by Ralph Moody
I spent the forenoons reassembling my wagons, resetting the tires, making repairs, touching up the paint, and putting harness into first class condition. Then I devoted the afternoons to rounding the horses into shape: trimming their hoofs, hitching each pair to a heavily loaded wagon, driving them enough to sweat off their winter softness, breaking down their resentment of control by firm but gentle handling, and finally retraining each four-horse team until it responded as a unit to every command or touch of the reins.
I’d finished the corn planting and been working my trading territory a week or two when a lightweight truck passed me on the road. It was the first truck I’d ever seen on a country road, but five more passed me by the end of the week, all driven at breakneck speed by young fellows I’d never seen before. I should have had sense enough to know why they were there, but it never occurred to me until a farmer told me they were contracting to haul wheat at little more than half the price-per-mile I’d charged the previous summer. Even though I owned my horses and wagons clear of debt, I couldn’t afford to meet any such rate.
The coming Sunday would be Fourth of July, and harvest would start that week. At an auction just before harvest, horses and wagons would bring more than at any other time, and although I’d never owned anything I hated so badly to part with, common sense demanded that I sell quickly. The bigger the auction crowd the higher the bidding, so I headed straight for the telephone office. I told Effie my reason for having an auction and that it would be held at my place on Fourth of July afternoon, with the biggest barbecue ever seen in Beaver Township and fifty dollars’ worth of fireworks in the evening. Then I asked if she’d put out line calls and have the operators in all the nearby towns do the same.
Next I went to see Bones, told him what I was going to do, and asked if he’d get as many bankers as he could to come. Bankers were nearly as important to me as bidders, because I intended trying to sell my rigs as units: the four mustangs that had been trained as a team, their harness, and a pair of tandemed wagons. Few farmers, especially just before harvest, could write a check for as much as I hoped one of those rigs would bring unless his banker was on hand to approve a mortgage loan. From the bank I went to Oberlin, hunted up the best auctioneer in the county, arranged for him to handle my sale, and told him I’d pay an extra 1 per cent commission on rigs sold as a complete unit. At the Oberlin Cash Store I had an order sent off for skyrockets, Roman candles, and other fireworks.
That evening I told Bob about the auction, and that he’d have to do the evening feeding for the rest of the week, but that I’d load the hayrack and corn wagon for him each morning. I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday collecting the hogs I’d bought during the past weeks. It not only gave me a chance to drive my teams, but let the farmers in four townships see how sleek and well-trained they were.
All four mustangs in the team I’d driven myself during the 1919 hauling season were old Kitten’s offspring: the smallest, toughest, wildest, and most unmanageable of all my horses. The former owner had nearly ruined them with cruelty, but they were highly intelligent and had become tractable under careful handling. By the end of the season they’d obey the reins with such machinelike precision that, in showing them off to Effie, I’d put them through a figure 8 in front of the telephone office while hauling 120 bushels of wheat on a pair of wagons hitched in tandem. I decided to train them in the stunt at a run, not only as entertainment for the auction crowd, but to show prospective buyers how strong, dependable, and controllable my little mustangs were. Along with collecting hogs and hauling supplies for the barbecue, I schooled the team morning, noon, and evening all week. By Friday they’d pull a pair of loaded wagons at a full gallop along the level quarter-mile stretch of road leading to the buildings on my place, swing through a figure 8 in the dooryard without slacking speed, and slide to a stop exactly in front of the corral gate.
A steady rain set in before daylight on Saturday, and lasted most of the day. It made schooling the horses impossible, but was so valuable to our corn crop that I was glad to have it. I spent all day and late into the evening getting ready for the auction, then stayed at the place all night. An hour before dawn on Fourth of July, I drove down to the Wilson place to feed the stock, and took my furniture along. It was all secondhand and nothing fancy, but I’d become sort of attached to it and didn’t want it auctioned off, so stored it in Bob’s empty bunkhouse.
