August 20, 2025 • 28 mins
06 - Chapter 6. Annie Oakley, Woman at Arms by Courtney Ryley Cooper.
Annie Oakley was without a doubt the greatest markswomen who ever lived. She was christened Phoebe Ann Mosey but was called Annie from childhood. Oakley was the stage name that she assumed when she first started to perform with Frank Butler. From obscure and impoverished beginnings, she made herself into the best known woman of her time, propelled by an indomitable spirit and an uncanny shooting ability. We learn of her enduring marriage to Frank Butler and their first meeting — a shooting match in which the seemingly delicate young girl defeated the professional marksman; her association with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show and its triumphal tour through Europe and America; the train crash that nearly took her life and her years as an actress and teacher. Yet with all her many successes she preserved her warmth, dedication and integrity. Her story remains to this day one of the grandest to have come out of the Old West.
Annie Oakley was without a doubt the greatest markswomen who ever lived. She was christened Phoebe Ann Mosey but was called Annie from childhood. Oakley was the stage name that she assumed when she first started to perform with Frank Butler. From obscure and impoverished beginnings, she made herself into the best known woman of her time, propelled by an indomitable spirit and an uncanny shooting ability. We learn of her enduring marriage to Frank Butler and their first meeting — a shooting match in which the seemingly delicate young girl defeated the professional marksman; her association with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show and its triumphal tour through Europe and America; the train crash that nearly took her life and her years as an actress and teacher. Yet with all her many successes she preserved her warmth, dedication and integrity. Her story remains to this day one of the grandest to have come out of the Old West.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of Annie Oakley, Woman at Arms by Courtney
Riley Cooper. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Barry Eads. Chapter six, the introduction of Annie
Oakley to the life she was about to assume as
the only white woman in the entire wild West company
(00:21):
of Buffalo Bill, was a typical one such as only
Buffalo Bill or Nate Salisbury could present showmen both in
their every waking moment, they could not overlook an event
like this. Consequently, when the parade returned to the grounds,
Indians with feathers, flying cowboys with their chaps and sombreros
(00:41):
and spinning lariats, Mexicans and herdsmen, and buffalo ropers, squaws
and papooses and trevoi, there was a quick conference between
the show owners, followed by a bugle call for immediate attention.
Hastily the entire assemblage formed in line. Then Nate Salisbury
took his place on one side of the woman who
(01:04):
was to become the greatest shot in the world. Buffalo
Bill advanced to the other. The colonel raised his tremendous
four gallon hat it was known then as a sombrero
boys He announced this little Missy here is miss Annie Oakley.
She's come to be the only white woman with our show,
and I watch you boys to welcome and protect her.
(01:26):
It was thus that Annie Oakley gained the name of
little Missy, used affectionately to her death by her intimates.
Buffalo Bill called her that at the beginning. He used
no other name for her in the seventeen years of
their association with the Wild West, and in her notes,
Annie Oakley describes that introduction as one of the high
(01:47):
spots of her existence. Quote, my husband and I were
introduced as one of them, the first white woman to
stand and travel with what society then might have thought impossible.
Every head bowed, I felt something like a wild gooseberry
sticking in my throat as the friendly rough hands covered
mine one at a time as they passed. Then the chiefs,
(02:10):
followed by their tribes, passed with a how waste meaning
all is good. A crowned queen was never treated by
her courtiers with more reverence than I by those whole
souled Western boys. Annie Oakley, in all her years with
the Wild West, never had cause to recant that statement.
(02:31):
A cool headed, resourceful, deliberately courageous person in the ring
or at the traps of an exhibition choot. She was,
after all, once work was over, just a child woman,
viewing the great world with the eyes of one who
had been denied much in her childhood, and now that
more fortunate days had come, strove with almost pitiful eagerness
(02:53):
to absorb all in a few years the wonders which
she had all her life been denied. A child woman
in more ways than one. After all, she had forgone
a childhood such as others know, long hours over the
sewing basket, longer hours over knitting, the wandering of field,
and dale heavy muzzle loading rifle upon her shoulder, that
(03:15):
she might provide a living for those who depended upon
her skill with firearms for the very necessities of life.
The arduous hours in which she had prepared her game
for market, that and her years of work both as
a virtual slave and at the infirmary, these things hardly
could be classed as the innocent, buoyant amusements of childhood.
(03:37):
But now married a star in a tremendous organization which,
although it had seen the darker side of conditions in
its beginning, speedily was to forge forward as one of
the really big amusement enterprises of the world. The Little
Missy could revert to things she had lacked and longed for.
She could play in the Buffalo Bill Company. Was a
(03:58):
freckle nosed boy in a big sombrero who today lives
beside the grave of Buffalo Bill on Lookout Mountain near Denver,
and who talks much of Annie Oakley. His name, like
that of Little Missy, was a familiar one a generation ago,
for he was classed as the champion male rifle shot
of the world. He is Johnny Baker, a boy then
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following a god whom he never deserted, either in the
physical or spiritual sense. Johnny Baker had looked upon Buffalo
Bill as the alpha and omega of life. His home
had been near the tremendous rambling structure of the Cody
Home in North Platte known as Scout's Rest, and with
the beginning of the plans for the first Buffalo Bill Show,
(04:44):
Johnny Baker, with the google eyes of a youngster looking
upon Marvel's Unbelievable, had followed the every rehearsal, held incidentally
in quite casual fashion, down by the railroad station, then
at last, as the show prepared for the road, he
had gone to the scout and asked, please, Buffalo Bill,
can I go with your show? Colonel Cody had looked
(05:06):
down pompously. He had ruffled his goatee and shaken his long,
heavy hair. Then, in his booming voice, had asked, you
go with my show? Why blast my skin? Johnny? What
could you do with a show? The freckle faced boy
had hesitated, but only for a moment. Well, he had said,
with an inspiration, I could black your boots. It all
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had ended with the addition of the freckled Johnny to
the personnel of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Exhibition, but
not as a boot blacker. The boy always had been
a favorite of Colonel Cody. Now, with one of those
typical Cody impulses, he became a foster parent to the
boy and started him on a career as a rifleman.
