This is the second part of the autobiography of Allie Oen Beymer. He was Born in Elmdale, Chase County, Kansas, 11 June 1882. It covers Chase County Kansas, a short period in Arkansas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Norman Oklahoma; Colorado; Portland, Oregon; and Eugene, Oregon. I (Mike Beymer) am transcribing this as written with no intentional changes.

Virginia is teaching school four miles south of our place this year and rides old Dick, our blind horse to school all the time. It's awful cold some days too. I think she gets $20 per month. I can ride old Dick too, but he falls down sometimes. If there is something in his way and you say "up high Dick", he will pick his feet up high when he walks.

I like to go to school, but it's awful cold to walk so far. Sometimes I have to walk backward against the wind so that I can get my breath. Teacher lets us sit next to the heater when we are cold. It burns coal and gets red hot.

It's Christmas again and we are having a program at the Forest Grove school house and after the program a Christmas tress. I have a long Piece to speak, and it sure is fun to string popcorn on the cedar tree, and all the presents hanging on it. Everybody come for miles around and fills the house, then Santy Clause comes in the door carrying a big sack. We get an orange, some candy, and maybe a story book. After it is all over, the small children are allowed to pull the popcorn off the tree. I hung up my stockings at home last night and got some candy, a jumping-jack and a corn cob that papa put in all wrapped in paper. Papa puts in a chip sometimes all wrapped nice to make us think we are getting something pretty. He thins it a good joke. Our family all went to the schoolhouse in the wagon with four spring seats and hay on the floor to keep our feet warm. It was the most beautiful night I have ever seen, with ice hanging from every grass blade and bush, the moon shining full and bright; so we sang all along the way. It was one and one-half miles home and midnight when we arrived. Christmas Day and we had turkey and lots of good things to eat. I think I can always remember the smell of that Christmas tree.

Oh, we had a taffy-pulling party at our house last night and all the cowboys came and brought their girls. I sure felt sorry for all the girls for they all got taffy in their hair, but they seemed to have a lot of fun. It was after midnight when they got into their buggies and on their horses and went home. There are lots of taffy pullings in the neighborhood. Some of the boys bring their girls behind them on the same horse.

Well I like it better here in our new place better than I thought I would. The house set right over a spring which is the source of Rock Creek. It is two stories high and the top floor opens out on the creek bank.

The worst thing about this place is the snakes. They get around the house, under the house and in the house. Some of them like to stay in the water, and they are all colors and sizes. The most dangerous ones are the copperheads and the rattlesnakes. Our kitchen is downstairs and the water runs a spring in the back, under the kitchen and under the driveway in front.

Papa and the boys are building another stone barn across the road will cover it with hay as usual. The wind blows so cold in the winter that the stock must have some kind of shelter.

It sure is fun to hunt rabbits this winter. The snow drifts are so deep we can see where the rabbits jump into the drifts, then take a shovel and dig them out. We can go hunting and bring back eight or ten at one time. Oh, the most fun is hunting coons with old shep. They will get into the water and have the worst fights you ever saw. Shep can't always whip so we sometimes have to help him. We find some of them in their den along the rocky cliff of the creek bank. Then we smoke them out with leaves and sticks. This is the month of March.

Yesterday mama sent me an errand to a neighbor two and one-half miles north, and I had to ride old blind Dick. Coming back I let him get too close to the barbed wire fence and the barbs cut the calf of my leg awful, and I thought I would bleed to death before I could get home. I sometimes get stone bruises on my feet. Once papa cut one open and then it got well. He used a razor. I like papa but he thinks I can ride better than I can. He sent me out on a four-year-old colt once to get the cows and the colt got scared so bad I couldn't hold her, so I went back home without them.

The first of May 1891 Joe Messer shipped in about three thousand head of longhorn steers from New Mexico or Arizona to pasture on the prairie out west of where we lived. They were wild and wandered off the range to get with our cows quite often. One evening Zone and I were sent out to find the cows. We found them about one mile away with two "longhorns" with them just over a hill. Zone wanted to go back but I was more afraid to go back than I was to go on so I said "all right, you go back and tell them about the steers and I will try to get the cows." I went on pretty close to where they were but they couldn't see me yet; then I got a brushy bunch of iron weeds in one hand and my hat in the other and went running and yelling over the hill top, waving with all my might. It seemed to frighten the cows as much as the longhorns and away they went for home the longhorns with them. When they were about a quarter mile from the house, Willie met them in the fenced lane so the longhorns jumped through the fence to the west, took a circle through the field, jumped into the road again, then into the corral with the cows. Jimmie was in the barn and came running out yelling at them, so back into the road they went, down the road a short distance, then through the fence to the east, disappearing over the hill with blood streaming down their legs.

