Recollections of Ray Nies Father kept his mule driving job for some time, earning good wages for those days. Was he not a good mule driver? He had learned in the army and on the farm how to handle animals. However, all this time he was looking for better opportunities for his other abilities, and for a good investment for his capital, by now a little over $500. One day his friend De Vries came to him and wanted to borrow the money, offering to pay him 10 percent interest. De Vries explained that he wanted the use of the money to open a grocery store. Father asked if he could afford to pay that much interest. "Why, yes, easily," said De Vries. "Well," thought Father, "if this man is so sure he can succeed in the grocery business, and pay 10 percent interest on borrowed money, I think I'll take the money and go into business myself, but not into the grocery business-too much risk there of losses on account of goods spoiling." He looked around, studied the matter over, and finally built, mostly with his own hands, a tiny store building in the neighboring village of Saugatuck, which was at that time a very busy little lumbering town near the mouth of the Kalamazoo River. It was some two or three miles above the then-prosperous village of Singapore, which was also a lumbering town, and which was later completely covered and obliterated by the shifting sand dunes of Lake Michigan, about which more will be said later. In this small home-made building he placed a small stock of hardware, and finished off two or three rooms upstairs for simple living quarters for wife and himself, for at this period he was married to my mother, who was a young girl of Dutch parentage living in Singapore. It happened she had come from the same large city in the Netherlands that Father had come from, but they were unknown to each other there. He met her here a year or two before their marriage. The business prospered in a small way, and it was not long before an addition was necessary, and soon after that a residence next door was purchased for a home and it was in this home that most of the children were born, including myself. The business was carried on for many years, and is going on today in another location. It always has been moderately successful. There has always been plenty to eat and wear, with something besides now and then for small luxuries, and for helping less fortunate people. My very, very old aunt, my mother's younger sister, who is the only one left of her generation, told me not very long ago when I visited her, a little story of an experience which happened in her childhood days, when her family was living in Singapore. This was long before it was abandoned to the drifting sands and had vanished, and when Mother was a young girl there. It was at night, late in the fall of the year. It was bitterly cold and snowing hard. The family was sitting around the fire when they heard loud cries from the river, which flowed close by. Grandpa ran out with a lantern, got a row boat, and pushed off into the water to find out what was wrong. Out in the middle of the river he found a man struggling in the icy water trying desperately to get his canoe righted, which had capsized, and himself back into it. Grandpa pulled him into his boat and quickly got him ashore. He dragged him over the snow up to the house and into the kitchen by the fire, where it was seen that the man was an Indian, who, because he was brim full of "fire water" had fallen into the river, which was brim full of ice water. The fire water inside him, though large in quantity, and of the strongest and most potent kind, was not sufficient to overcome the intense cold of the whole river full of ice water outside of him, and so he began to shout and yell far help. Grandma, usually boss, protested indignantly against having a drunken, wet Indian on her immaculate kitchen floor, and wanted him taken away at once, any place but there was good enough; but for once Grandpa was boss and had it his way which was unusual. He insisted that although the man might be "only an Indian" and was drunk, he was still a human being and in distress, and was going to be cared for right there and at once. "I won't have him on my clean kitchen floor," insisted Grandma. "He will cut all our throats and have our scalps besides; we won't dare to go to sleep." "No," said Grandpa, "I don't think he will harm us. You go all to bed, and don't worry. He stays here." The canoe was pulled ashore. The Indian was left on the floor, and the family went to bed late, and some of them slept very little that night. Getting up early in the morning, they cautiously and fearfully went out into the kitchen to see how their uninvited guest was getting along, but he was gone, and without a word, and they never saw him again. But all that winter, which was a very hard and cold one, every little while a nice, fat freshly-killed deer would mysteriously be found at the daybreak hanging from a small tree growing by