A WESTERN STORY
By
Joseph S. Wilkins
(The following remembrance was written by my grandfather, Joseph S. Wilkins, when he was 82 years old. It is a recounting of his early years in west Tennessee and his and my grandmother’s pioneering excursion to Colorado at the beginning of the 20th Century)
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In America, trailblazing is part of our democratic way of life. In my youth, we seemed to have no more frontiers, but, being restless, and wanting to do and have things, my young wife and I decided to go pioneering anyway. Basically, we were fed up barely existing on our old, eroded west Tennessee farm.
We were excited and animated by the traditions and tales of the thrilling adventures of Daniel Boone, Sam Houston, and our beloved Davy Crockett, whose last Tennessee home, before he took off for the Alamo, was nearby. Crockett’s crude politicking, fighting Indians, and bear- hunting exploits I had read about, but most information about him was given to me when I was a boy by his younger companion in all his adventures.
This companion was a young Negro named Albert, and he was Crockett’s slave. Albert went everywhere with Crockett. Albert was with Crockett at the Battle of the Alamo, and was the only survivor. Albert’s capture and final escape from the Mexicans, his loss of a leg, and his 3-year long trek back home gave me thrills and the spirit of adventure.
As was the custom in the South, older slaves were known as “uncle” or “aunt,” so he was Uncle Albert to me, being in his 40’s at the time. He told me of his thrilling adventures related to Crockett and Sam Houston.
Uncle Albert told about the large beech-nut tree near our home where Crockett carved the letters “Where Crockett kil a bar.” He told about Crockett running for Congress and getting drinks for voters by paying for them with coon hides.
Most interesting was his hiding in the canopy of the Alamo during the fighting, watching the small band of overmatched fighters throwing back the Mexican hordes initially; but, when the ammunition gave out, the Mexicans broke through and there was hand-to-hand fighting, with Colonel Travis, Jim Bowie and Crockett being the last to go down. There were dead Mexicans by the score lying around.
Being a colored man possibly saved Albert’s life. He was made a captive, but escaped in less than a year and immediately set out for home, which was five hundred miles away through uninhabited, barren waste country. He had no shoes, few clothes, and was starving.
At one point he came to a large river. He swam across and soon noticed a large animal carcass on the shore, with several buzzards feeding on it. Now there were eats—but how to get it. He waded out and submerged alongside the carcass. Soon the buzzards returned. He grabbed a large cock buzzard by the feet and brought it to shore. He ate most of that buzzard raw.
Soon he built a head-high pen with drift poles around the carcass and the left-over buzzard. He made a trap door on top of the pen and hid himself nearby. Soon, several young wolves came sniffing around and sprang through the trap door into the pen. Quickly, with rocks he pelted the wolves until they were dead. He then skinned them and cut off plenty of wolf mutton. From their hides he made two pairs of moccasins and a suit. Resting overnight, he trekked on.
Early one day, he saw some riders. They were scouts of General Sam Houston’s Army of Liberation. Brought before Houston, he told him his story. Houston knew Crockett and of the fateful Alamo massacre, so he made Albert his handy-man. Soon, the big, decisive battle of San Jacinto was fought, with the Americans driving right through the much larger Mexican army under Santa Anna, who was the president of Mexico, and was captured. Albert had seen Santa Anna when he was a Mexican prisoner, and related this to Sam Houston. Albert had previously hurt his leg, and it had become infected, so the army doctor had to amputate it. The doctor also had to treat a slight foot wound Houston received in the battle.
Houston became very fond of Albert. In their talks while lying around getting well, Houston told him many of his tall tales. One in particular, characteristic of Houston, possibly is worth relating.
While governor of Tennessee, Houston was aroused too early one morning by his wife and told by her to bring an armful of stove wood to cook breakfast. He did, but ate no breakfast (probably to show who was boss). Soon Albert could travel, so he “peg-legged” the long distance back home.
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After a brief time of marriage, and enduring poor farm land that did not produce, my wife and I decided to take Horace Greely’s advice and “Go West!” We went via the prairie schooner, as the Conestoga covered wagon was known. On our long roll west we saw many interesting things. A few I narrate.
