Lieutenant John Holbrook, Sergeant John Wheeler

by Laszlo Endrody

  One girl, Maggy, was in charge of the wiring and she was good at it. When Burney was needed elsewhere, he put her in charge of the whole job.

  One day, we sent for Burney and he was busy wiring. A salesman was out on our property selling steel posts and he had heavy tubs with handles to drive the posts in the ground. I wanted to know if we could use something like that.

  Maggy said, “Of course, we could use steel posts between two wooden posts. We need wooden posts to nail the wires to, though.”

  The salesman showed Maggy how to fasten the wires to the steel posts. Maggy then said, “Let’s take this wagon-full up there. We can lay them out where they need to go and then we’ll use them. We will probably need a lot more, though. We are building six miles of fence.”

  They drove up to where they were building the fence and she laid a steel post by every second pole.

  “We will need a wagon to pick up and lay them out ahead,” she said. “This will save a lot of digging.”

  Tex was just finishing a wooden one when she asked Tex to drive a steel post in, and showed him how to do it. He drove it in and then went to the next wooden one. Burney did one as well.

  “This will save some digging,” Burney said.

  Tilda and Tex were happy in their home. After they had everything settled and moved in, Tex bought her a lot of clothes. She was so happy. She was still young so she could still have children. She was going to have a real family. He planned on getting a farm like Pete with a house and Tilda would make it a home.

  In March the new list of tax sales came out, so I went to county building and picked one up. I took it home and shared it with all the men. There was a section next to Pete’s 640 acres that was for sale; he wanted to bid for it. There was a section just past that, and Tex planned on bidding for it. It had a big house, a barn, corrals, two wells (one at the house and one at the corrals), and it also had a creek going through the property. There was nothing for me to bid on because there was nothing next to me. I didn’t want to bid for a property far away from my present farm. David wanted something too, but there was nothing with a nice house that he could bid on except in town. There were several big houses, some on 20 or 40 acres that he thought he might want to bid on. But if he bought something in town, he would have to hitch up every morning in order to go to work.

  There was a 40-acre place about a mile from Pete’s home on the same road that had an 8-room house. It also had a small barn and corrals for a milk cow and a calf. He thought about bidding on that, but he would have to add to the corrals for horses, build a new outhouse, a pigpen, and a fence for a pasture.

  When the sale started, we were there bright and early. They sold some homes in town first, and then the place that David wanted came up. Four different people were bidding on it. David finally stopped bidding; it was already at 300 dollars and was no longer reasonable. He had a second choice, a 20-acre place on the same road. It had a shed in the back and a fenced in place for a cow and a 6-room house. He ended up getting it for 52 dollars. He would have to build a corral and a barn.

  Pete got the other section, which now gave him 1,312 acres. It was a big farm. Tex got the other section, so they made out all right. The house that Pete got was not much. It was an old three-room house. The barn was good, but the corral needed fixing. Tex’s place was better. It was in real good shape. He just needed to paint it and move in. He needed a cook stove, as well as a potbelly stove for the living room. Other than that, it was a good house and Tilda loved it. The prior owners were gone; they had probably gone out west. He ordered a disc and a rake from the equipment dealer. It was going to be a side delivery rake pulled by two horses.

  They all went back to the job after the tax sale. Tex went back to fencing and David started plowing with the boys to get some ground ready for oats. That evening, Tex hitched his two horses to the disc and started on a piece of land. The disc went in deep. Apparently, this area didn’t need plowing. He came and told me about it, so I went over with him and made sure that the disc was working well.

  “You go ahead and disc anyway and we will put in oats,” I told him.

  Tex disked his land and then David came by with the harrow and started harrowing. I had Burney on the grain drill and he turned the fencing over to Maggy. She worked with whoever came to work, mostly girls.

  Tex disced and disced. The field was growing. He gave Tilda 500 dollars and told her to go and furnish the house because he was busy discing. Pete came with another disc and the field started to grow faster. I went on the grain drill and soon the oats went into the ground. I had a wagonload of oats in sacks and I stopped as needed and filled the grain drill. It took four sacks to fill it.