(05:50):
Might as well learn while you're young, he boomed, I did.
That had been the start of Baker's career, with a
god in the form of Buffalo Bill to be patterned after.
Now in a tremendous sombrero which all but unbalanced him,
his hair growing long just like buffalo bills. He practiced
daily with the rifle and the lariat. The boy of
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the Big Show, Annie Oakley, joined him as a playmate.
The children of the Indians which accompanied the show, formed
the rest of a childhood coterie that season. After the
long parades and following the hours of practice which both
Baker and Annie Oakley put in at their rifles and shotguns,
the exhibition grounds resounded to the sounds of more juvenile antics,
(06:35):
such as the wild shouting accompanying run sheep run, or
the squeals and screams of a game of tag, with
slow eyed Sioux maidens and giggling Indian braves to be
taking a rather blank part in it all while drawling
cowpunchers watched or gave advice, and stoacal bucks puffed their
pipes on the sidelines. A strange combination this woman, now
(06:59):
in her twenties, practicing at attempts to break world records
with a shotgun, playing at childhood games, and planning to
attend school again when the show season ended that winter.
Soon the friendship between Johnny Baker and Annie Oakley in
kidhood games became also a friendship of the arena, a
rivalry which lasted, in fact for seventeen years. Who of
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the old generation does not remember the thrill of kidhood
when legs dangling over the hard edges of the blues
mailed pride, forcing one to take the championship of Johnny Baker,
the stocky little man and the slight girl came into
the ring to shoot, as Buffalo Bill expressed it twice daily,
rain or shigne for the championship of the Buffalo Bill.
(07:45):
Wild West Boys of air rifle shooting Age were the
greatest exponents of these two forms. Bent hands, clasped, eyes centered,
they sat in the general admission seats sans popcorn, Sands, peanuts,
Sands's program for their one and only twenty five cent
piece had gone for the purchase of the general admission ticket.
(08:06):
Watching this titanic battle for the supremacy of male over
female for the championship of the wild West. Day after
day was that championship decided, And day after day the
argument was reopened with the coming of each performance. Perhaps
to the elders who watched it merely for the skill portrayed,
it was only an exhibition. But to the youngster on
(08:30):
the Blues and the writer must confess that he was,
on more than one occasion an ardent ruder. It was
a life and death affair where chivalry demanded that youthful
support be given the almost frail little woman, while the
feeling of sex supremacy coming down from ages gone tugged
oh so hard that Johnny Baker, by some miracle, pull
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out from the lead which the girl was taking over him.
But one after another, the glass balls traveled into the
air to be cracked by the steady stream of fire
from Annie Oakley's rifle, and Johnny, try as he might,
lost the match. An argument inevitably followed this contest, as
the last rush of the wild West was over and
(09:13):
the seats emptied a battle of words which lasted long
after the hoof beaten oval of bare Earth had returned
to grass and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show had traveled
on to places and scenes remote that was as to
whether Johnny Baker hadn't just let her win after all,
whether they hadn't fixed it up beforehand so that she
(09:36):
would be the champione of the Buffalo Bill Wild West.
Years and times bring vast changes. This writer, once one
of the howling mob which filled the Blues was thrown
by circumstances into the companionship and close friendship both of
Buffalo Bill and Johnny Baker. The Buffalo Bill Show as
(09:56):
such was a thing of the past. Annie Oakley Whitehair
had retired from the arena. We were at the edge
of the bad lands in South Dakota, upon the spot where,
in the ending years of the last century, Bigfoot and
his band of half starved, raft ridden sue braves had
met the military in the last Indian rebellion, the Ghost
(10:18):
Dance War, which had resulted in the Battle of Wounded Knee.
It was Sunday. Buffalo Bill sat in the opening of
his tent, surrounded by army generals of Indian fighting days
old scouts Sioux braves, each vine with the other at
the telling of some tale of days long gone. Johnny
and I were at one side, Johnny with a rifle
(10:41):
and I with a handful of half dollars bequeathed by
various visitors to the camp. We were on a motion
picture expedition to be thrown into the air, plunked on
the wing by a shot from Baker's rifle, and then
held as souvenirs. And while in this temporary job, of
object thrower. A suddension came to other days, and a
(11:02):
subject which for years had remained unsolved. Johnny, I asked,
tell me something. When you used to shoot against Annie
Oakley and she always won, was it because you weren't
trying or because she was a better shot than you?
Johnny sent another half dollar spinning, then looked seriously toward
me over the barrel of his rifle. There never was
(11:24):
a day when I didn't try to beat her, he said,
But it just couldn't be done. You know, the ordinary
person has nerves. They'll bob up on him in spite
of everything. He'll notice some little thing that distracts his attention,
or get fussed by the way a ball travels through
the air, or a bit of light will get on
his sights, or seem to get there and throw him
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all off. I wasn't any different from the average person,
but Annie was. The minute she picked up a rifle
or a shot gun, it seemed that she just made
a machine out of herself. Every action went like clockwork.
And how was a fellow ever to beat anybody like that?
To tell the truth, Johnny drawled, It would have made
(12:06):
a better show if I could have beaten her every
few performances, but it couldn't be done. But at the
time Annie Oakley joined the Buffalo Bill Show, the idea
of such contests had not yet come into being. Johnny
Baker was still a boy and only learning to shoot.
