Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler Part 23

The greater part of father's lumber was sawed at Winthrop, now called East Atchison, and he did much hauling across the river on the ice.

His teams were usually the first to cross when the river froze up, and the last to quit crossing in the spring; but as he was a good judge of the condition of the ice, he never lost a team. I have heard my brother George say that four or five times, when father or himself had, by careful driving, crossed in safety with large double teams and heavy loads, others, trying to cross behind them with light wagons, had broken through, and either lost their teams or been saved with difficulty. One spring the ice was thawing rapidly, and had become quite rotten; but father wanted to take one more heavy load across, and he drove it himself. It was drawn by several yoke of oxen, and their weight sunk the ice so that the water spouted through the air-holes and frightened them. He knew that the beaten track, where the teams had trodden the ice solid, and the acc.u.mulated mud had shaded it, had not thawed as fast as the surrounding ice, and that to allow his wagon to swerve a foot, one way or the other, was to risk breaking in. He ran along by the lead yoke, watching them so closely that he did not notice where he was walking, and several times he stepped off, knee-deep in little air-holes; but he took his load safely over. As he went up the bank some half-drunken Germans in a sleigh dashed down on the ice and broke through, but were so near the sh.o.r.e that they easily got out. But one of father's wagons ever broke through, and it was driven by a careless hired man. Father was ahead with another team. He called back to the man to unhitch quickly and hitch on to the end of the tongue, for fear the team would break through, too, and running back, he put lumber under the wheels, and they pulled the wagon out.

Father gave away a great deal of wood over there. In those days coal was scarce and high, and, consequently, wood was high also. Many families were so glad to receive the wood as a gift, that they were willing to haul it twelve or fourteen miles. And, winter after winter, he also kept two or three poor families supplied with wood from his timber at home, allowing them to come and help themselves.

Father and mother were always very generous, giving freely of money, wood, fruits, vegetables, milk, or whatever they had to spare, to those more needy than themselves. I can not remember of ever seeing them charge any one for a night's lodging, or turn any one away.

When father had anything to sell, he often refused to accept its market value, because he thought it was not really worth the price. A friend once noticed him selling seed potatoes much below the market price, and told him that his generous habit of selling to his neighbors so cheaply would keep him poor. He replied that the market price was extortionate, and that his conscience would not allow him to accept it.

In his later years he gave freely to help build various churches; and to State and General Missionary Societies, and to the many calls for money.

He could never stand by and order men around, but always took hold and did the hardest of the work himself; and the excessively heavy work of logging injured his health. He had several severe spells of nervous rheumatism, and from that time his right arm was troubled with the trembling palsy, which grew worse until his death. He had not been able to write with a pen for several years, and his "Recollections"

were all written by holding a pencil in his right hand, and steadying that with the left hand.

Once, while he was lumbering, mother remonstrated with him for wearing himself out so fast. He replied that he saw so much needing to be done, and done at once, he felt compelled to push his work off his hands as fast as possible. If it shortened his life, he said it made no difference to him, provided he could accomplish more than in a long life of easy work. I heard him say once that we ought to make our life-work of so much importance, that neither cold, nor storm, nor any other hindrance should be allowed to interfere with the performance of duty. And I seldom knew him to stop for bad weather of any kind.

In December, 1865, I had concluded to go to school a term at Manhattan, and asked father to take me there, for it was a hundred miles, and there was not a railroad in the State. He sent an appointment to hold a meeting there at that time. The morning that we were to start the thermometer was eighteen degrees below zero, and the wind blowing keenly from the northwest. But if we postponed our journey he would miss an appointment, and so we started. There was no snow, the roads were rough, and we had to travel in a lumber wagon, and were three days on the way. I was well wrapped in blankets, and did not suffer severely, but father, on account of driving, could not wrap up so much, and had to walk nearly half of the time to keep from freezing. His nose and cheeks were slightly frozen the second day, for it did not begin to moderate until the third day.

He held a good meeting of eight or ten days. There were about a dozen baptisms, the ice being cut in the river for that purpose.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

REMINISCENCES--CONTINUED.

In May, 1867, my two-year-old brother, Ernest, was accidentally scalded. He lingered a week, then death claimed the youngest of the flock.