One day we stopped for lunch in a smart town—Hominy, in the Osage Indian Nation. Oil had been discovered on their land and, at that time, they were said to be the richest people per capita in the world. They were the first Indians we met, wearing blankets over and around them, with the squaws carrying papooses on covered boards on their backs. They amused my wife and me, and more so when those who could speak English would point at our beautiful three-month-old daughter in my wife’s lap, grin, gesture, and say, “White man papoose!”
In Stevens County, Kansas, the Cimarron River makes a sharp bend, and our best route further west was to cross it there, twice. The day before we got to the east crossing, a downpour of rain fell. I had read how treacherous Western rivers were, with their quicksand bogs after a heavy rain, and how stampeded herds of Buffalo would plunge into them, sink and die. So, a mile from the river crossing we asked a man how the river was. He said it was bone dry, which was confusing, because on a rise a short distance from the crossing I saw water coming. It was passing the ford crossing as we arrived. I looked across. The river had sloping banks, and upstream there was no avalanche of water coming. But I knew the swift current and crawling sand would take us downstream a bit, yet the sloping banks would enable us to cross safely.
We plunged in with our waterproof, Conestoga wagon. The water was a foot or so deep. However, our splendid team of horses did not like such dirty, foaming water, full of drifting tumble weeds and other trash. By the time we reach the other side—100 feet or so—the water was nearly up to our wagon bed.
We camped overnight at a settlement a mile on the western edge of the Cimarron Valley. The next morning the floodwater was nearly out to us. A man there said he had never seen the river that high in his twenty years there. Telling him where we were going, he said it would be a week or 10 days before we could cross the river on the west.
Broomcorn was their money crop there, and they were harvesting it then. He asked me if I wished work. I did, and he phoned a friend near the western crossing. He was sending a helper. This farmer was about my age, with a wife and year-old daughter. He payed me a dollar a day and our board. The next day he showed me how to pull dwarf broomcorn. We put big handfuls between rows to dry 3 or 4 days, put it in ricks, then later seed and bale it (400 lbs. to the bale) for market. We traded some goods nearly every day and eventually didn’t work much. I then spent an hour or more each morning and evening in his grain fields shooting prairie chickens that came in thundering droves. He would laugh at me for not getting many chickens. I told him he need not expect a tenderfoot Easterner to shoot like Westerners.
At noon one day, after we had mopped our guns, I held his gun skyward and looked through the barrel. I had never seen before or since such a bore of golden rings and glow. I wanted that gun, and used it a few days hunting. A few days later, he said he might give me an even trade for my fine looking double- barrel gun. Just what I wanted him to say. He said he had used his gun against many competitors, and always outshot the other hunters. We made the trade, and afterward I got my chickens.
In a few days, he phoned his friend at the Western Cimarron crossing to ask when I could cross, and to help me. They said I could cross with help. We reloaded the wagon, and early next day arrived at the crossing. Cowboys awaited us on their ponies. I wondered how they could be of much assistance. Two of them tied their lariats to the end of my wagon tongue, the third one led the way, and away we went safely across. I never knew before how a horse, with a rope tied to a saddle horn, could pull so much. However, later in our winters when so many cattle froze, cowboys with their lariats would drag full grown cows away on the frozen ground.
Soon, we crossed the old Santa Fe Trail, bringing back memories of tales of the old West that I had heard in my youth. Not being able to water my team, late in the evening of the third day, we saw some men building a rock house nearby. They had water in barrels, and, taking buckets, they helped me water my team. The higher altitude had winded one of my horses and he was lying down, exhausted. Given water, he eventually arose and recovered. I later learned to my sorrow that some eastern horses did not become acclimated to the altitude change, and soon died.
These people seemed pleased when I told them I intended to homestead in that section. One of them pointed to a windmill three miles west, saying one of his eight brothers lived there and that he would show me around and help me find what I wanted. His brother not being home, his wife, Mrs. Craddick, mother-in-law, and her gangling son took care of my team of horses. They gave us plenty of good eats and an overnight welcome. Early the next morning we set out for Springfield, twenty-five miles away. All those brothers later became our dear friends.
Halfway to Springfield was Villas, a big trading post and post office. I drove up front to the main store. Several cowboys were out front and began gazing bug-eyed at our baby daughter. (I afterward learned she was the only baby in that area.) Western style, they wanted to know my mission, so I told them we were homesteading.