Annie Oakley had her set act and went through that,
(12:28):
the one which she and Frank Butler had performed on
the stage, meanwhile practicing for other things. The cowboys and
their tricks entranced her, almost with the adoption of her
by the entire company as a sort of little sister.
The name little Missy came naturally once Buffalo Bill had
applied the nickname. There was also a voluntary kidnapping. The cowpunchers,
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green hands straight from the range, most of them and
widely different from the show man style of waddie which
one now sees with the various rodeos and round up exhibitions,
regarded the girl with a mixture of awe and affection,
and with the moment that she invinced a desire to
learn the tricks of their profession. There was a surplus
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of bow legged, wide hatted teachers. One by one, they
gave her lessons with the lariat. They taught her the
Western style of riding. They taught her the reasons for
bits of costume which seemed theatrical to one who does
not know the West, but which came about through sheer
necessity instead of a love of the spectacular. The high
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heeled boots, for instance, with their heavy curve under the instep,
built to support the foot in long hours of riding,
and to hold the heel from sliding through the stirrup
when a Western horse decides to stop and turn, all
in its own length. The big hat built for shade
from the blistering rays of western sun. For a roof
in time of rain, wide enough to throw the dripping
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dampness beyond the collar, and to the protection of oil
skin slicker instead of down one's neck, to say nothing
of a drinking cup from man or beast in time
of need. The bandana conceived to keep the dust out
of one's collar. The stiff gauntlets to hold one's cuffs
from catching in the twist of a thrown rope, thus
(14:14):
bringing the danger of being yanked unceremoniously from the saddle.
The chaps for protection from brush and thorn, wheat dryness
in time of rain, warmth in cold weather and blizzard.
The wide stock saddle a rocking chair to most Easterners,
but exceedingly necessary when one works on a horse instead
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of merely rides. All these things they taught her, together
with the theories of the lariat and the spinning rope,
how to keep that rope from kinking by keeping it
turning with the left hand in synchronization with the movements
of the right and a hundred other tricks of cowboydom
that are as necessary to the art of rope in
a critter as a knowledge of the alphabet is necessary
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to writing. Annie Oakley had found a new phase of
life in which to become interested. Her schooling in the
early days of the Buffalo Bill Show, superintended by drawling
cowpunchers and the guttural applause of Sue Braves, played a
tremendous part in her later success. When the Buffalo Bill
Show swerved into the tide which ran it to success.
(15:19):
Annie Oakley was of the West Western as much of
a typification of the Western girl to the audience as
Buffalo Bill was a typification of the ideal Western man.
But these were the days before success, the days of
embryo of planning of hopes and dreams and difficulties. The
buffalo bill show at this time was by no means
(15:42):
a finished product. Usually one show a day was given,
and that in the afternoon. Then the slow process of
loading the train began with the journey to the next town.
Sometimes these journeys were short, allowing the performers to go
to a hotel for the night, but often owing to
the slowness of transportation, the exigencies of loading and the
(16:05):
necessity for side tracking that regular scheduled trains might pass,
the daily trip was more often of nightly duration, and
for this a makeshift sleeping arrangement was conceived. The backs
of two seats were tilted up and fastened securely. Then
three cushions were put in place, one at the head
and two lengthwise long boards, being carried under the seats
(16:28):
to hold these cushions in place. Over this a mattress
was placed, and of course bed clothing, each performer who
desired a bed of this type furnishing his own equipment.
As an example of the rather precarious form of sleeping
accommodations which this arrangement afforded. The boy whose duty it
was to make the Beds was late to work one
(16:49):
rainy night. As he hurried about his work, he discovered
that two of his precious boards were missing. The train
stood by a high fence, and the boy strove to
take a few standards from their fastenings, but failed. Then
he climbed the fence and grunted with the discovery he
had found his boards. The next morning, Annie Oakley arose
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after her sleep of the night, gazed rather drowsily at
the protruding end of the board which had supported her couch, blinked,
looked closer, and turned hurriedly for her husband. Together they
raised the bed and gazed upon the support in its
full perspective. Then they shouted for the boy. Where did
you get this board, asked Annie Oakley. Why, on the
(17:31):
other side of a fence in the last town. Well,
you wrap it up and send it back. What's more,
you're going to hear from Buffalo Bill for this he did,
the reason being that the board had been a white
one with a rounded top bearing in black lettering the
words here rests in peace the remains of Joshua Pepper.
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However hard as life was, the performances often being given
in the rain, it was the lot of any Buffalo
Bill perform for as long as the show lasted to
appear in downpours, even in snow. Owing to the fact
that the Amphitheater during the whole life of the exhibition
was an open one. It was not because Buffalo Bill
(18:13):
did not strive to make things as pleasant as it
was possible under the circumstances for his little shooting Star
and her husband. Two private tents were carried by the show,
one of which was for Colonel Cody and Nate Salisbury.
The other was for mister and Missus frank Ee Butler.
In this tent were folding chairs, a steamer chair, a rug,
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a Chintz curtain, and light cots and blankets, a collapsible bath,
and other conveniences which Annie Oakley could enjoy when she
was not busy with her performance, her childhood games with
the Indians and Johnny Baker, and her practice with the cowpunchers.
That she proceeded well with this ladder was evidenced by
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the fact that, before the season had well progressed, Annie
Oakley could roll and hold the wildest horse the show
possessed from town to town. The Wild West was progressing
on one day stands, and these cost the act of
Butler and Oakley one of its prized possession. That was George,
the amiable French poodle, which had acted as the intermediary
(19:18):
of marriage of Frank Butler and Annie Oakley, and which
had accompanied them upon their various adventures. Old, now somewhat feeble,
life had been harder for George on the Wild West.