the kitchen door, or sometimes a catch of large, fresh fish would just as mysteriously appear at the same place. Although the giver of these gifts remains anonymous, Grandpa knew, and told the family who it was. He knew then that the people of that race never forget a kindness or a favor. Then one day a squaw brought to the house an Indian girl's dress, handsomely made of white doeskin, with white moccasins to match. They were most elaborately trimmed with beads and colored porcupine quills. This, she said, was for the little white girl, meaning my mother. Grandmother accepted the present, but would never let her little girl wear the garments. Perhaps, being prejudiced, she was afraid that if they were worn, the Indians might steal both the dress and the little girl inside of it, and keep her as a member of the tribe in a distant place. In my boyhood years I became quite friendly and well acquainted with some of the boys of the few remaining Indian families in our part of the country. They were fine playmates, being good swimmers and skaters, excellent at all kinds of sport, such as baseball, football, etc. Years after they were gave I happened to run across some historical accounts written by some of the very early travelers and missionaries about Indian life and read with other matters, all of which I believe are authentic, tales of incredible cures the old-time Indian medicine men made for terrible wounds, bruises, aches and pains by using their native remedies made of roots, barks and berries, herb and leaves, etc. Some of those tales bordered on the fantastic. They were inexplicable to these educated white men. -- but were they? 2. Fun on the Farm What times we boys had in our village! Father bought a small farm, we boys thought, rather suspiciously, mostly only for the purpose of having a place to send us to work and keep us busy during the long summer vacations. The farm lay on the edge of the village about half a mile from our house, which was located on the main street. On the farm there were plenty of sand burrs to be hoed out, never pulled up, and milkweeds to be pulled up one by one, never hoed out, and this was back breaking work as it seemed, at times, that the milkweed roots went way through to China, and there were a countless number of them, but I Liked the feel of the silky fibers in the seed pods when ripe, and often wondered why they were not spun and woven into fine cloth, and whether the white, sticky, milky sap that bled out when the plant was punctured could not be put to some cosmetic, practical use. There was a pasture in a little, green valley at the farm with a pretty little creek running through it for our horses and cows. Up on the flat, higher land was the orchard, and at the side of the orchard was a round, compact, tiny grove of 10 or 12 trees left of the original forest. What a delight this little grove was in the heat of the day! There were some pines, two or three hemlocks, and a couple of oaks. Here we kept our jug of water, and here we ate our noon lunch. For a little fun we used to climb the trees and make a complete circuit of the grove, chasing each other, going from tree to tree like monkeys along the branches without once going to the ground the trees in this tiny grove grew so close together. Back of our farm a little way, separated from it by a dirt road, was a forest, not very large as I learned in my later years but when I was a little boy it seemed to be immense. I used to half hope as I wandered through it that I might meet with a wild Indian (but not too wild), or a bear, (but not too close) although I felt fairly certain that they both had been gone from there for years. There were great beech trees in this forest loaded down with nuts in the fall, and over to one side was a little valley creek in which grew some splendid hemlock trees. Here and there were places in the forest where in the spring one could gather bunches of wild flowers, sweet scented arbutus especially, and in their season, luscious wintergreen berries, and here and there in the shade were banks of green velvety moss on which to rest. No, I never met with any wild Indians or bears in those woods, but in the summer time there was occasionally a cow or two grazing along the winding trails, which I could imagine to be wild deer. I loved this fair and romantic spot, and liked to be there when I could, but one day my boyish heart was almost broken when, after an absence of some weeks, I went to visit my beautiful woods, and found that a crew of axmen had been there and cut all the great hemlocks down, stripped them of their bark, and piled it up ready to be hauled to the tannery. There the naked trunks lay with their ghastly, white bodies horribly gleaming in the light, and there they slowly rotted away. I believe I felt as sad over the slaughter of those beautiful trees as ever a young boy could feel, and it was a long time wearing off. 0h well, tanneries had to have tan bark, and remnants of forests were still common in those days, so what did it matter? The very place where those lovely trees once grew is now filled with just worthless brush. The giant beech trees were cut down long ago for firewood. 