_North of California_
Twenty miles from Water,
Thirty miles from Mail,
Forty miles from Hell,
Girl Wanted—Inquire within.
Rudely printed and stuck at a rakish angle upon a tree, hundreds of
miles from civilization, or indeed from any visible touch of human
habitation, this sign greeted the astonished eyes of the passengers who
traveled on the stage line from Redding to Shasta in the north of
California in ’75. Leading from it, off into the woods, was a tiny newly
trodden path—an invitation that any adventurous young woman could hardly
fail to take—had any come that way. But there was the joke—few did.
These Westerners made jests of everything, their loneliness and misery
in particular, and the characteristic is not dead yet. For just thirty
years later, in the city of San Francisco, people forced to rush from
their homes by a great conflagration, leaving all their worldly
possessions behind them, put up outside their improvised tents and
shacks such ridiculous signs as these:
Old clothes for sale.
Beer, five cents.
Fortunes told.
Dew Drop Inn.
Rooms To Let.
And while the fire still raged within the walls of that hostelry of
which they were all so proud, there appeared over the poorest and most
tumble-down shelter of all the words:
PALACE HOTEL.
California still may be young, but, better yet, California is still
brave and unspoiled.
The distance to Redding by railway seemed to take hours and hours. There
were no fences, no divisions of property, no irregular stone-wall
separations, as in the East, and no parti-colored plaids of green and
brown denoting “this is mine and that is yours,” that I was to see in
Europe later on. It was my first view of large acreage—miles and miles
of it—and in the distance (real distance in California, which you soon
find out if you start to walk it) great hills of red and purple, while
right beside the tracks, unprotected from the weather, were endless
stretches of sacks rammed full of wheat.
Most of the towns took the name of the first settler, and Redding was
called for the father of Joe Redding, who has distinguished himself in
many ways—one being to write the libretto for Victor Herbert’s opera,
“Natoma.” One unsuspecting village named “Dorris Bridge,” after its
founder, had this changed to “Alturas” by a representative whom the
voters had sent to the state legislature. When the populace heard that
they were forced hereafter (by law) to be called by a classic name, they
took their guns and prepared to meet that assemblyman as soon as he got
off the stage. Needless to say, he never returned home.
From Redding on was a stage line, winding in among the immense hills,
with turns in the road so sharp that the leaders of the six-horse team
would have to climb the bank in order that the coach might go around the
corner. On one occasion an animal which I took for a big collie dog, but
which was in reality a coyote, ran behind us for quite a ways.
By this time I took any kind of a job—took it, and learned how to do it
afterward; so at Bayley’s, my first stop, I did many things, from
picking blackberries to running a mowing machine—only knocking two teeth
out of the scythe before I got the hang of it. Old man Bayley, being a
democratic soul, played cards with his help at night, thereby taking
away from them regularly what he paid them during the day. Life was
profitable to no one but Bayley, so I decided to move on. Let me say
that on my return trip I stopped again at Bayley’s. I was greeted
joyously. But I had learned a new game up in the country. I taught Mr.
Bayley seven-up, and before I left that place I had won back all the
money he had taken away from me when I worked for him, and fifty dollars
“velvet”—incidentally paying my trip back to San Francisco.
Having no funds, I walked to my next stop, which was the United States
Salmon Hatchery on the McCloud River. Livingston Stone, who had been
sent out by Baird of the Smithsonian Institution to run the place, was a
retired parson, but very wisely shed his religious ideas before going
west. I’ll never forget when he let me into the secret of the drink he
gave the workmen every hot summer afternoon. A huge washtub full of cold
water into which was put a quart of raspberry shrub and a quart of pure
alcohol. The men did not realize what they were drinking, as it looked
like pink circus lemonade. Mr. Stone knew the government would not O. K.
large bills for rum, but pure alcohol might be used for anything.
To anyone who has not seen a fish hatchery it is a fascinating place.
The big fish came up into the McCloud River to spawn, and from here most
of the rivers of the world were supplied with their eggs. Exhausted from
the trip up, for they never touch food from the time they leave their
homes, an expert can simply reach down and catch them with his hand. The
eggs of the female are pressed out into pans where the milt of the males
is squirted over them, fertilizing them in water—the unimpregnated ones
being sorted out. They are then ready for packing in cracked ice and
swamp moss, some traveling as far as New Zealand. Nature hatches out
twenty-five per cent of her salmon eggs, but it was considered a failure
if we did not produce ninety-eight per cent in living fish. If we could
only do the same with the human race, we could make perfect children and
just the number the Government needed.
The Indians were of the tribe of Wintoon, called “Digger.” They were
dirty and lazy, and, although some of them had been educated in the
public schools, they very soon lapsed into their original state. Even
then it was against the law to sell them whisky, but I have seen a young
Indian boy take a quart, sit down in the sand and knock off the head
against a rock, clap the hole to his mouth, and drink the whole thing
without stopping. Needless to say, he fell over as if stunned with a
blow, and would have rolled into the river if he had not been rescued.
The Indian women were certainly not attractive. In the winter they wore
thickness upon thickness of old sacks and rags wound around themselves,
principally their legs, and these never came off until they rotted or
the summer heat drove them to take knives and cut the dirt-caked and
incrusted stuff away. Along toward spring they were objects to keep away
from, but in summer they were more bearable, as they bathed in the river
almost daily. I remember venturing into their particular swimming pool
one day and being taken by the arms and legs and almost drowned, they
thinking it a joke. I believe the Indians were the originators of the
Turkish bath in America. They had a religious ceremony very much like it
which was about as good a way of getting rid of the unfit as I know of.
On the hottest summer day (and the temperature, like everything
Californian, was generous—114 degrees in the shade being not at all
unusual) they would strip themselves of all but their war paint and
feathers, build a fire in a cave, and dance around it. These
convolutions began slowly and rhythmically, gradually getting faster and
faster, until, at the height of the ecstasy, with wild war whoops they
would dash into the water of the McCloud River, whose average
temperature was forty degrees.
One day, during work, a crowbar was needed. George Campbell, a Yankee
whom I had heard was married to an Indian woman, came to me and asked if
I would walk up to his home in the woods, a matter of nine miles, and
fetch one down, telling me I could take my time and have breakfast with
his family. I should have remembered one or two of George’s
characteristics and been wary. He used to come in to meals, look his
hands all over, and say: “Well, what won’t rub off won’t eat off.” Also,
I remember one day noticing him scratch his thigh. I asked, “Got a
flea?” He answered: “Flea? Think I’m a Digger Injun? No, it’s a louse.”
However, I disregarded these small pleasantries and went for the
crowbar. There on one side of the tepee was a dead fire, and in it sat
the Indian grandmother, ninety years old, entirely naked, and spilling
the ashes over her ugly, brown shriveled legs. Some distance away was
the wife, rather good-looking, cooking salmon at another fire. When it
was done she rubbed it up into meal which made a sort of pemmican when
dry. In the large bowl, into which she put this when ground, sat a naked
and very dirty baby, quietly amusing himself in the midst of the family
dinner! I took my crowbar and departed breakfastless.
