Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories. Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas онлайн

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That young man was Fred Liebig.

Boyhood impressions stick like the bark on a tree, while later events are submerged in the whirlpool of life and are forgotten. One of the outstanding incidents of my young life took place upon this Wolfley creek farm. I remember it as distinctly as if it occurred only yesterday. It was my first—and last—alcoholic debauch.

I have already told you that rattlesnakes infested that place way back in the distant past. One of them—a fat, seven-button specimen—took a whack at me one summer day, its fangs loaded with deadly green fluid sinking deep the top of my right foot. It was August — dogdays — and of course I was barefoot. The children of pioneer settlers didn ’ t wear shoes, except in cold weather, even when their fathers were excellent shoemakers, a distinction my father enjoyed at that time.

My father was over at Granada. A neighbor was sent after him — and for whiskey, the then universal remedy for snakebite. Finding no whiskey at Granada, the courier, on horseback, came on to Wetmore, which town was just starting then, and failing again, pushed on the Seneca, stopping on the way long enough to change horses. The round trip approximately sixty miles and eight hours had elapsed when the rider returned with whiskey. He brought a generous supply.