LIFE OF O. E. HOBACK as told to Edna Greet (Vernon’s grandmother).
He had worked hard and had only bought a few necessities at the company store – an ax, two pairs of overalls, a jumper, some cotton gloves, some socks and two quilts. But when the time came for the company to settle with him, they told him he had used all his pay and had nothing coming. 65 cents. A friend of Joe’s by the name of Jim Johnson had befriended him, and when he found that Oscar was leaving with no pay, he gave him $10.
Before he left, June 1890, Oscar got Johnson to one side and said: “You’ve been a friend to me, and I want to ask something of you. Just stay away from the bunkhouse this evening.”
“Why?” asked Johnson.
“I can’t tell you,” replied Oscar. “I shouldn’t be telling you this much. Only, for your own good, stay away from the bunkhouse.”
Oscar left the camp about noon, but circled around and came back through the timber to a sunny hillside overlooking the bunkhouse. There he took off his shoes and drew on a pair of heavy German socks. Then he sat and waited until dark. It was Saturday night, and when supper was over and the sounds from the bunkhouse indicated the the usual Saturday night card games and drinking were in full swing he got busy. He had taken about five pounds of coarse black blasting powder from the powder house. This he tied up in the leg of some old overalls, and in them wrapped it in layers of burlap and paper, partly wet, so as not to burn too readily. The bunkhouse had a fireplace with a huge stone (cobblestone diameter) chimney built so that a person could walk up steps on the outside. Under cover of darkness Oscar climbed up and dropped his bomb on the bed of coals. The noise was at its height and it was not noticed. Then he started running, and in his concern at making a quick get-away he ran past his shoes where he had left them by the side of the trail, and had to go back for them. He was about a quarter of a mile away when his bomb exploded. He looked back and the bunkhouse looked like a volcano, with the doors and windows blown out or open. He didn’t stop running until his socks began to wear out and he was afraid they would leave some telltale scraps. Then he stopped and put his shoes on. He never heard any report of the happening, and never asked any questions.
(to be continued)
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As they say, “Don’t get mad, get even.”