Henry Casey, a young architect from Richardson’s office in New York, was
the cause of my going to the north of California. We met in San
Francisco, where he was building some houses, and as the doctor had
ordered him to lead an outdoor life, we planned to make a camp in the
wilds. I went up in the spring and he joined me in August. Casey was
suffering from tuberculosis, and the rough life and high altitude were
supposed to be his only salvation. We were two foolish tenderfoot boys,
and our amateur attempts were dramatic and almost disastrous—for Casey.
The camp—no tent or cabin, but only a brush shelter—was pitched in a
curve of the falls of the McCloud River, which flowed through a gorge,
making the volume of water deeper than it was wide. We planned to live
by hunting and fishing, with the addition of one or two staple foods,
and helped by the large bloodhound I had purchased in one of the towns.
All went well for awhile until it began to rain; Casey came down with a
violent attack of pleurisy, and our hunting dog proved to be the type
that would run back three weeks into the past unless we pointed his nose
in the right direction. Poor Casey! What he must have suffered, lying on
that damp, improvised pallet with that terrible pain in his side! The
rain did not stop for days. It streamed through the shelter, keeping
everything eternally wet and all but put out the fire. I did the best I
could. First I painted him with iodine, then, taking the gunny sacks in
which we had brought food, I hung them (damp from the rain) on stakes
about the flames, and clapped them steaming hot to the side of my pal
until I absolutely scalded a square piece of flesh off his body. The
doctor told me afterwards that it was the only thing that saved him.
For days the rainfall kept up, and it seemed as if the heavens were soon
to fall. We were exhausted. Except for one partridge and a rabbit I had
managed to kill, our food had been bacon, coffee, and bread of my
manufacture. The wood was wet, and it was one man’s job to keep the fire
going. Life to me was becoming a serious matter. If it had not been for
abounding youth, I think I should have thrown up the sponge.... Then
without any warning, the rain stopped.
I shall never forget the morning it cleared. I had been up for two
nights and had snatched only an hour of sleep before dawn. Waking before
six o’clock, I went down into the river cañon, unable to get the
customary mental reaction from Nature’s vagaries. I was pretty tired and
the sunlight did not cheer me. Sitting down on a rock in the river
gorge, I gazed into the water. Then something turned my attention and,
looking up quickly, I saw the picture. Snowcapped Shasta, which had
shrunk like a corpse in the graying weather, suddenly towered like a
giant, to meet the rosy dawn, and, proud in its setting of the river of
low oxidized silver, it rose (as do certain flowers), seeming to unfold
on their stems to say “good-morning” to the sun.
Those lines of Tennyson came back:
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made himself an awful rose of dawn.
We do not get these sensations often in our lives, and when we do we do
not always recognize what they mean. A Bach prelude in its rhythm,
accord, and beauty of sound; a dancer who at moments seems to reach that
perfect co-ordination of movement and balance; and certain color
combinations—always put a stop to light thinking, and there is—a pause.
If we touch the realm of high beauty, we enter the realm of high
thinking, and no matter if the effect is produced by the hind legs of a
dancer or the thumb of a sculptor, if we get there, we are at the edge
of the goal and something whispers:
“Be careful; tread slowly; you are on sacred ground.”
I had felt and _realized_ my first artistic harmony, and it was in the
realm of color.
The sun was high in the heavens before I began to think of Casey’s
breakfast. Walking out on a huge log that lay across the river and in
some past time had been leveled off, making a bridge wide enough for
horses to pass over, I gazed into the water. It was clear as a crystal
and far down—too far for a line to reach—I could see the lazy fish
moving languorously in their glassy pools. All of a sudden, upon the
improvised bridge, which was decayed and sagged into the water in spots,
appeared a female otter, her coat as sleek as a wet seal’s, her long
tail dragging after her, and in her mouth she held the most beautiful
silver two-pound trout you ever saw. What a perfect breakfast dish!
It all happened in an instant. I was out upon the log with a loud cry
of, “Wow!” The little animal snapped into the water and, before I could
think, the fish, gills between my fingers, was flapping in my hand.
Casey was asleep when I carried the steaming dish and put it under his
nose, crying:
“Wake up, old man! The sun is shining. Here is a king’s breakfast for
you, and to-night you are going to sleep between dry blankets!”
That day, resting much along the way, I carried Henry Casey on my back
five miles to the nearest cabin, belonging to a man named Scott. The
next day he was driven to the stage, went to San Francisco, took the
boat for Panama, and arrived in New York to spend just three weeks with
his family before he died of tuberculosis—not pleurisy.
Sissons was four or five miles from the base of Mount Shasta in
Strawberry Valley, and here it was that I went, after the departure of
Casey. I wanted human companionship and I needed a job. As usual, the
place was named for the first settler; and in this case Sisson was the
hotel proprietor and owner of practically all the worth-while land
about. He was a small man and very pugnacious, but he had been in the
woods for twenty-five years, and that he had managed to keep his
equilibrium for so long was pretty good testimony as to his strong
character. Most everyone went to pieces before that time.
This was the country of which Bret Harte wrote. Overlooking the valley,
where nestled the homes of twelve families, stood that strange
sentinel—Mount Shasta—snowcapped, but inside, a seething mass of fire
and lava causing bubbling springs to burst forth in many places, and one
at the top so hot that an egg dropped in it would be perfectly boiled.
Out of her sides (no paltry spring forming its source) rushed the
McCloud River, full born, as Minerva leaped out of the brain of Jove.
Here we were fifty miles from the Oregon border, and no way to get there
but by sea.
One day while looking down the side of Shasta through the vast cathedral
of trees, I saw, about a hundred yards off, what looked like a rabbit.
It proved to be a man on horseback, a half a mile away. A red-headed
woodpecker, which is about the size of a robin in the East, is as large
as a pigeon in the north of California. All nature is in scale, so that
one does not realize the immense size of the trees and mountains. We
mowed a field of timothy, and it was so tall that I constantly lost
sight of the head of the man who went before me. The stems were as large
around as my thumb.
The northwest slope of Shasta looked like a great big beautiful lawn,
and I had planned to go up and make a sketch from there some day. What I
had thought to be soft grass proved, on close inspection, to be brush,
fifteen or twenty feet tall and so interlaced that a deer could walk on
it in summer. One loses one’s sense of proportion completely. Even the
snowfall, not to be outdone by the other elements of nature, was
prodigious in its generosity. One winter I made a notch upon a tree, and
the next spring, when the snow had melted away, it was so far above my
head that I could not touch it—a matter of eighteen feet or more.
The health of the community at Strawberry Valley was greatly benefited
by the numberless springs that gushed out of the sides of the slope,
bringing cold water of the first purity. Some of these formed streams
which ran under the houses, and if a busy housewife had neglected to
prepare anything for dinner, all she needed to do was to open a trap in
the floor, put in a colander with some meal scattered on the surface,
and pull up one or two flapping trout ready to clap into the frying pan.