The merchant, Mr. Wheeler (who sold everything from toothpicks to automobiles) pointed to a house three miles north across the prairie, saying it was unoccupied, and to move in and stay until I got located. A dry, sandy, Bear Creek was about halfway. The cowboys, seeing I was heavily loaded, said I would likely get stuck crossing, and to wait and they would soon be along to get me across. Just like our crossing the Cimarron River.
After crossing the creek, we arrived at the house about noon. I fed the team, ate lunch, unloaded some, and fixed up the house. Then I took off on horseback for Springfield for my mail.
Early next morning we saw two people coming in a surrey. I recognized the boy from where we had stayed the night before. He told me they had come for us. I stated I had a place as long as I wished. The man, Mr. Craddick, said he was sorry he wasn’t at home when we arrived, and that we must return and stay with him. So we returned, with the boy driving my team, with my wife and me riding with Mr. Craddick in the surrey. Arriving at his home, the boy again took care of our team, with the family again giving as a welcoming return.
Before I left the East, I had received valuable government plats and descriptive literature about Baca County, Colorado—its climate, soil, what they grew and how, the rainfall, and altitude. I told Mr. Craddick I wanted a valley with blue stem grass that grows two to three feet high, and a two to three mile slope into this valley. A gradual slope was necessary because when it rain there it pours and flooding is a concern. This slope had Grammer grass that grows three or four inches, and as it seldom does rain in late Fall and Winter, cures and remains succulent—which is so fine for the buffaloes and now the sheep and cattle. It also has thick, matted, root sod that sheds water like a duck’s back. The annual rainfall was twenty-one inches. One needs floodwater to prevent crop failure. Mr. Craddick said he knew just the place, six miles north and in the section I wanted.
We went the next day. Two miles away was a slope of Grammer grass, leading down into a beautiful valley. We stopped at the southwest corner of the half- section. Looking down that valley was beauty beyond compare. I had him drive through it. Twice I took a posthole digger and dug down four feet or so, striking blood-red subsoil. At about a foot down I struck moisture, so I knew one could grow crops every year.
We then drove to the northwest corner of this 320n acres (half section). A Dutch rancher 20 years before had settled there, built a nice 18 x 36 foot rock house, with a like-sized, partitioned basement. The government found out this Dutchman was a claim jumper, so he had to skip. All but the basement of the house was gone, though the hundred square-foot, rock corral was intact. Mr. Craddick said that with a little rock repairing, which his father could do, one could roof the basement, plaster the rock wall with gypsum (plentiful near the creek), making beautiful white walls, and have a cheap, warm, temporary home.
Looking north a mile was Horse Creek, with timber on the banks. Two and one-half miles north were Blaine Post Office and school. Twenty-five miles northwest was Two Buttes Mountains—two hazy peaks that stood 500 feet high right out of the prairie. Blue and sparkling mirage lakes were seen every way one looked. What scenery! Our dreamland. The rainbow’s end.
The next day Mr. Craddick took my wife and me to Lamar, 60 miles away, to file on our homestead. He sent one of his brothers with a team to get us some lumber, roofing, wire, some coal, and sundry supplies. Later, his father and brother started working on my house while he and I went 40 miles west into some cedar breaks to get some dead cedar fence posts. We loaded our wagons with enough seasoned cedar posts to fence my 320 acres and a line of posts through the center, making the north half for pasture and the south half (valley) for crops. When we arrived home our house was habitable and comfortable. These dear people would take no pay for all this.
We soon moved in. I had left the effete East with malaria, chills, and fever every few days—also with some bunions on my feet. In a year I had no more bunions, and I was not sick a day in that glorious country.
Later, the teacher at Blaine was resigning at Christmas. Learning that I had taught school in Tennessee, the school directors asked me to finish teaching the remaining four months term. I had to walk two-and a-half miles daily to and from the school house.
On Horse Creek, I soon noticed spring water coming out in places in the rocky, high bluffs on the north side. The water in Horse Creek was two inches or so deep, and in places twelve feet wide, eventually sinking into the sand. But large rock boulders had fallen into the creek, and in several places had backed up the water, making several large, deep holes, good for duck shooting and catching the limit of mountain trout. The limit was all you wished to take home! The breaks also made good covers to hide and shoot antelopes and other game.
