I
HOW TREES ARE FELLED IN CHINA
A HALF-MILE north from Jo. Dunfer’s, on the road from Hutton’s to Mexican
Hill, the highway dips into a sunless ravine which opens out on either
hand in a half-confidential manner, as if it had a secret to impart at
some more convenient season. I never used to ride through it without
looking first to the one side and then to the other, to see if the time
had arrived for the revelation. If I saw nothing—and I never did see
anything—there was no feeling of disappointment, for I knew the
disclosure was merely withheld temporarily for some good reason which I
had no right to question. That I should one day be taken into full
confidence I no more doubted than I doubted the existence of Jo. Dunfer
himself, through whose premises the ravine ran.
It was said that Jo. had once undertaken to erect a cabin in some remote
part of it, but for some reason had abandoned the enterprise and
constructed his present hermaphrodite habitation, half residence and half
groggery, at the roadside, upon an extreme corner of his estate; as far
away as possible, as if on purpose to show how radically he had changed
his mind.
This Jo. Dunfer—or, as he was familiarly known in the neighborhood,
Whisky Jo.—was a very important personage in those parts. He was
apparently about forty years of age, a long, shock-headed fellow, with a
corded face, a gnarled arm and a knotty hand like a bunch of prison-keys.
He was a hairy man, with a stoop in his walk, like that of one who is
about to spring upon something and rend it.
Next to the peculiarity to which he owed his local appellation, Mr.
Dunfer’s most obvious characteristic was a deep-seated antipathy to the
Chinese. I saw him once in a towering rage because one of his herdsmen
had permitted a travel-heated Asian to slake his thirst at the
horse-trough in front of the saloon end of Jo.’s establishment. I
ventured faintly to remonstrate with Jo. for his unchristian spirit, but
he merely explained that there was nothing about Chinamen in the New
Testament, and strode away to wreak his displeasure upon his dog, which
also, I suppose, the inspired scribes had overlooked.
Some days afterward, finding him sitting alone in his barroom, I
cautiously approached the subject, when, greatly to my relief, the
habitual austerity of his expression visibly softened into something that
I took for condescension.
“You young Easterners,” he said, “are a mile-and-a-half too good for this
country, and you don’t catch on to our play. People who don’t know a
Chileño from a Kanaka can afford to hang out liberal ideas about Chinese
immigration, but a fellow that has to fight for his bone with a lot of
mongrel coolies hasn’t any time for foolishness.”
This long consumer, who had probably never done an honest day’s-work in
his life, sprung the lid of a Chinese tobacco-box and with thumb and
forefinger forked out a wad like a small haycock. Holding this
reinforcement within supporting distance he fired away with renewed
confidence.
“They’re a flight of devouring locusts, and they’re going for everything
green in this God blest land, if you want to know.”
Here he pushed his reserve into the breach and when his gabble-gear was
again disengaged resumed his uplifting discourse.
“I had one of them on this ranch five years ago, and I’ll tell you about
it, so that you can see the nub of this whole question. I didn’t pan out
particularly well those days—drank more whisky than was prescribed for me
and didn’t seem to care for my duty as a patriotic American citizen; so I
took that pagan in, as a kind of cook. But when I got religion over at
the Hill and they talked of running me for the Legislature it was given
to me to see the light. But what was I to do? If I gave him the go
somebody else would take him, and mightn’t treat him white. _What_ was I
to do? What would any good Christian do, especially one new to the trade
and full to the neck with the brotherhood of Man and the fatherhood of
God?”
Jo. paused for a reply, with an expression of unstable satisfaction, as
of one who has solved a problem by a distrusted method. Presently he
rose and swallowed a glass of whisky from a full bottle on the counter,
then resumed his story.
“Besides, he didn’t count for much—didn’t know anything and gave himself
airs. They all do that. I said him nay, but he muled it through on that
line while he lasted; but after turning the other cheek seventy and seven
times I doctored the dice so that he didn’t last forever. And I’m
almighty glad I had the sand to do it.”
Jo.’s gladness, which somehow did not impress me, was duly and
ostentatiously celebrated at the bottle.
“About five years ago I started in to stick up a shack. That was before
this one was built, and I put it in another place. I set Ah Wee and a
little cuss named Gopher to cutting the timber. Of course I didn’t
expect Ah Wee to help much, for he had a face like a day in June and big
black eyes—I guess maybe they were the damn’dest eyes in this neck o’
woods.”
While delivering this trenchant thrust at common sense Mr. Dunfer
absently regarded a knot-hole in the thin board partition separating the
bar from the living-room, as if that were one of the eyes whose size and
color had incapacitated his servant for good service.