When the Central Branch Railroad was built the little town of Farmington was laid out, a mile to the northwest of father's house--Pardee being two miles to the southeast. Many of the original members of the Pardee Church had helped to organize the Pleasant Grove Church, six miles west. Father thought it would be wise to break up at Pardee., and move church and village to the railroad town, but some objected. Thinking that the rest would soon follow, he left Pardee, and organized a church of twenty-three members at Farmington, October 6, 1867. Bro. McCleery held a successful meeting here the next December, and preached once a month during the following year.

For several years much of father's time was given (gratuitously), in caring for this church and Sunday-school, and the church soon numbered a hundred members.

After the war many colored people came to Kansas, and a number of them settled in the neighborhood. They had heard of father, as a friend to the colored people, and some of them wanted to work for him. He frequently employed them, and usually found them faithful and efficient. They liked to work for him because he treated them as he treated white men. As there were not enough of them in the country places to form churches of their own, they attended our Sunday-schools and meetings. We were much surprised to find that some of our brethren objected to colored children being in the cla.s.ses. One good old colored man, who had been a member of the church in Missouri, was much respected by the community. A white brother requested our deacon, W.

J. May, a son of Caleb May, to ask this colored brother to take a back seat, and to pa.s.s the bread and wine to him last. Bro. May replied: "I shall do no such thing; as long as I am deacon in this church there shall be no respect of persons."

A colored man, who had been a servant in the family of one of the governors of Virginia, presented himself for membership. He was a neat, good-looking man, with pleasant manners, and had been a member of Col. Shaw's colored regiment, when they so valiantly stormed Fort Wagner. A white sister borrowed a pair of gloves, when she went up to give him the hand of fellowship, so that she "wouldn't have to touch a n.i.g.g.e.r's hand."

Father wanted to teach them, without giving undue offense, their Christian duty to the colored people. He preached a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan, telling how the Jews and Samaritans hated each other, and how Jesus taught in that parable that even the most despised of earth's races are our neighbors. He also told the story of Peter's vision at the house of Simon, and how G.o.d taught him not to call any man or nation of men common or unclean, but to carry the gospel to all nations. The nearest that he came to modern times, in that sermon, was the remark that the Jews despised the Samaritans as much as the Americans despised the Africans. He left them to make their own applications of the Bible teachings.

What an excitement it raised! Many said the colored people had to be turned out of the Sunday-school, or they would leave; and some did leave. In nearly all our churches father had to meet this prejudice, but he remained firm in his position, that in church and Sunday-school there should be neither white nor black, but all should have equal rights.

In the spring of 1869 father sold his timber land in Missouri, and paid the last of his debts. He had some money left, and the first thing he did was to go into a book store, and spend forty dollars for "Barnes' Notes," and "Motley's United Netherlands," and "History of the Dutch Republic." He remarked as he did so, "I have felt the need of these books for years, and this is the first money I could spare for them."

Men who had seen father working with tireless energy on his farm, or the plains, or "logging" in the timber, sometimes said: "He is craving to get rich."

He has often been misunderstood, but in no point more than this. I never knew a man who cared less for wealth than he. The one all-absorbing object of his life was to preach the gospel. But he had also resolved to have the means to pay his debts, and to have a home for his family.

About that time he spoke to me, in substance, as follows: The one great anxiety of my life has been to preach. I had intended to go to Bethany, and devote my life entirely to preaching. My sore throat caused me to give that up, but going to Iowa improved my health, and I began to preach again. When I took my claim in Kansas it was with the intention of holding on to the land, while I preached in Illinois, until Kansas should be thickly enough settled to furnish me preaching here. But you know how necessity has driven me, and how preaching for a meager salary, and neglecting my farm, ran me in debt; and what a hard necessity has been laid on me to pay those debts, and to improve my farm, so that you and your mother and the boys can make a living from it. You have no idea what a sore and bitter trial it has been to me the last six or eight years to see the old churches going to pieces before my eyes, and so many opportunities for planting new churches being lost to us. There is only one thing more I must do, and then I am determined to give myself wholly to preaching. As for myself, I would live in a log house all my days before I would take from my preaching the time necessary to earn and build a better house. But Sybil has been a good and faithful wife, and has borne with commendable patience all the trials of the hard life through which I have led her; and it worries her to entertain so much company as we have in her log house. With the lumber and saleable stock I have on hand, I can build it without incurring any further debt. And then I will be ready to preach without being dependent on any man.

