Tampa, Fla.
Thurs., April 15, 1926
Dinner and movies in town on Friday made a wonderful spree. I bought Vera a small hand-sewing machine that really works, costing only $1. Although Vera and her mother have lots of fun with it, Ed seems to enjoy it most and played with it all Friday and Saturday evenings.
Bill said I woke him up in the middle of the night by laughing and when he asked what was the joke, I told him, “We lost the rear wheel of the motorcycle.”
In a few days we expect to look into the Phosphate Co. at Coronet, not very far from here. We still can’t make up our minds whether to visit Miami. It is a long way from here and business does not take us there as it does to Birmingham. The time span is growing mighty thin until we have to be in Brooklyn for my sister Katharine’s wedding. On the other hand, Miami is the showplace of the state, and we would feel we had missed an important feature by not going there.
A big jack rabbit owns a home in the woods near us, and a little gopher is continually digging up piles of dirt in our front yard. I couldn’t imagine how the piles were made, until one day I saw the dirt flying, and stealing up, I watched a little brown animal shoveling like mad, before dodging down his hole out of sight. The mother whippoorwill and her eggs are still intact. How they managed to survive I fail to see. Two spanish crows, smaller than ours, fly back and forth over our tent all day long. Somewhere they have discovered a nice stock of building material, for on their up-town trip their beaks are always full of straw.
Yesterday I saw two funny brown birds, a little larger than robins, with white plaid wings. They were sneaking Indian file through the grass, on longish legs, their small heads near the ground, stopping occasionally to stretch their necks and look around, when they sensed danger they stayed very still a long time. As they fed at the gopher’s pile I crept too near and they fled, making a low whistling sound.
Ed’s wife, Louise, is a Holy Roller. She says her mother has had the gift of healing ever since both mother and father were converted at a revival meeting. Her father, who can’t read or write, had been a “bad man who swore,” but since his conversion has “never said a swear.” Louise does not believe in doctors or operations, because she has “seen too many die under the knife.” So she takes her little girl with a tubercular hip to a chiropractor. Clever with her hands, Louise makes all her own and Vera’s clothes.
In the evenings, we are enchanted by Ed’s tales of the west, told in his picturesque language. During his extensive travels he has run into most of the notorious badmen as well as marshals and rangers, including many of the characters mentioned in last week’s Saturday Evening Post in a piece about gunmen of the west. Bill would rather hear Ed talk than eat. I’ll try to recall a couple of the stories he told last night.
“Well,” he began, “one day me and the gang jumped a freight at ‘Tulsi’, headed for High Springs. We was lucky enough to find an empty boxcar and crawled through the half open door. And say, boy, didn’t it get cold as it came on night. The five of us near froze. I figured we oughta have a fire to keep warm, so we pulled up some floor boards and broke up sidings and set her agoin’. We divided the night into ten shifts of an hour apiece, each in turn sitting up and minding the fire while the other slept. As soon as the fire got low, the tender was supposed to tear up some more boards to keep it burnin’.
“Well, we all worked fine ‘till I was wakened by burning all over and my feet near singed. I’ll be darned if the guy before my second shift hadn’t fell asleep on watch and let the doggone car catch fire. I hollered to the others and we all fought the danged thing for a while but the blamed train was hitting the rails some, and the wind blowing like a trouper through the open door. We couldn’t stand the smoke when we closed it, so I figured the only thing to do was to jump and take to the long, tall and uncut, before the trainmen got wise. But the other guys didn’t see it thata way, and either didn’t darst jump, as she was sure rollin’, or else thought they’d take a chance with the trainmen. Anyway I jumped and landed on what seemed a mountain of gravel, sliding clean to the bottom. It took me some time to get my breath and when I felt myself all over, no bones was broke, but I was pretty badly scratched and tore.
“I limped along all night and the next day, till I hit High Springs in the evening. Hanging around the station for a while I heard some guys talking about four hobos who’d been arrested for setting’ fire to a freight car, and believe me, I didn’t waste any time in hittin’ the straight and dusty. I never did meet up with them other hobos again.”
Another tale Ed told:
“One year when the Pembleton rodeo put on their show in Casper, the boys left the town poorer than they come. Old man Smith in his ten gallon hat, and lawyer Case, they staged it to bring folks to town. The rodeo was a great hit and the gate receipts went big, but by the end of the week the boys in the show were pretty well broke, for the folks of Casper weren’t the only one havin’ a good time. A number of them went to the old man and asked for an advance on their pay. But he put ‘em off, saying “the gate” weren’t all in the bank yit, and he’d pay ‘em off Monday mornin’ but not a cent till then.
“Well, on Monday mornin’ the boys all gathered at the court house where the old man had promised to meet ‘em, and waiting and waited, but no sign of Smith or his money. The boys was begnnin’ to think it was time for a little action, so they sent a delegation to Smith’s house. Nobody home, so they went on to Lawyer Case’s and dragged him down to the court house. He kept asayin’ the old man would be along soon, that he couldn’t pay ‘em, as Smith had all the money. The boys kept gettin’ a little rougher and a little tougher, till finally Case changed his tune and said he’d not wait any longer for Smith, but get ‘em the money.
“So again the boys waited a while, but soon began to hunt through the town, but they never caught another glimpse of either the Old Man or Case. Casper had to give a benefit performance to get the rodeo out of town, for the boys were dead broke. Although the folks were pretty well fed up with rodeo, they all turned out and the gate went high again.
“I drove my truck to and from the show grounds and sometimes I had a load of luggage or trunks, sometimes a load of Indian squaws, or feed, and one time a baby elephant. Neither I nor the rest of the bunch that worked around the show ever did get paid. After a year or so Lawyer Case come back, for he knew he was well liked in Casper. But Old Man Smith with all the cash never did turn up.”
Then Ed told us the story of a well-known oil man, who started his career by sinking all his money in one oil well, and when it turned out “dusty,” shet his tee off to get the insurance to drill another--this time a gusher.