pard! Then we're on velvet! I've got NINE hundred; put your FIVE with
that, and I know a little ranch that we can get for twelve hundred.
That's what I've been savin' up for--that's my little game! No more
minin' for ME. It's got a shanty twice as big as our old cabin, nigh on
a hundred acres, and two mustangs. We can run it with two Chinamen and
jest make it howl! Wot yer say--eh?” He extended his hand.
“I'm in,” said Uncle Billy, radiantly grasping Uncle Jim's. But his
smile faded, and his clear simple brow wrinkled in two lines.
Happily Uncle Jim did not notice it. “Now, then, old pard,” he said
brightly, “we'll have a gay old time to-night--one of our jamborees!
I've got some whiskey here and a deck o' cards, and we'll have a little
game, you understand, but not for 'keeps' now! No, siree; we'll play for
beans.”
A sudden light illuminated Uncle Billy's face again, but he said, with a
grim desperation, “Not to-night! I've got to go into town. That fren'
o' mine expects me to go to the theayter, don't ye see? But I'll be out
to-morrow at sun-up, and we'll fix up this thing o' the ranch.”
“Seems to me you're kinder stuck on this fren',” grunted Uncle Jim.
Uncle Billy's heart bounded at his partner's jealousy. “No--but I MUST,
you know,” he returned, with a faint laugh.
“I say--it ain't a HER, is it?” said Uncle Jim.
Uncle Billy achieved a diabolical wink and a creditable blush at his
lie.
“Billy?”
“Jim!”
And under cover of this festive gallantry Uncle Billy escaped. He ran
through the gathering darkness, and toiled up the shifting sands to the
top of the hill, where he found the carriage waiting.
“Wot,” said Uncle Billy in a low confidential tone to the coachman,
“wot do you 'Frisco fellers allow to be the best, biggest, and riskiest
gamblin'-saloon here? Suthin' high-toned, you know?”
The negro grinned. It was the usual case of the extravagant spendthrift
miner, though perhaps he had expected a different question and order.
“Dey is de 'Polka,' de 'El Dorado,' and de 'Arcade' saloon, boss,” he
said, flicking his whip meditatively. “Most gents from de mines prefer
de 'Polka,' for dey is dancing wid de gals frown in. But de real prima
facie place for gents who go for buckin' agin de tiger and straight-out
gamblin' is de 'Arcade.'”
“Drive there like thunder!” said Uncle Billy, leaping into the carriage.
*****
True to his word, Uncle Billy was at his partner's shanty early the next
morning. He looked a little tired, but happy, and had brought a draft
with him for five hundred and seventy-five dollars, which he explained
was the total of his capital. Uncle Jim was overjoyed. They would start
for Napa that very day, and conclude the purchase of the ranch; Uncle
Jim's sprained foot was a sufficient reason for his giving up his
present vocation, which he could also sell at a small profit. His
domestic arrangements were very simple; there was nothing to take
with him--there was everything to leave behind. And that afternoon, at
sunset, the two reunited partners were seated on the deck of the Napa
boat as she swung into the stream.
Uncle Billy was gazing over the railing with a look of abstracted relief
towards the Golden Gate, where the sinking sun seemed to be drawing
towards him in the ocean a golden stream that was forever pouring
from the Bay and the three-hilled city beside it. What Uncle Billy was
thinking of, or what the picture suggested to him, did not transpire;
for Uncle Jim, who, emboldened by his holiday, was luxuriating in an
evening paper, suddenly uttered a long-drawn whistle, and moved closer
to his abstracted partner. “Look yer,” he said, pointing to a paragraph
he had evidently just read, “just you listen to this, and see if we
ain't lucky, you and me, to be jest wot we air--trustin' to our own hard
work--and not thinkin' o' 'strikes' and 'fortins.' Jest unbutton yer
ears, Billy, while I reel off this yer thing I've jest struck in the
paper, and see what d--d fools some men kin make o' themselves. And that
theer reporter wot wrote it--must hev seed it reely!”
Uncle Jim cleared his throat, and holding the paper close to his eyes
read aloud slowly:--
“'A scene of excitement that recalled the palmy days of '49 was
witnessed last night at the Arcade Saloon. A stranger, who might have
belonged to that reckless epoch, and who bore every evidence of being
a successful Pike County miner out on a “spree,” appeared at one of the
tables with a negro coachman bearing two heavy bags of gold. Selecting
a faro-bank as his base of operations, he began to bet heavily and with
apparent recklessness, until his play excited the breathless attention
of every one. In a few moments he had won a sum variously estimated at
from eighty to a hundred thousand dollars. A rumor went round the room
that it was a concerted attempt to “break the bank” rather than the
drunken freak of a Western miner, dazzled by some successful strike.