“Now you Eastern galoots won’t believe anything against the yellow
devils,” he suddenly flamed out with an appearance of earnestness not
altogether convincing, “but I tell you that Chink was the perversest
scoundrel outside San Francisco. The miserable pigtail Mongolian went to
hewing away at the saplings all round the stems, like a worm o’ the dust
gnawing a radish. I pointed out his error as patiently as I knew how,
and showed him how to cut them on two sides, so as to make them fall
right; but no sooner would I turn my back on him, like this”—and he
turned it on me, amplifying the illustration by taking some more
liquor—“than he was at it again. It was just this way: while I looked at
him, _so_”—regarding me rather unsteadily and with evident complexity of
vision—“he was all right; but when I looked away, _so_”—taking a long
pull at the bottle—“he defied me. Then I’d gaze at him reproachfully,
_so_, and butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth.”
Doubtless Mr. Dunfer honestly intended the look that he fixed upon me to
be merely reproachful, but it was singularly fit to arouse the gravest
apprehension in any unarmed person incurring it; and as I had lost all
interest in his pointless and interminable narrative, I rose to go.
Before I had fairly risen, he had again turned to the counter, and with a
barely audible “so,” had emptied the bottle at a gulp.
Heavens! what a yell! It was like a Titan in his last, strong agony.
Jo. staggered back after emitting it, as a cannon recoils from its own
thunder, and then dropped into his chair, as if he had been “knocked in
the head” like a beef—his eyes drawn sidewise toward the wall, with a
stare of terror. Looking in the same direction, I saw that the knot-hole
in the wall had indeed become a human eye—a full, black eye, that glared
into my own with an entire lack of expression more awful than the most
devilish glitter. I think I must have covered my face with my hands to
shut out the horrible illusion, if such it was, and Jo.’s little white
man-of-all-work coming into the room broke the spell, and I walked out of
the house with a sort of dazed fear that _delirium tremens_ might be
infectious. My horse was hitched at the watering-trough, and untying him
I mounted and gave him his head, too much troubled in mind to note
whither he took me.
I did not know what to think of all this, and like every one who does not
know what to think I thought a great deal, and to little purpose. The
only reflection that seemed at all satisfactory, was, that on the morrow
I should be some miles away, with a strong probability of never
returning.
A sudden coolness brought me out of my abstraction, and looking up I
found myself entering the deep shadows of the ravine. The day was
stifling; and this transition from the pitiless, visible heat of the
parched fields to the cool gloom, heavy with pungency of cedars and vocal
with twittering of the birds that had been driven to its leafy asylum,
was exquisitely refreshing. I looked for my mystery, as usual, but not
finding the ravine in a communicative mood, dismounted, led my sweating
animal into the undergrowth, tied him securely to a tree and sat down
upon a rock to meditate.
I began bravely by analyzing my pet superstition about the place. Having
resolved it into its constituent elements I arranged them in convenient
troops and squadrons, and collecting all the forces of my logic bore down
upon them from impregnable premises with the thunder of irresistible
conclusions and a great noise of chariots and general intellectual
shouting. Then, when my big mental guns had overturned all opposition,
and were growling almost inaudibly away on the horizon of pure
speculation, the routed enemy straggled in upon their rear, massed
silently into a solid phalanx, and captured me, bag and baggage. An
indefinable dread came upon me. I rose to shake it off, and began
threading the narrow dell by an old, grass-grown cow-path that seemed to
flow along the bottom, as a substitute for the brook that Nature had
neglected to provide.
The trees among which the path straggled were ordinary, well-behaved
plants, a trifle perverted as to trunk and eccentric as to bough, but
with nothing unearthly in their general aspect. A few loose bowlders,
which had detached themselves from the sides of the depression to set up
an independent existence at the bottom, had dammed up the pathway, here
and there, but their stony repose had nothing in it of the stillness of
death. There was a kind of death-chamber hush in the valley, it is true,
and a mysterious whisper above: the wind was just fingering the tops of
the trees—that was all.
I had not thought of connecting Jo. Dunfer’s drunken narrative with what
I now sought, and only when I came into a clear space and stumbled over
the level trunks of some small trees did I have the revelation. This was
the site of the abandoned “shack.” The discovery was verified by noting
that some of the rotting stumps were hacked all round, in a most
unwoodmanlike way, while others were cut straight across, and the butt
ends of the corresponding trunks had the blunt wedge-form given by the
axe of a master.
The opening among the trees was not more than thirty paces across. At
one side was a little knoll—a natural hillock, bare of shrubbery but
covered with wild grass, and on this, standing out of the grass, the
headstone of a grave!
I do not remember that I felt anything like surprise at this discovery.
I viewed that lonely grave with something of the feeling that Columbus
must have had when he saw the hills and headlands of the new world.
Before approaching it I leisurely completed my survey of the
surroundings. I was even guilty of the affectation of winding my watch
at that unusual hour, and with needless care and deliberation. Then I
approached my mystery.
The grave—a rather short one—was in somewhat better repair than was
consistent with its obvious age and isolation, and my eyes, I dare say,
widened a trifle at a clump of unmistakable garden flowers showing
evidence of recent watering. The stone had clearly enough done duty once
as a doorstep. In its front was carved, or rather dug, an inscription.
It read thus:
AH WEE—CHINAMAN.
