Neither the most dedicated Nimrod nor the most enthusiastic retriever ought to get too nostalgic for the glory days of the Hungarian partridge in North Dakota. In the early 1960's. Hunters were begging near a half million a year, but rarely did they go looking for them. Hungarian partridge were picked up in the course of a hunt for pheasant or grouse.

A week or so ago a friend of mine from Aberdeen asked that if, in the course of my fall ramblings, I should happen to bring a Hungarian partridge to bag, I would send him the skin with feathers. It turns out the soft feathers of partridge are coveted by trout fishermen for tying flies. This inquiry, along with the surprise flush by my retrieving dog of a covey of partridge near my house, moved me to investigate the origins of this upland game bird in North Dakota, as begun in my last essay.

The buzz of rising Hungarian partridge was a pleasant surprise as I walked with my Labrador retriever yesterday. It was a lovely covey, ten birds. Game and fish people say the numbers of Hungarian, or European gray, partridge are on the rise just now, but they have been in decline for decades, so even a full day in the field is unlikely to result in a sighting. The decline is largely the result of changing agricultural practices.

To answer the question as to the social place of African-American barbers — such as Julius Whales, the subject of my last essay — in Dakota is a complicated matter. The relationship dynamics of a tiny black minority with an overwhelmingly white majority were full of nuance, whereas the historical sources are thin. In 1898 there arose in Edgeley, North Dakota, a case showing how inscrutable those sources can be, even when they are extensive.

Brief press reports went out from Mandan in February 1890 recounting an act of violence, saying, “A negro barber named Julius Whales stabbed another negro barber named Henry Wagner, in fifteen places with a jackknife. Wagner is in a precarious condition.” Oddly, that is the extent of reports. We read nothing as to the recovery of Mr. Wagner nor as to the legal fate of Mr. Whales. Evidently the matter was just left to rest.

Although by the time of mass settlement on the Great Plains — certainly by the time of the Dakota Boom — commercial baking powders and yeast cakes largely had relegated the use of sourdough to rustic memory, still that sour staple retained a sweet significance in regional remembrance.

As the COVID curtain descended in 2020, there was a stirring of domestic impulses among folk isolating themselves at home. There was, for instance, an efflorescence of sourdough culture. People were establishing sourdough starters, nurturing them, trying to cook and bake with them.

Before I myself had seen the piece in print, I heard from readers who had their copies and, judging by their comments, actually had read my essay, “‘Happy as a Clam”: The Origins and Evolution of ‘Little Old Sod Shanty on the Claim,’ the Anthem of the Plains.” I know, long title, right? Something for which academics are notorious. And yet — readers.

As the long nineteenth century neared its close, the star of Uncle Ben Corbin — frontier hero and champion wolf-slayer of Emmons County — descended and then fell. He sensed this, but had no good answer. He tried going capitalist and growing up with the country. In March 1898 the rough-and-ready hunter advertised he was going into the land business: as a land locator, and as a dealer in investment lands.

By the time settlement came to the middle of Dakota Territory, the prototype of the frontier hero a la Davy Crockett — an amalgam of rough and ready experience, promotion, and self-promotion — was well established. It came into play with Bill Corbin of Emmons County.