The house was built; but before it was finished a series of misfortunes befell him, that threw him in debt nearly as badly as before. From snake-bites, disease, and accidents, he lost four or five horses, and several head of cattle, and the cholera killed nearly a thousand dollars' worth of his hogs.

He went to work again, but somewhat discouraged, for he saw that his long-deferred hope of devoting his entire time to study and preaching, could never be realized. He was nearly sixty, and had broken his const.i.tution by hard work, and could not much longer have endured the incessant riding and preaching of a traveling evangelist, even could he have been supported. The boys were then old enough to do much of the farm work, and from that time he preached more constantly, but spent more or less time at hard labor.

For several years he was employed, for a small salary, at monthly preaching, by churches at Big Springs, Valley Falls, Round Prairie, and other points.

In the fall of 1875 he concluded to visit once more the churches for which he had preached before coming to Kansas, and bid farewell to his old friends. He accordingly spent the following winter in a preaching tour throughout Iowa and Illinois.

The State Meeting at Emporia, in 1877, in his absence, elected him President of the Society. Unable to find a State evangelist who would undertake the difficult task of reviving the old churches that had perished--which he thought was the work most needed at that time--he took the field himself. At the State meeting held at Yates Center the next year, he made the following report: "Time spent, five months; sermons preached, one hundred and fifty; churches organized, two; compensation received, $186.36." He also revived many scattered churches and Sunday-schools, and obtained regular preaching for some of them. He was greatly worried over the churches of this part of the State. They had been much weakened, and some of them nearly broken up by the tide of emigration that set into the southern and western counties. Attempts at co-operative State and district work were impeded by conservative papers, which prejudiced the brethren against missionary societies, and hireling pastors. He spent much time, both with tongue and pen, in answering these sophistries, and teaching the churches their duties. Many of the churches were really too poor to support regular preaching, and many that were able, thought themselves unable to do so. Yet someone must care for them, or they would perish.

He resolved for the rest of his life to preach, without remuneration, where such preaching was most needed. And so the last eight or nine years of his life were spent in preaching on Sat.u.r.days and Sundays for weak churches, and the remainder of the time in working and writing.

If a church was building a meeting house, and felt unable to support a preacher while doing so, he preached for it until it was built. If a church had already built, and felt oppressed with debt, he preached for it until the debt was paid. If, from any cause, a church was weak or disorderly, he preached for it until it was again in good order.

Then he said to the brethren: "I have helped you on your feet, now raise the money and hire some one else to preach for you, and let me go and help some other needy church."

Mr. Hastings and I were married in 1870, and had settled at Farmington. From that time Mr. Hastings had taken much of the care of the Farmington church. The church at Pardee had revived, and had been doing well under the care of Prof. N. Dunshee; and, later on, by the a.s.sistance of Prof. J. M. Reid, and of Mr. Hastings. But, about six years ago, being left without a leader, they begged father to take charge of them, although they were unable to offer him much remuneration. He told them that it would cost them nothing, so far as he was concerned; but that, if he took charge of them, they must promise to support the Sunday-school liberally, and to build a church.

He, and his family, therefore, changed their membership from Farmington back to Pardee, where he was elected elder--for he believed that every pastor of a church should be one of its elders--and he preached for them five years. He not only gave largely of his means to build the church, but spent the whole summer in collecting the money, and overseeing the building of the house. He looked after the buying of the materials, and sent his teams to do much of the hauling, and never stopped until the building was furnished, the insurance paid, and his own hands had put the stoves in place.

About a year before his death, however, owing to disagreements about the manner of conducting the Sunday-school, father resigned his eldership, and preached at other points until his death.

But his work for others was not confined to preaching, or church work.

He had never tried to make a large town of either Farmington or Pardee. He knew too well the perils of the city. When he helped to lay out Pardee he made it a part of the charter that if liquor should ever be sold on any lot of the town the deed to that lot should be forfeited. His idea was to have a small village, with a good church and school, as the center of a moral and intelligent farming community. He took great interest in schools, Sunday-schools, literary societies, and temperance work; in everything, in fact, which tended to the moral and intellectual improvement of the young, or to the well-being of society in general.

