Barber County Kansas
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Barber County Kansas |
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From When Kansas Was Young, pages 93-96.
by Thomas Allen McNeal
When I arrived at Medicine Lodge I found the principal surveyor a hunchback by the name of George Wise. Wise was the owner of a surveyor's tripod, transit, surveyor's chain, and a diminutive donkey. When Wise and his surveyor's outfit were loaded on the back of the donkey the top of his cowboy hat hardly rose above the points of the donkey's ears. Whether Wise knew anything worth mentioning about the science of surveying is a question, but he was in some ways the most accommodating surveyor who ever sighted over a transit.
He was frequently employed by cattlemen who took up claims with the idea of controlling as much running water as possible. Wise operated on the theory that the business of surveying was not to try to find the government corners and establish lines in accordance therewith, but to establish corners and lines that would suit the wishes and convenience of the party who employed him to do the surveying. It was said to be quite customary with him when he had unloaded his tripod and transit from the back of the donkey to ask in his high-pitched, thin voice, "Well, where the do you want these corners located?" I was talking with a resident of Barber County only a few days ago and was told that corner stones can still be found down there which have, apparently, been located without any reference to the government survey. I have no doubt they were located by Wise, the hunchback.
Like many men suffering from a permanent affliction that causes a physical deformity, Wise was a man of irascible temper, easily irritated and petulant. He always affected the cowboy dress and carried with pride a number "44" revolver, a huge gun which seemed larger on account of the diminutive stature of the man who carried it. When Wise could get a crowd to listen to him, he liked to talk of his prowess and achievements.
One day he commenced a narrative of which he was particularly proud. When he commenced there was quite a large and apparently deeply interested audience, but he had only got fairly started when the hearers commenced to drop out, just casually, as though they had lost interest or happened to think of something somewhere else. Wise was so deeply interested in his own narration that he didn't note the gradual thinning out of the crowd until, happening to turn his head, he observed that there was only one man left, a stranger who had just come in to look at the country and was sitting in the drug store where Wise was telling his story and in the corner where he could not well get away. It probably had not occurred to him to go away, as he had not been let in on the job that was being put on the peppery little hunchback and was listening to the story with polite and apparently interested attention. When Wise saw that the crowd had deliberately walked out on him it filled him with rage. To the astonishment and possibly somewhat to the alarm of the polite stranger the hunchback suddenly pulled his gun out of its holster and, pointing it at the lone auditor, his shrill voice shaking with anger, he yelled: "Don't you move, damn you. You're goin' to listen till I get through."
It is hardly necessary to remark that the stranger did.
Wise was at this time a middle-aged man but had never married. There came as a cook in one of the frontier restaurants a robust female who for some inscrutable reason began to "cotton" to the hunchback surveyor. She must have impressed him with her heft as she was not a damsel fair to look upon. She was built, however, in a way to rival the behemoth of Holy Writ. The courtship was short and ardent and when the knot was tied, apparently both were supremely satisfied.
A more strangely assorted couple was perhaps never seen. The bride stood, I should say, about six feet in her stocking feet and would weigh around two hundred and twenty-five, while the groom stood about five feet and would weigh perhaps a hundred net. When they walked out together she towered above her diminutive spouse like one of the Ringling elephants above his keeper. Before the honeymoon was ended, however, the town jokers began deliberately to fan the flame of jealousy in the heart of the hunchback. One after another came to him with tales of cowboys who were trying to make love to his wife. The tale bearers told him that the'se men were sore on him because he had "cut them out" and that they were trying now to alienate the affections of his matrimonial partner. They told him that while the fact that he was able to win this fair maid away from all these other suitors showed that he was some ladies' man, there was no telling what devilment these disappointed men would try to put into her head when he wasn't watching. The trouble makers succeeded even better than they had hoped, and watched the green eyed monster take possession of the hunchback surveyor with unholy joy.
A time came, however, when there was a possibility that the joke might result in a tragedy. A dance was being held in the restaurant, which had been cleared of tables and counters for that purpose, and the frontier fiddler was droning out his invariable opening call to the "sets" formed for the quadrille, "Jine hands and circle to the left" when a weazened figure, his eyes blazing with wrath and his gun in hand, came raging down the center of the room. It was "Humpy Wise." One of his supposed rivals had invited Mrs. Wise to dance. Wise proposed to stop proceedings. There was to be no "On with the dance, let joy be unconfined" so far as he was concerned, and incidentally it may be remarked that proceedings did stop for the time being. As one of the cowboys remarked, "The durned little crook- backed son-of-a-gun might let that gun go off. You can't always tell."
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