As the pipes were lighted next evening, Carlin said to Barney:
"Corrigan, does the ghost of your La Porte mirage haunt you as Wright's
does him?"
"Not a bit of it," answered Corrigan sharply. "It hurt for awhile, I
confess it, but a year and a half after Maggie was married, I passed her
house one avenin' in the gloaming, and in a voice which I knew well,
though all the swateness had been distilled out of it, this missage came
out upon the air: 'Mike, if yees have got the brat to slape, yees had
better lay him down and come out to your tay. I should loike to get
these supper things put away sometime to-night.' Be dad, there was no
mirage about that, no ravens about that, Wright; it was the charge of
the rale Injun!'"
"Speaking of babies," said Miller nonchalantly, "do you know that about
the most touching scene I ever witnessed was over a baby? It was in
Downieville. California, way back in '51 or '2. You know at that time
babies were not very numerous in the Sierras. There were plenty of men
there who had not seen a good woman, or a baby, for two years or more.
You may not believe it, but you shut the presence of women and children
all out of men's lives, for months at a time, and they contract a
disease, which I call 'heart hunger,' and because of that I suspect that
more whiskey has been drunk in this country, and more killings have
grown out of trifling quarrels, than through all other causes combined.
Without the eyes of women, good women, that he respects, upon a man, in
a little while the wild beast, which is latent in all men's hearts,
begins to assert itself. Because of this, men who were born to be good
and true, have, to kill the unrest within their souls, taken to drink;
the drink has led naturally up to a quarrel; they have got away with
their first fight; the fools around them have praised them for their
'sand'; there has been no look of sorrow and reproach in any honest
woman's eyes to bring them back to their senses; and after such a
beginning, look for them in a year, and, in nine cases out of ten, you
will find that they are lost men.
"But I commenced to tell you about the Downieville baby. It had been
decided that we would have a Fourth of July celebration. There was no
trouble about getting it up. We had a hundred men in camp, either one of
whom could make as pretty a speech as you ever heard; everybody had
plenty of money, and there was no trouble about fixing things to have a
lively time. True, there was no chance for a triumphal car, with a
Goddess of Liberty, and a young lady to represent each State. There was
a good reason for it. There were not thirty young ladies within three
hundred miles of us.
"But we had a big live eagle to represent Sovereignty, and a grizzly
bear as a symbol of Power, which we hauled in the procession; we had
some mounted men, including some Mexican packers on mule back; a vast
variety of flags, and many citizens on foot in the procession. Of course
we had a marshal and his staff, a president of the day, an orator, poet,
reader and chaplain, and last, but not least, a brass band of a few
months' training. There were flags enough for a grand army, and every
anvil in town was kept red hot firing salutes.
"After the parade, the more sedate portion of the people repaired to the
theatre, to hear the Declaration, poem, and oration. The prayer,
Declaration and poem had been disposed of, and the president of the day
was just about to introduce the orator, when a solitary baby but a few
months old, set up a most energetic yell, and continued it for two or
three minutes, the frightened mother not daring in that crowd to supply
the soothing the youngster was evidently demanding. To cause a
diversion, I suppose, the leader of the brass band nodded to the others,
and they commenced to play the 'Star Spangled Banner.' The band had not
had very much more practice than the baby, but the players were doing
the best they could, when a tremendous, big-whiskered miner sprang upon
a back seat, and waving his hat wildly, in a voice like a thunder-roll,
shouted: 'Stop that----d band and give the baby a chance!'
"Nothing like what followed during the next ten minutes had ever been
seen on this earth, since the confusion of tongues transpired among the
builders of Babel's Tower. Men shouted and yelled like mad men,
strangers shook each other by the hand and screamed 'hurrah,' and in the
crowd I saw a dozen men crying like children.
"For a moment every heart was softened by the memories that baby's cries
awakened.
"The next time you feel provoked because the children shout and shy
rocks as they return from school, you may all remember that could the
world be carried on without children, it would not require more than two
generations to transform men into wild beasts."
When Miller ceased speaking, Ashley remarked: "Miller, yon talk very
wisely on the subject of babies, why have you none of your own?"
Miller waited a moment before answering, and then in an absent-minded
manner said:
"Did you never hear a gilt-edged expert talk familiarly about a mine, as
though he knew all about it, when he did not really know a streak of ore
from east country porphyry?"
At this the others all laughed, and Miller joined in the merriment
heartily, but nevertheless, something in the thoughts which the question
awakened, had its effect upon him, for he was moody and preoccupied for
several minutes. Meanwhile, a spell seemed to be upon the whole Club,
except Brewster, who was reading a pamphlet on "The Creation of Mineral
Veins," and Carlin, who was absorbed in a daily paper.
"Whoever stops to think," proceeded Miller, speaking as much to himself
as to the others, "upon what sorrows the foundations of new States are
laid, how many hearts are broken, how many strong lives are worn out in
the pitiless struggle?
"Where are the men who were the Argonauts of the golden days? The most
of them are gone. Every hill side is marked with their graves. They were
a strong, brave, generous race. They laid the wand of their power on the
barbarism which met them; it melted away at their touch; they blazed the
trails and smoothed the paths, that, unsoiled, the delicate sandals of
civilization might draw near; they rifled the hills and ravines of their
stores of gold, and poured it into the Nation's lap, until every
sluggish artery of business was set bounding; they built temples to
Religion, to Learning, to Justice and to Industry; as they moved on,
cities sprung up in their wake; following them came the enchantments of
home and the songs of children; but for them, what was their portion?
They were to work, to struggle, to be misjudged in the land whence they
came; to learn to receive any blows which outrageous fortune might hurl
at them, without plaint; to watch while States grew into place around
them, and while the frown on the face of the desert relaxed into a smile
at their toil, that toil was simply to be accepted as a matter of course
by the world, and in the severe and self-satisfied civilization of older
States, only pity was to be felt for their ignorance, and only horror
for their rough ways. They were to be path-finders, the sappers and
miners to storm the strong-holds of barbarism; through summer's heat,
and winter's cold, to continue their march, until the final night should
come, and then to sink to a dreamless bivouac under the stars. What
wonder if some became over-wearied! if others grew reckless?"
He had risen and was walking the floor, to and fro, like a caged lion,
as he talked. Going now to the kitchen door, he cried: "Yap, bring some
hot water, some sugar, a nutmeg and some limes, if you have them."
The heathen obeyed, and Miller made seven big, hot whiskey punches. Then
lifting his glass he offered this toast:
"Here's to the Old Boys; to those who worked and suffered and died, but
never complained!"
All rose and drank in silence.