Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories: Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas
John Locke · en
While Wolfley said I was a good squirrel hunter, quail was really my
game. I trapped them in my younger days, and shot them when old enough
to be trusted with a gun. I “potted” them. In the old days quail
sold for 5-cents each and no one would think of wasting a charge of
ammunition on a single bird, especially while on the wing; though I did
once shoot a lone quail sitting on top my figure-four cornstalk trap,
under which were twenty live birds. We made our traps then with any old
thing we could pick up and bind together. The twenty trapped quail had
followed a tramped out path in deep snow, baited with a thin scattering
of shelled corn, with a more generous supply of kernels under the
trap—thus to engage the lead birds while the others were coming up, lest
an impatient bird might go after the nubbin on the treadle and spring
the trap too soon. I think trapping and “potting” were legal then. I
winged them in later years, same as other sportsmen were wont to do.
One time while coming home from the farm on a Sunday morning about
eleven o’clock, three teen-age boys caught up with me. They said they
were from Fresno, California. I questioned them a little about Fresno,
and decided they were telling me the truth. Also, I knew they were
not professional tramps—and that they were hungry. I took them to the
Wetmore hotel, and told Bill Cordon to give them their dinners, fill
them up with double orders. One of the boys had about worn out his
shoes—the sole of the left shoe was dragging, making it hard for the boy
to keep up with his pals. While they were waiting in the hotel for the
dinner call, I went to my home and hunted up a pair of shoes—almost new
shoes, which pinched my feet—and took them, with a pair of clean socks,
to the little fellow, and started them on their way back to Fresno,
walking of course. On parting, the boy wearing my shoes, asked me
why had I taken so much interest in them? I told them that I might be
tramping myself someday, maybe even get as far away from home as Fresno,
and in that event I hoped to meet them all again. This is what I told
the boys. For the correct answer—it is enough to know that my people
live in Fresno. One of the older boys said, “Never doubt, we’ll be
there—if we ever do get back home.” And though I have been in Fresno a
number of times since, I never had the pleasure of meeting any of them.
I lost their names.
Now—the $64 question!