He went on to tell me that he was living in hope of making her Mrs. H.
G., but that the bar-keeper also indulged a hope, and as this important
functionary was a man of ready cash, and of derringers and few words, it
became a delicate matter to avow open rivalry; but it was evident my
friend's star was ascendant, and, learning that he considered himself to
possess the "dead-wood," and to have "gaited" the bar-keeper, I was more
than amused, even comforted.
It was pleasure to sit there leaning against a vigorous old oak while
Smith opened his heart to me, in easy confidence, and, with quick eye
watching the passing mules, penciled in a little sketch-book a leg, a
head, or such portions of body and harness as seemed to him useful for
future works.
"These are notes," he said, "and I've pretty much made up my mind to
paint my great picture on a _gee-pull_. I'll scumble in a sunset effect,
lighting up the dust, and striking across the backs of team and driver,
and I'll paint a come-up-there-d'n-you look on the old teamster's face,
and the mules will be just a-humping their little selves and laying down
to work like they'd expire. And the wagon! Don't you see what fine
color-material there is in the heavy load and canvas-top with sunlight
and shadow in the folds? And that's what's the matter with H. G. Smith.
"Orders, sir, orders; that's what I'll get then, and I'll take my little
old Sarah Jane and light out for New York, and you'll see _Smith_ on a
studio doorplate, and folks'll say, 'Fine feeling for nature, has
Smith!'"
I let this singular man speak for himself in his own vernacular, pruning
nothing of its idiom or slang, as you shall choose to call it. In this
faithful transcript there are words I could have wished to expunge, but
they are his, not mine, and illustrate his mental construction.
The breath of most Californians is as unconsciously charged with slang
as an Italian's of garlic, and the two, after all, have much the same
function; you touch the bowl or your language, but should never let
either be fairly recognized in salad or conversation. But Smith's
English was the well undefiled when compared with what I every moment
heard from the current of teamsters which set constantly by us in the
direction of Copples's.
Close in front came a huge wagon piled high with cases of freight, and
drawn along by a team of twelve mules, whose heavy breathing and
drenched skins showed them hard-worked and well tired out. The driver
looked anxiously ahead at a soft spot in the road, and on at the
station, as if calculating whether his team had courage left to haul
through.
He called kindly to them, cracked his black-snake whip, and all together
they strained bravely on.
The great van rocked, settled a little on the near side, and stuck fast.
With a look of despair the driver got off and laid the lash freely among
his team; they jumped and jerked, frantically tangled themselves up, and
at last all sulked and became stubbornly immovable. Meanwhile, a mile of
teams behind, unable to pass on the narrow grade, came to an unwilling
halt.
About five wagons back I noticed a tall Pike, dressed in checked shirt,
and pantaloons tucked into jack-boots. A soft felt hat, worn on the back
of his head, displayed long locks of flaxen hair, which hung freely
about a florid pink countenance, noticeable for its pair of violent
little blue eyes, and facial angle rendered acute by a sharp, long nose.
This fellow watched the stoppage with impatience, and at last, when it
was more than he could bear, walked up by the other teams with a look of
wrath absolutely devilish. One would have expected him to blow up with
rage; yet withal his gait and manner were cool and soft in the extreme.
In a bland, almost tender voice, he said to the unfortunate driver, "My
friend, perhaps I can help you;" and his gentle way of disentangling and
patting the leaders as he headed them round in the right direction would
have given him a high office under Mr. Bergh. He leisurely examined the
embedded wheel, and cast an eye along the road ahead. He then began in
rather excited manner to swear, pouring it out louder and more profane,
till he utterly eclipsed the most horrid blasphemies I ever heard,
piling them up thicker and more fiendish till it seemed as if the very
earth must open and engulf him.
I noticed one mule after another give a little squat, bringing their
breasts hard against the collars, and straining traces, till only one
old mule, with ears back and dangling chain, still held out. The Pike
walked up and yelled one gigantic oath; her ears sprang forward, she
squatted in terror, and the iron links grated under her strain. He then
stepped back and took the rein, every trembling mule looking out of the
corner of its eye and listening at qui vive.
With a peculiar air of deliberation and of childlike simplicity, he said
in every-day tones, "Come up there, mules!"
One quick strain, a slight rumble, and the wagon rolled on to Copples's.
Smith and I followed, and as we neared the house he punched me
familiarly and said, as a brown petticoat disappeared in the station
door, "There's Sarah Jane! When I see that girl I feel like I'd reach
out and gather her in;" then clasping her imaginary form as if she was
about to dance with him, he executed a couple of waltz turns, softly
intimating, "That's what's the matter with H. G."
Kaweah being stabled, we betook ourselves to the office, which was of
course bar-room as well. As I entered, the unfortunate teamster was
about paying his liquid compliment to the florid Pike. Their glasses
were filled. "My respects," said the little driver. The whiskey became
lost to view, and went eroding its way through the dust these poor
fellows had swallowed. He added, "Well, Billy, you can swear."