Bob and Marguerite went back with me as soon as I’d done the feeding, and we took along a man from Cedar Bluffs to do the barbecuing. While they started getting the food ready I hitched up all seven rigs, put the teams through a final workout, then lined them up for display in the big corral. By noon there were jalopies of every kind and description, some fine automobiles, buggies, buckboards, carriages, and wagons lined up on both sides of the driveway and a quarter-mile down the county road. The dooryard was swarming with people, and Bob was acting as traffic cop to keep it free of vehicles.
It was customary not to serve the free lunch until after the auctioning, but it seemed to me that men with full bellies would bid more freely. When everyone had eaten and drunk all he could hold, the auctioneer climbed up on the corral gate and made a flowery speech about my four-horse tandem-wagon rigs being “famous throughout Decatur County and the whole region round-about.” After orating for more than ten minutes about my mustangs being the best trained, fastest, toughest, and strongest horses—pound for pound—in the world, he shouted that it would be a downright crime to break up any one of the teams, so he was going to auction each complete rig as a single unit. “I’m not asking you to take my word about these little horses,” he bellowed. “Before they’re put up for sale we will give you a fantastic demonstration of their strength, speed, sure-footedness, and ease of handling.”
As Bob and the auctioneer harangued the crowd, clearing the driveway and dooryard, I climbed to the high wagon seat behind my figure 8 team and gathered the reins in my hands. When the gate swung open I drove out into the empty yard, then stopped the team and called out, “I need a four-ton load here. How about fifty of you heaviest men and boys coming along for a ride?”
Four tons was far more than I wanted, but I was sure the boys would outrun the heavier men—and they did. Within ten seconds both wagons were packed tight, but the whole load weighed less than three tons. The driveway was straight and flat, hard-packed from the recent rain and heavy traffic of the forenoon. I let the team pick up a brisk trot as we neared the county road, swung them in a wide turn, still at a trot, and cautioned my riders to hold tight.
As I’d done in practice, I snugged the reins the moment the leaders were facing back toward the buildings, then sang out, “Yi-ya! Ha! Ha! Ha!” The four little mustangs—no one of them weighing over eight hundred pounds—sprang into their collars as if each Ha! had been a whip lash. In a dozen strides they’d picked their speed up to a full gallop, and by the time we reached the dooryard they were fairly flying. With the crowd yelling insanely, we swung so close to the corral that the skidding rear wheels of the trailer wagon missed the fence no more than an inch or two. By that time the leaders were halfway across the yard, streaking toward the house, then swinging back toward the barn to complete the bottom circle of the 8; across the yard again, and into the reverse circle at the top of the figure. As we’d always done in practice, I hit the brakes hard at the top of the circle, and the rig slid to a stop squarely in front of the corral gate.
Almost instantly there was a man at each bridle, and the crowd gathered tightly around us, wild with excitement. The auctioneer was too smart to let the opportunity slip away. He started the auctioning as soon as the crowd had quieted enough for bids to be heard, and within three minutes had sold the rig for nearly seven hundred and fifty dollars. No other rig brought so much, but they all sold above seven hundred. Even my six old tote horses brought sixty dollars apiece. Spare harness and other odds and ends sold for another couple of hundred, bringing the total for everything except Kitten and my saddle t
o slightly more than fifty-seven hundred dollars. I wasn’t at all displeased with the amount, but far from happy otherwise. As men climbed to the high seats and drove my teams away I felt almost as guilty as if I’d sold my own brothers and sisters.
After the auction there was nothing I wanted less than a big celebration, so I asked Bob to host the rest of the affair, then saddled old Kitten and rode away. It seemed unbelievable that only a year had passed since I’d come there, dead broke, and as part of a rag-tag harvest crew. I’d planned to stay only to earn railroad fare to Denver, but the place had become my home, and I found myself riding away from it with an ache in my throat.
For an hour or more I let Kitten have her head as I thought back over the year and how good it had been to me. I’d made far more than I’d ever dreamed of making in a single year, and if the stock Bob and I had in the feed lot did as well as we expected, I’d make as much again before the summer was over.
