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

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Other men got out of their Texas cattle speculations less lucky. Dave Garvin, besides losing a lot of his hard-earned money, had to take the “rest cure” for nearly a year. However, those who confined their speculations, within their means, to native-bred cattle made money. John Thornburrow, starting from scratch, amassed a small fortune. Charley Hutchison, a mere boy, scion of a wealthy’ brewer family, sent out here from Ohio to sober up, and put on a section of wild land, made a pile of money from his herds — and more, he became a teetotaler, a solid, honorable citizen. Fred Achten, a fifteen dollar a month farm hand, built the foundation for the Achten Empire, the largest land holdings in the country, largely on cattle and free grass.

Also, John Rebensdorf, a German farm hand, after marrying Christine Zabel and settling down, made plenty of money running cattle on free grass. Rebensdorf was oddly a thrifty man. By no means an inveterate tippler, he liked, occasionally, to pay for his own beer—and drink it himself. Time and again I have seen him ride into town, tie his horse at the rack in the middle of the street in front of the saloon, go in, and, elbow himself a place at the bar, order three quart bottles of beer—always three bottles. When he had leisurely emptied the third bottle he was ready to pipe. “I’ze zee richest man in zee whole country.” And, at that, the man was not far off in his calculations.