To this theory the man's careless and indifferent bearing towards his
extraordinary gains lent great credence. The attempt, if such it was,
however, was unsuccessful. After winning ten times in succession the
luck turned, and the unfortunate “bucker” was cleared out not only of
his gains, but of his original investment, which may be placed roughly
at twenty thousand dollars. This extraordinary play was witnessed by a
crowd of excited players, who were less impressed by even the magnitude
of the stakes than the perfect sang-froid and recklessness of the
player, who, it is said, at the close of the game tossed a twenty-dollar
gold-piece to the banker and smilingly withdrew. The man was not
recognized by any of the habitues of the place.'
“There!” said Uncle Jim, as he hurriedly slurred over the French
substantive at the close, “did ye ever see such God-forsaken
foolishness?”
Uncle Billy lifted his abstracted eyes from the current, still pouring
its unreturning gold into the sinking sun, and said, with a deprecatory
smile, “Never!”
Nor even in the days of prosperity that visited the Great Wheat Ranch of
“Fall and Foster” did he ever tell his secret to his partner.
SEE YUP
I don't suppose that his progenitors ever gave him that name, or,
indeed, that it was a NAME at all; but it was currently believed
that--as pronounced “See UP”--it meant that lifting of the outer angle
of the eye common to the Mongolian. On the other hand, I had been told
that there was an old Chinese custom of affixing some motto or legend,
or even a sentence from Confucius, as a sign above their shops, and that
two or more words, which might be merely equivalent to “Virtue is its
own reward,” or “Riches are deceitful,” were believed by the simple
Californian miner to be the name of the occupant himself. Howbeit, “See
Yup” accepted it with the smiling patience of his race, and never
went by any other. If one of the tunnelmen always addressed him as
“Brigadier-General,” “Judge,” or “Commodore,” it was understood to be
only the American fondness for ironic title, and was never used except
in personal conversation. In appearance he looked like any other
Chinaman, wore the ordinary blue cotton blouse and white drawers of the
Sampan coolie, and, in spite of the apparent cleanliness and freshness
of these garments, always exhaled that singular medicated odor--half
opium, half ginger--which we recognized as the common “Chinese smell.”
Our first interview was characteristic of his patient quality. He had
done my washing for several months, but I had never yet seen him.
A meeting at last had become necessary to correct his impressions
regarding “buttons”--which he had seemed to consider as mere
excrescences, to be removed like superfluous dirt from soiled linen.
I had expected him to call at my lodgings, but he had not yet made his
appearance. One day, during the noontide recess of the little frontier
school over which I presided, I returned rather early. Two or three of
the smaller boys, who were loitering about the school-yard, disappeared
with a certain guilty precipitation that I suspected for the moment,
but which I presently dismissed from my mind. I passed through the
empty school-room to my desk, sat down, and began to prepare the coming
lessons. Presently I heard a faint sigh. Looking up, to my intense
concern, I discovered a solitary Chinaman whom I had overlooked, sitting
in a rigid attitude on a bench with his back to the window. He caught my
eye and smiled sadly, but without moving.
“What are you doing here?” I asked sternly.
“Me washee shilts; me talkee 'buttons.'”
“Oh! you're See Yup, are you?”
“Allee same, John.”
“Well, come here.”
I continued my work, but he did not move.
“Come here, hang it! Don't you understand?”
“Me shabbee, 'comme yea.' But me no shabbee Mellican boy, who catchee
me, allee same. YOU 'comme yea'--YOU shabbee?”
Indignant, but believing that the unfortunate man was still in fear
of persecution from the mischievous urchins whom I had evidently just
interrupted, I put down my pen and went over to him. Here I discovered,
to my surprise and mortification, that his long pigtail was held hard
and fast by the closed window behind him which the young rascals had
shut down upon it, after having first noiselessly fished it outside with
a hook and line. I apologized, opened the window, and released him. He
did not complain, although he must have been fixed in that uncomfortable
position for some minutes, but plunged at once into the business that
brought him there.
“But WHY didn't you come to my lodgings?” I asked.
He smiled sadly but intelligently.
