There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was a
representative citizen. He had “killed his man”—not in his own quarrel,
it is true, but in defence of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. He
had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing
helpmeet whom he could have discarded without the formality of a
divorce. He had a high position in the fire department and had been a
very Warwick in politics. When he died there was great lamentation
throughout the town, but especially in the vast bottom stratum of
society.
On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium of a
wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself through the body,
cut his throat, and jumped out of a four-story window and broken his
neck—and after due deliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but with
intelligence unblinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of death “by
the visitation of God.” What could the world do without juries?
Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the vehicles in
town were hired, all the saloons put in mourning, all the municipal and
fire-company flags hung at half-mast, and all the firemen ordered to
muster in uniform and bring their machines duly draped in black. Now—let
it be remarked in parenthesis—as all the people of the earth had
representative adventures in the Silverland, and as each adventurer had
brought the slang of his nation or of his locality with him, the
combination made the slang of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely
varied and copious that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps,
except in the mines of California in the “early days.” Slang was the
language of Nevada. It was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be
understood. Such phrases as “You bet!” “Oh, no, I reckon not.” “No Irish
need apply,” and a hundred others, became so common as to fall from the
lips of a speaker unconsciously—and very often when they did not touch
the subject under discussion and consequently failed to mean anything.
After Buck Fanshaw’s inquest, a meeting of the short-haired brotherhood
was held, for nothing could be done on the Pacific coast without a
public meeting and an expression of sentiment. Regretful resolutions
were passed and various committees appointed; among others, a committee
of one was deputed to call on the minister, a fragile, gentle, spiritual
new fledgling from an Eastern theological seminary, and as yet
unacquainted with the ways of the mines. The committeeman, “Scotty”
Briggs, made his visit; and in after days it was worth something to hear
the minister tell about it. Scotty was a stalwart rough, whose customary
suit, when on weighty official business, like committee work, was a fire
helmet, flaming red flannel shirt, patent leather belt with spanner and
revolver attached, coat hung over arm, and pants stuffed into boot tops.
He formed something of a contrast to the pale theological student. It is
fair to say of Scotty, however, in passing, that he had a warm heart,
and a strong love for his friends, and never entered into a quarrel when
he could reasonably keep out of it. Indeed, it was commonly said that
when ever one of Scotty’s fights was investigated, it always turned out
that it had originally been no affair of his, but out of native
good-heartedness he had dropped in of his own accord to help the man who
was getting the worst of it. He and Buck Fanshaw were bosom friends, for
years, and had often taken adventurous “potluck” together. On one
occasion, they had thrown off their coats and taken the weaker side in a
fight among strangers, and after gaining a hard earned victory, turned
and found that the men they were helping had deserted early and not only
that, but had stolen their coats and made off with them! But to return
to Scotty’s visit to the minister. He was on a sorrowful mission, now,
and his face was the picture of woe. Being admitted to the presence he
sat down before the clergyman, placed his fire hat on an unfinished
manuscript sermon under the minister’s nose, took from it a red silk
handkerchief, wiped his brow and heaved a sigh of dismal impressiveness,
explanatory of his business. He choked, and even shed tears; but with an
effort he mastered his voice and said in lugubrious tones:
“Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill next door?”
“Am I the—pardon me, I believe I do not understand?”
With another sigh and a half-sob, Scotty rejoined:
“Why, you see, we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys thought maybe
you would give us a lift, if we’d tackle you—that is, if I’ve got the
rights of it and you are the head clerk of the doxology-works next
door.”
“I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next door.”
“The which?”
“The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers whose
sanctuary adjoins these premises.”
Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then said:
“You rather hold over me, pard. I reckon I can’t call that hand. Ante
and pass the buck.”
“How? I beg pardon. What did I understand you to say?”
“Well, you’ve ruther got the bulge on me. Or may’be we’ve both got the
bulge, somehow. You don’t smoke me and I don’t smoke you. You see, one
of the boys has passed in his checks, and we want to give him a good
send-off, and so the thing I’m on now is to roust out somebody to jerk a
little chin-music for us and waltz him through handsome.”