3. Summer Swimming Then there was the pure delight of a crowd of neighboring, barefooted boys going to Lake Michigan for a swim on a hot summer's day when free from work. The road to the beach led over the river, then through a mile or more up and down and around great sand dunes whose slopes were covered with sweet scented, shady woods. Once in a while we would ascend one of the dunes to its summit, or we would spend a few hours "exploring" those woods in other directions, following overgrown, faint trails winding through the dunes that we would imagine had been made by the Indians long ago, which was probably true. The last half mile of our journey to the "big lake" lay beyond the shady woods and over the bare sand. The blistering heat of the sand on the soles of our bare feet was exquisite torture although we had tough feet. There was no way of avoiding it. Running over it at top speed helped some. There was no shade whatever this last half mile except here and there in long intervals a stunted bush, and we just had to take it as best we could running from one bush to the next, and often our soles became blistered. It's a bit odd how much heat we could stand on the soles of our bare feet where we couldn't stand the slightest tickling of a feather. However, the cool water at the end of the hot trail was recompense enough for the pain, for we went again and again, always with bare feet. At times we would spend the whole, long summer day on the beach taking food from home or eating perch we caught fresh out of the lake and roasted on a stick over our fire, and we would be now in the water, and now lounging on the clean, dry beach sand in the warm sun. You might say that most of those boys were as amphibious as human beings could be. Bathing suits! They were not used. Some of the boys had heard of them, but few had ever seen any. When an ordinance, not very explicit, was eventually passed after years of hesitation, to compel the wearing of bathing suits, the boys believed the law was depriving us of our rights and of not much consequence, and thought they were complying plenty good enough with all its requirement by simply wearing a string tied around their necks and a smile. Some wore the smile only. This did suffice for some years, but the time came at last when they had to wear suits not quite so abbreviated. The beach at that old time was for miles ours exclusively. The water was pure and sparkling, the air fresh, warm and sweet; there was no habitation in sight, and the sand beach with never a rock, hardly a pebble was immaculately clean. Nature had achieved her utmost in making this a perfect place for swimming and playing once we had got there over the hot sand! How we loved it all the more for having to burn the soles of our feet to get there, and what jokes we played! We ducked each other, splashed water over each other, and hid each other's clothes, sometimes tying hard knots in them, and soaking them well. When the victim at last wanting to dress finally found them and tried to untie them, often having to use his teeth in his efforts, then the encircling crowd was hilarious in its enjoyment, keep the time with clapping hands, laughing and singing loudly in unison as they circled round and round him, "Chaw raw beet!! Chaw raw beef?/ When beef is tough /A penny a pound/Is dear enough" as he struggled with the hard, wet knots, and not stopping until the victim succeeded at last in getting his clothes untied or until one of the encircling jokesters, who at last had enough and went to put his own clothes on, would find them mysteriously tied and himself a victim. Sometimes we could not spare the time to go over the dunes and across the land all the way to the great lake and then did our swimming at one of the steamship docks along the river in our village when it happened there was no steamer docked there. We could undress and put on our bathing trunks (compulsory here) in the dock warehouse, and dive off the dock warehouse, and dive off the dock into the deep river. The docks were block long heavy planked platforms built high over the top on long pilings and open underneath. Even back in those days we always had some city summer visitors who spent some of the hot summer days with us, of course nothing like the crowds who came in later years. Some of these men would idle on the dock watching the kids swim and dive, and then some of the swimming, innocent, country town, boy slickers would play a trick or swindle on some of these city "hayseed" men. This trick was for a couple of the boys to start a loud argument as to how long they could stay under water diving off the dock. One would claim two minutes, the other would brag he could stay under five minutes or more. The argument would begin to get hot, the