The hotel was the stopping place for teamsters, and very rough. The main
room held a bar, a table for poker, and a fireplace lined always in
winter with these men who drove horses or mules all day and played cards
and told stories all night. As I remember Sisson’s family, it consisted
of his wife; Ivy, about five years old; Joe, of two years—and “Lizzie.”
Lizzie was a short name for “lizard,” and she was taken for granted, the
same as one of the members of the family, by the hotel boarders. They
would speak about her much as if she were a maiden aunt, and she did not
seem to be a particular pet or noticed much. One night a number of these
men were sitting in a circle around the great open fire after supper,
when a man, new to these parts, came in and joined them. They were
chewing tobacco and swapping yarns, when all of a sudden Lizzie ran out
from her hole onto the stones of the hearth and played around
fearlessly, as she did every evening. The new man grunted and, taking
careful aim, spat a squirt of tobacco juice on the little animal.
Instantly the others were upon him. The air was blue with oaths, and he
was punched and clouted ten feet. Ashamed and very much abashed, he
picked himself up without offering any resistance, and the group
reassembled as if nothing had happened. These men did not cease to be
poets just because they carried guns and had never gone to school.
Justice was administered quietly, and each man was his own judge. The
theft of a horse was punishable by death, as a horse meant a man’s whole
existence. I remember a man who lost his brace of mules out of his wagon
as he was sleeping under it. He borrowed a team from Sisson, but
returned them the very next day. He had met the thief on the Ridge and
had calmly shot him.
My duties were varied at Sissons. I was general help on the farm; I
waited on the table at meal time; tended the bar—under which I bunked;
and was village postmaster. In the last capacity it was necessary for me
to get up at four-thirty in the morning, meet the coach, and change the
mails. I shall never forget this. Six feet of snow, the moonlight, and
away down the road, a half mile or more, from amid the great trees came
the weird cry of the stage driver calling for me to get up. Then with
rattle of harness, loud screeching of brakes, the unwieldy vehicle came
to a stop, still swaying and swinging on the leathern supports, like a
ship at sea. And the effect upon the occupants was very much like that
of a sailing vessel. The men rode outside, but if there were women and
children they were within, and the memory of the smell of musty seats,
close air, sweat, and stale vomit that issued forth upon the opening of
the door has remained with me ever since. It was my business to have
whisky ready for these poor, suffering souls, and it was certain that
some of them could not have finished their journey without it.
There was always some new job presenting itself for me to do. Quite
unexpectedly, on the day and night of the 24th of December, twenty-five
hundred merino sheep began to lamb. It was dry, cold, with a heavy snow.
The mothers, showing the quality of inbreeding, did not want their
lambs, would not nurse them unless we tied them together. The Cotswold,
of far less value, is a perfect mother, but the high-priced Spanish
merino would, on a drive, walk behind a bush, lamb, and go on without
it. There is everything non-aristocratic in being a perfect mother.
Another one of my occupations—and, indeed, one in which all of the help
about the house joined—was keeping track of Sisson’s glass eye. He had a
beautiful fifty-dollar eye which he wore to market and down to San
Francisco, but this one we rarely saw. His cheap ten-dollar one was
constantly slanting in the wrong direction, and then Mrs. Sisson would
say, “Sisson, northwest.” Back it would go at its proper angle, and all
would be well again. But the great excitement was when it was lost
entirely. Everything stopped until it was found, which was generally in
the wooden gutter that led away from the washbasin under the pump.
Coming down in the morning, with it in his mouth, he would place it
temporarily on the shelf while washing, and it would roll down the
gutter, where it remained—gazing fixedly with mute and silent reproach
at the diligent searcher. Sisson, being small and of a combative
temperament, was the butt of many a joke. Old Andy Gregg passed one day
just after a new and beautiful sign had been put up, announcing that the
place was:
SISSONS.
“Hello, Andy! Bet you never seen a name with so many s’s in it,” said
the hotelkeeper.
“Oh yes, I have!” said Andy. “‘Ass!’”
Any intellectual job—of which there were few—was given to me. I was
called “Boston,” and was supposed to have a great amount of book
learning, so it was my extreme pleasure to be the clerk of the polls at
a Presidential election in Strawberry Valley. There were seven voters,
and six voted early. They were Republicans. After casting their ballots,
they stationed themselves at different positions, one hundred feet from
the polls, and, cocking their Winchesters, sat there all day. The one
Democrat rotated about that voting place until the sun had fairly set,
but it was no use; he was not allowed to vote. I was forced to turn in a
unanimous majority for Rutherford B. Hayes.
One Sunday there was nothing to do. I was loafing around the gateway in
my working clothes when the stage arrived. I noticed that the driver
looked cross. The passenger—“a dam’ Britisher”—who sat on the seat
beside him, had evidently “got his goat,” for, contrary to his usual
habit, he unstrapped the trunk from the back and dropped it into the
dust of the road. The Englishman, looking hopelessly around, spied me,
and said in the manner he obviously kept for service:
“My good fellow, give me a hand with this luggage?”
I was perfectly willing, so I hoisted it on my shoulder and carried it
upstairs, where he fished in his pocket and handed me a quarter. To give
a tip in California in those days was an insult, but I was an Easterner
and it only amused me to take it and thank him in a respectful manner.
After staying long enough to try all his British contraptions for
hunting and fishing (with no result), he gave up in despair when the
salmon refused to rise to a fly, but could be caught in myriads with the
old-fashioned bait—their own eggs—and left, seeming to feel a personal
injury.
Some time later I went to San Francisco to be at one of the celebrations
of the Harvard Club, when who should sit next me at dinner but our
Englishman. I had an important part in the evening’s doings and he asked
my name, saying he was Sir Rose Price. Then giving me a searching
glance, he said:
“I’ve met you before some place? In town?” To an Englishman, “town” is
London.
I said, “No, I met you in Siskiyou County, in the north of the state.”
“Oh, but you are mistaken. I met no gentlemen there.”
“Nonsense!” I replied. “I carried your trunk upstairs in the hotel and
you gave me a quarter.”
He stared, got blood red, and turned his back on me for the remainder of
the evening.
Great news in town—the “schoolmarm” wasn’t coming back! I resolved to
apply for the job, which paid seventy-five dollars a month. The board
met in Yreka, which was thirty-seven miles north of Sissons, and I went
in to see Mr. Jenkins, who was president, treasurer, and seemed to be
the whole boss. Seated in his office, which was in back of his grocery
store and had a door leading into the bar, he put his feet upon the
table and heard my request.
“I want to teach the school at Strawberry Valley.”
I told him my name and that I had been educated at Harvard.
“Oh, I don’t know; you might lie about that,” he replied. “Have you ever
been in jail?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, how do I know that?”