“My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your observations
are wholly incomprehensible to me. Cannot you simplify them in some way?
At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would it
not expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical
statements of facts, unencumbered with obstructive accumulations of
metaphor and allegory?”
Another pause, and more reflection. Then, said Scotty:
“I’ll have to pass, I judge.”
“How?”
“You’ve raised me out, pard.”
“I still fail to catch your meaning.”
“Why, that last lead of yourn is too many for me—that’s the idea. I
can’t neither trump nor follow suit.”
The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty leaned his head
on his hand and gave himself up to thought. Presently his face came up,
sorrowful, but confident.
“I’ve got it now, so’s you can savvy,” he said. “What we want is a
gospel-sharp. See?”
“A what?”
“Gospel-sharp. Parson.”
“Oh! Why did you not say so before? I am a clergyman—a parson.”
“Now you talk! You see my blind and straddle it like a man. Put it
there!”—extending a brawny paw, which closed over the minister’s small
hand and gave it a shake indicative of fraternal sympathy and fervent
gratification.
“Now we’re all right, pard. Let’s start fresh. Don’t you mind my
shuffling a little—becuz we’re in a power of trouble. You see, one of
the boys has gone up the flume——”
“Gone where?”
“Up the flume—throwed up the sponge, you understand.”
“Thrown up the sponge?”
“Yes—kicked the bucket——”
“Ah—has departed to that mysterious country from whose bourne no
traveler returns.”
“Return! I reckon not. Why, pard, he’s _dead!_”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Oh, you do? Well I thought maybe you might be getting tangled some
more. Yes, you see he’s dead again——”
“_Again!_ Why, has he ever been dead before?”
“Dead before? No! Do you reckon a man has got as many lives as a cat?
But you bet you, he’s awful dead now, poor old boy, and I wish I’d never
seen this day. I don’t want no better friend than Buck Fanshaw. I knowed
him by the back; and when I know a man and like him, I freeze to him—you
hear _me_. Take him all round, pard, there never was a bullier man in
the mines. No man ever knowed Buck Fanshaw to go back on a friend. But
it’s all up, you know, it’s all up. It _ain’t_ no use. They’ve scooped
him.”
“Scooped him?”
“Yes—death has. Well, well, well, we’ve got to give him up. Yes, indeed.
It’s a kind of a hard world, after all, _ain’t_ it? But pard, he was a
rustler! You ought to see him get started once. He was a bully boy with
a glass eye! Just spit in his face and give him room according to his
strength, and it was just beautiful to see him peel and go in. He was
the worst son of a thief that ever drawed breath. Pard, he was _on_ it!
He was on it bigger than an Injun!”
“On it? On what?”
“On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand. _He_
didn’t give a continental for _any_ body. _Beg_ your pardon, friend, for
coming so near saying a cuss-word—but you see I’m on an awful strain, in
this palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything so
mild. But we’ve got to give him up. There ain’t any getting around that,
I don’t reckon. Now if we can get you to help plant him——”
“Preach the funeral discourse? Assist at the obsequies?”
“Obs’quies is good. Yes. That’s it—that’s our little game. We are going
to get the thing up regardless, you know. He was always nifty himself,
and so you bet you his funeral ain’t going to be no slouch—solid silver
door-plate on his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and one nigger on
the box in a biled shirt and a plug hat—how’s that for high? And we’ll
take care of _you_ pard. We’ll fix you all right. There’ll be a kerridge
for you; and whatever you want, you just ’scape out and we’ll ’tend to
it. We’ve got a shebang fixed up for you to stand behind, in No. 1’s
house, and don’t you be afraid. Just go in and toot your horn, if you
don’t sell a clam. Put Buck through as bully as you can, pard, for
anybody that knowed him will tell you that he was one of the whitest men
that was ever in the mines. You can’t draw it too strong. He never could
stand it to see things going wrong. He’s done more to make this town
quiet and peaceable than any man in it. I’ve seen him lick four Greasers
in eleven minutes, myself. If a thing wanted regulating, _he_ warn’t a
man to go browsing around for somebody to do it, but he would prance in
and regulate it himself. He warn’t a Catholic. Scasely. He was down on
’em. His word was ‘No Irish need apply!’ But it didn’t make no
difference about that when it came down to what a man’s rights was—and
so, when some roughs jumped the Catholic boneyard and started in to
stake out town lots in it he _went_ for ’em! And he _cleaned_ ’em, too!