boys claiming more and more -until they began to bet, and one would bet as much as ten cents that he could remain under ten minutes. The city man listening to this loud talk, as was intended, and to put an end to it, and to get the boys to swimming again, would bet fifty cents against ten cents that the best one could not stay under water eight minutes, let alone ten. The boy would accept the challenge, and with the city man holding his watch would dive down into the deep, dark river, and disappear from sight. Minutes passed, and the city hayseed began anxiously looking at his watch and then at the water. Four minutes, flue, six minutes passed -and no boy, and now the city man began to show his concern and look a bit worried. Seven minutes, eight minutes and now time is up, and up comes the boy from the depths, puffing and breathing heavily. The country boy collects his bet from the city yokel. But how was it possible for even so good a swimmer as this boy to stay under the water so long? It wasn't, and he didn't. He simply dove down deep into the dark water until out of sight, then turned and swam, keeping out of sight until he got under the dock floor planks the victim was standing on. Right under his feet so to speak two yards away. He remained there quietly until his boy confederate, standing beside their victim on the dock gave him a prearranged secret signal that time was up, whereupon the diver would quietly sink almost to the bottom, swim out from the dock a bit and then come up to the surface about at the spot he dove in -apparently having been under the water all that time. The city sharper would walk away and the fifty cents would be taken behind the warehouse and divided amongst those innocent boys. Thus were "suckers" made out of the city "slickers." 4. Boyhood Pastimes There were no "playgrounds" with all sorts of elaborate equipment in those days, nor were they needed. We had the whole countryside for a playground - the streams, the lakes where we could go swimming or fishing or boating in the summer and skating in the winter. And there were many games, happily and I think beneficially, none of which were supervised. Some of them were a bit rough perhaps as "Duck on the Rock" and "Spanish Fly" but no one was hurt seriously. Arguments were sometimes settled by the strong arm method. There were few boys of the marble playing age, whose conscience would not allow them to play "for keeps". Then we could wander to the shipyards and watch the men hew the big timbers for the building of the ships, and the yokes of oxen straining to haul the great timbers to where they were wanted to be formed up. We could go into one of the saw mills, and watch, fascinated the big circle saws flashing and biting and screeching their way through the logs. At times we would wander over to the steamers tied up at the docks. We would inspect their machinery and equipment, and think that maybe we would like to be captains or engineers, and sail all over the Great Lakes when we grew up. The boys learned where the sweetest, juiciest, wild strawberries grew. We learned how the birds feed their young, and where the shy quail made her nest, and how many eggs were in it. We knew where the hungry fishes lurked, and how best to take them, and where the biggest bull­frogs were to be found, and how good their legs tasted roasted over a near by fire. We learned where the bumble bee laid up its honey, and how to rob it sometimes with much discomfort to ourselves. We knew where to go in our own orchard to find the best fruit, and we knew what farmer not too distant, that gave for the taking away melons too ripe for the market, but of a finer flavor than any market ever sold. In the spring we used to go to the sugar bush and help the old man owner collect the sap and gather wood to keep the big iron cauldron boiling. We would drop eggs into the boiling sap until they were cooked ready to eat. Then, for helping the old man we could eat all the delicious new made maple sugar we wanted. And while we were resting and eating before the blazing fire, the old man, who was in his young days a 49er -- one of those California gold seekers -- entertained us with exciting stores of his adventures in the California gold diggings and of his long journeys across the plains and mountains. I will admit now, that on one or more than one of these occasions we played truant from school, and were duly punished therefore with that handy riding crop hanging on the wall, but now -- at this late date, I must confess I believe my school learning suffered little by those few stolen days in the woods. And how fascinating it was to step into the open door of the village blacksmith shop, and watch the husky smith work on the red hot iron, and see the sparks fly from it as he hammered it out. We used to take trips up the Kalamazoo river on one of the river steamers in the summer time to the little village of New Richmond, which was our nearest railroad station, and