Age unknown. Worked for Jo. Dunfer.
This monument is erected by him to keep the Chink’s
memory green. Likewise as a warning to Celestials
not to take on airs. Devil take ’em!
She Was a Good Egg.
I cannot adequately relate my astonishment at this uncommon inscription!
The meagre but sufficient identification of the deceased; the impudent
candor of confession; the brutal anathema; the ludicrous change of sex
and sentiment—all marked this record as the work of one who must have
been at least as much demented as bereaved. I felt that any further
disclosure would be a paltry anti-climax, and with an unconscious regard
for dramatic effect turned squarely about and walked away. Nor did I
return to that part of the county for four years.
II
WHO DRIVES SANE OXEN SHOULD HIMSELF BE SANE
“Gee-up, there, old Fuddy-Duddy!”
This unique adjuration came from the lips of a queer little man perched
upon a wagonful of firewood, behind a brace of oxen that were hauling it
easily along with a simulation of mighty effort which had evidently not
imposed on their lord and master. As that gentleman happened at the
moment to be staring me squarely in the face as I stood by the roadside
it was not altogether clear whether he was addressing me or his beasts;
nor could I say if they were named Fuddy and Duddy and were both subjects
of the imperative verb “to gee-up.” Anyhow the command produced no
effect on us, and the queer little man removed his eyes from mine long
enough to spear Fuddy and Duddy alternately with a long pole, remarking,
quietly but with feeling: “Dern your skin,” as if they enjoyed that
integument in common. Observing that my request for a ride took no
attention, and finding myself falling slowly astern, I placed one foot
upon the inner circumference of a hind wheel and was slowly elevated to
the level of the hub, whence I boarded the concern, _sans cérémonie_, and
scrambling forward seated myself beside the driver—who took no notice of
me until he had administered another indiscriminate castigation to his
cattle, accompanied with the advice to “buckle down, you derned
Incapable!” Then, the master of the outfit (or rather the former master,
for I could not suppress a whimsical feeling that the entire
establishment was my lawful prize) trained his big, black eyes upon me
with an expression strangely, and somewhat unpleasantly, familiar, laid
down his rod—which neither blossomed nor turned into a serpent, as I half
expected—folded his arms, and gravely demanded, “W’at did you do to
W’isky?”
My natural reply would have been that I drank it, but there was something
about the query that suggested a hidden significance, and something about
the man that did not invite a shallow jest. And so, having no other
answer ready, I merely held my tongue, but felt as if I were resting
under an imputation of guilt, and that my silence was being construed
into a confession.
Just then a cold shadow fell upon my cheek, and caused me to look up. We
were descending into my ravine! I cannot describe the sensation that
came upon me: I had not seen it since it unbosomed itself four years
before, and now I felt like one to whom a friend has made some sorrowing
confession of crime long past, and who has basely deserted him in
consequence. The old memories of Jo. Dunfer, his fragmentary revelation,
and the unsatisfying explanatory note by the headstone, came back with
singular distinctness. I wondered what had become of Jo., and—I turned
sharply round and asked my prisoner. He was intently watching his
cattle, and without withdrawing his eyes replied:
“Gee-up, old Terrapin! He lies aside of Ah Wee up the gulch. Like to
see it? They always come back to the spot—I’ve been expectin’ you.
H-woa!”
At the enunciation of the aspirate, Fuddy-Duddy, the incapable terrapin,
came to a dead halt, and before the vowel had died away up the ravine had
folded up all his eight legs and lain down in the dusty road, regardless
of the effect upon his derned skin. The queer little man slid off his
seat to the ground and started up the dell without deigning to look back
to see if I was following. But I was.
It was about the same season of the year, and at near the same hour of
the day, of my last visit. The jays clamored loudly, and the trees
whispered darkly, as before; and I somehow traced in the two sounds a
fanciful analogy to the open boastfulness of Mr. Jo. Dunfer’s mouth and
the mysterious reticence of his manner, and to the mingled hardihood and
tenderness of his sole literary production—the epitaph. All things in
the valley seemed unchanged, excepting the cow-path, which was almost
wholly overgrown with weeds. When we came out into the “clearing,”
however, there was change enough. Among the stumps and trunks of the
fallen saplings, those that had been hacked “China fashion” were no
longer distinguishable from those that were cut “’Melican way.” It was
as if the Old-World barbarism and the New-World civilization had
reconciled their differences by the arbitration of an impartial decay—as
is the way of civilizations. The knoll was there, but the Hunnish
brambles had overrun and all but obliterated its effete grasses; and the
patrician garden-violet had capitulated to his plebeian brother—perhaps
had merely reverted to his original type. Another grave—a long, robust
mound—had been made beside the first, which seemed to shrink from the
comparison; and in the shadow of a new headstone the old one lay
prostrate, with its marvelous inscription illegible by accumulation of
leaves and soil. In point of literary merit the new was inferior to the
old—was even repulsive in its terse and savage jocularity: