CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SOME HAPPY TIMES AND SOME NOT SO HAPPY
These Browning children were growing up and demanding something more than this hum-drum, wok-every-day life of the mountain people. They let us know that there must be time for music and dancing in the company of other young people. Joe was the one to encourage them, for that meant he could get out his fiddle.
John Richey and Stewart York soon found out that Joe could play that fiddle; so about once a week they would ride up with their instruments for a good practice. It wasn’t long until both Jack and Tod were fingering their Pa’s fiddle. Soon, they too mastered "The Blue Danube, "Maverick in the Canebrake," "Sally Johnson" and dozens of others.
It wasn’t long until folks were begging these musicians to play for dances, and naturally our children were mighty pleased that folks seemed to enjoy themselves at our house. It was nothing for people to ride thirty or forty miles to come to a dance. They would put up their horses in the JAB corral and join the dancers around eight o’clock and dance until dawn. We had a hearty midnight supper, but you could go back to the table any time for pie, cake and coffee.
It got so we had dances as often as once a month in somebody’s house. Usually a bunch of young fellows would get up a dance. Maybe one would stop to stay all night with another. They would go get permission to have the dance at somebody’s house; then they’d send word all over the countryside. When everybody arrived, the boys getting up the dance would pass the hat around and take up a collection to pay the fiddlers. Sometimes they gave the lady of the house something for all her trouble of fixing supper. Later on there was a fixed price for supper and dance, but it never did go any higher than a dollar per man; so many folks attended.
The young folks danced quadrilles mostly, though a few had learned to waltz, schottische, or polka. In the quadrilles four couples danced together, or many eight couples, if the room was large enough. Sometimes the fiddlers sat at the door between two rooms and played for dancers in each room. The floor manager kept a record of the numbers. Each man had a number which corresponded to the number of four men. When the manager called that number, those four men arose, chose their partners, and went through a quadrille. Then those men sat out until their number was called again.
If somebody chose a round dance (waltzes and the like) for part of the time, that was all right. Somebody else could take their place at the quadrille. There was no confusion. Dancers listened to the prompter, and, if the couples did get mixed up, the prompter took the man by the arm and helped him through the number. There were a few good prompters. George and Bob Browning were especially good.
Some of the figures called in the quadrilles were: "Grand Right and Left," "Courtesy Four," "The Girl I Left Behind Me," "Cage the Bird," "Form a Star," "Form a Basket," and many others I don’t recall now.
When a dance was going on, a drunk man never entered the house if the men could get to the door first, and if he did get in, they quietly removed him. No man drinking would have dared ask a girl to dance. That would have been a real scandal.
That reminds me of Jim Jones, our one real bad man of the Sacramento Mountains. Jim stood six feet and weighed about two hundred pounds. Nobody seemed to know where he haled from. He just appeared and got jobs with some of the cow outfits. When he was sober, he was as nice as anybody.
But when he smelled a cork, he really got mean. It got so he was a nuisance at dances, kept so many men outside trying to keep him where the women wouldn’t see him, and of course he came to every dance. He got such a reputation as a drunk that even when he was sober, no decent girl could afford to dance with him. So he grew bitter and hateful and meaner, as folks will when they think everybody is against them.
We heard it whispered that some of our two-gun men were getting afraid of Jim Jones and were aching for a chance to get rid of him. So we weren’t very surprised when our boys came home from a dance at Charley Arthur‘s and said Jim Jones had been killed. Our boys said they didn’t see the shooting, but the man who killed Jim shot in self-defense. That’s all water under the bridge, and there’s no use repeating all the gossip we heard at the time. It’s just another story to show you that the men in New Mexico were still their own law and that sheriffs had little or no control over them.
Any old-timer in the mountains can tell you about the winter of 1889. It happened that Falconer, a nephew of Starnes (Half owner of V MIL Co.) Started to the Penasco River to visit his uncle. On his way down he stopped over night at Luke Kennedy‘s ranch on the Agua Chiquita River. The next morning Mr. Kennedy found his guest ill, and when he examined him, he saw that Falconer had broken out with small pox. The mountain folks were panic-stricken. A cowboy rushed to the Mescalero Indian Agency and brought back all the vaccines a young doctor had on hand. This supply was soon exhausted; so people took pine paddles and squeezed pus from someone’s vaccination, scratched their arms with a number five or six steel sewing needle and laid that paddle of pus on the tiny scratches. Yes, everybody’s vaccination took.