Searching around for some credentials to prove my honesty to this most
suspicious man, I pulled out a letter from John Forbes, who was very
influential and owned railways in the West. He looked it over and said:
“Yes, I remember hearing something about him, but how do I know you
didn’t write it yourself?”
I was nonplused. It was harder than I thought, but I had a last
suggestion which I put very timidly indeed.
“I have a letter from Mr. Emerson.”
He was adamant. “Which one?”
My voice almost disappeared in my throat, but I managed to stammer,
“Ralph Waldo.”
“What!” he yelled, flinging his feet to the floor. “Let me see it!”
I handed it to him, and he turned to the end first, reading not a line
of my recommendation from the Concord sage. But taking one look at the
signature, he ran to the door of the saloon, shouting: “Say! Boys! Come
here and meet the new ‘schoolmarm’ of Strawberry Valley! The drinks are
on him!”
That was my examination.
And who can say that art is not more universal than riches, when an
illiterate saloonkeeper recognizes the signature of a writer, but does
not know the name of a wealthy railway president?
The schoolhouse was a half mile from Sissons, and some of the pupils
came a distance of five or six miles. The building was situated in a
heavy growth of pine and fir trees, and through this mass of great
columns could be seen the fourteen thousand feet of Shasta. Four sugar
pines growing in a square had been chosen as a basis and cut down so
that the stumps made a foundation. On this the schoolhouse was built of
the newly cut trees, leaving a space below which at once became the
favorite hiding place of truants.
The pupils, of which there were thirteen, were of all ages, ranging from
Ivy Sisson, five years old, to Dick White, a Hat Creek Indian of
twenty-one. There were six Sullivans—girls in their teens, and Sammy,
about eight. The first day’s examination proved that I had a class of
varied accomplishments. Dick White could draw, paint, and play the
violin well enough to be the musician at all the dances, but had no
capacity for book learning and would not obey orders. In the midst of
the examination he calmly walked out of the room and went home. The rest
of the pupils were at various stages of “readin’, writin’, ’rithmetic,”
until it came to Ivy. She piped up:
“I know letters, read words, and can spell. I know my Primer to O. O—x
(looking at the picture); that spells ‘cow.’”
“No, no, Ivy,” I said. “Look again and tell me what o—x spells.”
She pursed her lips, searched in the book, and then, with the most
cherubic expression on her face, looked up at me and said:
“Damned if I know.”
These children of nature had never seen a bible, never went to church
(in fact, there was not a place of worship within forty miles), and yet
they came to school dressed in the latest fashions—gowns made of
material and patterns that had come from New York. Sitting on the rough
pine seats of this rustic, primitive school, these girls seemed like
little princesses of some fairy tale—that is, until they spoke. I made
up my mind that it was my duty to teach them—no creed—but a knowledge of
the Bible.
The announcement was made by me that those who chose to give up the
Wednesday half holiday would be told stories and shown drawings of
people who lived thousands and thousands of years ago. The first week
they all stayed out of curiosity, and after that nothing on earth could
have kept them away from such things as:
“A long time ago a king of one tribe got into a fight with another
tribe. On one king’s side was a boy named David.” Then the story of the
challenge and pictures of each one. Continuing:
“What do you suppose they had in the way of guns? David had a pouch tied
around his waist, and a sling.”
“What’s a sling?”
Not one of those thirteen children had ever seen a sling; so, of course,
the rest of the afternoon had to be devoted to making one out of an old
shoe. The next morning they all had slings, and before I arrived one of
the boys had become expert enough to kill a woodpecker.
“God” had been nothing but an oath to them before; “Christ” was a little
more familiar; but I resolved to stick to the Old Testament. The girls
were interested in Judith, and understood her, too, but I was obliged to
suppress the profanity that was hurled at Delilah when I told the story
of Samson.
That these tales produced a definite result was proved in the case of
little Sammy Sullivan. After recess, on a certain Thursday, everyone
came in but Sammy. When I asked where he was they all giggled, so I went
outside to find him, carefully locking the door behind me in order to
keep my scholars from departing in a body. I had not gone far when a
something made me realize that Sammy was not out there. There was no
brush, and fifty feet away I saw a slight motion among the trees.
Stalking him from the back, I heard weird sounds, and there, stuck up
against a yellow-pine tree, was a small boy’s cap, and standing off from
it, with a sling, was the boy himself, taking careful aim at this
imaginary adversary. Sammy was fighting over the battle of David and
Goliath and fighting it like a male, but the flood of oaths that came
rippling from his rosy lips would have shamed Satan himself.
Learning is acquired in various ways—at times, better outside the
schoolhouse than within. I tiptoed away, never letting him know that I
had seen him, for I felt that Sammy was getting his education.
A new school was to be opened with a grand celebration lasting from 7
P.M. until 7 A.M. Everyone for twenty miles around would be there, the
men with rum and pistols in their pockets, and the women in their gowns
of latest New York style. The stage driver’s wife invited me, her
husband having to be on duty and so could not take her. She seemed very
old to me—over thirty, at least—and I was inclined to be flattered at
the invitation—until I discovered the reason for it. Her baby of eight
months had been brought to the party, and I was supposed to take care of
it. At the height of the merriment this frivolous woman, instead of
devoting herself to me, as I had expected, thrust her crying child into
my arms and went off to dance with all the beaus of the place. I was a
“tenderfoot” and “schoolmarm,” and now had become “nurse.” I did not
like it. I sat in the dressing room, a sorry figure, for every time I
put my charge down he began to let out unearthly yells. Something had to
be done, I cared not what. Gathering together a heap of women’s shawls
and putting them in the bottom of a box, I laid the child upon them and,
looking about for something to give him to play with, I saw a flask of
whisky on a table. It might kill him, but I was past caring. I poured a
little down his throat and rushed out of that room.
A few hours later, daring at last to peep into my improvised nursery, I
saw my charge sleeping as peacefully as an angel.
The business of being a teacher embraced more than drilling the children
in their A-B-C’s. I was supposed to be the arbiter of morals, family
counselor, and was in at the births and deaths. In one or another of
these capacities I was kept very busy by the Sullivan family. These
children—there were six in the school—were the offspring of perhaps the
poorest stock America has produced, the parents being part of the
flotsam and jetsam which the swirling eddies of the mining times caught
up in their mad rush and left high and dry with the lowering of the
tide.
“Doc” Sullivan, so called because his uncle was an apothecary in Yreka,
had a brother in the state asylum for the insane at Stockton, and he
himself had spent some time in that institution. His wife, who was the
washerwoman of the town, was addicted to drink.
The day before Christmas Mrs. Sullivan had stopped at the shop of Mrs.
Barlow, where I boarded, and asked for whisky. She was refused—in fact,
she was never able to get liquor unless some traveling salesman “hit”
the town and took her on a spree. Seeing a case of Jamaica ginger on the
shelf, she asked what it was, was given a bottle to taste, drank it all
at one gulp, and immediately bought the dozen.
