Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas

It was a lazy October afternoon. The woods were still in full leaf and the tops of the trees, touched by early frost, had turned to reddish brown and golden yellow. It was a fine day for squirrel hunting. But this is not strictly a hunting story.

There were six in the party—three men of widely varying ages and, as the college youth would say, three skirts —but, for convenience, all wore trousers that afternoon. It was a sort of boarding-house party out for recreation and game. They were: Mrs. Edna Weaver, Miss Genevieve Weaver, Miss Thelma Sullivan, Milton Mayer, Raymond Weaver and the writer.

Our wanderings carried us into the heavily wooded section near the head of Wolfley creek. I had no hunter’s license and, being a law-loving citizen, carried no gun. The hunters, alert for game, went deep into the woods. And I trailed along, not noticing, not caring, where we were going. Having passed the stage of life when one normally gives a whoop where he is or what he does, to me, one place was as good as another.

And then, of a sudden, I became tremendously alert. We were now coming near to my father’s old farm—the home he had blazed out of the wilderness, so to speak, on first coming to Kansas—oh, so many years ago. That farm is now owned by Mrs. Worley.

A few of the many letters commenting on my published stories are printed in this volume—in all cases, blocked in the story to which the letter refers. They help to attest the authenticity and worthiness of the article. It’s most stimulating to have one’s friends write in and say, “I know that to be true.” It’s like the “Amen” to a fervent prayer.

The regret is that so few of the old ones are left.

For sentimental reasons I wanted to hunt that old place — to live, briefly, again the days of my youth. As we came to the line fence between the Worley farm and the Brock pasture lands on the east, my companions balked at wire—wanted to turn back. My suggestion that we go on was regarded as “idiotic.” The Worley timber was un-inviting. There were lots of weeds over on that side, and probably snakes, too. I know rattlesnakes infested that place when I lived there as a boy.

I climbed over the fence, anyway, and was soon racing toward a mammoth elm tree—a tree that had budded and leaves more than sixty times since the day I last saw that place. The hunters came over on the bound. “It went up this tree,” I lied. There was no squirrel. I was in truth a boy again—a very small boy—resorting to childish subterfuges.