I want to say here that those inviting black oaks, earlier mentioned, made it easy for my father to graciously accept his friend’s apology, on the plea of forgetfulness—and when he went to deal for the trees John Wolfley said, “Why, yes, of course you may have them. You know, Bristow, much as I prize my trees, I couldn’t refuse an old friend like you.” He glanced toward me, and now I’ll swear there were mirthful crinkles playing about the man’s eyes. The black oaks were cut in the spring when the sap was up, then the bark was spudded off the trunks of the trees. All available black oaks within a radius of twenty-five miles of Wetmore were cleaned up in three years. The last tan-bark came from the Wingo farm near Soldier, twenty miles away—wagon haul. That was considered a long haul in those days. The roads here then were no more than winding trails across country, radiating in every direction from town, like the spokes in a wagon-wheel. And there were almost no bridges. The creeks were forded. 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.” The Indian brought him a green buffalo hide. At that time all swell turnouts—horse and buggy conveyances — included a buffalo robe. When, in time, the hide had been tanned and made up, my father found himself in the rather awkward position of owning a buffalo robe without the turn-out. But even so it was not a worthless treasure. On cold, stormy, winter nights—they were bitter cold then—it served as an extra bed coverlet for a quarter of a dozen of his boys, with, at times, an additional neighbor boy or two thrown in for good measure.