Instead of being boxed for a journey once a week,
or perhaps at a more infrequent period, it was a
daily matter. One day, as Butler and his wife careened
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through a blinding rainstorm on the way to the train,
the old dog faltered and fell hurriedly. The pair called
a cab, and that night sat beside a being that
was more than a dog to them. Show people are
sentimental with George. There were reasons. It had been this dog,
which a backwards child had done used as her shield
(20:01):
in writing to a man she loved, This dog, whom
an actor had enlisted as an aid to marriage, George,
who had formed for years an integral part of their act,
and who often had received as many press notices in
the earlier days as they The dog died that night.
The next day, a Wild West show held a funeral
(20:23):
upon many a show lot scattered throughout America, their stands
hidden away from the prying investigation of the inevitable boys
who scour the grounds after the show has departed. A
home made little head board announcing a name that sounds
foolish to the passer by, but which has meant much
to the show which has come and gone. It is
(20:44):
the grave of a pet, perhaps the goose, which has
followed a clown about the ring, a dog now missing
from one of the acts, buried there by show folks
who showed almost as much grief over the parting as
they would have done for a human. Animals are peculiarly
close to the heart of a performer. It is an
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ingrained affection which dates Afar back into the days of
the Mountebank, when, with his trained bear, his performing baboon,
the amusement vendor stood by the roadside, living by the pennies,
tossed him in recognition of the antics of his animal companion.
More than one clown has this writer seen with the
(21:25):
tears on his cheeks as he buries a companion. More
than one mournful dressing room disconsolate while the band plays
on in the big top and the axe flash from
ring to aerial and back to hippodrome. So it was
with George, and the wild West became anything but hard
hearted with his death. Two hundred men were they with
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that show, and but one white woman. But that day
the assemblage, rough as it undoubtedly was from a standpoint
of society standards of the age, might have been feminine
in its entirety. Glum cowboys fashioned a box, then waited
tongue tied, while Annie Oakley and her husband placed within
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it the body of a poodle dog, resting upon pillows
which once had decorated the stage during his act. Over
in the teepiece of the Sioux, a queer wailing chant rose,
the ghost's song voiced as Indian girls worked over the
wreaths that would rest upon the grave of something that,
to the ordinary mind was only a dog. Then, at
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last the procession to a private lawn, where by appeal
a space had been granted beneath a spreading pear tree,
that a beloved member of an act might not merely
sleep in the expanse of an exposition grounds. Two cowboys
carried the box there, others followed and stood about, bow
legged and silent, their big hats weaving in rough hands.
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Those of the cynical might say it was foolish, But
the cynical did not know the loneliness of the show business.
They did not feel the aloofness, the knowledge that all
of life is a wandering, restless thing, where existence depends
upon the mood of a populace, and friends are friends
often only as long as the applause continues to ring.
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A dog is faithful, an audience is the most insincere, cruel,
heartless thing that exists. A performer has his right to
grieve for a true friend. On went the show, and
the butler's with it, working gradually east and with a
steady succession of plaudits for the work of the girl,
who now formed one of its stellar attractions. True, of course,
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there would have been no Buffalo Bill Show without the
presence of Colonel William Frederick Cody. There would have been
no successful tours without the brains of Nate Salisbury, his
shrewdness in arranging the route of towns to be visited,
his ability to foresee in which places money would be plentiful,
thus making it possible for persons to attend an amusement enterprise,
(24:04):
his showmanship, which gradually was rounding the performance into more
and more of the spectacle which it later became, and
his managerial capacity, which gave to the assemblage a coherence
which Cody could never have accomplished. But in addition to this,
there was another ingredient which played a tremendous part in
the growing success of the Bill Show as it was
(24:26):
coming to be known. That was the presence of Annie Oakley.
The fact that she was the one white woman with
the organization counted for much, especially when it was considered
that she was slight, weighing barely one hundred ten pounds, young, pretty,
and of the most feminine appearance. Then too, there was
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the prestige added by the approval of sitting Bull, which
Major John M. Burke, the press agent and life long
worshiper of both Cody and Annie Oakley, did not overlook.
Besides all this, this was the marvelous character of her work,
often performed in rain and storm, with the thunder crashing
and the lightning literally playing about the steel barrels of
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her firearms. Little is needed as confirmation of her popularity
save a typical review copied from an age yellowed edition
of a Chicago newspaper. There is a swift breaking of ranks,
and the kaleidoscopic marching and counter marching of the galloping
horsemen back and forth till they vanish at last. In
(25:31):
the mimic mountains. At the north of the grounds, Annie Oakley,
a girl who has made herself famous with the rifle,
has suddenly appeared. No one knows where she came from,
but there she is, while the last rough rider is
still in sight, and there are her guns. A couple
of young men have arranged her traps, and she bows
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to the grand stand, then turns to shoot. She makes
a pleasant picture down there in the great quadrangle. She
wears a short skirt, a tight fitting costume, a cowboy hat,
and the entire buckskin appearance of her garments adds to
the picture of the frontier lass. She is wonderfully accurate,
breaking composition balls with an almost unerring accuracy. Two three
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four balls are thrown into the air at one time,
and she breaks them, changing her double barreled gun in
the midst of the feet, and she is determined. She
places her rifle on the ground and walks back some
twenty feet. The trap is sprung, and she runs forward,
snatches up the gun, and fires. She is trying to
break both balls, but the time is too short, and
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she misses one. She tries it again and again. It
seems beyond the possible, but she does it at last,
and the whole great audience repays her with generous cheers.
When she has done, she bows widely to the audience
and runs like a deer across the hundred yards of
space to the flies. Every movement in that dash across
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the square is a certificate to the value of the
school in which she has learned. The amusement world has
not changed much. It still likes to see the impossible
become the possible, and because of that, a trick of
the trade lives forever. Annie Oakley missed the same number
of times at each performance. Strange, wasn't it, And strange
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too that the same trick still endures. The gymnast of
the circus or the vaudeville show always receives a greater
ovation on a difficult trick when he fails the first time.