For the next month I worked my territory every possible hour and shipped two car loads of stock a week. In early August there was a cloudburst near McCook, and an inch of rain fell at Cedar Bluffs. It was fine for our corn, but I had to cultivate right away to keep the moisture from evaporating in the scorching heat. By the time I’d finished there was no doubt that Bob and I would make a huge profit on the stock we were feeding, for the price of fat cattle had risen steadily since early June. Because we were nearly out of feed, I suggested shipping on August 14, but Bob insisted that the steers needed another two weeks to reach prime, and George agreed with him.
I’d never seen George so optimistic about livestock prospects. Prime steers were bringing seventeen dollars a hundred, bacon hogs sixteen, and corn had leveled off at a dollar sixty. He had a theory that the whole market was in balance when hogs were ten times the price of corn, and prime steers a dollar higher. “A man might as leave predict which way a flea will jump as to forecast the livestock market,” he told us, “but I’ll say this: the way the price of corn and hogs and prime steers have pulled into line is the healthiest sign I’ve seen since the war.”
Bob cut in to predict that prime steers would be bringing twenty-five dollars a hundred before Christmas, but George told him, “I’d stake anything I own that you’ll see another war before you again see fat cattle as high as twenty dollars, leave alone twenty-five. But I look for ’em to stay right around seventeen or eighteen while corn brings a dollar sixty.”
With George confident that the market was in a healthy condition, Bob and I wanted to put another bunch of stock on feed as soon as possible after shipping. Next morning we went to see Bones about the financing, and found him not only willing but eager. He urged that we put in double our present amount of stock, enough high-quality feed to fatten it, and do all our buying immediately to avoid higher prices. When I pointed out that it would require an eighty-thousand-dollar investment he said he knew it and had ample funds to provide the financing.
Bob would have jumped right in, but I could see no reason for paying interest until we actually needed the money, and since George felt as he did about the market I doubted that prices would rise to any great extent, so I told Bones, “I’d like to put in another batch after we’ve sold this one, but I think five hundred steers and half as many pigs should be the limit, and I don’t want to buy feed more than a month before it’s needed.”
I didn’t work my territory during the last two weeks of August, but spent all my spare time grinding feed to put our steers in top-notch condition. When we loaded them onto the cars they were as near perfect as any feed-lot cattle I’d seen, and our hogs were equally good. Unfortunately the last weekend of August was the hottest of the summer, so our shipping shrinkage was almost twice as high as on our first shipment, but we still came out wonderfully well. Three carloads of our steers and two cars of our hogs topped the market, with the others close behind. Bob stood proudly beside the auctioneer as owner of the steers, and I stood as owner of the hogs. But the net receipts, of course, had to be paid directly to the bank at Cedar Bluffs.
The day we got home and settled with Bones was one of the proudest of my life. After paying every dime I owed, I sent my mother a check that left my bank balance an even nineteen thousand, five hundred dollars. Bob’s share brought his debt down to barely more than eight thousand, and there seemed little doubt that he could pay it off by the end of the year.
By the following Friday evening we’d bought our full quota of steers and pigs for our next operation, and feed enough to last us a month. The stock was delivered on the fourth of September, and that afternoon Bob and I signed notes for our new loans. Bones insisted that he have a mortgage on all our stock and the feed we’d bought, but didn’t ask either of us for a mortgage on our corn crop.
With seven hundred and fifty head of stock in the feed lot and my trading business to take care of, I was busy from dawn till dark and had no reason to go to Cedar Bluffs in more than two weeks. Then, on the twenty-first of September, Bones phoned and told Marguerite that he’d like to see me at the bank right away. When I went in he asked me to come back to his desk, looked around as if to make sure that Dave Sawyer, the cashier, wasn’t listening, and said in a low whisper, “You’ll have to keep this strictly to yourself, but I’ve got to . . . ”
Then he seemed to catch himself and change his mind. He cleared his throat and started all over again, “No, son, I can’t tell you what I was about to, but I’ll say this much: it would be best for you and Bob to take out loans enough now to cover whatever feed you’ll need till the end of the year. I’ll make the due date January fourth, like your other notes, so you’ll be in a good safe position if anything should happen.”