At school one day in mid- February at recess, the children called my attention to a dark, hazy cloud in the northwest, saying a blizzard was coming, and that teachers always let them out to go home. Hurriedly we all left. I got a mile from home when the blizzard struck. I was in the creek breaks, protected somewhat, yet I was blown around, half blinded by pelting snow and sleet. Visibility was nil at times. I was well-clad and made it home about dusk by following our neighborhood pasture fence that ran near our house. Numb, half- blinded, and frozen, I stumbled home. I had been told to watch for such blizzard clouds and seek shelter soon. I had heard of people feeding stock, getting lost, and freezing, trying to find their house not a hundred yards away.
When school was out, I began plowing. The first year that one turns the sod, you let it remain, then drill the grain. No cultivating. If fact, one never cultivates there. I only ran a weeder once, to keep out weeds. This was new, easy farming to me. Cultivating in the east was our pain. What crops! Milo, maze, Kaffir corn, broomcorn, and cane that grew so thick and high. An agricultural forest primeval. Such rich, enduring soil. A rancher showed me plots planted to crops for twenty years, with no apparent deterioration. We had one half- mile row of watermelons, cantaloupes, pumpkins, and several kinds of squash. There was enough rain to make fine crops, with sunshine galore, for the finest flavor. Twice snow fell before a freeze. I have gone to my field and scratched snow off delicious watermelons and cantaloupes—after Christmas.
Early in the spring, the postmaster at Blaine became very sick. The people asked me to take the position and move the post office over to my place. This suited me because I wanted to meet people and trade with them. The mail carrier came thrice a week, at noon when I was at home. Then I soon had the mail up and the carrier on his way.
That winter, working week-ends, I fenced my 320 acres with three-wire, and put a fence through the middle, separating my pasture from the valley-crop part. After planting my crops (no cultivating being necessary) I started our new rock house. Rocks and gypsum were plentiful near Horse Creek. Its location, midway on a slight rise east, was better to look over my domain and see those beautiful mirages. I told the old timers I intended to have a spring bubble up. How they would laugh at me, calling me a green bumpkin roller, who knew more about the country than those who had been there a lifetime.
I had to haul water for my stock a mile from the creek. I let my stock out one day, thinking they would return with our milk cow whose calf was in the corral. When the cows didn’t return, my wife, astride the cow pony, went for them. I told her not to cross the creek, as we lately had a freshet. She soon returned, saying the cattle were on the north side of the creek. I filled my pockets with throwing rocks and went after them. I began pelting the milk cow, Miss Daisy. She re-crossed the creek, and all started home. My horse hesitated crossing a nearer way. It looked safe, so I put spur to him and in– and nearly under– we went. The creek was not very wide. I jumped onto a boulder near the other side. Holding onto the bridle reins, strongly pulling and tugging, my horse muddled through and out. The laugh by my wife was on me.
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The early homesteaders tried to farm like they did back east with non-acclimated seeds—with disastrous results, becoming as “Sour Grapes of Wrath.” Some built nice stone houses and dug large community wells for water. A mile south, half a mile north and one mile east, there were several such wells—5 feet in diameter and 50 to 60 feet deep. All had loose boards over them because they were dangerous. Over time, they had deteriorated and were now about half-covered and half-filled with windblown dead grass and tumbleweeds. These weeds were the size of a wash kettle, and grew all over the prairie, and dried up round-shaped. Our prevailing breezes and strong fall and winter winds snapped the tumbleweeds loose from their roots and sent them rolling and tumbling by the hundreds over the prairie. I have seen them piled up against wire fences, fence high, and with accumulated snow, break fences down.
I did not know of an east well until out hunting early one day, when I shot and wounded a badger. While chasing him, I dashed onto the half-covered well-top, and fell 30 feet into the well, taking several broken boards with me. The 30 feet or so of tumbleweeds and trash cushioned my fall and saved me from being badly hurt. I was winded, scared, and had a few body bruises and a severe head bump. I lay there for a time, recuperating and regaining my senses.
Was I scared! Thirty feet up, and a dry, straight wall: 15 feet of rock, 10 feet of tough red clay, and 5 feet of humus, loose, rich soil. My wife would be expecting me home by noon, but she and neighbors wouldn’t start looking for me before night. Would they ever look into these wells? They would first look into the breaks and water holes north on the creek for a day or two—but into these wells…maybe never. And no one could hear me holler very far.