“Mishtel Bally [Mr. Barry, my landlord] he owce me five dollee fo
washee, washee. He no payee me. He say he knock hellee outee me allee
time I come for payee. So me no come HOUSEE, me come SCHOOLEE, Shabbee?
Mellican boy no good, but not so big as Mellican man. No can hurtee
Chinaman so much. Shabbee?”
Alas! I knew that this was mainly true. Mr. James Barry was an Irishman,
whose finer religious feelings revolted against paying money to a
heathen. I could not find it in my heart to say anything to See Yup
about the buttons; indeed, I spoke in complimentary terms about the
gloss of my shirts, and I think I meekly begged him to come again for my
washing. When I went home I expostulated with Mr. Barry, but succeeded
only in extracting from him the conviction that I was one of “thim black
Republican fellys that worshiped naygurs.” I had simply made an enemy of
him. But I did not know that, at the same time, I had made a friend of
See Yup!
I became aware of this a few days later, by the appearance on my desk of
a small pot containing a specimen of camellia japonica in flower. I knew
the school-children were in the habit of making presents to me in this
furtive fashion,--leaving their own nosegays of wild flowers, or perhaps
a cluster of roses from their parents' gardens,--but I also knew that
this exotic was too rare to come from them. I remembered that See Yup
had a Chinese taste for gardening, and a friend, another Chinaman, who
kept a large nursery in the adjoining town. But my doubts were set at
rest by the discovery of a small roll of red rice-paper containing my
washing-bill, fastened to the camellia stalk. It was plain that this
mingling of business and delicate gratitude was clearly See Yup's
own idea. As the finest flower was the topmost one, I plucked it for
wearing, when I found, to my astonishment, that it was simply wired to
the stalk. This led me to look at the others, which I found also wired!
More than that, they seemed to be an inferior flower, and exhaled that
cold, earthy odor peculiar to the camellia, even, as I thought, to an
excess. A closer examination resulted in the discovery that, with the
exception of the first flower I had plucked, they were one and all
ingeniously constructed of thin slices of potato, marvelously cut to
imitate the vegetable waxiness and formality of the real flower. The
work showed an infinite and almost pathetic patience in detail,
yet strangely incommensurate with the result, admirable as it was.
Nevertheless, this was also like See Yup. But whether he had tried to
deceive me, or whether he only wished me to admire his skill, I could
not say. And as his persecution by my scholars had left a balance of
consideration in his favor, I sent him a warm note of thanks, and said
nothing of my discovery.
As our acquaintance progressed, I became frequently the recipient of
other small presents from him: a pot of preserves of a quality I could
not purchase in shops, and whose contents in their crafty, gingery
dissimulation so defied definition that I never knew whether they were
animal, vegetable, or mineral; two or three hideous Chinese idols, “for
luckee,” and a diabolical fire-work with an irregular spasmodic activity
that would sometimes be prolonged until the next morning. In return, I
gave him some apparently hopeless oral lessons in English, and certain
sentences to be copied, which he did with marvelous precision. I
remember one instance when this peculiar faculty of imitation was
disastrous in result. In setting him a copy, I had blurred a word which
I promptly erased, and then traced the letters more distinctly over the
scratched surface. To my surprise, See Yup triumphantly produced HIS
copy with the erasion itself carefully imitated, and, in fact, much more
neatly done than mine.
In our confidential intercourse, I never seemed to really get nearer
to him. His sympathy and simplicity appeared like his flowers--to be a
good-humored imitation of my own. I am satisfied that his particularly
soulless laugh was not derived from any amusement he actually felt, yet
I could not say it was forced. In his accurate imitations, I fancied he
was only trying to evade any responsibility of his own. THAT devolved
upon his taskmaster! In the attention he displayed when new ideas
were presented to him, there was a slight condescension, as if he were
looking down upon them from his three thousand years of history.
“Don't you think the electric telegraph wonderful?” I asked one day.
“Very good for Mellican man,” he said, with his aimless laugh; “plenty
makee him jump!”
I never could tell whether he had confounded it with electro-galvanism,
or was only satirizing our American haste and feverishness. He was
capable of either. For that matter, we knew that the Chinese themselves
possessed some means of secretly and quickly communicating with one
another. Any news of good or ill import to their race was quickly
disseminated through the settlement before WE knew anything about it. An
innocent basket of clothes from the wash, sent up from the river-bank,
became in some way a library of information; a single slip of
rice-paper, aimlessly fluttering in the dust of the road, had the
mysterious effect of diverging a whole gang of coolie tramps away from
our settlement.