Bob Browning was vaccinated from Henry York, and Bob’s arm swelled up to twice its size. Sweet Clayton, one of our friends, vaccinated himself on a split thumb nail that had been hurt and had never grown out straight. Sweet figured he’d get a good nail out of a vaccination. He nearly lost his thumb in the bargain.
What happened to Falconer? Poor fellow! He was nursed by Mrs. Marsh, a Mexican woman, and Buck Powell, who had both had small pox; but Falconer died in spite of good care. Luke Kennedy was the only other one who took small pox, but he recovered. Folks were so careful that the epidemic didn’t get a chance to spread. If anybody rode up to your house, this was one time when folks didn’t yell, "Light, and come on in." We went to the door and asked where they had come from and if they had been near Kennedy’s.
Branding time had come in New Mexico. The big roundup was already planned. Joe and I were mighty pleased that our Jack was the representative of the mountain people, cattle were to be gathered from the summit to the Pecos River; so this round up was no small local affair; there would be representatives from all companies in the localities. The calves would be branded; drifting cattle would be shoved back to their home range; and the scrawny steers would be weeded out from those to be sent up the trail.
This particular year our Jack started gathering steers from market about the first of March. By May fifteenth he would arrive in Roswell on flat country, and from there he would go up the trail to Clayton, New Mexico where he would deliver steers by August first.
We always gathered around when Jack came home, for he had some exciting experiences to relate to us. He told of driving cattle across the Pecos river and fighting to keep them from bogging down in the quicksand.
He said that they made about three miles a day--never over six miles--and once found their favorite watering places had dried up so the cattle had to go for three days and two nights before they came to water. To the men’s horror, the cattle were so crazed by that time that the men had to stick the animals’ heads down under the water so they could feel the dampness on their noses before they would start drinking.
But all that was changed by 1893 when the railroad come to Roswell. Then mountain people could bring their cattle to this point and ship from there by rail. Old-timers can tell you it was some sight to see forty or fifty thousand head of cattle spread all over the flats at Roswell.
These cattle had been brought there in "trail herds" of two or three thousand, driven to ten to fourteen men. There were usually ten or fifteen herds going toward Roswell at the same time. It was up to the herd bosses to pick different trails to travel so there would be grass. To "graze the cattle through" to Roswell.
In spite of the stories and movies, there weren’t many stampedes. Joe and our boys had only seen one which was caused by a sudden hail storm. The hail pelting on the back startled the cattle, and they started to run, but played out in just a little while. Stampeded among "remudas" [horse herd] were fairly common, for horses are more excitable. The boys said a poor horse wrangler sometimes hunted his animals for two or three days after a stampede.
All cow outfits tried to get back to the home ranches by Fourth of July so all the cowhands could take their girls to the Fourth of July celebration.
The older Browning boys had their special girls now and rode horseback with them to the Fourth of July picnic. Joe and I were home the biggest part of the time, but we managed to take the younger children to this celebration, for it was the biggest event of the year for them.
Two or three cowmen would furnish a beef for the barbecue; then the women folks would bring big picnic baskets to add to that. The picnic committee saw to it that a large plank platform was put up so the young folks could dance.
Sometimes there were patriotic speeches if some good orator happened through the country at the time. There could be horse-racing, but most often people just visited and watched the young people dance.
There was always plenty of lemonade near the platform, or a kettle of coffee, if you wanted it. All the money you needed was a little to put in the kitty to pay the fiddlers.
Nobody wanted to miss the Fourth of July picnic. You’d see people you hadn’t seen for a year, and it was the finest place to do some courting if you had a certain girl on your mind.
Everybody liked the JAB ranch, but Jim Page could not be happy without it; so he begged Joe to trade him the ranch for his SP-brand of cattle. In 1890 he finally broke down Joe’s resistance, and we were ranch hunting again.
"Where are you going to light now, Joe?" I really tried to be amiable about this move, but guess I sounded a little cross. Joe was happy as a lark planning a new nest.
"We’ve got such good cattle now, and times are changing so, I reckon we might as well go back to Texas and ranch like new-fangled cow-men. We don’t need to be in a hurry, though. We can send Jack on ahead with some cattle, and he can find good grazing for them and wait for us to catch up with him.
I wasn’t worried this time, for I knew how Jack loved these mountains, and he would never leave them if he could help it. He’d find good grazing all right, but he’d have a spot picked out for a house, too.
Sure enough, we found him camped on Elk Canyon, just at the line of the Indian Reservation. Jack had dug out the Elk Springs so that the water was already running down the canyon, and right there by that spring he pitched a tent where he wanted our new house built.