I resolved to get myself out—but how? I had only a large pocketknife. I cut four fallen-in boards, slightly longer than the well’s diameter. Then I reached up as high as I could and peaked a notch between two rocks. I fitted one end of my boards in the notch, with the other end slightly up on the opposite wall. I did the same thing twice more, arriving at the red clay formation. I then cut a notch in this tough red clay twice, and fitting the boards in, I swung up and onto the top of the red clay. The five feet or so of loose soil would not hold my board notch, so there I was, so near the top—and yet so far. I started hollering, but got no answer. I then cut a short paddle digger and started digging this crumbly soil. As luck was again my way, I immediately struck an old badger hole—or was it my hurt badger in his large sleeping room?
Badgers are bad medicine when wounded. Should a hot or cold war flare, badger or bear, I was coming in feet first, and no appeasements. Soon I dug and cut with my knife a firm handhold in matted grass sod, and was up and out– and safe! After a long rest, I returned home, arriving before dark. I related my going aground, go-down, and critical picking up escape to my wife. However, this time my wife did not laugh.
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By fencing a few gaps, we soon had a neighborhood pasture, nine miles across, with plenty of water for the stock of interested neighbors. By Christmas I had my house habitable, 16 x 32 feet, with plastered white gypsum, including the same sized basement. I partitioned a third of the house for the Post Office, and the same size in the basement to store and keep produce from freezing. I also built my wife a large rock and plastered chicken house. Chickens did well there, and we always had a plentiful supply of chicken and eggs. By spring, I also had a rock corral, 8 feet high and 100 feet square. People began to settle in this country rapidly.
After a time I wanted an additional quarter section to the east. So, I had my father, aged 70, come from Tennessee to also homestead. He needed to retire and come to a more healthful climate. He homesteaded his 160 acres next to mine. This isolated another 160 acres, nearly as good as mine. This isolated 160 acres I could buy at $1.25 an acre.
I have previously narrated I wanted a deep well drilled. The ranchers said I had better have a shallow well (60 or 70 feet) and a windmill like everybody else. One day at noon, a Mr. Marsh took dinner with us. He said he was a deep well driller, and he would drill me a well to any depth I wished, at a dollar a foot, and room and board. We traded, and I furnished the 6-inch casing, which he ordered. He started drilling in a week.
I had previously surveyed a homestead for one of my old Tennessee friends, and he paid me by helping scrape out and level a big reservoir for my well. How the old timers riled my for doing all this before I even had a well.
Mr. Marsh drilled two weeks through stratified rock 120 feet. One day at noon, he said the rock had changed to a tough, waxy, black rock. He was another two weeks drilling 100 feet through it. Then again at noon, he said he had struck a porous, white rock. He had set the 6-inch casing into this tough black rock to cut off the surface water and drilled inside the casing. The sign was good for artesian water and we were elated. Mid-afternoon, drilling in this white, porous rock we heard a roar, and yelled. My helper and I looked up and saw a stream of water shooting into the air. Mr. Marsh screwed the last joint of casing into an elbow for the water to flow into our complete, big reservoir. I set a post near the center of the reservoir and put a bow with salt in it, so my cattle would trample in it and help the reservoir hold water.
For a month or more, my wife and I would ride a horse and lead another to trample and make the bottom firm, so as to make our reservoir hold water good. When full, we began irrigating a big garden. You could sell, at good prices, all kinds of garden products and we grew much of all kinds. We then irrigated around the house and corral to grow trees for added beauty and windbreak. When my old-timer friends came for their mail the day after our well came in, they shook their heads and gazed, bug-eyed.
Information of this, the first steel-cased artesian well in Baca, Colorado, was published in the Two Butte Sentinel (a weekly paper) in July or August, 1913. People came from afar and near to see it. Many began putting down artesian wells, some flowing 1000 gallons a minute. All vacant land was soon taken. A new town, Artesia, sprand up nearby. A land rush, grab and boom, was on.
Near disaster struck the third winter. Local hail nearly ruined our fine garden and crops. February was a month of incessant snows. I lost nearly half of my ill-fed cattle. Many others lost more, but I had my stock up and protected from the blizzard somewhat by my corral. Fuel and food became scarce with many. I was lucky, having a supply of cow chips and driftwood hauled from the creeks north. I made me a hand-me-down meal mill, attached an old coffee mill spindle to the top, then rocked and spun it around, making meal.