When See Yup was not subject to the persecutions of the more ignorant
and brutal he was always a source of amusement to all, and I cannot
recall an instance when he was ever taken seriously. The miners found
diversions even in his alleged frauds and trickeries, whether innocent
or retaliatory, and were fond of relating with great gusto his evasion
of the Foreign Miners' Tax. This was an oppressive measure aimed
principally at the Chinese, who humbly worked the worn-out “tailings” of
their Christian fellow miners. It was stated that See Yup, knowing the
difficulty--already alluded to--of identifying any particular Chinaman
by NAME, conceived the additional idea of confusing recognition by
intensifying the monotonous facial expression. Having paid his tax
himself to the collector, he at once passed the receipt to his fellows,
so that the collector found himself confronted in different parts of the
settlement with the receipt and the aimless laugh of, apparently, See
Yup himself. Although we all knew that there were a dozen Chinamen or
more at work at the mines, the collector never was able to collect the
tax from more than TWO,--See Yup and one See Yin,--and so great was
THEIR facial resemblance that the unfortunate official for a long time
hugged himself with the conviction that he had made See Yup PAY TWICE,
and withheld the money from the government! It is very probable that the
Californian's recognition of the sanctity of a joke, and his belief that
“cheating the government was only cheating himself,” largely accounted
for the sympathies of the rest of the miners.
But these sympathies were not always unanimous.
One evening I strolled into the bar-room of the principal saloon, which,
so far as mere upholstery and comfort went, was also the principal house
in the settlement. The first rains had commenced; the windows were open,
for the influence of the southwest trades penetrated even this far-off
mountain mining settlement, but, oddly enough, there was a fire in the
large central stove, around which the miners had collected, with their
steaming boots elevated on a projecting iron railing that encircled it.
They were not attracted by the warmth, but the stove formed a social
pivot for gossip, and suggested that mystic circle dear to the
gregarious instinct. Yet they were decidedly a despondent group. For
some moments the silence was only broken by a gasp, a sigh, a muttered
oath, or an impatient change of position. There was nothing in the
fortunes of the settlement, nor in their own individual affairs to
suggest this gloom. The singular truth was that they were, one and all,
suffering from the pangs of dyspepsia.
Incongruous as such a complaint might seem to their healthy
environment,--their outdoor life, their daily exercise, the healing
balsam of the mountain air, their enforced temperance in diet, and
the absence of all enervating pleasures,--it was nevertheless the
incontestable fact. Whether it was the result of the nervous, excitable
temperament which had brought them together in this feverish hunt for
gold; whether it was the quality of the tinned meats or half-cooked
provisions they hastily bolted, begrudging the time it took to prepare
and to consume them; whether they too often supplanted their meals by
tobacco or whiskey, the singular physiological truth remained that these
young, finely selected adventurers, living the lives of the natural,
aboriginal man, and looking the picture of health and strength, actually
suffered more from indigestion than the pampered dwellers of the cities.
The quantity of “patent medicines,” “bitters,” “pills,” “panaceas,”
and “lozenges” sold in the settlement almost exceeded the amount of
the regular provisions whose effects they were supposed to correct.
The sufferers eagerly scanned advertisements and placards. There
were occasional “runs” on new “specifics,” and general conversation
eventually turned into a discussion of their respective merits. A
certain childlike faith and trust in each new remedy was not the least
distressing and pathetic of the symptoms of these grown-up, bearded men.
“Well, gentlemen,” said Cyrus Parker, glancing around at his fellow
sufferers, “ye kin talk of your patent medicines, and I've tackled 'em
all, but only the other day I struck suthin' that I'm goin' to hang on
to, you bet.”
Every eye was turned moodily to the speaker, but no one said anything.
“And I didn't get it outer advertisements, nor off of circulars. I got
it outer my head, just by solid thinking,” continued Parker.
“What was it, Cy?” said one unsophisticated and inexperienced sufferer.
Instead of replying, Parker, like a true artist, knowing he had the ear
of his audience, dramatically flashed a question upon them.
“Did you ever hear of a Chinaman having dyspepsy?”
“Never heard he had sabe enough to hev ANYTHING,” said a scorner.
“No, but DID ye?” insisted Parker.
“Well, no!” chorused the group. They were evidently struck with the
fact.
“Of course you didn't,” said Parker triumphantly. “'Cos they AIN'T.