In the middle of the night I was awakened by a frightened voice calling
outside my window. Snow had fallen and about five feet of it was lying
on the ground in that calm, big-sided way it has in California.
“Mr. Simmons! Oh, Boston! Oh, Schoolmarm! Oh, come!” was repeated over
and over, and dancing first on one foot and then the other, in her
nervousness, was Sally Sullivan, a girl of sixteen.
“Ma’s actin’ so queer,” she cried. “I can’t wake her up!”
Sure enough. We rushed to the house, and there was Mrs. Sullivan lying
on the floor, stone dead. By her side were the twelve empty
Jamaica-ginger bottles, with another smaller bottle, smelling of camphor
or some such drug, which in her stupor, she had reached for and drunk.
“Doc” behaved himself at the funeral, swearing only at the end of the
ceremony. That was Christmas Eve. On New-Year’s night there was a full
moon and the same snow. The whole town was again sleeping peacefully,
when it was awakened by a loud and barbarous noise. There was “Doc”
Sullivan standing in his wagon—he was the head of a road menders’
gang—beating his horses with an ax. He had stopped at every milepost
along the highway and clipped off the number, saying that he wanted no
lies on his road. He had gone suddenly raving mad!
There was a man named Charley Williams living near by, and he and I
followed up to the Sullivan house. Charley was old, but he was fearless.
I once saw him walk right up to a man who was pointing a loaded pistol
at him and take it out of his hand. He always said:
“There ain’t no danger in a gun.”
When we arrived at “Doc’s” we saw a strange sight. There he was,
kneeling on the floor, praying, with Sammy in his arms, and every time
he uttered “O Lord!” he jumped, with the strength of a giant, six inches
in the air, coming down upon his knees again until they were nothing but
a mass of huckleberry jelly. While Charley went for help I promised to
keep watch over this maniac, and it took all of my mental powers to
control him. He seemed to realize, in his subconscious mind, that his
children had a terrible heritage, so he decided to destroy them. First
he started to lug all of the things out of the house, smashing them, as
he did so, with the ax. His intention, he confided to me, was to burn it
and then start out after his children. All the time he kept muttering
about “those chains at Stockton—you bet I’ll keep the kids away from
those chains at Stockton.” On the promise that I would marry Sally and
take him East he gave up his ax, and by the time Charley had come back
he was quite willing to go down to Sissons.
Charley had got the one physician of the countryside to go on ahead and
say we were coming, and, although the men had all promised to help,
there was not one in sight when we “hit” the town.
From here “Doc’s” nephew, a puny kid; old Charley Williams, who was
brave but physically weak, and myself, started to drive him on to Yreka,
the physician going ahead once more to make the arrangements and warn
the police. The thought of that trip is one long nightmare. His mind
worked so fast it was almost impossible to keep up with him. I was his
especial friend and pal, and, getting it into his head that I had a
cold, nothing would do but that I must have some mountain balm. This we
procured after much trouble, and my whole journey was enlivened by
eating whole bunches of this herb and washing it down with gallons of
water. His chief amusement was to jump up in the air, kick the horses,
and land with both feet and with such force that he finally knocked the
bottom out of the wagon.
All of a sudden, without the slightest sign, he was over the dashboard
and rushing across the fields toward a farmhouse we were passing. When I
got up to him, there was “Doc,” kneeling beside the pump, drinking
water, while beside him stood Mrs. Hall, the farmer’s wife, stroking his
head, petting him, and talking to him in a low, controlled voice.
Strange is this power of women to realize a situation. I got him away,
but we learned afterward that when her husband came back home, an hour
later, Mrs. Hall was lying at the pump in a dead faint.
We arrived in Yreka at six. The police showed up at nine. We tried to
keep “Doc” in a barn, but his spirits were rising every moment, and I
decided to tire him out; besides, I had a grudge against the police and
citizens for being such cowards and deserting us. I had to play the game
with “Doc,” and ours was certainly a tour of destruction. Every place we
went into was wrecked—bottles broken and bars smashed. It looked as if a
cyclone had hit Yreka. Finally, he said he was hungry, so we found a
restaurant. As soon as we went into a place it was ours, as everyone
faded away. There was no waiter in sight, so the proprietor waited on us
himself, bringing in a huge steak and—I had hard work to keep my
balance—an enormous butcher knife to carve it with! But “Doc” did not
want to cut his meat. He merely grabbed it up in his hands and wolfed
it.
Just then I saw faces pressed to the window (his back was toward the
door), and for one moment my mind left his. This was my only danger; but
there was a sudden feeling of reaction at the thought of relief and I
let go.
“Say, Boston,” he said, “you’re goin’ back on me!” and taking my nose in
one hand, he picked up the butcher knife with the other and pressed it
against my Adam’s apple. Instantly, my mind was back and controlling his
again.
“Don’t be a fool,” I said—it _sounded_ calm—“and kill the only friend
you have left.” He subsided.
“Oh, all right.”
I made an excuse to go out in the back, and a sicker youth than I could
not have lived to tell the tale.
But I had to finish my job. Although I am very much afraid of any
physical hurt, I am not a coward mentally, and you can control any
drunken or crazy man if you stay just “one think” ahead. He was looking
at the faces and I knew it had got to end. I said:
“‘Doc,’ they’re after us. I think it’s me as well as you. We’ll go
through ’em like a dose of salts. You go ahead, walk slowly, and when I
say, ‘Now!’—then, ‘Doc’—rush!”
We started for the door, I saying all the time:
“Slow—slow.”
And then when he was ten feet away from the crowd I cried:
“Now, ‘Doc’!” and put my foot in front of him to trip him up.
By the time they got to him, there on the floor, he was unconscious and
frothing at the mouth. The next morning I was so bruised from his
affectionate handling that I could hardly walk, and there was a cut on
my Adam’s apple; but I went around to the jail to see “Doc.” He was back
in the terrific chains that he had so dreaded in Stockton. As soon as he
saw me he lunged forward, yelling and screaming.
“Yes, they got me”—ripping out a thousand oaths—“but they didn’t get
you. I’d like to eat your black heart out.”
They took him to the state asylum, and I don’t know what happened to him
later; but I shall never go back to Sissons unless I am sure “Doc”
Sullivan is dead.
Walter Scott’s cabin was twenty-two miles from Sissons in Huckleberry
Valley, and here I went during vacation time to help him tan hides and
smoke venison. Scott was over six feet tall, with bright red hair, a
straight Greek profile, and absolutely illiterate. But a more joyous
creature never lived. With him was a man named Peter Klink—a silent
German who had been a miner in the days of ’49.
One day I was out hunting for the camp, and on one of the benches that
ran down from Shasta, with brooks between, I started a doe. I let “rip”
and must have “creased” her, as she went down like a shot. Dropping my
gun, I went for her, knowing that if I could close with her before she
got up, I could knife her. In my mad rush I suddenly took a header. This
was unusual in that country, as the ground was free from stones or small
brush. Rumpling up the pine needles, I found a pick head; the handle had
rotted out, showing that there had been mining there once. Near by—a
very uncommon sight—was a large stone.