  The furniture man came out and picked up Tilda. She was excited to start furnishing her home and was doing a fine job. She bought pots and pans as well for the kitchen, along with all the tools. She wanted to cook for Tex. She was always baking.

  I added up the acreage going into oats and found out that we would have 800 acres in oats. Some of that would have to be cut for hay. If we had acreage ready for planting after the oats were in, we could plant corn in May and fill all the corncribs and have corn for the hogs.

  When I finished planting at Tex’s and Pete’s, I went to plant where David had 500 acres ready. I got busy and started planting more oats.

  After the oats were in, the men went back working on the fence. Pete went to cut the pastures for hay with his mower and Tex had the side delivery rake to do the raking. Then the wagons came and the loaders. The girls loaded the wagons. They worked with either David or Maggy. All the wagons were used. They filled up the barns; they even took a load out for David’s new shed. They filled up David’s old barn, Burney’s barn, Bob’s barn, Sergeant Bexter’s barn, and my barn. All the barns were full. They would keep cutting and then fill everything again.

  Mrs. Pilsner’s barn needed some hay, so we planned on filling her barn next. She had the dry cows and calves at her place.

  They were waiting for the winter wheat to be ready and then they would cut the wheat with the mower and Tex would rake it. They would load the wagons and go to the trash machine. The first wagonload of sacks went to the mill, the next load to the dealer, then the loads of seed to my barn, then the dealer again. It went quickly.

  After the wheat was cut, we went after posts for Maggy with four wagons. After that, the oats were ready and Pete cut the oats, Tex raked, and everybody came to load. In May, we started planting the corn at Pete and Tex’s places, and an additional 300 acres at my place. After the oats and corn were finished, we put in 200 acres of potatoes. The girls did all that by hand. They made the windrows with the empty corn planter then the holes with a hoe. Then they dropped in the potatoes and covered the holes with dirt.

  One morning around 4:00 a.m. there was a noise at Tex’s ranch. He got up and went out with his Henry rifle and shot a man leading his horses out of the corral. He got all the horses back in the corral, including the saddled horse the thief rode. The man he shot was a young man. Later, the sheriff identified him as the mayor’s son. Tex saddled his horse and rode into town to the sheriff’s office, leading the boy’s horse.

  Tex went to the jail and asked the deputy where the sheriff was. The deputy told him, “The sheriff will be here soon. He will be here to relieve me in about 30 minutes.”

  As soon as the sheriff walked in the jailhouse, Tex told him what had happened. The sheriff said, “There will be a big mess over this, since it’s the mayor’s son. I guess he was trying to recover the two horses that the judge gave to the mayor before we found out that Tex was innocent.”

  On the way back to his place, Tex stopped in and told David what had happened. Then David rode by Pete’s place and told Pete, and the two of them went over to Tex’s to have some coffee and wait with Tex for the sheriff to arrive.

  When the sheriff arrived, he came in and said, “The man you shot was indeed the mayor’s son. There is going to be a
hearing over this. The boy was always a troublemaker and always carried a gun. I wish you had shot him in the knee instead of killing him, Tex.”

  The sheriff had a cup of coffee with them and they discussed horse stealing.

  “There is a federal judge in town, and I hope that the judge will let him hold the hearing,” the sheriff said.

  The sheriff went and reported to the judge and the judge asked the federal judge to hold the hearing. It was scheduled for the next day. They had to be at the courthouse at 9:00 a.m.

  The judge thanked the federal judge and told him about the case involving Tex and his horses. He told him that the mayor had hard feelings over not being able to keep two of Tex’s horses after he was found innocent, and that he actually tried to run off with one of them after the trial was over. He told him that the mayor’s son tried to steal the horses from Tex’s corral and Tex caught him in the act and shot him.

  David and Pete went to the hearing and I tagged along with them. Tex reported to the sheriff and then they went to the hearing together. We had to sit in the front; the judge and the sheriff were there as well.