I signed a note bringing my loan up to twenty thousand dollars, and said I’d have Bob drop in to sign his, but I did it only because there was something about Bones’s behavior that left me no doubt of his absolute sincerity. He walked to the door when I went, laid a hand on my shoulder, and told me, “Son, it’s been good to do . . . ” Then he turned and, without another word, walked slowly back to his desk. I left the bank as puzzled as ever in my life, but I never told anyone what Bones had said to me, though I had Bob go in and sign a new note.
On the last Monday in September the whole township was abuzz, for there was a terse announcement in the McCook Gazette, “Harry S. Kennedy of Cedar Bluffs reports that he has sold 90 shares of stock of the First State Bank of Cedar Bluffs at $400 per share. Atwood men to take over the bank.”
The next morning Bones phoned for Bob and me to come up and meet the new bankers. When he introduced me he said some nice things about my having arrived there as a harvest hand and become one of the most successful livestock traders and feeders in western Kansas. The new men seemed friendly enough, but I couldn’t help the feeling that they were looking me over in the same way Bob and I looked over a steer when considering whether or not to accept him. When we left, one of them walked to the door with us and said pompously, “Bank examiners are due here in a few days, and like as not there’ll be some scuttlebutt whispered about, but don’t pay it any mind. We’re putting in enough new capital to make this little bank as strong as The Bank of England.”
The rise in feed and livestock prices that Bones had predicted was short-lived and followed by a sharp decline. By the end of October corn had dropped below a dollar a bushel, prime steers were down two dollars a hundred, and bacon hogs more than three. But I could see nothing for Bob and me to worry about; there was plenty of time for livestock prices to recover before our stock would be ready to ship at the end of December, and the lower corn went the less our feed would cost.
10
A Skunk under the Woodpile
THE FIRST HALF of November was wonderful for Bob and me. Our corn crop shucked out better than eighty bushels to the acre, the price of prime steers bounced up a full dollar, and hogs not only stopped their plunge but turned upward twenty-five cents. Besides that, our stock was gaining weight faster than any we’d fed, and there seemed no p
ossible doubt that we’d make an enormous profit when we shipped at the end of the year. The only disturbing market factor was that the price of wheat took a sharp tumble at the middle of the month, though corn held fairly steady.
Sunday evening I went for a visit with George Miner, to find out what he thought had caused the sudden drop in the wheat market. He was more concerned than I’d ever seen him, and told me, “If I don’t miss my guess, there’s a skunk under the woodpile, and I’ve been smellin’ him ever since the first of the month. The big grain speculators in Chicago must know about somethin’ goin’ on in the world that the politicians down to Washington are holdin’ back from the farmers, and that’s what is drivin’ the price of wheat down. It’s been slippin’ off steady for six months now, but the crop was smaller this year than last. That’s pretty good proof that the demand has gone all to pot, and the only reason I can think of is that Europe has raised a good enough crop to feed its own people. If that’s so, you’re goin’ to see some mighty tough times ahead for American farmers, what with the way the government’s kept us increasin’ production since the war end. If my guess is worth a tinker, farmers won’t be the only ones to get hurt neither. Maybe we’ve been wastin’ our tears over Bones for havin’ to sell that bank stock.”
George walked to the gate when I left, and told me, “I didn’t aim to make it sound like the whole shootin’ match was goin’ to the bow-wows, and I hope my runnin’ off at the mouth didn’t upset you none. What with corn fallin’ only a nickel, and fat cattle gainin’ back most of their loss, and hogs on the way up again, it don’t look to me like you and Bob have too much to worry about. It’s only six weeks till you’ll be shippin’, and it ain’t likely that we’ll run into any trouble to speak of before the end of the year. But if I was in your boots I’d be a mite leery, come January, about puttin’ another big bunch of cattle and hogs on feed. Good night, son, and don’t lose no sleep over what I’ve said to you. Irene give me mince pie for supper, and it could be I’m lookin’ at the dark side of things on account of it layin’ heavy in my stomach.”