Horse of a Different Color: Reminiscences of a Kansas Drover

by Ralph Moody

  When I got home Nick was in his room with the door closed and a lamp lighted. And, strangely, the plaid oilcloth was missing from the kitchen table.

  The next morning we were up by four o’clock, ate breakfast by lamplight, and in the first gray of dawn began fencing a runway from the scales to the field where the corn was buried. When at sunrise George and the bank receiver arrived, Nick looked bewildered, almost like a frightened child who wanted to run and hide. I realized that it would be an ordeal for him to meet as many strangers as would be coming to the place that day, so sent him to take the tools to the house, and said I’d come for him if he was needed. A little later I caught a glimpse of him behind the house, but for the rest of the day I was too busy to think of him again.

  Before seven o’clock that morning one might have thought a county fair was being held at my place. The dooryard and driveway were clogged with wagonloads of hogs and several more were lined up along the McCook-Oberlin road. It seldom took longer than ten minutes to unload a wagon, grade and number the hogs, weigh them, and write out the bill of sale. While another farmer was backing his wagon into place at the unloading chute, the man before him signed his bill of sale, I gave him a check for the amount payable in cash, and the receiver charged my mortgage account with the balance.

  I never found out exactly what Effie had said when making the line calls, but she certainly jarred loose an avalanche of hogs—not only from those whose stock was mortgaged, but from almost every farmer in Beaver Township. And no man pulled away without telling me he’d furnish hauling to Oberlin whenever I wanted it.

  When, just before sunset, the last wagon pulled away there were 561 hogs—including every imaginable color, shape, and size—rooting corn out of the silt in my hog pasture. I’d written checks for more than two thousand dollars and signed a mortgage for nearly forty-six hundred, although I’d intended to invest no more than half that amount in hogs. Not only was the number far greater than I’d figured on, but the stocker pigs averaged to weigh nearly double what I’d expected them to, and many of the sows scaled well above three hundred pounds.

  As soon as George and I were alone I said, “I didn’t plan to get in more than half this deep, but with the hog cycle due for an upward turn I don’t intend to sell a single porker until the market rises considerable. Do you think I’m on the right track?”

  “That all depends on how far you aim to ride,” he told me. “I’d prob’ly light down before you’ll want to, but I’m more’n double your age, and a man grows cautious as he grows older. It’s lucky the Almighty made us that way, elsewise nobody’d get married and have a family till he’d built up a good parcel of property, and the race would soon die out.”

  “Will you tell me when to light down?” I asked.

  “No, I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “No man ought to tell another what to do in marriage or politics or religion or business. But I’ll let you know when I’d light down if it was me.”

  I reached out my hand to shake, and George squeezed it hard enough to hurt. Then he spoke almost in a whisper, “It’s a pity a man can’t stay young and full of vinegar longer.” Without another word he strode off toward the creek and home.

  21

  Ready for Business

  UNTIL twilight deepened I stood watching the hogs at their contented rooting; then a lamp was lighted at the house, so I went in to cook supper. When I opened the door Nick sat hunched over the kitchen table, so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t hear me. He still hadn’t heard me when I came close enough to see over his shoulder, and I couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d found him dissecting a cadaver. He’d turned the oilcloth over and completely covered the white underside with drawings. They were so clear and detailed as to leave no doubt that he’d understood every word I’d told him about my plans—or that he’d improved on them tremendously. I should have known that his apprenticeship to a building contractor in Greece included training in layout and drafting, but it had never occurred to me.

  Nick’s plan showed the bunkhouse converted to a refrigerator with solid concrete foundation and floor, the walls and ceiling thickly insulated and metal lined, the entire loft a heavily beamed ice chamber, a large door opening into the shop, and another directly into the adjoining slaughterhouse. It also had concrete foundations and floor, the walls were metal sheathed, and at one side there was a sink with hot and cold water lines. An overhead rail extended above the connecting door, so that sides of beef or pork could be rolled from the slaughterhouse into the refrigerator without lifting.