Such is showmanship. Annie Oakley knew that, and as a
show woman she became an indispensable part of the show
then really in process of true formation, Nor was the
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time long until she became of equal value in still
another respect, For without her the Buffalo Bill wild West
might have missed one of its most unusual features of
the early days, and one which again served as a
rung upward What was the presence of sitting bull? End
of Chapter six
Chapter six of Annie Oakley, Woman at Arms by Courtney
Riley Cooper. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Barry Eads. Chapter six, the introduction of Annie
Oakley to the life she was about to assume as
the only white woman in the entire wild West company
(00:21):
of Buffalo Bill, was a typical one such as only
Buffalo Bill or Nate Salisbury could present showmen both in
their every waking moment, they could not overlook an event
like this. Consequently, when the parade returned to the grounds,
Indians with feathers, flying cowboys with their chaps and sombreros
(00:41):
and spinning lariats, Mexicans and herdsmen, and buffalo ropers, squaws
and papooses and trevoi, there was a quick conference between
the show owners, followed by a bugle call for immediate attention.
Hastily the entire assemblage formed in line. Then Nate Salisbury
took his place on one side of the woman who
(01:04):
was to become the greatest shot in the world. Buffalo
Bill advanced to the other. The colonel raised his tremendous
four gallon hat it was known then as a sombrero
boys He announced this little Missy here is miss Annie Oakley.
She's come to be the only white woman with our show,
and I watch you boys to welcome and protect her.
(01:26):
It was thus that Annie Oakley gained the name of
little Missy, used affectionately to her death by her intimates.
Buffalo Bill called her that at the beginning. He used
no other name for her in the seventeen years of
their association with the Wild West, and in her notes,
Annie Oakley describes that introduction as one of the high
(01:47):
spots of her existence. Quote, my husband and I were
introduced as one of them, the first white woman to
stand and travel with what society then might have thought impossible.
Every head bowed, I felt something like a wild gooseberry
sticking in my throat as the friendly rough hands covered
mine one at a time as they passed. Then the chiefs,
(02:10):
followed by their tribes, passed with a how waste meaning
all is good. A crowned queen was never treated by
her courtiers with more reverence than I by those whole
souled Western boys. Annie Oakley, in all her years with
the Wild West, never had cause to recant that statement.
(02:31):
A cool headed, resourceful, deliberately courageous person in the ring
or at the traps of an exhibition choot. She was,
after all, once work was over, just a child woman,
viewing the great world with the eyes of one who
had been denied much in her childhood, and now that
more fortunate days had come, strove with almost pitiful eagerness
(02:53):
to absorb all in a few years the wonders which
she had all her life been denied. A child woman
in more ways than one. After all, she had forgone
a childhood such as others know, long hours over the
sewing basket, longer hours over knitting, the wandering of field,
and dale heavy muzzle loading rifle upon her shoulder, that
(03:15):
she might provide a living for those who depended upon
her skill with firearms for the very necessities of life.
The arduous hours in which she had prepared her game
for market, that and her years of work both as
a virtual slave and at the infirmary, these things hardly
could be classed as the innocent, buoyant amusements of childhood.
(03:37):
But now married a star in a tremendous organization which,
although it had seen the darker side of conditions in
its beginning, speedily was to forge forward as one of
the really big amusement enterprises of the world. The Little
Missy could revert to things she had lacked and longed for.
She could play in the Buffalo Bill Company. Was a
(03:58):
freckle nosed boy in a big sombrero who today lives
beside the grave of Buffalo Bill on Lookout Mountain near Denver,
and who talks much of Annie Oakley. His name, like
that of Little Missy, was a familiar one a generation ago,
for he was classed as the champion male rifle shot
of the world. He is Johnny Baker, a boy then
(04:22):
following a god whom he never deserted, either in the
physical or spiritual sense. Johnny Baker had looked upon Buffalo
Bill as the alpha and omega of life. His home
had been near the tremendous rambling structure of the Cody
Home in North Platte known as Scout's Rest, and with
the beginning of the plans for the first Buffalo Bill Show,
(04:44):
Johnny Baker, with the google eyes of a youngster looking
upon Marvel's Unbelievable, had followed the every rehearsal, held incidentally
in quite casual fashion, down by the railroad station, then
at last, as the show prepared for the road, he
had gone to the scout and asked, please, Buffalo Bill,
can I go with your show? Colonel Cody had looked
(05:06):
down pompously. He had ruffled his goatee and shaken his long,
heavy hair. Then, in his booming voice, had asked, you
go with my show? Why blast my skin? Johnny? What
could you do with a show? The freckle faced boy
had hesitated, but only for a moment. Well, he had said,
with an inspiration, I could black your boots. It all
(05:29):
had ended with the addition of the freckled Johnny to
the personnel of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Exhibition, but
not as a boot blacker. The boy always had been
a favorite of Colonel Cody. Now, with one of those
typical Cody impulses, he became a foster parent to the
boy and started him on a career as a rifleman.
(05:50):
Might as well learn while you're young, he boomed, I did.
That had been the start of Baker's career, with a
god in the form of Buffalo Bill to be patterned after.
Now in a tremendous sombrero which all but unbalanced him,
his hair growing long just like buffalo bills. He practiced
daily with the rifle and the lariat. The boy of
(06:11):
the Big Show, Annie Oakley, joined him as a playmate.