Well, gentlemen, it didn't seem to me the square thing that a pesky lot
o' yellow-skinned heathens should be built different to a white man,
and never know the tortur' that a Christian feels; and one day, arter
dinner, when I was just a-lyin' flat down on the bank, squirmin', and
clutching the short grass to keep from yellin', who should go by but
that pizened See Yup, with a grin on his face.
“'Mellican man plenty playee to him Joss after eatin',' sez he; 'but
Chinaman smellee punk, allee same, and no hab got.'
“I knew the slimy cuss was just purtendin' he thought I was prayin' to
my Joss, but I was that weak I hadn't stren'th, boys, to heave a rock at
him. Yet it gave me an idea.”
“What was it?” they asked eagerly.
“I went down to his shop the next day, when he was alone, and I was
feeling mighty bad, and I got hold of his pigtail and I allowed I'd
stuff it down his throat if he didn't tell me what he meant. Then he
took a piece of punk and lit it, and put it under my nose, and, darn my
skin, gentlemen, you migh'n't believe me, but in a minute I felt better,
and after a whiff or two I was all right.”
“Was it pow'ful strong, Cy?” asked the inexperienced one.
“No,” said Parker, “and that's just what's got me. It was a sort o'
dreamy, spicy smell, like a hot night. But as I couldn't go 'round 'mong
you boys with a lighted piece o' punk in my hand, ez if I was settin'
off Fourth of July firecrackers, I asked him if he couldn't fix me up
suthin' in another shape that would be handier to use when I was took
bad, and I'd reckon to pay him for it like ez I'd pay for any other
patent medicine. So he fixed me up this.”
He put his hand in his pocket, and drew out a small red paper which,
when opened, disclosed a pink powder. It was gravely passed around the
group.
“Why, it smells and tastes like ginger,” said one.
“It is only ginger!” said another scornfully.
“Mebbe it is, and mebbe it isn't,” returned Cy Parker stoutly. “Mebbe
ut's only my fancy. But if it's the sort o' stuff to bring on that
fancy, and that fancy CURES me, it's all the same. I've got about two
dollars' worth o' that fancy or that ginger, and I'm going to stick to
it. You hear me!” And he carefully put it back in his pocket.
At which criticisms and gibes broke forth. If he (Cy Parker), a white
man, was going to “demean himself” by consulting a Chinese quack, he'd
better buy up a lot o' idols and stand 'em up around his cabin. If he
had that sort o' confidences with See Yup, he ought to go to work with
him on his cheap tailings, and be fumigated all at the same time. If
he'd been smoking an opium pipe, instead of smelling punk, he ought to
be man enough to confess it. Yet it was noticeable that they were
all very anxious to examine the packet again, but Cy Parker was alike
indifferent to demand or entreaty.
A few days later I saw Abe Wynford, one of the party, coming out of See
Yup's wash-house. He muttered something in passing about the infamous
delay in sending home his washing, but did not linger long in
conversation. The next day I met another miner AT the wash-house, but HE
lingered so long on some trifling details that I finally left him there
alone with See Yup. When I called upon Poker Jack of Shasta, there was a
singular smell of incense in HIS cabin, which he attributed to the very
resinous quality of the fir logs he was burning. I did not attempt
to probe these mysteries by any direct appeal to See Yup himself: I
respected his reticence; indeed, if I had not, I was quite satisfied
that he would have lied to me. Enough that his wash-house was well
patronized, and he was decidedly “getting on.”
It might have been a month afterwards that Dr. Duchesne was setting a
broken bone in the settlement, and after the operation was over, had
strolled into the Palmetto Saloon. He was an old army surgeon, much
respected and loved in the district, although perhaps a little feared
for the honest roughness and military precision of his speech. After he
had exchanged salutations with the miners in his usual hearty fashion,
and accepted their invitation to drink, Cy Parker, with a certain
affected carelessness which did not, however, conceal a singular
hesitation in his speech, began:--
“I've been wantin' to ask ye a question, Doc,--a sort o' darned fool
question, ye know,--nothing in the way of consultation, don't you see,
though it's kin er in the way o' your purfeshun. Sabe?”
“Go on, Cy,” said the doctor good-humoredly, “this is my dispensary
hour.”
“Oh! it ain't anything about symptoms, Doc, and there ain't anything the
matter with me. It's only just to ask ye if ye happened to know anything
about the medical practice of these yer Chinamen?”
“I don't know,” said the doctor bluntly, “and I don't know ANYBODY who
does.”