I was there, pard, and I seen it myself.”
“That was very well, indeed—at least the impulse was—whether the act was
strictly defensible or not. Had deceased any religious convictions? That
is to say, did he feel a dependence upon, or acknowledge allegiance to a
higher power?”
More reflection.
“I reckon you’ve stumped me again, pard. Could you say it over once
more, and say it slow?”
“Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather had he ever been
connected with any organization sequestered for secular concerns and
devoted to self-sacrifice in the interests of morality?”
“All down but nine—set ’em up on the other alley, pard.”
“What did I understand you to say?”
“Why, you’re most too many for me, you know. When you get in with your
left I hunt grass every time. Every time you draw, you fill; but I don’t
seem to have any luck. Let’s have a new deal.”
“How? Begin again?”
“That’s it.”
“Very well. Was he a good man, and——”
“There—I see that; don’t put up another chip till I look at my hand. A
good man, says you? Pard, it ain’t no name for it. He was the best man
that ever—pard, you would have doted on that man. He could lam any
galoot of his inches in America. It was him that put down the riot last
election before it got a start; and everybody said he was the only man
that could have done it. He waltzed in with a spanner in one hand and a
trumpet in the other, and sent fourteen men home on a shutter in less
than three minutes. He had that riot all broke up and prevented nice
before anybody ever got a chance to strike a blow. He was always for
peace, and he would _have_ peace—he could not stand disturbances. Pard,
he was a great loss to this town. It would please the boys if you would
chip in something like that and do him justice. Here once when the Micks
got to throwing stones through the Methodis’ Sunday-school windows, Buck
Fanshaw, all of his own notion, shut up his saloon and took a couple of
six-shooters and mounted guard over the Sunday-school. Says he, ‘No
Irish need Apply!’ And they didn’t. He was the bulliest man in the
mountains, pard! He could run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and hold
more tanglefoot whisky without spilling than any man in seventeen
counties. Put that in, pard—it’ll please the boys more than anything you
could say. And you can say, pard, that he never shook his mother.”
“Never shook his mother?”
“That’s it—any of the boys will tell you so.”
“Well, but why _should_ he shake her?”
“That’s what _I_ say—but some people does.”
“Not people of any repute.”
“Well, some that averages pretty so-so.”
“In my opinion the man that would offer personal violence to his own
mother ought to——”
“Cheese it, pard; you’ve banked your ball clean outside the string. What
I was drivin’ at, was, that he never _throwed_ off on his mother—don’t
you see? No indeedy. He give her a house to live in, and town lots, and
plenty of money; and he looked after her and took care of her all the
time; and when she was down with the smallpox I’m d—d if he didn’t set
up nights and nuss her himself! _Beg_ your pardon for saying it, but it
hopped out too quick for yours truly. You’ve treated me like a
gentleman, pard, and I ain’t the man to hurt your feelings intentional.
I think you’re white. I think you’re a square man, pard. I like you, and
I’ll lick any man that don’t. I’ll lick him till he can’t tell himself
from a last year’s corpse! Put it _there_!” (Another fraternal
hand-shake—and exit).
The obsequies were all that “the boys” could desire. Such a marvel of
funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, the
dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts of business, the flags
drooping at half-mast, the long, plodding procession of uniformed secret
societies, military battalions and fire companies, draped engines,
carriages of officials, and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted
multitudes of spectators to the sidewalks, roofs, and windows; and for
years afterward, the degree of grandeur attained by any civic display in
Virginia was determined by comparison with Buck Fanshaw’s funeral.
Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner, occupied a prominent
place at the funeral, and when the sermon was finished and the last
sentence of the prayer for the dead man’s soul ascended, he responded in
a low voice, but with feeling:
“AMEN. No Irish need apply.”