We also had plenty of ducks and chickens. I shot ducks in the reservoir from my door. There were plenty of jackrabbits that I shot in the late evenings in the moonlight, while they were out eating around the corral.
During a lull in a storm, a neighbor and I went 45 miles to Holly, mostly for cattle feed and flour. The snow had melted and the ground was frozen, so we went fast. Late evening, within 10 miles from home on our way back, the ground thawed and we had to rest our weary team every half-mile or so. We arrived at my neighbor’s house at midnight. I stayed over-night. That night the ground froze and I started the two and a half miles home. Horse Creek ford had a foot or so high ice abutment on both sides. I would have to cut that ice away or get stuck. A near blizzard was coming, so I didn’t have time to cut both sides. I looked upstream. Close by, a big boulder had previously backed up melted snow water that was level with both creek banks. It had frozen, but shallow water was running beneath it. I decided the ice was thick enough to hold my load, and over that bridge of ice we went. I fed my team and was unloading my wagon at home when the blizzard struck.
All ranchers and homesteaders were much afraid of prairie fires, so they were careful with matches and campfires. The grass was very inflammable. Prairie fires were often set by rainless electrical storms, common in semi-arid countries, with their constant strong breezes.
One such prairie fire came roaring our way five miles south. The cowboys and ranchers fought it by dragging wet blankets, sacks, even bedding, when other things were not available. They would shoot a cow, quickly pull off the skin, tie it to the end of their long lariat, with the other side of the skin tied to the lariat of another cowboy, and speed along both sides of the fire, gradually narrowing the burning area until it was out. This prairie fire was nearly pin-pointed before it reached us and was stopped by our mile-long cultivated valley on the south side. This saved our house, out buildings, and stacked feed. We were also concerned about prairie fires ruining our fall and winter grazing for our cattle, horses and sheep.
One wild thing I was never able to harmonize. It was smaller than a coyote and pale red in color. One night, north on Two Butte Creek, looking for driftwood with several neighbors, snoozing in a draw, a light snow fell. We were crawling from under our blankets, when right near, up jumped one of those creatures. Before I could get my gun and run to the edge of the narrow draw, I sighted a red blur two miles away. Returning to my companions, I asked, “What was that?” they said it was a swift—and swift it was!
Your neighbors were those near and thirty miles away. I would not sell flour or feed, but loaned both to our neighbors until this unusual cold spell abated. The next two years I made fine crops, bought some more cattle, raised and sold some hogs. Our local garden sales were exceptionally good. I sold a bit of grain and a big crop of broomcorn, paying for my well, some cattle, and more land.
Then, in the fifth year, disaster struck our family. My wife naturally had a weak heart, and the higher altitude and lighter air was making her weak. I went for the only doctor in the county, and he said I would have to get her to lower and more humid regions, giving me 60 days, or her heart would be damaged.
So, there we were. Our bright looking future (moonlight and roses) was now “gone with the wind.” Therefore, in a few days, I put my wife and now two lovely daughters, 3 and 5 years old, on the train to take them back to our old nest in Tennessee. A short time later, I had a sale of all our property. Those dear people bid in and paid more for my things than they seemed worth.
Physically, I was hale and fit as a fiddle. My father, who was living with us, had been ill, but was now recuperated. He lived to be 92, and went back east with us. Financially we had not done too badly. I had come to that fair land in Colorado with around $800 and I left with $10,000 in cash and real estate. A neighbor drove my father and me to the train forty-five miles away. I took a sad, longing, last look across the rolling prairie at our dear homestead, basking in glittering mirage splendor. The boy within me cried, stilling the song in my soul.
In this democratic country, which is especially good for the aged, I can hardly believe—and am distressed—to read that the scenes of our homestead, honeymoon country can now be called a Dust Bowl. Oh, that Man, the most remarkable, and perhaps most admirable of God’s creatures, could and would mar and abuse this beautiful earth.
THE END
Epilogue—It will be noted from my grandfather’s account of his homesteading days, that life on the prairie could be quite dangerous at times, and life was risky. But, the prairie offered more freedom and opportunity for those willing to risk it. However, the reader will note that much of that danger was offset by the help and kindness of neighbors. Granddaddy got assistance that is somewhat uncommon today, without which he might not been able to survive his days on the prairie. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that spirit of helping our neighbors could be increased today.