He spent much time in writing and lecturing on temperance, both before and after the pa.s.sage of the Prohibitory Amendment. His articles in the papers denouncing the violation of the prohibitory law as rebellion against the Const.i.tution, and all the sympathizers with the law-breakers, as rebels, stirred up such an excitement that when he went to Atchison he could scarcely walk the streets on account of the people, both friends and opponents, who stopped him on every turn, to talk of prohibition. The Germans all wanted to discuss the matter with him; but one of the leading Germans said to him one day, "You must not expect us old Germans, who have brought our habits from the old country, to change; but go ahead, Mr. Butler! Go ahead! The young men are with you."

Father was sometimes accused of "dabbling in politics." If that means that he was an office-seeker, the charge is false. Though often urged by his friends to run for office, he invariably refused, telling them that he considered the office of a Christian preacher the highest office on earth. But he did think it his duty to attend elections and primary meetings, and work against the whisky ring. He often spent much time, in the fall, speaking and writing to secure the election of temperance men for county officers. The final effort by which he succeeded in arousing a public sentiment strong enough to compel the county officers to close the saloons, was a stirring speech he made at a temperance meeting in Atchison, in the spring of 1885,

Some have thought that father was hard-hearted. Plain-spoken he certainly was, and sometimes harsh in dealing with those whom he thought to be doing wrong. He was so thoroughly in earnest that when he thought a certain way right or wrong, it was hard for him to understand that some other way might be equally right or wrong.

Naturally high-tempered, with a very excitable, nervous organization, it was often a matter of wonder to me to see how much self-control he exercised, under irritating circ.u.mstances. He sometimes lost his self-control, and said things that would better have been left unsaid; but when he saw that he had done so he was ready to beg pardon for the offense. But he was kind-hearted and forgiving, and ready to forget injuries done to him.

No matter how harshly he might speak of an opponent, or wrong-doer, he would often turn right around and do him a kindness.

One of the men who helped to raft him wrote to him three or four years ago, saying that he was writing an account of the Kansas troubles, and asking him for some information on points that he had forgotten.

Father readily complied with his request, telling him that he freely forgave him, and all the rest of his old-time enemies.

Father was always ready to help the poor, the oppressed, or unfortunate. It was that spirit of sympathy for the weaker party that led him to side with Horace Greely in 1872, because he thought the Republicans were too hard on the conquered Southerners. But when he heard of the widespread Ku-Klux outrages, he concluded that he had been mistaken, and returned heartily to the Republican party.

I heard a neighbor say a few years ago: "If any one needs help, just go to Bro. Butler. I never heard of him refusing to help anybody that was in trouble, no matter how much time or trouble it cost him."

Another neighbor had his house burned. He was old and feeble, and unable to rebuild. Other neighbors thought they had done their part when they raised a subscription to build him a new house. But cold weather was coming on, necessitating haste. Father, not content with giving money, looked after buying materials, and putting up the building; sent his teams to do the hauling; and, because the ground was freezing up, worked until late at night, digging out sand to plaster it. And this was but one of the many instances of his practical kind-heartedness.

He attended the State Meeting at Hutchinson about a year before his death, where he had been invited to deliver a historical address, sketching his own life and work, and the history of our churches in Kansas. He was urgently requested to publish it, and from that circ.u.mstance came the publication, in the _Christian Standard_, of his "Recollections."

Bro. F. M. Rains said of that address, "That was the grandest speech ever delivered on Kansas soil."

The Hutchinson _Daily News_ spoke of it as follows:

"The address was a happy blending of church history, and personal reminiscence, full of fact, humor and pathos, and, most of all, devotion to freedom, morality, temperance, and G.o.dliness. Few people of today are able to appreciate the privations, and sacrifices, and dangers, with which the pioneer was beset, and these dangers came with special nearness to the man whose mission, courage and conscience made him the open and avowed foe of all sorts of wickedness. The house was packed with intense listeners, and from beginning to end he held the great audience in close attention, and when he finished, the hope that grand old Pardee Butler might live a hundred years was the unexpressed wish of all."

Father was always fluent in prayer, and his pet.i.tions earnest and timely; but in the last year or two of his life his prayers seemed to grow more fervent and impressive. Mrs. Hendryx, of Wichita, writing to me since his death, speaks thus of a prayer offered by him at the Hutchinson Convention: "Never, while consciousness shall last, will I forget the ring of your father's voice in prayer, at Hutchinson. I asked, 'Who is that aged veteran? he seems almost inspired.' And they told me it was Pardee Butler."