Not a great while after we moved to Dallas County in 1865, Mother became afflicted with that dreadful malady, cancer, and much of the time in subsequent years, her ill health kept her at home most of the time, but whenever she was able to do so she attended church and enjoyed religious services. She was a pious and very devoted Christianr one of the best in the world "one in whom there was no guile."

I remember to have returned on visits to Grandfather Rountree and other relatives in Greene County after we located in Dallas County in 1865. One time in 1867, I think, I took Mother there in our buggy, and we remained there about a week and enjoyed our visit very much. Mother stayed with Grandfather most of the time, but I think she visited her sister and all of her brothers who lived there. She had one brother, Uncle Almus, who resided in the state of California. That was the last time Mother ever saw Grandfather, her sister and all but two of her brothers. She was never able to make them another visit.

I remember to have made another visit to Greene County in company with Father. We went horseback and I think it was in the late winter of 1867 or the early spring of 1868, as the weather was real cold a part of the time we were there, which was about a week.

I made another visit to Springfield and vicinity a year or so later. While I was there I went with Willie Jones Rountree and some other cousins on an excursion on the Frisco Railroad down to Seneca, Missouri, near the Oklahoma line. The Frisco had just been completed to a point in Oklahoma a few miles from Seneca. Our train, after reaching Seneca, started down to the end of the completed road and when it had gone a short distance a construction train was seen in the distance approaching us. The whistle on our train was loudly blown several times and all possible efforts were made by the brakeman to stop our train which he finally succeeded in doing, only a few yards from where the construction train finally came to a stop. Some of the employees of the passenger train had flagged the other train and barely succeeded in preventing a collision.. It was an exciting time, and we were all badly frightened, when it appeared that in spite of the strenuous efforts of the train employees, a head on collision could not be prevented.

During this visit which was in the fall of the year I went one morning with John Onstott, my cousin Veda Massey Onstott’s husband, to a wild pigeon roost in the woods near Wilson Creek. It was the first time I had ever seen a pigeon roost. There seemed to be thousands of them. We killed several of them and we certainly had delicious pigeon, which Aunt Almarinda and Veda fried for our breakfast the next morning.

While I was away from home on that visit, Will Henry Slavens, only son of Reuben and Martha Slavens, whom I had last seen when they lived at Rockville, Indiana, visited our folks at Buffalo and vicinity. He was a lawyer residing at Neosho Falls, Kansas, where his father and mother also lived, having removed there from Indiana soon after the Civil War. I regretted very much that I was absent during his visit. He was said to be a very able young attorney.

After Brother Dolph had established a drug store in Buffalo and he and Father had their office in the drugstore, they no longer had to send to Springfield or some other town for their medicine used in their practice. Some of the patent medicines and a few staple drugs had been kept for sale by some of the dealers in general merchandise, but not such medicines as a physician required in his practice. After Dolph had a drug store he frequently issued prescriptions to patients or to parties wishing treatment for ailments, filled the prescription and received payment for same. There was another physician in Buffalo then, Dr. A.. G. Hollenbeck, who did some prescription practice, but Father rarely issued prescriptions, preferring to “dose out” the medicine himself and his old patrons preferred that kind of treatment to which they had been used to for years. In his practice at that time Father always rode horseback, or rather muleback, and he carried his medicine in a pair of pill bags, something after the fashion of the old saddle bags used in pioneer days.

There was a very eccentric character, an old, lame tailor, a bachelor, who had lived in Buffalo and conducted a tailor shop there for many years. He came to Buffalo from New York City long before the Civil War and Father knew him and probably patronized him when he first lived in the town. It was common in early times for country women adjacent to Buffalo to weave many yards of Jeans cloth, a twilled fabric of cotton warp and woolen filling which was colored either blue, back, brown or gray, and they would take the cloth to tailor Miles-- his name was Joseph Miles-- and have him make suits of clothes for their husbands and sons. Before the war, there was very little, if any, ready made clothing kept for sale in the stores and consequently Mr. Miles did a good business. After the war merchants began to deal in clothing but still many people continued to have the tailor make their clothes of home woven cIoth and some of them would buy Jeans and other kinds of cloth at the store and have Mr. Miles to make it into suits of clothes. In addition to being a good tailor, Joseph Miles was an old time fiddler and we boys about town and vicinity spent many nights flstening delightedly to Miles play the fiddle. The tunes he played were principally dance music such as Fisher’s Hornpipe, Arkansas Traveler, Turkey in the Straw and other jazz tunes. I remember hearing him play the Arkansas Traveler, interspersing the music with an imaginary dialogue between an Arkansas Traveler and the fiddler The traveler is assumed to have arrived on horseback one evening at the fiddler's cabin, and attracted by the delightful strains of the fiddlers music, he stopped and hailed the fiddler and said "Kin I stay hyar all night?"

"Shore yer kin" said the fiddler "but if I was yer, I’d put ther hoss in ther stable and sleep in ther lof on ther hay."

Then the fiddler continued the music, but soon the talk commenced. The stranger said, "Say, Mister, don’t the roof of yer house leak?"

Fiddler: "Hit shore do, stranger, bout like pourin’ water in a rat hole."

Stranger: "Then why don’t yer kiver yer house agin?"

Fiddler: "When hit rains I cain’t kiver it, and when hits dry, hit don’t leak."

Stranger: "Say Mister, how far is hit to Little Rock?"

Fiddler: "I don’t know anything about yer little rock, but thar’s a darn big un down thar by the crick."

Then after bidding the stranger to "light and take yer hoss to the stable and feed it" the fiddler resumed his favorite occupation and the melodious strains the famous tune began to charm Miles’ fascinated listeners again. We enjoyed those evenings we often spent at Miles’ tailor shop immensely and I often think of them yet.

While my sister and her family lived at their small farm near Buffalo, I remember being in their home often. On one occasion I was there, her husband was not at home at the time, and Nelle and Etta, who were small children, were playing alone in the living room. After I had been there a short time, while Sister and I were sitting in the kitchen adjoining the living room engaged in conversation, the two children, Nelle about four years old and Etta about two, were still at their play; suddenly we heard one of the children scream and we ran to its relief at once fearing it was badly hurt. When we got to where the children were, Etta was still screaming and one finger of her hand was fast in the crack or opening between the door frame and the half open door. We knew not what to do for a moment or which way to move the door to relieve the pressure on the little child’s finger. Then it suddenly occurred to me to get something and pry the door farther away from the door frame and thus enlarge the opening and I ran and got an axe and hastily inserted the blade of the axe in the opening and cautiously used it as a lever and enlarged the crack releasing the child’s finger which was almost, but not quite, cut through the skin and it was not materially injured. We all, especially the children, were badly frightened until we succeeded in obtaining relief for the dear little Etta. It was a singular experience, an occurrance the like of which I never witnessed before or since then. Sister was very careful after that occurrence to see there were no half opened doors in the room where the little girls were playing.

Copyright ©2004 Larry Slavens. All rights reserved.