That night, after the guns were cleaned, the dogs fed, and a brisket of
venison hung near the fire, ready for each one of us to cut off a slice
with his hunting knife before we went to bed, I told my experience.
“That’s Benny Russell’s stone,” said Peter, and by the light in his eyes
I knew, if I kept very quiet, there might be a story.
Taking his pipe out of his mouth and giving me a searching glance, he
said:
“You didn’t heist that stone over, did ye?”
“Turn it over, Peter?” I replied. “How could I? Think I’m a young
Hercules? Besides, what would be underneath?”
“Yes,” he said, ignoring my question, “it’s nigh onto twenty year since
Benny Russell died.”
Never taking his eyes from the fire, but pausing to take long-drawn
pulls at his pipe, he told the following tale:
“Minin’ camps are queer places, and sometimes the folks that comes ther’
are the kind—wal, you wonder why they come, that’s all. It was ’long
’bout the year ’55, a crowd of us fellers was livin’ in a central camp
and goin’ out prospectin’, each one for hisself, when ’long one day in
spring comes a young feller, rosy cheeks an’ soft hands, and asts if he
can jine us.
“I’ll never fergit the way he looked when he rolled in on us—more like a
play actor than ennythin’ else—all got up in new minin’ clothes, high
boots and all, and luggin’ with him the darnest lot o’ pickaxes, ropes,
and contrapshions that ever you see. We was all fer laughin’ at him, at
fust, but he was so young an’ so soft like, that it would o’bin jest
like makin’ fun o’ a gal, an’ we didn’ hev the heart. So we jest give
him the nickname ‘Bub’ and tuk him in.
“He was ’bout twenty-two year, but he didn’ look sixteen. That boy could
work, tho’—and l’arn?—l’arned quicker’n lightin’. ’Twarn’t mor’n two
days till he had off his store togs and borryed a pair o’ overalls. An’
he was so happy-like an’ joyous, singin’ ’round all day like a canary in
a cage.
“Seems like luck was ag’in’ him from the first, tho’. Nothin’ he teched
turned out right. Thet boy would give up a claim he’d bin workin’ fur
months, with never a sign o’ color, when ’long would come some feller
the very nex’ day and strike it rich with one turn o’ the shovel. Yes,
Bub was allus jest one shovel o’ dirt away from vict’ry.
“He didn’ ’pear to mind, tho’—not as long as Joe Bascom rode up ev’ry
month or so with the mails and brung him one o’ them big fat envelopes
writ on baby-blue paper. Bub used to walk down the road, sometimes five
mile, t’ meet Joe—he was that anxious to git that letter. We all knew
’twas a gal, and used to josh him ’bout it, but I didn’ guess how
serious ’twas till he come to me one day an’ said:
“‘Peter, I’ve got to strike it soon, and I’ve got to strike it rich.’
“‘Wal,’ I answered, ‘this is one deal where yer cain’t stack the cards.
If you got luck, you’ll hit it, and if you ’ain’t, you won’t.’
“‘But I must hit it, you see. He was more serious ’en I’d ever seen him.
‘Fact of the matter is, Peter, I’m in love, and she won’t marry me till
I can show her twenty thousand dollars.’
“‘Whew!’ I says. Then to cheer him up: ‘Bub, don’ be scared; if she
loves you she’ll take you without a cent.’
“‘Maybe, Peter, maybe, but that’s the sum she named, and I’m a-goin’ to
git it.’
“He was allus that way after a talk—seemed to raise his sperits.
“Long ’bout spring things changed. He come in a whoopin’ one even’ ’bout
sunset, and nearly turned the camp upside down. He’d struck it at last.
Not much, but gold—real gold—and in this game you never kin tell what’s
layin’ jest ’round th’ corner.
“A few months later he come to me agin.
“‘Peter,’ he says, ‘my pile’s gittin’ big. It ain’t gonna be so very
long till I have twenty thousand, and I want you to promise me this.
When I leave I ain’t gonna say good-by to no one, but I’m goin’ to slip
you somethin’ for a celebration, and I want you and the boys to have the
rousingist farewell party this camp has ever seen—after I’m gone.’
“Not long from that a trader come into camp—the kind that carries ’round
all sorts o’ dam’-fool trinkets and changes ’em fer ’most
ennythin’—nuggets, dust, er even skins and hides. ’Mong his pack was a
passel tied up in newspaper. We all grabbed fur it at onct, then decided
we’d play cards fur it—not fur what was inside, understan,’ but ev’ry
feller wanted to git the first chanct at that thar newspaper.
“Bub won it. We lost heart in playin’ against him when we seen how
anxious he was.
“He tuk it and begun readin’ us the diff’runt items of int’rust, laugin’
and commentin’ in between—when all of a sudden his eye lit on somethin’.
I never seen enny human bein’ change so in the same len’th of time. He
jest stared—seemed to be readin’ it over and over ag’in.
“After what ’peared to be a half hour, but I guess was ’bout five
minutes, he looked up—an’ when we saw his face he had changed from a boy
to a old man.
“We was standin’ quiet, not darin’ to ask what happened. Most of us
thought his folks was dead. But then he threw that paper down on the
ground and laughed—the kind o’ laugh as I could believe the devil would
give ye if ye was goin’ down to hell. Then we knew ’twarnt no act o’ God
had upset him, but some dam’ trick that could only be thought out by a
human bein’.
“That was the last we saw o’ him. He went off into the woods. Joe picked
up the paper and said he couldn’t find ennythin’ on thet page to disturb
a body—mostly women’s fashions and one piece ’bout a gal elopin’ with a
feller. I didn’ say nothin’, but I guessed it. That gal had sent him up
to the mines to git a fortune and then gone and chucked him.
“We was all nervous at supper ’cause Bub didn’ come in, and ’long ’bout
ten we set out to look fur him. The woods is dark at night, an’ we
couldn’t find a trace till Joe, searchin’ up at Bub’s claim, come on
that thar bowlder you seen to-day, and, curious to say, he stumbled over
somethin’ same as you done, but ’twarn’t no pickax head—’twar a human
bootleg. Puttin’ his lantern down low, he seen Bub’s foot a-stickin’ out
from under that rock, and the whole plumb thing had let down and
flattened the life out o’ him.
“’Twas a long time afore I went up to examine the place, and when I did
thar was nothin’ to see but I figgered it out fur myself, and this is
how it must ’a’ bin.
“Bub had most likely bin diggin’ under the rock and gitting out the pay
dirt, and when he’d git so fur in he’d put in a plug to shore up the
thing and keep it from fallin’. That day when he read that paper and he
felt the whole world crumblin’ ’round his head, he jest made it literal
by goin’ up to his claim, crawlin’ under the stone, and kickin’ out the
plugs.”
