OCR Text |
Show JOHN H. SQUIRES Gets Talkativa for one In His Life and Tells Some "Yarns." When a barber gets you down In a chair and waves Ills razor around in the air like a windmill In operation, then It Is he has the best of jou, and can talk a leg or arm oft at his lcslurc. A lcpresentativc of The Rkiiuiimcan permitted himself to get caught In just such a trap the other day, and while every limb Is safe and sound, the experience will nccr be forgotten. John Squires was the offender In this j ca5c,andItcanbeprocdbyado7cnwho sat around and squirmed and wiggled waiting for their turn, that. Tohn talked two and three quarter hours and then followed his victim half way down the sticct, shouting the remainder of a story which he had Just begun as the perspiring victim was permitted to escape from the chair. Every dog has his day, though, and the victim Is now going to get even by telling everything every-thing John said. The fact Is, that his talk was rather interesting, covering cover-ing as it did every stage of his career from the time he first had the croup till the birth of his youngest grandchild, grand-child, which arrived Tuesday morning. morn-ing. And by-the-w.iy, it was this new grand-child that started Mr. Squires off on his tantrum. "Yes that's the way it goes," said John, "as soon as jou've raised a family of your own, jou have to begin to help raise jour grand-children. Here I've raised twelve children, and about the time that a fellow ought to be able to sit down and keep out of the business, here comes one of the boys In the middle mid-dle of the night wanting 'pa' and 'ma' to come over quick and see what's the matter with ono of the babies. It's choking to death. Of course a fellow gets out and hustles and he Is kept hustling In this way as long as n grand-children make their appearance. ap-pearance. Here Iv'o been up practically pract-ically all night and feel as tough as you please." This seemed to ease him a little and I as he stopped to draw a breath his mind reverted to the time when light of any kind was practically an unknown un-known quantity In this country, and recalled the fact that his father was probably tho man who first Introduced Intro-duced tho lamp here. "I can remember remem-ber when it was a common thing for tho Bishop to arise and mako the statement that it would be a great favor if persons coming to church that evening would please bring a candle, If they possessed such a luxury. And the man who brought one and stuck It In the little holder on tho wall was considered wealthy. About this time there were no matches In this country, either. A little concern had started at Salt Lake, but the matches were poor and seldom brought a flame when scratched. The citizens arising early In tho morning would immediately immed-iately go out and tako a look for smoke, and perchance If thero was a little column seen issuing from any home, a stampedo resulted. Usually a few coals were obtainable, and In this way tho peoplo lived on, and were fairly happy. When father brought hWlamp here, wo all considered It a wonder, although It was a little old thing and gave about as much light as afire ilj It wassuch an improvement over the candle proposition, though, that father always Insisted that it was much better than the English gas?" From' this, Mr. Squires Jumped to tho great famine resulting from a visit of tho grasshoppers. "I have good reason to remember that time," said he, "for like most everybody else, I didn't have a blto of bread for months. Tho grasshoppers came by millions, it being almost Impossible to walk. In these dajs they had stripped every bush and twig and not a sprig of green was to be seen anywhere. any-where. Wo were living In Salt Lake valley at that time, and such was tho condition all over tho valley. Even the bark was eaten off most the young trees. Of course all the farm products pro-ducts were destroyed and until the next season, the people subsisted on roots, thistles, rush roots, and any other kind of weed that could bo stewed into a mush or gravj'. The cattle on hand soon became so poor that they could hardly stand up, and when it was seen that they could not be tided oer the dllllculty, they were killed. They made pretty poor picking, though. The peoplo suifcr-cd suifcr-cd for bread most, there being no wheat except what was being sacd for seed. The people managed to pull through their misfortunes In fairly good health, but with next season's wheal crop acted like ravenous wohes. When the wheat was ready to harvest, har-vest, instead of waiting for the threshing thresh-ing to be done, the people begged Just a bunch of tho farmers and taking It home thrashed it out, ground it in a coffee mill and made pancakes." Mr. Squires recalled the starting of one of the wagon teams from the Missouri river, and his description was laughable. "Imagine a thousand raw Englishmen who had never seen a bullock before men who had come from the factories, desks and similar work of the cities being hustled oil half way to nowhere and put down In a herd of wild Texan steers and told to catch them a team. Many of them were afiald of their llcs, and not a few of the oxen were wild and unbroken. un-broken. With a hugo yoke, weighing as much as a stoe, hanging upon their shoulder the green hands would mako a dash for a promising looking animal but at a snort from his nostrils the Englishman wouldn't stop running run-ning until his joke became too heavy and bore him down. When the teams were Anally hitched by more experienced plainsmen, the reins were placed in tho hands of these fellows who had never driven anything other than a nail, and as the prairie was wide and with no obstruction in front, the drivers took their own course. But for the fact that they were rounded round-ed up occasionally, in all probability they would soon have been scattered from the Canadian line to Mexico. Of course this only lasted a few days, until tho teamsters became accustomed ac-customed to thoir new w ork. According Accord-ing to Jacob West, ono of the party refeircd to, two men were killed the llrstday, several wagons broken and the bolts Jostled loose in every wagon." Mr. Squires ran on this way at some length, and finally wound up with a good one concerning one of tho older Baker's at Mcndon. But for fear of the said gentleman's wrath, it must be left untold. Moral Don't get In John Squires' chair the next day after a grand-child has been born to him especially a twelve pounder. |