The children of the Indians which accompanied the show, formed
the rest of a childhood coterie that season. After the
long parades and following the hours of practice which both
Baker and Annie Oakley put in at their rifles and shotguns,
the exhibition grounds resounded to the sounds of more juvenile antics,
(06:35):
such as the wild shouting accompanying run sheep run, or
the squeals and screams of a game of tag, with
slow eyed Sioux maidens and giggling Indian braves to be
taking a rather blank part in it all while drawling
cowpunchers watched or gave advice, and stoacal bucks puffed their
pipes on the sidelines. A strange combination this woman, now
(06:59):
in her twenties, practicing at attempts to break world records
with a shotgun, playing at childhood games, and planning to
attend school again when the show season ended that winter.
Soon the friendship between Johnny Baker and Annie Oakley in
kidhood games became also a friendship of the arena, a
rivalry which lasted, in fact for seventeen years. Who of
(07:23):
the old generation does not remember the thrill of kidhood
when legs dangling over the hard edges of the blues
mailed pride, forcing one to take the championship of Johnny Baker,
the stocky little man and the slight girl came into
the ring to shoot, as Buffalo Bill expressed it twice daily,
rain or shigne for the championship of the Buffalo Bill.
(07:45):
Wild West Boys of air rifle shooting Age were the
greatest exponents of these two forms. Bent hands, clasped, eyes centered,
they sat in the general admission seats sans popcorn, Sands, peanuts,
Sands's program for their one and only twenty five cent
piece had gone for the purchase of the general admission ticket.
(08:06):
Watching this titanic battle for the supremacy of male over
female for the championship of the wild West. Day after
day was that championship decided, And day after day the
argument was reopened with the coming of each performance. Perhaps
to the elders who watched it merely for the skill portrayed,
it was only an exhibition. But to the youngster on
(08:30):
the Blues and the writer must confess that he was,
on more than one occasion an ardent ruder. It was
a life and death affair where chivalry demanded that youthful
support be given the almost frail little woman, while the
feeling of sex supremacy coming down from ages gone tugged
oh so hard that Johnny Baker, by some miracle, pull
(08:52):
out from the lead which the girl was taking over him.
But one after another, the glass balls traveled into the
air to be cracked by the steady stream of fire
from Annie Oakley's rifle, and Johnny, try as he might,
lost the match. An argument inevitably followed this contest, as
the last rush of the wild West was over and
(09:13):
the seats emptied a battle of words which lasted long
after the hoof beaten oval of bare Earth had returned
to grass and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show had traveled
on to places and scenes remote that was as to
whether Johnny Baker hadn't just let her win after all,
whether they hadn't fixed it up beforehand so that she
(09:36):
would be the champione of the Buffalo Bill Wild West.
Years and times bring vast changes. This writer, once one
of the howling mob which filled the Blues was thrown
by circumstances into the companionship and close friendship both of
Buffalo Bill and Johnny Baker. The Buffalo Bill Show as
(09:56):
such was a thing of the past. Annie Oakley Whitehair
had retired from the arena. We were at the edge
of the bad lands in South Dakota, upon the spot where,
in the ending years of the last century, Bigfoot and
his band of half starved, raft ridden sue braves had
met the military in the last Indian rebellion, the Ghost
(10:18):
Dance War, which had resulted in the Battle of Wounded Knee.
It was Sunday. Buffalo Bill sat in the opening of
his tent, surrounded by army generals of Indian fighting days
old scouts Sioux braves, each vine with the other at
the telling of some tale of days long gone. Johnny
and I were at one side, Johnny with a rifle
(10:41):
and I with a handful of half dollars bequeathed by
various visitors to the camp. We were on a motion
picture expedition to be thrown into the air, plunked on
the wing by a shot from Baker's rifle, and then
held as souvenirs. And while in this temporary job, of
object thrower. A suddension came to other days, and a
(11:02):
subject which for years had remained unsolved. Johnny, I asked,
tell me something. When you used to shoot against Annie
Oakley and she always won, was it because you weren't
trying or because she was a better shot than you?
Johnny sent another half dollar spinning, then looked seriously toward
me over the barrel of his rifle. There never was
(11:24):
a day when I didn't try to beat her, he said,
But it just couldn't be done. You know, the ordinary
person has nerves. They'll bob up on him in spite
of everything. He'll notice some little thing that distracts his attention,
or get fussed by the way a ball travels through
the air, or a bit of light will get on
his sights, or seem to get there and throw him
(11:46):
all off. I wasn't any different from the average person,
but Annie was. The minute she picked up a rifle
or a shot gun, it seemed that she just made
a machine out of herself. Every action went like clockwork.
And how was a fellow ever to beat anybody like that?
To tell the truth, Johnny drawled, It would have made
(12:06):
a better show if I could have beaten her every
few performances, but it couldn't be done. But at the
time Annie Oakley joined the Buffalo Bill Show, the idea
of such contests had not yet come into being. Johnny
Baker was still a boy and only learning to shoot.
Annie Oakley had her set act and went through that,
(12:28):
the one which she and Frank Butler had performed on
the stage, meanwhile practicing for other things. The cowboys and
their tricks entranced her, almost with the adoption of her
by the entire company as a sort of little sister.