  The drawings showed what was unmistakably the big watering tank from the feed lot—the only one not swept away by the flood—to be mounted high above the slaughterhouse. The four great timbers forming the tower also served as corner posts for the building, and were undoubtedly those the road crew had used to get the bunkhouse down from the barn roof. On the dooryard side of the building there was a brick furnace, with hot-water tank mounted above the firebox and the rendering vat beyond, so that fat would not be scorched by too direct heat. Near the brink of the creek, with lines running to it from the shop, refrigerator, and slaughterhouse, was what looked to be a pit full of broken stone.

  Nick was so intent on preparing material lists that I studied his drawing for fully ten minutes without attracting his attention. When, at last, I leaned over his shoulder, pointed to the pit, and asked, “What for?” he jumped as if he’d been hurt, then seemed lost for English words.

  After a few moments he told me, “For wash-up water, so flies no come ’round.”

  I would have recognized the rock-filled pit as a cesspool if I’d had any experience with them, but I hadn’t. When I’d lived in cities the drains were connected to sewers, and on the farms waste water was simply thrown out on the ground—with care not to make a mud puddle near the back door.

  Nick’s plans would have been fine if we’d had three months before the start of the railroad contract, or if I could afford a whole crew of carpenters, plumbers, masons, teams, and drivers. But for two of us to do any such job in twenty-three days was impossible, and to hire it done for a four-months business would be reckless extravagance. “That’s a wonderful set of plans, Nick,” I told him, “but you and I couldn’t come within a mile of building such a layout by the first of August. I’m afraid we’ll have to get along without the concrete floors and hot-water system and cesspool and . . . ”

  Nick looked up at me pleadingly, apparently on the verge of tears, and said hesitantly, “I work hard, boss . . . lots hours . . . fast I can.”

  I’d always heard that the sensibilities of any man who had worked on the killing floor of a packing plant became so numbed that he was incapable of being stirred by emotions. Maybe that’s why the shock of Nick’s nearly tipping over affected me as it did. I put a hand on his shoulder and told him, “Let’s stop and get some supper now, Nick, then I’ll try to figure out how much of it we can possibly do.”

  I said it more to comfort him than because I thought there was much we could do beyond my original plans. Then, when I was putting supper on the table, the depot agent at Oberlin phoned that my express shipment had arrived. I knew there’d be more than a wagon load of it, so I’d have to find a couple of haulers, and trying to think who I might get gave me an idea about our building plans. Almost every farmer in Beaver Township was a jack-at-all-trades, the more skillful could handle any work required by Nick’s plans, and most of them owed me hog hauling, some of which I’d have no need for.

  As soon as we’d eaten I told Nick to go on with his material listing, then I took another look at the hogs in the pasture, and went on to town for a visit with Effie. I spent nearly an hour telling her about Nick, his training in Greece, and every detail of the plans he’d drawn; stressing the hot and cold running water, the sanitary drain lines and cesspool, and the concrete floors. “There’s a day or two of hog hauling due me from almost every man in this township,” I told her. “If some of them would as soon haul mate
rial, or dig ditches and pound nails, I have an idea the whole layout the boy has planned could be built in three weeks.”

  “When do you aim to get started on it?” she asked.

  “I’d start in the morning if I had a team or two for hauling,” I told her.

  “Great Jehoshaphat!” Effie exploded. “Here it is ha’past nine o’clock at night! Why in the wide world didn’t you let on what you wanted when you first come in here, ’stead of pussyfootin’ ’round like a lovesick lummox till time for all respectable folks to be abed. Now get out of here! Skedaddle and leave me elbowroom to try some line calls! If I rouse anybody I’ll ring you up before I close the switchboard.”

  The moonlight was so bright that when I crossed the railroad track on the way home I could see hogs still rooting up corn all around my pasture. I climbed the fence and spent maybe half an hour walking around among them, making sure the big sows weren’t driving the smaller shoats away from corn that had been turned up.