There was a pause.
Peter rose; cutting a piece of the roasting brisket, he started for his
bunk, but stopped before climbing in.
“That’s why I ast you if you turned over the stone—but I hoped you
didn’t.”
Scott had been fifteen years in the woods and wanted to settle down,
saying he would like to see some little Scotts running around. So when
the summer camp broke up he looked about for a location. He found a log
house that had been built by a man named Carrick, who was hated in the
community, principally because he held mortgages on nearly all the farms
for twenty miles around. Carrick did not have a right to this particular
homestead, as he did not live on it, so Scott went in and jumped the
property.
Knowing Carrick would try to use the land, Scott was ready for him, and
when he tried to put his sheep in, Scott, who was waiting in a hole in
the ground, rose with his gun in his hands, saying:
“_Don’t touch them bars!_”
Like all crooks, Carrick was a coward at heart, and, instead of settling
in the usual way of this part of the country—as man to man—he took Scott
into court. With no money in back of him, Scott won his case, his
extreme honesty and simplicity impressing the judge. For instance, I
remember there was a question as to whether he was an American citizen
or no, and he answered:
“Wal, Jedge, the first thing I remember is livin’ in a town about a half
a mile over the border into Canada, but my mother allus said I was born
in a little red house that we could see across the line, an’ I took her
word for it.”
And so did the court.
I had left Scott and Peter Klink and had gone back to Sissons, when one
morning a man we called “the Texan” came racing down the town’s one
street on horseback, yelling:
“Scott’s shot! Scott’s shot!”
Scott had been beloved of all, and everyone was aroused. It was quite
awhile before we could get the story out of the Texan, but it finally
came to this. He had come across a wagon standing all alone on the road,
filled with the groceries Scott had bought in Yreka. It was turned
around, with the horses facing downhill, the whole weight of the wagon
bearing upon them. They were nosing toward home and evidently had been
there all night, as they were covered with snow. Looking about, the
Texan had seen a trail into the bushes and, going in a half mile or
more, he found Scott’s body. There was a rope around the neck and he had
been dragged into the woods.
The memory came to me of one night when I was camping with Scott. The
conversation had turned on death.
“How would you like to die?” I asked him.
“Shot in the back and never know who done it,” was his quick answer.
Scott had had his wish.
Death meant nothing to these men. It was all in the day’s happenings,
but to me, at this very moment of writing, visualization of Scott’s
body, as it lay on the rough pine bed in a back room in Sisson’s Hotel,
is as clear as it was in 1877. The rope had been taken from his neck and
had left an impress, above which rose his purple head, looking like an
eggplant, with the shock of red hair, the pale blue eyes wide open, and
the rows of perfect teeth showing, his mouth drawn into a snarl. His
body was green-white, the blood having all gone to the head, and under
the left arm, where the bullet had gone in, was a little blue spot. But
under the right arm, where the bullet had come out, was a ghastly hole
through which protruded torn pieces of flesh. I did not know that men
died that way.
A few minutes after the body was brought in a woodsman was found who had
passed the wagon—it must have been while the murderer was disposing of
the body in the bushes—for he said that a Ballard rifle was leaning
against the wheels. He had thought the driver of the wagon was off in
the woods and would be back presently, so was in no way surprised at the
sight.
The minute the woodsman mentioned the gun I was convinced as to who had
committed the murder. I had seen Carrick’s Indian with a Ballard rifle.
It had a broken extractor, and he had to use a withe to poke out the
empty shell. Sure enough, beside the road we found a withe covered with
powder. An Indian tracker told us, from his examination of the trees,
that the murderer had worn a red tippet and was riding a sorrel horse
with a white star. The evidence was conclusive enough for us to start
out for Carrick’s ranch.
We were a posse of four—the Texan, who had been in the Civil War and was
a real leader; Joe Johnston, a friend of Scott’s; one of Joe’s hired
men; and myself. We were prepared for a fight, for, as Carrick hated
Scott and was probably implicated in the affair, we figured he would
protect the Indian.
The way lay over fertile, grassy country, and on the road we passed
bands of sheep and cattle. One herder rode several miles with us and, on
hearing our errand, said:
“If you help me git these cattle together I’ll tell you something I
know.”
It seems that the night before he had been at Carrick’s house. It was
getting quite late when he heard a mysterious whistle under the window.
Making an excuse, he went outside and looked about. There in the corral
was a horse—sorrel in color with a white star on its forehead—evidently
just returned from a hard run, as it was covered with lather. At that
moment he heard a sound, and coming out of the kitchen door was
Carrick’s son, carrying something in his hand. He disappeared into the
barn. Creeping up to a crack in the building where a light shone out, he
peeped through and saw the boy giving food to an Indian.
Our evidence was piling up.
Along toward sunset we rode up to Carrick’s place. The sheep ranch
extended for many acres to the north, while the house, barn, and corral
were on the banks of a low willow creek. Carrick was sitting on a bench
out in front. Going directly up to him, the Texan said:
“Scott’s bin killed—shot.”
“The hell you say!”
“We think your Injin Jim done it.”
He pretended great anger.
“Well, if he did, ketch him and string him up for it. He’ll be back in a
little while.”
We waited.
It was not long until several horsemen appeared and rode up to the gate.
Joe Johnston’s hired man, who was a fool and easily excited, marched up
to Injin Jim and said:
“We’re here to arrest you.”
I have seen a prestidigitator work the most astonishing disappearances
of material things, but I never saw a human being take himself off into
space as quickly as this one did. Jim gave one flick and was flying into
the woods. I was off and under my horse in an instant, but my pistol
missed fire. He had disappeared into the willow creek, which was
overgrown with grass, with here and there patches of water covering
treacherous quicksand. Our only hope was to close round him and ride him
out.
I was in a bad way. My horse had poll evil, and my pistol would not
shoot without the use of an oaken plug. I had seen Jim kill rabbits on
the run many a time, and, adding this to my grief at my friend Scott’s
death, I was working up a great case of true tenderfoot fright. I was so
scared that I would not have recognized Jim if I had seen him, but I
kept on. Finally, the Texan saw that I was rattled and stopped and drew
me behind the others. To think of anyone noticing my condition drew the
tears of mortification to my eyes.
“Go up the hill,” he said, handing me a Winchester, “and watch and see
that Jim does not leave the valley.”
This was a diversion, and I was certainly glad to get away from the
others. I must have stayed up there several hours, and all the time the
hunt was going on there was an accompaniment of wails from women and
children of the Indian camp near by. They would moan and cry to an even
rhythm, and then all of a sudden there would be a pause. The silence was
extraordinary.
At last the Texan called me to come down from my vantage point. Jim had
sent a deputation of squaws to say that he would give himself up if we
would promise not to lynch him. An Indian is afraid of hanging only
because he believes—as the Greeks did—in the Animus. The breath is the
soul, and he will never get to the happy hunting grounds if he is killed
by cutting it off.