The name little Missy came naturally once Buffalo Bill had
applied the nickname. There was also a voluntary kidnapping. The cowpunchers,
(12:51):
green hands straight from the range, most of them and
widely different from the show man style of waddie which
one now sees with the various rodeos and round up exhibitions,
regarded the girl with a mixture of awe and affection,
and with the moment that she invinced a desire to
learn the tricks of their profession. There was a surplus
(13:11):
of bow legged, wide hatted teachers. One by one, they
gave her lessons with the lariat. They taught her the
Western style of riding. They taught her the reasons for
bits of costume which seemed theatrical to one who does
not know the West, but which came about through sheer
necessity instead of a love of the spectacular. The high
(13:31):
heeled boots, for instance, with their heavy curve under the instep,
built to support the foot in long hours of riding,
and to hold the heel from sliding through the stirrup
when a Western horse decides to stop and turn, all
in its own length. The big hat built for shade
from the blistering rays of western sun. For a roof
in time of rain, wide enough to throw the dripping
(13:54):
dampness beyond the collar, and to the protection of oil
skin slicker instead of down one's neck, to say nothing
of a drinking cup from man or beast in time
of need. The bandana conceived to keep the dust out
of one's collar. The stiff gauntlets to hold one's cuffs
from catching in the twist of a thrown rope, thus
(14:14):
bringing the danger of being yanked unceremoniously from the saddle.
The chaps for protection from brush and thorn, wheat dryness
in time of rain, warmth in cold weather and blizzard.
The wide stock saddle a rocking chair to most Easterners,
but exceedingly necessary when one works on a horse instead
(14:34):
of merely rides. All these things they taught her, together
with the theories of the lariat and the spinning rope,
how to keep that rope from kinking by keeping it
turning with the left hand in synchronization with the movements
of the right and a hundred other tricks of cowboydom
that are as necessary to the art of rope in
a critter as a knowledge of the alphabet is necessary
(14:57):
to writing. Annie Oakley had found a new phase of
life in which to become interested. Her schooling in the
early days of the Buffalo Bill Show, superintended by drawling
cowpunchers and the guttural applause of Sue Braves, played a
tremendous part in her later success. When the Buffalo Bill
Show swerved into the tide which ran it to success.
(15:19):
Annie Oakley was of the West Western as much of
a typification of the Western girl to the audience as
Buffalo Bill was a typification of the ideal Western man.
But these were the days before success, the days of
embryo of planning of hopes and dreams and difficulties. The
buffalo bill show at this time was by no means
(15:42):
a finished product. Usually one show a day was given,
and that in the afternoon. Then the slow process of
loading the train began with the journey to the next town.
Sometimes these journeys were short, allowing the performers to go
to a hotel for the night, but often owing to
the slowness of transportation, the exigencies of loading and the
(16:05):
necessity for side tracking that regular scheduled trains might pass,
the daily trip was more often of nightly duration, and
for this a makeshift sleeping arrangement was conceived. The backs
of two seats were tilted up and fastened securely. Then
three cushions were put in place, one at the head
and two lengthwise long boards, being carried under the seats
(16:28):
to hold these cushions in place. Over this a mattress
was placed, and of course bed clothing, each performer who
desired a bed of this type furnishing his own equipment.
As an example of the rather precarious form of sleeping
accommodations which this arrangement afforded. The boy whose duty it
was to make the Beds was late to work one
(16:49):
rainy night. As he hurried about his work, he discovered
that two of his precious boards were missing. The train
stood by a high fence, and the boy strove to
take a few standards from their fastenings, but failed. Then
he climbed the fence and grunted with the discovery he
had found his boards. The next morning, Annie Oakley arose
(17:09):
after her sleep of the night, gazed rather drowsily at
the protruding end of the board which had supported her couch, blinked,
looked closer, and turned hurriedly for her husband. Together they
raised the bed and gazed upon the support in its
full perspective. Then they shouted for the boy. Where did
you get this board, asked Annie Oakley. Why, on the
(17:31):
other side of a fence in the last town. Well,
you wrap it up and send it back. What's more,
you're going to hear from Buffalo Bill for this he did,
the reason being that the board had been a white
one with a rounded top bearing in black lettering the
words here rests in peace the remains of Joshua Pepper.
(17:52):
However hard as life was, the performances often being given
in the rain, it was the lot of any Buffalo
Bill perform for as long as the show lasted to
appear in downpours, even in snow. Owing to the fact
that the Amphitheater during the whole life of the exhibition
was an open one. It was not because Buffalo Bill
(18:13):
did not strive to make things as pleasant as it
was possible under the circumstances for his little shooting Star
and her husband. Two private tents were carried by the show,
one of which was for Colonel Cody and Nate Salisbury.
The other was for mister and Missus frank Ee Butler.
In this tent were folding chairs, a steamer chair, a rug,
(18:35):
a Chintz curtain, and light cots and blankets, a collapsible bath,
and other conveniences which Annie Oakley could enjoy when she
was not busy with her performance, her childhood games with
the Indians and Johnny Baker, and her practice with the cowpunchers.
That she proceeded well with this ladder was evidenced by
(18:56):
the fact that, before the season had well progressed, Annie
Oakley could roll and hold the wildest horse the show
possessed from town to town. The Wild West was progressing
on one day stands, and these cost the act of
Butler and Oakley one of its prized possession. That was George,
the amiable French poodle, which had acted as the intermediary
(19:18):
of marriage of Frank Butler and Annie Oakley, and which
had accompanied them upon their various adventures. Old, now somewhat feeble,
life had been harder for George on the Wild West.
Instead of being boxed for a journey once a week,
or perhaps at a more infrequent period, it was a
daily matter. One day, as Butler and his wife careened
(19:40):
through a blinding rainstorm on the way to the train,
the old dog faltered and fell hurriedly. The pair called
a cab, and that night sat beside a being that
was more than a dog to them. Show people are
sentimental with George. There were reasons. It had been this dog,
which a backwards child had done used as her shield
(20:01):
in writing to a man she loved, This dog, whom
an actor had enlisted as an aid to marriage, George,
who had formed for years an integral part of their act,
and who often had received as many press notices in
the earlier days as they The dog died that night.