  When I’d circled the field as far as the scale runway I became conscious that the phone was ringing my combination, 3-2-3, over and over. I sprinted across the dooryard, rushed into the house, and snatched the receiver off the hook, not more than four feet from where Nick sat hunched over the kitchen table. I was blowing like a wind-broken nag, and before I could catch my breath enough to speak Effie shouted, “Land sakes alive! Where on this green earth have you been at for the last hour?”

  “I stopped to see how the hogs were doing,” I told her, “but it wasn’t more than . . . ”

  “Well, what’s the matter with that Eyetalian you was braggin’ so much about? Don’t he know enough to answer a phone, or is he deefer’n a post? I been ringin’ steady for leastways twenty minutes.”

  There was no point in telling her again that Nick was Greek, not Italian, and her voice was so loud that I was afraid he might hear and understand what she was saying. I held the receiver tight against my cheek to muffle her voice, and to cool her down I said, “It’s my fault, Effie; I forgot to tell him that three-two-three was my ring.”

  “What odds does that make when a phone’s ringin’ fit to tear itself off the wall?” she demanded stridently. “He’d ought to had sense enough to take down the receiver and find out what was goin’ on. Everybody else on that line did.”

  “He doesn’t speak very good English,” I told her, “and with everbody here a stranger to him he’s a bit bashful.”

  “Bashful! Sounds to me more like he’s scared to death of folks. So that’s why there didn’t nobody see hide nor hair of him when they hauled hogs to your place today? Oh well, it don’t make no never-minds anyways. What I called for was to tell you you’d have plenty of help in the morning. My lands, it seems like everybody in the township wants to get a finger into the pie. I didn’t bother to set down any names, but told ’em the more the merrier, and not to forget to fetch along their tools. Well, I’d best to ring off now so’s the both of us can get some sleep. I didn’t aim to be so cussed ornery when I called, but it sets my blood to boilin’ when I know there’s somebody to home and they won’t answer.” Then she broke the connection before I could thank her for her help.

  It was past midnight before Nick completed his lists and we’d translated them into English. Before dawn we were out with lanterns, taking measurements and driving stakes to mark the corners of the refrigerator, slaughterhouse, and cesspool, and to string up twine marking where ditches were to be dug. By six o’clock a dozen wagons had rolled into the yard, so I started three of them with four-horse hitches off for Oberlin, telling the drivers I’d meet them there with the material lists.

  Every man had a plow, a scraper, or a box of tools in his wagon, and several had brought along a son or two to help with the work. As I was sure he would be, George Miner was among the first to arrive, though he owed me no hauling. I asked him to take charge of the cesspool and ditch digging while I went to Oberlin for materials. Then I set Bill Justice, who was quiet, careful, and a good carpenter, to work with Nick on the foundation forms for the refrigerator and slaughterhouse.

  Halfway to Oberlin I passed the three wagons I’d sent ahead, the horses stepping along at a brisk trot. By the time they reached town I’d found and bought all the materials on Nick’s lists. A few minutes after nine o’clock the wagons were pulling out for home, heavily loaded with lumber, cement, bricks, an additional three hundred feet of drain and water pipe, hardware, other building materials, and the express shipment from Omaha.

  Between material and hog buying I’d drained my trading fund down to almost nothing, so I borrowed a thousand dollars as soon as the Farmers National opened. Mr. Frickey told me that the receiver of the Cedar Bluffs bank had phoned him of our agreement and of the number of hogs I’d bought. He said they both were pleased and thought I’d made a good investment.

  When I left the Farmers National I stopped at the drug store and bought Effie the biggest box of candy in Oberlin. Then I went to Bivans’ store for fifty pounds of steak and a load of groceries, but I didn’t look forward with any great joy to meeting John. He’d not only know about my having got the railroad contract, but that I’d have to cut deeply into his farm trade to get rid of my leftovers, and I was afraid he might be sore about it.

