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

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The sumac — that innocent little flaming bush, over which young and inexperienced writers are wont to revel — was cut with corn-knives and left spread on the ground until dry. The leaves were then stripped off the stems with a little corn-sheller, the kind that fastened on the hand. The sumac stems were drawn through the closed shelter and the leaves were caught upon a large canvas. Like harvesting tanbark, that was work which had to be done in season—not too soon, not too late.

The time to get busy was when the sumac began to show a tinge of coloring late in the summer, after maturity. But, as the Indian had said, when the big splash came — when the sumac thickets took on a blaze of coloring, that dark crimson hue, as if Nature had spilled the life-blood of the waning summer to glorify the last minute splendor of its passing—it was then time to quit. The leaves would no longer remain on the stems to carry through the drying process. Yes! That was it! “Catchum ‘fore go red!”

My father made Eagle Eye a pair of boots with leather tanned by the new process. He gave them to the Indian, Eagle Eye wanted to pay for them. He had Government money and he had ponies. When money was refused, he thought a pony would be about right. Maybe two, three or even a herd of ponies would not be too much. But my father said, “No, just bring me a deerskin sometime.”