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buildings with false fronts facing each other across a wide
and muddy thoroughfare.
"See that mud?" asks Mr. Botsford. "That's the stickiest
kind of mud in the world. I've seen that mud stuck on wagon
wheels so thick you couldn't seet the spokes. They call it
gumbo. You walk out in that road and every time you lift up
your feet, it feels as though you was anchored.
"I had good luck on the train goin' out. Never had no
misfortune until I hit a town called Salina, in Kansas, where
I had to change. I got there at one o'clock in the afternoon
on Sunday, dog tired. And they told me I'd have to wait until
12.30 o'clock that night for the next train to Lakeport. So I
didn't get there until Monday mornin' and my cousin was waitinl
for me at the depot.
"But I forgot to tell you about Kansas City. I never see
nothin' like that railroad station in my life. Boy, it was a
sight in them days. It was the gateway to the west, and there
was more life and action there than there is in a dozen Grand
Centrals. Trains was leavin' for everywhere and the station
was crowded with immigrants and their baggage, leavin for new
homes and new lives. There was somethint about it that was
mighty thrillin'. It was a sight that won't be seen again in
this country, and I never forgot it. Just hearin' the train
caller hoIlerint 'All points West' was a thrill for a greenhorn
traveler like me.
"Kansas is a flat, rollin' country. You can see for miles
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and miles. I wasn't there but a little while when I went to help
a feller shingle a roof. It was about eight o'clock in the
morninl, and I was sittin' there on the roof just lookin' out at
those miles and miles of prairies, and way off in the distance I
see somethint about the size of a cigar standinl up on the
horizon. It didn't seem to get no bigger and after I watched it
a while I says to the feller, 'Look at that thing out there, don't
it look funny.' He looked where I was pointinl and he says
'Know what that is? That's the freight train comin, in.' Well,
we worked all mornin' and we went in and was eatint dinner when we
heard that train pull into the depot.
"It's a hundred and fifty miles from Lakeport to the western
foot hills. That railroad I come in on, only went 17 miles past
Lakeport, but they was extendinl it then, out to Pueblo, Colorado.
"I stayed out in Kansas three months, and I had a fine time.
People out there 'are fine, hospitable people. My cousins friends
treated me just as though they'd known me all my life. There was
a little bit of a crick flowed through there, wasn't much wider
than this room, and so muddy you couldn't see into it at all.
That crick was full of cotton mouth moccasins, big thick fellers,
longer'n your arm. I crawled out on a small tree hangint over
the crick one day and plunked one right through the head with a
revolver bullet.
"Poisonous? They say they ain't, but I think they air.
They're an awful ugly lookin, snake.
"People out there is mostly farmers, of course. Remember I'm
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speakint about fifty years ago. I don't know nothint about how
it is now. They raised wheat. Used to go 'round and help each
other harvest. And harvest times was times of great jollification.
After they got through workin' they'd get out their guitars and
accordeens and sing and dance for a while at night.
"Tell you a funny thing. Few years ago I picked up Ripley's
cartoon in the paper, and there was a picture of the oldest jockey
in the world. A feller named J. Burlingame, of Lakeport, Kansas.
He was eighty-three years old then, and still ridin' horses.
Wellsir, that feller used to have a poolroom in Lakeport where
I've shot pool many a time. I sat down and wrote him a letter.
Told him I saw him in 'Believe It or Not' and I reminded him that
I used to play pool in his poolroom. I told him I hadn't heard
from my cousin in quite a while and asked him to go round and see
what was the matter. When he got that letter he was so tickled
he went right around and showed it to my cousin. So my cousin
wrote to me right away.
"I stayed with my cousin there a while and then I went down
to a little town in the southeastern part of the state, where I
had another cousin. That was a minin' town. They mined zinc and
lead there. Out behind the buildin's on Main street, the ground
was all full of old holes. I went down in them mines, and see the
men workin'. As fast as they dug the mine, other miners would
timber. You know what I mean? They'd reinforce it with planks
sols it wouldn't cave in. It was terrible damp and cold down
there.
"My cousin kept a store. One day I see an Arkansas traveler.
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Ever hear of them? They used to have their little farms down in
Arkansas, and they'd raise stuff and make stuff like brooms, this
feller had brooms, and then kill off their stock and pile
everything they could sell into a wagon and start out to peddle.
"This feller had a big long wagon with six wheels on it and
a covered top, just like a prairie schooner. Had his wife and
kids in it, and all this stuff he was peddling.
"My cousin bought some brooms from him, and some bacon. They
have them little old razor back hogs, they're kind of skinny and
mean looking, but believe me, that was the sweetest bacon I ever
tasted. Not much fat in it. You know what makes it so sweet?
Them hogs have a great weakness for nuts. They're always chewing
on wild pecans and beechnuts, and the woods down that way are full
of them.
"Well sir, I stayed there until September, and then I wanted
to come home. I thought I'd stop off in St. Louis and see the
exposition. Well I run into the damndest trunk jam in St. Louis
they ever was, I guess. They had the exposition there, and they
was expecting a visit from President Cleveland, and they also
had a convention of the Grand Army. And believe me boy, in those
days the Grand f,rmy was something. They had tents there from all
over the United States. And people come in there from all over
hell to see the exposition and to see the president.
"I got permission to go look for my trunk, and I tried to
find it, but it didn't do no good. It had my initials on it half
a foot high, but still I couldn't find it. They was piled on top
of each other from here to Heaven. They didn't know how to handle
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it and they didn't try. I didn't get my trunk until 11 days
after I got home.
"That was the longest trip I ever took. I've been to New
York vite a few times, and been up to Boston to see the sights.
Want to see how they used to dress for a trip to New York?"
Mr. Botsford goes into his bedroom, brings out a "plug hat:."
in excellent condition, well brushed and glossy. Inside is t he
label, "Welton, hatmaker to the Queen."
"All the sports in town wore these," says Mr. Botsford.
"Wore 'em when they went on trips and wore 'em to church of a
Sunday. Had to wear a Prince Albert or a cutaway coat with tem.
I think I got one up in the attic yet.
"And here's what I used to brush the hat with. "He produces
a case which apparently once contained jewelry, and which, like
the hat is smooth from constant brushing. "Fine to brush with,"
says Mr. Botsford.
"Well, you don't care anything about that.
"Say, you know what I heard on the radio last night? Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs. And 'twas just as natural as if it
was the movie.
"That was one movie I enjoyed. I'd go to see it again if it
come back here. You goin' now? Well, come up again, come up again."