  There were no customers in the store when I got there; John was alone behind the grocery counter, and he didn’t look overly cordial when I went in. It seemed to me that the best way to avoid unpleasantness was by coming straight to the point, so I said, “As you must know, I’ve bid in the railroad meat contract, so I’ll have lots of leftovers to get rid of. I aim to go after all the farm trade I can get, but I won’t cut prices to less than a dime a pound. Anything except by-products that I can’t get that much for I’ll feed back to my hogs. Is that fair enough?”

  Bivans looked surprised, stuck his hand across the counter to shake, and told me, “Fair enough! What the McCook butchers and I have been scared of was that you’d go to dumping stuff at a nickel or less. That could come mighty close to putting some of us out of business, but a dime for the grade of stuff you’ll have left over from that railroad contract is all right. Any butcher that can’t stand that kind of competition ought to be out of business. You go right ahead and get all the farm trade you can, and there’s none of us will begrudge it to you so long as you don’t cut under a dime a pound.”

  I couldn’t see any reason for telling him that the meat I’d have left over would be of better grade than most of the McCook butchers were selling their farm trade, so kept the conversation on something else until he finished putting up my order. He didn’t ask what price I’d bid to get the contract, and of course I didn’t tell him.

  A few miles out of town I passed the heavily loaded wagons, then stopped at Cedar Bluffs only long enough to take the box of candy in to Effie. As always, she scolded at me for bringing it, and said that if I didn’t quit I’d have her fatter than any hog in Beaver Township, but she had the top off the box before I could get out of her office.

  When I got home I found the whole place a beehive of activity. The hogs were spread out over the entire forty-acre field, rooting deep into the silt, and every one of them was champing on an ear of corn. The ditches and cesspool pit had been dug, the floor had been removed from the bunkhouse, and forms for the foundations were nearly completed.

  My neighbors were as used to saw and hammer as to plow and harrow, and when one of them built a new house or barn the others always pitched in to help. Sometimes a boss carpenter was hired to lay out the framing, but there were never any drawn plans, so Nick’s oilcloth was a source of amazement. While the potatoes boiled I explained it to George Miner and Dave Goodenberger, then let them take it outside to show the other men.

  As I fried steak and sliced bread I could hear Dave’s voice in the dooryard: “Come look at these pi’tures the Eyetalian boy drawed of the layout Bud aims to build. That there brick thing? Why that’s the firebox for makin’ hot water. Don’t you see the lines runnin’ all abouts whe
re we’ve been diggin’ ditches this mornin’? Them’s water and drain pipes. Yes, sirree, boys! Hot and cold runnin’ water all over the place, jest like the Brown Palace Hotel up to Denver. Don’t reckon I’ll let on about this to the old lady—leastways, not till I get the mortgage on my place paid off.”

  By quitting time we’d laid all the drain and underground water lines, erected the tower, mounted the water tank on it, filled the cesspool pit with limestone and the foundation forms with concrete. On Sunday evening there was many a cow milked late in Beaver Township. No man would leave the job until the water system had been completed, the heavy carpentry on the refrigerator and slaughterhouse finished, and concrete floors laid. Five hundred dollars wouldn’t have paid for the work my neighbors had done for me in those two days, but no man would take a penny or the cancellation of his hog-hauling obligation.

  With the start we’d been given, two men could easily have slapped the rest of the job together in three weeks. But Nick didn’t slap anything together, and I’d have been ashamed to do it when working with him. Every board had to be planed to a perfect fit, every nail set, and his solder joints looked more like those of a jeweler than a tinsmith.

  In his drive for perfection Nick always had me up before daylight, and sometimes he wouldn’t quit until nearly midnight. In trying to match his pace and endurance I found myself constantly running out of steam on my salmon, sauerkraut, and gluten bread diet. After four days of nearly starving, I ate a breakfast of half a dozen hot biscuits, a big heap of fried potatoes, a pound of steak, and a pint of coffee with cream and sugar.