. Now as a matter of fact, she had spent most ofthe previous winter enjoying the comforts of a front room at the HotelCalias, going to the claim occasionally on nice days. She had no horse,and as to the eighty rattlesnakes, seventy-nine were myths, existingonly in the mind of a prolific feature story writer for the Sundayedition of the great dailies. In fact she had killed one small youngrattler with a button.