We accepted his surrender and began the journey to Johnston’s. Jim’s
legs were tied under his horse, and I can see the procession now, the
Western sun hitting them as they rode on ahead of me. The smell of
sweat, saddle leather, and alkali comes back to me as pungent as if it
were yesterday. The two Carricks seemed to be loath to leave us, and the
old man kept crying repeatedly:
“There is a good hill. Hang him now. What is the use of waiting? Hang
him to onct.”
He tried to be jocular, but he overdid it. He was talking too much.
I, being the scribe, was delegated to take down Jim’s confession. His
hands were tied and lying listless on the table while I rolled him
cigarette after cigarette. In a corner of the room sat his sister, who
was a girl of the town, lolling back on a cot and looking over the whole
scene with a contemptuous curl to her lips. Jim told his story with the
utmost composure. It was no more to him than killing a deer. He was a
chief of his tribe and had been educated, but the seventy-five dollars
and a horse which Carrick had given him to commit the murder were more
than he could withstand.
He told how he had sneaked up behind Scott, shot him, and, taking his
own boots off, ran away. Gaining courage after a while, he crept back.
“He wasn’t bawlin’ no more,” so he took the trace from the harness and
dragged the body into the woods. All this time the boys were outside,
making ready for the hanging—it was impossible to keep him from them—so
I was truly relieved when I heard the loud beat of horse hoofs and a
deputy sheriff arrived on the scene, saying:
“Christ! I’m too soon!”
A party of us went out to Carrick’s that night. There was a white
blanket of snow gleaming in the moonlight. We formed a cordon around the
house while the sheriff went up to the front door. There was a wild
scream when Mrs. Carrick opened it. She had sensed our errand.
In a little hotel away up in the redwoods, many miles off, the father
and son were taken next morning before dawn. They had stopped, in their
flight, to have breakfast when the sheriff came up to them.
I did not see the trial, as I had left California before it came off,
but the papers stated that Carrick and the Indian were hanged and the
son was sentenced to twenty years. Over the grave of Scott, however, who
had been my bunkmate and friend, I placed a headstone, the naïvete of
which I am afraid I was unaware at the time. In 1915 I was told by a
woman I met in California that in her early childhood up at Sissons, she
used to sit for half a day at a stretch and wonder what it could mean,
this piece of redwood, carved with the words:
WALTER SCOTT [date, etc.]
MURDERED!!! R.I.P.!!!
Certain types thrive on rough life, and others deteriorate. They might
be likened to iron and steel. The true frontiersman is like the common
iron as it is dug from the ground. His feelings and sensibilities have
never been refined; therefore, contact with the elemental things of life
has no debasing effect upon him. The educated person is more like
steel—something produced by being subjected to a great heat and which
must be tempered to the climate. Hard steel breaks at a low temperature;
so does human intelligence break under rough handling. Place a gentleman
back in the primitive life and he is pretty sure to become a squaw man
or a crook; only a person of refinement has the will and cleverness to
be criminal.
I was getting scared. The murder of Scott had given me a jolt and I
decided I had had enough of California. I had been playing poker every
night until I owed the Chinese cook so much money that I had to sleep
with him for two months and let him collect my pay. I thought this was
about as low as I cared to go; so, picking up my traps one day, I
started for San Francisco—and home.
A third-class ticket was sixty-five dollars—we called it the “emigrant
train.” Peddlers sold pieces of canvas and straw mattresses at the
station, and these we stretched across the seats in such a way as to
make a fairly comfortable bed. The rule was that if sixty people got
together they could go through as a “car” and be a law unto themselves.
So we “fired out” the married men, the women, and the children, and made
up our own crowd. We had neglected to get the full number, however, so
the authorities put in twelve Chinamen, and I remember sleeping with my
feet against the bald head of one all during the trip.
It had taken me seven days to get out West, but the trip back was
thirteen. We were never certain where our car was to be from day to day.
A freight train would come along and we would be hitched to it, jogging
along slowly, only to be dropped at some God-forsaken flag station, with
no way of knowing how long we were to wait. Then, of a sudden, would
come on the express, whisk us up and whirl us along for several hundred
miles.
At every stop a line of boys and girls passed through the car with cans
of fresh milk, pies, cakes, etc., and, augmented by a basket I had
brought from San Francisco, my food cost me only ten dollars for the
whole trip. A passenger was rude to one of these children, knocking him
over and spilling all of his milk. We promptly put him out of our car,
back with the women and children.
We were a motley crowd—all nationalities. There was the usual “bad man
from Texas.” He talked loud, swaggered, and bluffed, and kept the car in
a general uproar. His food for the trip—as far as we could see—consisted
of several feet of bologna sausage which he had hung from the rack above
his seat. When he deemed it time to eat, he would take out his
vicious-looking knife and “hit it a lick.” However long or short the
slice, he would eat it, saying:
“The Texan only eats what he can get by the might of his right arm.”
Every once in a while his “might” would get beyond all control and he
would knock a hunk of the sausage in among the crowd of poor chattering
Chinamen, frightening them almost out of their senses. Then, to make
matters worse, he would dive for it with his dangerous-looking knife. I
used to argue with him about this action until the bald-headed Chinaman
in the seat in front of me _knew_ I had saved his life. Every morning a
pot of tea, made hot by the stove at the end of the car, was on the
floor beside my bunk.
It was the Texan who told the other men not to play poker with me, as my
hands were “too soft” and I must be a card sharp. When I accosted him
with it he only said, “Well, how _did_ you get those hands?” and was
much amused when I answered, “Painting pictures.”
We never left the train that we did not encounter some strange
adventure. At one station, in a shed for horses, we saw the body of a
negro with sixteen bullet holes in it, a sight that would have been
carefully guarded from the eyes of first-class passengers. At Ogden City
we bribed the trainman to tell us that we would have several hours to
spare. There was a camp of seventy-five tramps on the border of the
lake, and their antics had been terrorizing the citizens. These men of
the road accepted us as bosom companions, told us stories, and finally
fed us a wonderful dinner of chicken and all sorts of delicacies,
cordially inviting us to join them permanently.
Instead of being a bore, the trip was one of the most delightful I ever
made and, except for one small aftermath, marked the closing of a
definite chapter in my life. I had been back only a short time when I
was walking along Howard Street in Boston, my thoughts everywhere but
out West. Noticing a crowd in front of a house, I drew up to see the
excitement. It was nothing unusual for those days—a gang of toughs were
wrecking a Chinese laundry. Standing at the door, uttering most horrible
sounds and brandishing an ax in his hand, was an old Chinaman. Just then
he saw me, stopped yelling, dropped his ax, and, to the astonishment of
all, fell on my neck. All Chinamen looked alike to me, but there could
be no doubt about it—it was my friend of the emigrant train. Of course I
appealed to the police and the toughs were dispersed; but I had an awful
time explaining to this frightened Oriental that I was not his savior.