the river boat was the most convenient way to get goods to and from our village to the railroad. At times the steamer's engineer would allow favorite boys to operate the engines and fire the boilers with four feet long ire wood aboard, and stow it away on the deck. It was no small job for a trip took no small amount of wood, and our bare hands gathered plenty of slivers. A great event of this trip was to stand by and watch the fast mail train speed past us through the village, and see how well the trains unerring, mechanical arm snatched that suspended mail pouch without slacking speed. But not the least of my boyish pleasures was to go to my Father's store on winter evenings, and quietly listen to the conversation of the men gathered around the big stove in a cloud of tobacco smoke. There were lake captains, ship owners, engineers, fishermen, lumbermen and a farmer or two. Many of these were to me then, old men, Civil War veterans. Certain of these men never messed an evening's attendance. There was a circle of chairs and upturned nail kegs around the stove; the place was a sort of social club without dues or officers, and the conversation covered just about every topic of interest. 5. The First Phonograph About this time the first phonograph made it's appearance in the village. It looked altogether different from those which, a few years later were seen in every home. This early machine was procured by one of our enterprising, real "down east" Yankees, who had a small store building where he kept a small stock of clocks and jewelry. He repaired watches, kept the telegraph office, with the telegraph key handy on his repair bench. He put up homemade corn salve and "New England" tonic. In the room at the rear of his small store building he had a photograph gallery, where he took "tintypes," "cabinet" photos or group pictures of families. He had half a dozen other callings that I can't think of at the moment. The addition of the new phonograph to his other enterprises was to further diversify his callings and increase his income. You had to pay to listen to it, and it was so cleverly arranged that even if you stood right along side of it, you could hear none of the sounds unless you were one of the paying customers. It cost each listener five cents to hear a short tune. The machine was of the cylinder type, and not very large, and the mechanism was all encased in thick glass. Instead of a horn for the sound to come out of, there were connected to the machine, six or eight rubber tubes about the thickness of a pencil, and perhaps six feet long. These tubes branched into two tubes at the far end of about eight or ten inches long like a capital letter "Y", and these branches terminated in knobs which just fitted one into each ear. You paid your money, picked up the tubes, and holding the knob ends into your ears, the operator started up the machine, and music actually came out of it and was conveyed through the tubes into your ears; the others could only stand by and watch, some enviously. Only those who paid for the privilege could hear it, I must confess that when I first heard it, I was amazed. It seemed a most wonderful thing, and was so fascinated by it, and with the music, of a kind never before heard in our small village, that I did not leave until my entire capital, some twenty five cents, was spent, which luckily, was enough for me to hear about all the records on hand. The device must have been fairly profitable to the owner, as the number of customers for some months in the evening was only limited by the number of tubes. It was very entertaining. In those old days nearly every summer one or more "medicine shows" accompanied by a doctor would come from somewhere, and appear on one of the main street corners of the village where a free show would be given nightly for a week or two, on a wooden platform or stage erected for the purpose, and lighted by flaring, flickering flames of smoky torches. As soon as darkness fell the torches were lit and the show began. The program consisted of some sentimental or humorous songs of the then popular kind; tap or clog dancing both accompanied by banjos or other instruments, and possibly some jokes would be sprung quite similar to those of today. The whole program was greatly enjoyed, especially when the subject of the a joke was well known as a local personage, mentioned by name, who had peculiarities, and about who the perpetrator had previously made some discreet inquires before the show began. Sometimes the troop would have some Indian members, who in their native costumes would entertain with arrow shooting, "William Tell" type, and with war and other dances and native songs. After the crowd was duly amused and entertained, the "doctor" from his platform began the serious business of explaining about the miraculous medicine about to be offered for sale. If you never had a sick moment in all your life, after you listened to the "doctor's" eloquent talk for fine