"Swear?" repeated the Pike in a tone of incredulous questioning. "Me
swear?" as if the compliment were greater than his modest desert. "No, I
can't blaspheme worth a cuss. You'd jest orter hear Pete Green. _He can
exhort the impenitent mule._ I've known a ten-mule-team to renounce the
flesh and haul thirty-one thousand through a foot of clay mud under one
of his outpourings."
As a hotel, Copples's is on the Mongolian plan, which means that
dining-room and kitchen are given over to the mercies--never very
tender--of Chinamen; not such Chinamen as learned the art of
pig-roasting that they might be served up by Elia, but the average John,
and a sadly low average that John is. I grant him a certain general air
of thrift, admitting, too, that his lack of sobriety never makes itself
apparent in loud Celtic brawl. But he is, when all is said, and in spite
of timid and fawning obedience, a very poor servant.
Now and then at one friend's house it has happened to me that I dined
upon artistic Chinese cookery, and all they who come home from living in
China smack their lips over the relishing _cuisine_. I wish they had sat
down that day at Copples's. No; on second thought I would spare them.
John may go peacefully to North Adams and make shoes for us, but I shall
not solve the awful domestic problem by bringing him into my kitchen;
certainly so long as Howells's "Mrs. Johnson" lives, nor even while I
can get an Irish lady to torment me, and offer the hospitality of my
home to her cousins.
After the warning bell, fifty or sixty teamsters inserted their dusty
heads in buckets of water, turned their once white neck-handkerchiefs
inside out, producing a sudden effect of clean linen, and made use of
the two mournful wrecks of combs which hung on strings at either side
the Copples's mirror. Many went to the bar and partook of a
"dust-cutter." There was then such clearing of throats, and such loud
and prolonged blowing of noses as may not often be heard upon this
globe.
In the calm which ensued, conversation sprang up on "lead harness," the
"Stockton wagon that had went off the grade," with here and there a
sentiment called out by two framed lithographic belles, who in great
richness of color and scantiness of raiment flanked the bar-mirror;--a
dazzling reflector, chiefly destined to portray the barkeeper's back
hair, which work of art involved much affectionate labor.
A second bell and rolling away of doors revealed a long dining-room,
with three parallel tables, cleanly set and watched over by Chinamen,
whose fresh, white clothes and bright, olive-buff skin made a contrast
of color which was always chief among my yearnings for the Nile.
While I loitered in the background every seat was taken, and I found
myself with a few dilatory teamsters destined to await a second table.
The dinner-room communicated with a kitchen beyond by means of two
square apertures cut in the partition wall. Through these portholes a
glare of red light poured, except when the square framed a Chinese
cook's head, or discharged hundreds of little dishes.
The teamsters sat down in patience; a few of the more elegant sort
cleaned their nails with the three-tine forks, others picked their teeth
with them, and nearly all speared with this implement small specimens
from the dishes before them, securing a pickle or a square inch of pie
or even that luxury, a dried apple; a few, on tilted-back chairs,
drummed upon the bottom of their plates the latest tune of the road.
When fairly under way the scene became active and animated beyond
belief. Waiters, balancing upon their arms twenty or thirty plates,
hurried along and shot them dexterously over the teamsters' heads with
crash and spatter.
Beans swimming in fat, meats slimed with pale, ropy gravy, and over
everything a faint Mongol odor,--the flavor of moral degeneracy and of a
disintegrating race.
Sharks and wolves may no longer be figured as types of prandial haste.
My friends, the teamsters, stuffed and swallowed with a rapidity which
was alarming but for the dexterity they showed, and which could only
have come of long practice.
In fifteen minutes the room was empty, and those fellows who were not
feeding grain to their mules lighted cigars and lingered round the bar.
Just then my artist rushed in, seized me by the arm, and said in my ear,
"We'll have _our_ supper over to Mrs. Copples's. O no, I guess
not--Sarah Jane--arms peeled--cooking up stuff--old woman gone into the
milk-room with a skimmer." He then added that if I wanted to see what I
had been spared, I might follow him.
We went round an angle of the building and came upon a high bank, where,
through wide-open windows, I could look into the Chinese kitchen.
By this time the second table of teamsters were under way, and the
waiters yelled their orders through to the three cooks.
This large, unpainted kitchen was lighted up by kerosene lamps. Through
clouds of smoke and steam dodged and sprang the cooks, dripping with
perspiration and grease, grabbing a steak in the hand and slapping it
down on the gridiron, slipping and sliding around on the damp floor,
dropping a card of biscuits and picking them up again in their fists,
which were garnished by the whole bill of fare. The red papers with
Chinese inscriptions, and little joss-sticks here and there pasted upon
each wall, the spry devils themselves, and that faint, sickening odor of
China which pervaded the room, combined to produce a sense of deep,
sober gratitude that I had not risked their fare.
"Now," demanded Smith, "you see that there little white building
yonder?"