My little brother George followed his kitten off yesterday and got lost. It sure caused a lot of excitement in the neighborhood. School was dismissed so the scholars could hunt for him; men dragged the water holes in the creek. We began to think a coyote had taken him but late in the afternoon Lizzie found him where he had climbed up an old sled that was leaning against a rick of fodder, about one-half mile from home. He had fallen off and as he fell, his dress caught on a nail so he was hanging in the air sound asleep.

This morning when I awoke they told me that my papa had left in the night with Messers for the Oklahoma Strip to see if they could find a claim. Wish I had been awake when they left.

Had some rabbit chases again. Two greyhounds and our shep were chasing a jackrabbit across the prairie and when it went to jump the stone fence, it missed the top and hit the stones knocking two of them off and the rabbit fell back on the ground. The rabbit didn't last long. Then they chased up another one and had it going in a circle in the corner of the stone fence when Jimmie jumped up on the fence and gave a yell. The dog didn't know him and it frightened them and they just ran away and let it go. Then Jimmie thought it was so near run down he might catch it and gave chase, but he couldn't do it.

When the Messers unloaded their longhorn steers off the train, they drove they right by our house, and I liked to watch them go by. There would be about one hundred fifty in a herd and a cowboy between each herd. They sure made an awful dust. I dream about those longhorns chasing me. The farmers hate them because they get in their fields. The cowboys sometimes sleep on a trail to keep the steers from wandering off their range. Once a steer got mad at Joe and got him in a corner and he had to shoot it to save his life. Papa and Joe found one in a corn field and it was blind. They would ride up close enough to have it charge, then ride out of the field onto the prairie, but when it found it was out of the field, it would stop and go back in again. They even tried whipping it out with their long herd whips, but it wouldn't leave the field of corn.

Well most of the summer I have been herding the cows up the creek between the fields with Jimmie. We play a lot but it gets pretty tiresome just lounging around and sometimes we have let the cows get into the corn. Then we have a hard time getting them out again. Not only that, but we are liable to get a "lickin". I am afraid of papa when he swears so loud and he whips hard when he is mad. Mama don't like the way he spits tobacco juice around the house either. If we boys would swear or chew and he found out he would give us a flogging. Dick chews but he don't know that and Dick held me down, stuffed tobacco in my mouth to make me chew, but I won't do it.

Yesterday was June the eleventh, and it was my birthday. I was nine years old and had to hoe weeds out of the corn all day. I don't thing that was right because I have to hoe so much anyway.

Well papa got back from the strip. Said he found a place with a lot of oak timber on it, but he didn't see how he could tale his family down there and make a living until it was improved, so he let someone else have it. None of Messers got one either. Old man Messer already has a good farm here in Kansas. I guess they are not satisfied here for they are always talking of going somewhere else. I like it here for I can go over to Veburgs sometimes at night and look at all their nice books that have pictures too. He is superintendent of the Sunday School at Forest Grove and his daughter is a missionary in a country over the sea, and I like to hear her talk. I like to play with her brother Guy, for we have a lot of fun hunting rabbits and playing along the creek. He is my seat mate at school too. They even have a grinding mill that runs from a wind mill and I often take a sack of grain in front of me in the saddle to the mill to have it ground into flour. They can grind either corn or wheat.

It is a beautiful fall day. The sky is clear and the wind seem to have blown its self out after having kept up steadily through spring and summer. All is excitement, for the Messers, the Merrits, and the Beymers have decided to move to Arkansas. Everything outside is to be sold but the horses and the wagons. Pigs, Cows, chickens, and Hay but most of what little furniture we have will be packed in the wagons. Overjets are being made for more room above the wagon beds mostly for sleeping space. There are lots of things I hate to leave but the thoughts of having a long trip thrills me so that I am anxious to help in every way possible. Little did I know of the hardships of travel with horses and wagon.

Finally everything is ready. The Messers drove up with their wagons and one top buggy, and the Merrits with theirs and we are almost loaded when pa said "ma we can't take them chickens." "Oh yes, we must", said mama. "Well we just got too much stuff tied on now and there just ain't no more room for no more; stove pipe, buckets, that old brass kettle and lot 'o other things." "Makes no difference," said ma, "just tie e'm on behind somewhere." So the chickens were put in a box and tied on behind. Poor things.

After directions were discussed, we strung out across the prairie, eleven vehicles in all.

Everything went fine for two or three days then the wagon tires began to get loose on the wheels, the horses began to get tired, and we were all getting tired too. Nevertheless we were all enjoying it part of the time at least. Most of the time we all camped together. There were three harmonicas in the party, and we would sit around the campfire at night playing and singing; the older ones telling stories, and planning the next day. There was always plenty to eat as the men would walk out from the wagons a hundred yards or so and would shoot some squirrels or rabbits. Even tame chickens were in danger if seen very far from some farm house.