The next day, a Wild West show held a funeral
(20:23):
upon many a show lot scattered throughout America, their stands
hidden away from the prying investigation of the inevitable boys
who scour the grounds after the show has departed. A
home made little head board announcing a name that sounds
foolish to the passer by, but which has meant much
to the show which has come and gone. It is
(20:44):
the grave of a pet, perhaps the goose, which has
followed a clown about the ring, a dog now missing
from one of the acts, buried there by show folks
who showed almost as much grief over the parting as
they would have done for a human. Animals are peculiarly
close to the heart of a performer. It is an
(21:04):
ingrained affection which dates Afar back into the days of
the Mountebank, when, with his trained bear, his performing baboon,
the amusement vendor stood by the roadside, living by the pennies,
tossed him in recognition of the antics of his animal companion.
More than one clown has this writer seen with the
(21:25):
tears on his cheeks as he buries a companion. More
than one mournful dressing room disconsolate while the band plays
on in the big top and the axe flash from
ring to aerial and back to hippodrome. So it was
with George, and the wild West became anything but hard
hearted with his death. Two hundred men were they with
(21:47):
that show, and but one white woman. But that day
the assemblage, rough as it undoubtedly was from a standpoint
of society standards of the age, might have been feminine
in its entirety. Glum cowboys fashioned a box, then waited
tongue tied, while Annie Oakley and her husband placed within
(22:07):
it the body of a poodle dog, resting upon pillows
which once had decorated the stage during his act. Over
in the teepiece of the Sioux, a queer wailing chant rose,
the ghost's song voiced as Indian girls worked over the
wreaths that would rest upon the grave of something that,
to the ordinary mind was only a dog. Then, at
(22:31):
last the procession to a private lawn, where by appeal
a space had been granted beneath a spreading pear tree,
that a beloved member of an act might not merely
sleep in the expanse of an exposition grounds. Two cowboys
carried the box there, others followed and stood about, bow
legged and silent, their big hats weaving in rough hands.
(22:54):
Those of the cynical might say it was foolish, But
the cynical did not know the loneliness of the show business.
They did not feel the aloofness, the knowledge that all
of life is a wandering, restless thing, where existence depends
upon the mood of a populace, and friends are friends
often only as long as the applause continues to ring.
(23:16):
A dog is faithful, an audience is the most insincere, cruel,
heartless thing that exists. A performer has his right to
grieve for a true friend. On went the show, and
the butler's with it, working gradually east and with a
steady succession of plaudits for the work of the girl,
who now formed one of its stellar attractions. True, of course,
(23:40):
there would have been no Buffalo Bill Show without the
presence of Colonel William Frederick Cody. There would have been
no successful tours without the brains of Nate Salisbury, his
shrewdness in arranging the route of towns to be visited,
his ability to foresee in which places money would be plentiful,
thus making it possible for persons to attend an amusement enterprise,
(24:04):
his showmanship, which gradually was rounding the performance into more
and more of the spectacle which it later became, and
his managerial capacity, which gave to the assemblage a coherence
which Cody could never have accomplished. But in addition to this,
there was another ingredient which played a tremendous part in
the growing success of the Bill Show as it was
(24:26):
coming to be known. That was the presence of Annie Oakley.
The fact that she was the one white woman with
the organization counted for much, especially when it was considered
that she was slight, weighing barely one hundred ten pounds, young, pretty,
and of the most feminine appearance. Then too, there was
(24:47):
the prestige added by the approval of sitting Bull, which
Major John M. Burke, the press agent and life long
worshiper of both Cody and Annie Oakley, did not overlook.
Besides all this, this was the marvelous character of her work,
often performed in rain and storm, with the thunder crashing
and the lightning literally playing about the steel barrels of
(25:10):
her firearms. Little is needed as confirmation of her popularity
save a typical review copied from an age yellowed edition
of a Chicago newspaper. There is a swift breaking of ranks,
and the kaleidoscopic marching and counter marching of the galloping
horsemen back and forth till they vanish at last. In
(25:31):
the mimic mountains. At the north of the grounds, Annie Oakley,
a girl who has made herself famous with the rifle,
has suddenly appeared. No one knows where she came from,
but there she is, while the last rough rider is
still in sight, and there are her guns. A couple
of young men have arranged her traps, and she bows
(25:52):
to the grand stand, then turns to shoot. She makes
a pleasant picture down there in the great quadrangle. She
wears a short skirt, a tight fitting costume, a cowboy hat,
and the entire buckskin appearance of her garments adds to
the picture of the frontier lass. She is wonderfully accurate,
breaking composition balls with an almost unerring accuracy. Two three
(26:15):
four balls are thrown into the air at one time,
and she breaks them, changing her double barreled gun in
the midst of the feet, and she is determined. She
places her rifle on the ground and walks back some
twenty feet. The trap is sprung, and she runs forward,
snatches up the gun, and fires. She is trying to
break both balls, but the time is too short, and
(26:37):
she misses one. She tries it again and again. It
seems beyond the possible, but she does it at last,
and the whole great audience repays her with generous cheers.
When she has done, she bows widely to the audience
and runs like a deer across the hundred yards of
space to the flies. Every movement in that dash across
(26:57):
the square is a certificate to the value of the
school in which she has learned. The amusement world has
not changed much. It still likes to see the impossible
become the possible, and because of that, a trick of
the trade lives forever. Annie Oakley missed the same number
of times at each performance. Strange, wasn't it, And strange
(27:20):
too that the same trick still endures. The gymnast of
the circus or the vaudeville show always receives a greater
ovation on a difficult trick when he fails the first time.
Such is showmanship. Annie Oakley knew that, and as a
show woman she became an indispensable part of the show
then really in process of true formation, Nor was the
(27:44):
time long until she became of equal value in still
another respect, For without her the Buffalo Bill wild West
might have missed one of its most unusual features of
the early days, and one which again served as a
rung upward What was the presence of sitting bull? End
of Chapter six
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