minutes, you would begin to think perhaps you were afflicted with all the diseases that a human being could have and never suspect it, and that his medicine would cure what ailed you. It was "guaranteed" to cure rheumatism, neuralgia, coughs, colds, corns, harelip, knock-knees, toothache, backache, bellyache or any kind of ache; ingrowing toe-nails lameness, bunions, baldness or tape-worms. A "thirty foot" one (they said it was) in a glass jar was exhibited to "prove" it. The medicine did not cure these diseases directly, no it cured sick nerves, (or was it the sick blood?) Which, when cured and healed made the whole body well, every part of it, as blood and nerves went to every part of the body. After the musical program, which had gathered a crowd of people around, and the doctor's wonderfully eloquent speech the sale of the medicine began. "Now, my friends, who wants a bottle? Only fifty cents! That gentlemen over there? All right, my friend, fifty cents please. Here you are Sir, and thank you. What's that? You say you found a dollar bill wrapped up with your bottle? You did? Well, keep it, You gentleman down there-you'll take a bottle? All right, my friend, there you are, fifty cents, please. Thank you, Sir. What say? You found a dollar bill too? Please keep it, my friend, if you found a ten dollar bill it would be yours. What's that? The tall man over there with the pretty lady, you want two? Yes sir, here you are my friend." The doctor could by now hardly hand out the bottles fast enough, but strange to say, only after demand slackened at bit would a dollar bill appear again from under a bottle wrapper, and then sale speeded up again. Are there any of these "medicine shows" left in all American? 6. The Hardware Store Keeping store in those long ago years was different from the way it is today. The store sold cut iron nails, plain iron cook stoves and heaters, most of them for burning wood. There were no plumbing goods except hand water pumps and some pipe, as all the plumbing in the village was of primitive "out door" type. It sold wooden wash tubs and water pails, tin and copper wash boilers and tinware which was made in our small back room tin shop; axes and saws for which there was a large demand to clear the land and to make fire wood; oil lamps and lanterns, and now and then a candle mold; gun powder and shot; rough cast iron pots and pans; house carpen­ter's tools, and tools for ship builders. These are some of the items that I can just remember. Once in a while a farmer would come in who needed a stove or other merchandise, and he would be short of money. In such cases Dad would often take in payment quarter of beef or half a hog; perhaps a load of fire wood, ajar of butter or some eggs. Our large family could usually use those articles in the house, but Mother would be quite disappointed in the quality of the supplies obtained in this way, when the meat was poor and tough, and the butter strong as sometimes was the case. And sometimes a poor, struggling farmer would bring in some of his scanty produce, which he had in vain tried to find a buyer for, and Father, knowing his circumstances and taking pity, would buy the produce, and if it were good enough give it to some poor person he knows would have use for it. There was little time spent in widow displays, windows being considered useful mostly for letting in the daylight, and no special attempt was made to arrange the stock in the store in an orderly, systematic way. The goods were placed mostly wherever space could be found, and if a customer stumbled over something he would sometimes buy it. Any spare time when not attending customers, was spent in the small tin shop making up tin pails, wash boilers and other tin ware to supply future demand. The Dutch colony on the north was within a few miles of our village, and many of those people, who knew Father came and traded with him. He did not forget how to speak to them in their language. We had had Yankees in our village from "down east" also people from "York State", and enough sprinkling of foreign nationalities to make it interesting. If a French Canadian ship builder came in, Father could converse with him and get along, but he always called that sort of French speech, privately, "Bastard French." It was not the real French he had learned at school in old Holland. He talked to the Germans too, who came in to trade, in their native tongue. This knowledge of languages helped him to make a comfortable living, as naturally, people liked to deal with a man who could speak their own language, and who understood their wants and preferences. Some of these people coming from so many distant places were bound to have ways that seemed a bit queer to us. About this time the store got in its first hard coal heaters. Vile had sold only wood burning stoves up to this time. Most of the external castings, highly nickel plated, were attached to the main body of the stove by small bol... [truncated due to length]