It was quite a job to feed so many horses, so the older boys would put on their hunting sacks and scout around through the fields pretending to be hunting and then fill their sacks with corn, go to the wagons, hide it and go back after more, until there was enough for all.

At evening our camping place would be near a haystack if possible. The men would usually buy what hay they could carry off at one load for 10 cents, then would put a rope around what they could swing onto their backs. I think the farmers were the losers. Farmers would sometimes come and search our wagons to see if they could find any stolen stuff. If they found any corn, they couldn't prove that it was taken from their field.

When a tire got so loose it wouldn't stay on, it would be taken off and heated to expand the iron, while wet gunny sacks would be wrapped around the fellows of the wheel. Then the hot tire would be slipped on the wheel again while water was poured on to shrink it. This performance would put the vehicle behind an hour or more but the head wagon would try to find a nearby campground giving others a chance to catch up.

Once the nut came off of the rear axle of the wagon I was riding in, letting the wheel drop off. We searched the road for a mile back but couldn't find it. Then it took about a half a day to find another nut.

And so it went, just one thing after another until we reached Bentonville, Arkansas. The first thing I remember about this place is the dust which was about three inches deep. Here we agreed to separate, every family on its own. As our wagon was grinding along toward the suburb of the city, looking for a place to camp, I saw for the first time a milk cow and a mule hitched together pulling a wagon. I loved milk cows, I it seemed cruel to make them work so hard.

We camped under a tree for a few days then found a house to rent. Not having much money the larger boys soon found work on a farm. They received $10 per month with board and room. Flour cost 75 cents per sack, butter 10 cents per pound. Papa and Jimmie and I gathered vegetables on shares, also fruit so we had plenty to eat. A farmer near town let us fill our straw ticks after we had dumped out the old straw which was getting pretty hard to sleep on. Jimmie and I found a big pile of canned fruit which had been condemned and dumped out of the cannery. After examining a few cans we discovered some of it was good so took it home and ate it. Lucky no one was poisoned.

I had not much more than got started in school when my pa became dissatisfied and decided with two wagon loads of the Messers to move again. This time to Prairie Grove, Arkansas. It was late in the fall and was getting cold. I will always remember our campfires. The beds were spread on the ground around the fire, and it was kept going all night. I liked to lay awake in the night and listen to the coyotes howling, watch the flicker of the fire in the trees, and the cracking of the firewood.

This trip was made without any trouble and we soon arrived at our destination, a little town in the open, surrounded by the pine woods, with black walnuts, chinkapins, and other kinds of trees.

Here we took a contract clearing some land near town. We were to cut the trees into stovewood, rick it up, and burn the brush. My job, of course, was to rick the wood and burn the brush. After working only a few days I became sick with a fever and was not able to be out until after Christmas. When the clearing was completed, the men tried freighting between Prairie Grove and Payettville. Had a lot of trouble with bad roads and balky horses, so before spring came, made up their minds to move to Eureka Springs. In the meantime Dick had fallen in love with a pretty indian girl and didn't want to leave but finally did. This is another memorable trip; rain, mud, cold and snow for it was still winter. In crossing a part of the Ozarks we needed shelter one night and were glad to find a schoolhouse unlocked, so we slept in it being careful to do no damage. It was slow and hard going, but we arrived finally in the beautiful town of Eureka Springs.

Soon after arriving papa found a house to rent and we were located again. This time on a hillside. In fact there was not much of any other place to live only on a hillside; most of the streets running around the mountain. The men picked up odd jobs here and there for awhile, but were soon cutting wood as the city had to be supplied with fuel. Jimmie was getting to be a big boy now and went to the street car company to see if he could get a job at the barn. They took him on trial and he made a good hand as he was used to horses and mules. He soon was given a job driving a lead team to help the cars up steep places. Then he was soon promoted to a regular driver. They used two mules to each car. This job kept until we left town. I took lots of rides with him.

Well I started school again. Had an old maid for a teacher who told us we could like most anything but should "never love anything but our mother." One day a girl who sat in front of me had a fit. It was the first I had ever seen and it frightened me so I couldn't sleep good for a month or more. When school was out we boys began making kites, trying to see who could fly one the highest. The pine trees were soon full of kites all around town. We made our own kites of different shapes and colors. Some would be so far away it would be difficult to see them.

Jimmie was working all summer so I played mostly with my brothers Zone and Willie when he would take me along. Once Willie and his friend found a bumble's nest, and let me go with them to watch, and it was sure fun. They took a gallon jug with some water in it and set it close to the nest, then stirred up the bumble bees. When they came out they would drop right into the jug and drown themselves.