  Tex was called up first; he reported that he had heard some noise around 4:00 a.m. when it was still dark. He stated that he had gone out to the back door and the corral gate was open. He stated that he saw a man leading two of his horses out of his corral. He had called out to the man and told him to leave his horses alone or he would shoot. The man fired at him firs and he fired back. After he shot the man, he then put his horses back in the corral, as well as the horse thief’s horse. Then he went back inside the house, got dressed, and rode into town to report to the sheriff’s deputy that he needed the sheriff come out.

  The judge started to ask personal questions. “What outfit did you fight with, young man?” the judge asked him.

  “I was the company commander of the Fourth Texas Calvary,” Tex answered.

  “What was your rank?”

  “Captain.”

  Then he asked him where he had gotten his horses and told him that he was going north to Michigan after the surrender to sell the horses he had gotten from some bandits and he got arrested. He told the judge that after the trial was over he decided to stay because he got a job farming. He stated that he was also able to buy himself a home and some land. He told the judge that he was home when he heard something outside. He stated that he got up and went out to make sure everything was okay, and that’s when he saw that a man was trying to steal his horses.

  A man in the courtroom jumped up and said, “Hang that rebel bastard! He killed my son!”

  The judge banged his gavel on the table, “Who are you?” he asked the man.

  The county judge then stood up and explained to the federal judge, “They had very little space in the sheriff’s corral for more than three horses, so they gave two horses to me to keep in my corral, and two horses to the mayor for his corral. The sheriff also got one and the deputy got one. After Tex was found not guilty, we all gave the horses back but the mayor did not cooperate. He decided to keep his two. Then he started to ride Captain Tex’s horse. Captain Tex whistled to his horse and the horse dumped the mayor and he broke his arm. Then the captain went and got his other horse too. Those horses belong to the captain and not to the mayor.”

  The mayor started hollering, “I want that rebel bastard to hang! He is a killer!”

  The judge banged on his desk and fined the mayor 20 dollars.

  “One more word from you and you are going to jail,” the federal judge told the mayor. “The war is over and we are all citizens of the same country. I don’t want any slander in this courtroom. The dead man was stealing a couple horses and shooting at the owner. It was horse stealing and self-defense, case dismissed.”

  He banged his gavel and it was over as far as the law was concerned. The judge then said, “The horse that was used for the crime will remain as the sheriff department’s property.”

  The mayor jumped up and said, “That’s my horse, you son of a bitch!”

  The judge then ordered the sheriff to arrest the mayor and lock him up for a month. That meant that he could not be the mayor any longer. That month in jail finished him off.

  After all that, it was back to work for the men. We went back on discing for corn and winter wheat. David went after fence posts with two wagons. Bob brought a wagon and they went with four girls and two boys each. David brought his Henry for wolves or deer. There were black bears that came by sometimes, but they rarely bothered anyone. A girl always made the fire and put on the coffee. The men had their coffee and they worked until lunchtime and then everybody had a roll and coffee. After they finished loading, they helped to put the posts where Maggy wanted them. Maggy was now fencing full time. No matter what else was going on with the farms, the fencing went on. She was now the fencing boss.

  Burney worked with some machinery now. He only fenced in the winter, same as the other fellows. The only thing that slowed them down was a snowstorm.

  One morning, Tex’s neighbor told him he was going to sell his 400 acres and asked if Tex was interested. He had an 8-room house, a corral, a barn, and 60 acres of fenced pasture and he wanted 250 dollars for it; he still owed 32 dollars in taxes. Tex jumped at the chance to buy it and paid off the taxes. He now had over 1,000 acres.

  David had some problems with his neighbors, so Tex told David he could move out to the house on the 400-acre farm. David decided that would be a good idea. It had two wells, one at the house and one at the corrals and the pasture had a creek running beside it. The old owner used it to pasture his dry cows and calves that he had. It did not take long before Tex had six heifers and he ordered two Hereford bulls. He put the bulls into pasture and he told Mrs. Pilsner that he would take all the dry cows and calves she had and put them out to pasture too. He ended up being in charge of all the cows and calves. Mrs. Pilsner just kept her milk cows and two steers that I planned on butchering for next Christmas.