Did Joe fuss and fume and say his son was getting mighty uppity and bossy? Not my Joe! He turned to Bob and Tod and said, "Whata you think, Boys?"
One said, "That is it, Pa."
The other said, "Couldn’t be better, Pa." Then Joe turned to look at me, but he didn’t have to ask me. I just grinned at him and started lifting children out of the wagon.
I was so relieved that I didn’t have to go back to Texas. What was there for me now? My Preston and all the others in my family had moved back to Missouri and Arkansas. The boys and Joe hauled lumber from Dollin’s mill and erected a four-room lumber house. If I do say so, as I shouldn’t, there wasn’t anything nicer in the whole country. Each room was sixteen feet long, and two bedrooms were cut off from the rest of the house by a long hallway. There were two huge fireplaces at each end of the house to keep comfortable during the winter months.
Then just to please me Joe built a smoke house for the meat and a rockhouse for my butter and canned fruit. On his next trip to El Paso my Joe went on a spending spree again. He bought a "Home Comfort Range," a real dresser, and some new iron pots, granite bowls and milk crocks. He even bought stand tables for each bedroom, a White sewing machine and three rocking chairs.
You should have seen Lily, Mettie and me fixing up boxes with pretty calico curtains around them for dressing tables. We got busy and had enough rag rugs to cover nearly all the floor space. The boys, not to be outdone, made a dining room table longer than any of us had ever seen. I tell you, people could say that these Brownings were really prosperous.
Since we were very near the Indian Reservation, we learned much about them. By this time the government had apportioned a patch of ground to the head of every Indian family. The head could choose the patch of ground he wished. Then Uncle Sam built a log cabin on each family’s land and installed a stove in each cabin. Next, the government decided to make the Indian look like a white man by insisting that he shingle his hair and put on white men’s clothes. Now they would be self-supporting, self-respecting wards of the government. But Uncle Sam didn’t know the Indian.
He promptly moved out of his log house and stabled his horses in it; then Mr. Indian went back to his tepee. These tepees were made by standing six twelve-foot poles in the ground, then tying them at the top with rawhide. Then the Indian took the yards and yards of muslin that had been allocated to him and started wrapping from the bottom of the poles to the top. The muslin was stretched so tightly that the tepee didn’t leak, and a hole at the tope of the tepee let out all the smoke when a fire was started on the center floor. They put down hides on the floor if they had them to spare, and made beds of pine boughs covered with hides and blankets. Who could prove to an Indian that anything was more comfortable than all this?
The government asked that the Indians plant oats, which grew so well in the mountain country. The Indians planted the oats, but they saw no sense in harvesting them. When their horses were hungry, they just turned them out in the oat fields for a good meal.
The government brand for the Indian stock was a bow and arrow on the left shoulder and ID (Indian Department) on the hip. Each Indian also branded a letter of his own so he could tell his cattle from others. There wasn’t much point in worrying over their cattle, though they ate the increase as fast as they could. Uncle Sam tried to get them to raise sheep, for sheep were good eating also.
I don’t mean to say all Indians were careless like this, for people like Jim Miller and Andy Little took good care of their flocks and left many sheep for their sons.
We learned to know a great many Indians, we had many good friends among them. The JAB ranch was directly on their path as they rode to Elk settlement to trade at Cleeve’s store. Our Children never tired of watching them ride by, and very often would come running into the house to get me. "Here they come, Ma. They must be moving again."
Here they came on a poor little inbred pony carrying all their household goods on the little horse’s back. On top of the household goods sat a squaw with a child in front of her, another in the back of her, and perhaps a papoose strapped on her shoulders. The buck led the procession unencumbered unless there were too many children in his family; then he would let a couple ride with him.
Our boys played with the Indians whenever they had a chance. You could tell they admired our boys, especially George, who could run like a deer and didn’t mind racing them. I remember very well coming to the door one time to see George win a race, and to my surprise, saw an Indian boy come up and pat George on the shoulder and act so pleased with him.
This all did seem very strange to me when I remember the awful battles we had with them in Texas, and now my sons were right neighborly with them. I never expected Joe to be very friendly with them, but my Joe never held a grudge against any people. It wasn’t long until the Indians were flocking around every time Joe came in from a hunt. They knew he was a good hunter, and he brought many deer. This was their chance to bargain for hides. They would take four hides and tan them if Joe would let them keep two for themselves.