  David took over the horse and corrals and the barn. He donated his old house to the church, and the priest let his bishop sell it. The bishop also wanted to sell the farm, but the priest told him to forget selling the farm because that was the priest’s farm and he needed it for the children.

  One of the girls that helped with the children had been hospitalized and she needed some medicine. The priest went to the hospital and the doctor told the priest about the medicine she needed, and the priest paid for it. He asked if he could get some aspirin for the kids. While they were talking, the doctor told the priest about a girl he knew who had been sleeping out in the park. It had recently rained and so she was sick and needed medicine. The priest paid for her medicine and then went to visit the two girls. The doctor brought the medication in and gave it to the girls.

  “Did the preacher pay for this?” the girl who had been sleeping out in the park asked.

  The priest went to her and said, “You can stay with us. We have several homes for girls like you, girls who lost their husbands.”

  “But I’m not a catholic,” the girl said.

  “I don’t care what you are. But I don’t want you sleeping out in the park in the rain anymore. I have several homeless girls in homes and we can get you a home too. As soon as you are well, I will take you out to a home and you can live there and work there too. The people that you would work for pay really well so you can buy clothes and anything else you need,” the priest told her.

  When she was well, he took the girl and a bed for her, out to one of the homes. She started helping out in the kitchen. Then she started to help Lydia with Johnny, he especially needed help getting on his rocking horse. She helped him to rock. Johnny got the hang of that and he was happy.

  One day we were all standing around and I asked Bexter, “How’s Johnny’s future wife?”

  “She crawls all over the place. Little Betty sure loves being under the table,” he stated. “Hey, gentlemen, I’m sure we have a lot of manure. Where do you suppose we
could haul it to store?”

  Everyone stated that they had a lot of manure and we all agreed to store in next year’s potato field. After we dropped it off, we would disc it and next year’s potato field would be ready. Burney had a good team to pull a big wagon so he would drive it there. It would take at least two men to load it and then to get it off the wagon when they reached the field.

  “I can have some men come help from fencing,” Maggy offered.

  The sergeant had the biggest manure pile, and they hauled two wagonloads from there. Pete and Tex didn’t get involved because they were both discing different fields. David and Bob went to help load and unload while the rest of the men continued fencing with Maggy.

  “What is Maggy going to do when the fencing is finished?” the sergeant asked.

  “She will ride with Tex and a boy to do maintenance. That way if there is something that needs to be done, they can always be there to fix it. At the same time, Tex will help with herding the cattle. He will need helpers to brand, as well as doctor the steers. He will have to teach them how to rope and use a horse. As soon as the fencing is done, I will get 100 heifers and we will start raising cattle,” I told him.

  After the winter wheat was planted, the ground froze and the men went fencing. The posts were planted quickly and the fence was growing. Some of the big boys also went fencing.

  We butchered two steers before Christmas so everybody had some meat. Most of the meat stayed on my porch, with the help of Teresa, so that it would freeze. If anybody needed some, they could take a piece home, thaw it out, and cook it. We butchered four hogs as well. The hogs got smoked and we all had bacon, chops, and meat for the beans. Everybody got some money for Christmas. All the girls could go shopping.

  The priest sent out two men, both with peg legs. I hired them and sent them to work with Maggy. They had been homeless as well. They had been eating at the soup kitchen at the church. The priest told them to go out to our farm and ask for work and that they could live in one of the barns. Their names were Kyle and Paul. Once they started working, they started making some money and they could see a bright future again instead of just feeling sorry for themselves. They both worked out well for Maggy. Maggy always had a fire and had a girl making coffee. Kyle did not have a warm jacket. He came to work with three shirts on; it was cold. Maggy measured his shoulders with a piece of string and went out and bought a sheepskin jacket for him. She made a friend for life.