I was doing a little trading myself. The Indian women would trade baskets, blankets or anything else for butter and sugar. When they learned to drink coffee, they would have sold a horse for that.
The only time we ever felt uneasy around the Indians was when they started drinking tiswin. It was a concoction made of white corn that had been put in jugs with water and allowed to sour for a month, which caused it to turn into a white liquid resembling buttermilk. When the Indians went on a spree and drank a new supply of tiswin, their faces became so swollen that you would have sworn that they had encountered a swarm of bees. Their eyes seemed to be blotted out of their faces. It made you shudder to look at them. It was tiswin time when quarrels were started and fights encouraged and Indians killed Indians. Any white man who had any gumption at all would stay out of their way.
After we got to know some Indians real well, we asked questions, and they had questions to ask. Once Joe, seeing three women with their noses gone, asked Chief Nutalli what happened. The chief’s answer was short and to the point, "Indian like women with virtue. No virtue; no nose."
Our special friends were Billy Magush, Crook Neck, Pettina Lucy, Kitten Chin, Mrs. Running Water. They stopped by often to chat with us. Their talk might be mostly grunts and motions with their hands, but we learned to understand each other.
Our son, Jack, and the Indians talked the same language when it came to horse talk. How they all loved horses! Every man, woman and child on the reservation could ride, and the sight of a beautiful horse threw them into excited grunts and chatter. Jack bought one horse from the Heart H outfit that not only stirred the Indians, but aroused all the mountain people.
Yellow Rooster was large for a cow-horse, weighing close to nine hundred pounds. He was a dun paint with black eyes and white mane and tail. Jack had many offers for this horse from all kinds of people who wanted not only a striking horse, but one with good cow sense, which is our way of saying that Yellow Rooster was a good cutting horse, a good roping horse and an easy riding horse.
Yellow Rooster was just one of many fine horses Jack acquired. Folks said Jack knew good horse-flesh when he saw it, and I always smiled to myself when I heard this about our boy, for I knew he took after my Pa. Thomas McCarty didn’t believe in buying inferior horses.
As much as I loved horses, I hated horse-breaking time at the ranch. The horses were wild and on edge and the boys were worse. Accidents could and did happen to both men and horses. A beautiful yearling might rear up and fall backward to die with a broken neck, or a prized two-year-old could get tangled up with his dragging log and rope as he tried to drink at a mill stream. Then Joe or one of the boys might find him later where he had fallen in the stream and dammed the water just enough to drown himself.
Riders and ropers, and I mean good riders and ropers like Tod and Jack, could get jammed into a corral fence or have a horse fall with them. No wonder ranch women wanted to go visiting during horse-breaking time. The squealing, yelling, stamping and swearing tore at quieter nerves than mine.
The first winter at Elk Canyon our children did not get to school at all, but the next winter we took Tod, George, Lily and Mettie to the settlement at Elk, where they attended Tillotson School for three months. After that we were lucky enough to be able to pay tutors for the children. Miss May McNatt was our teacher for one session; then Miss. Minnie Nations taught them the next season.
The mountain people were becoming more and more eager to have their own children in school, and the whole district was might proud when one of our own mountain boys, Matthew McNatt, went off to College at Socorro School of Mines.
There was no school anywhere in the mountains during 1893 and 1894 because diphtheria broke out. We were never sure how the epidemic started. There were those who said some vegetable peddler from El Paso brought in the terrible disease. All I know was that when those two winters past, there were no little children left. Eighteen babies were taken that first winter; then there were no children under six years old left in our mountains. At the end of the second winter the older children began coming down.
Our Mettie awoke me one night with, "Oh, Ma! My throat hurts so!" By morning I could see the white phlegm closing the whole opening of the throat. Mettie was laterally choking to death before my very eyes. In a panic I grabbed some scissors and started cutting through the center of the phlegm. Poor Mettie was very blue in the face, but the minute I got a hole through the center of this tough, leathery stuff, she could breath. In a few days Mettie seemed no worse for the wear, but it was Bert’s turn now. The phlegm never did get out of control, but I didn’t take chances. I kept swabbing out his troat with tail feathers from the best rooster. When I told a good doctor this years later, he looked horrified, but what else did I have to use as a swab?
One thing sure, we found mountain folks are mighty good neighbors. No matter what men or women are doing, if they found out a child was down with diphtheria, they were on their horses in a minute if you wanted them to get a doctor. Nobody was too very busy to go. The pity of it all was there was just one doctor, and what could he do without proper medicine?
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