THE INDIAN IN THE RAIN AND THE DIRT
How these “things we may learn from the Indian” grow upon us, as we
study the “noble red man” in his own haunts. Again and again I have
noticed that “_he doesn’t know enough to go in when it rains_.” The
white man who first coined that expression deemed it an evidence of
smartness, and reared his head more proudly than his fellows because he
was the author of so bright an idea. Yet when you come to consider it,
what a foolish proposition it is! Go in when it rains? Why should you
go in? Do the birds go in? I have just been watching them from my study
window,--larks, linnets, song-sparrows, and mocking-birds. Not one of
them seems to care a particle about the rain, and their songs are as
sweet and as cheery and as full of melody as they are on the days of
brightest sunshine. How well I recall seeing a mocking-bird on a stand
on my lawn one day when the rain was pouring down fiercely. He stood
with bill up and tail down so that he had a very “Gothic-roof-like”
appearance, his mouth wide open, and as the rain poured from the end
of his tail he sent out a flood of melody more rich and sweet than any
bird-song I ever heard.
And the horses! How they enjoy the rain! I have seen them loose in
a stable having double doors, the upper of which was open, and when
it rained they would thrust their noses out into the rain and let
the drippings of the eaves fall upon them with evident pleasure and
longing that they might get out into it all over.
[Illustration: HEALTHY NAVAHO CHILDREN USED TO THE RAIN AND THE OUT OF
DOORS.]
Nothing alive in Nature save “civilized” man dreads the rain. The
Indian fairly revels in it. I was once at the Havasupai village for a
couple of weeks, the guest of my friend Wa-lu-tha-ma. His little girl,
seven years old, was a perfect little witch. She was quick, nervy,
lively, and healthy. When it rained and her clothes got wet I tried to
prevail upon her to come into shelter. But no! She wanted to be out in
the rain, and off she sprang through the door, playing with the pools
as they collected, and running with others of her playmates to where
the extemporized waterfalls dashed themselves into semi-spray as they
fell from the heights above upon the shelving rocks. Here they stood,
in the water and rain, like dusky fairies, laughing and shouting,
romping and sporting, in perfect glee.
The older women, too, mind it but little, unless it is very cold or the
wind is blowing. They no more mind being wet than they do that the wind
should blow or the sun shine, and as for any ill effect that either
children or grown-ups suffer from the wet, I have yet to see it. Why?
The reasons are clear. In the first place, they have no fear of the
rain. It is not constantly instilled into their minds from childhood
that “they mustn’t get wet, or they’ll take cold,” and girls are not
taught to expect functional disarrangement if they “get their feet
wet.” This has something to do with it, for the effect of the mind upon
the body is far more potent than we yet know.
In the second place, they move about with natural activity in the rain
as at other times. This keeps the blood circulating and prevents any
lowering of the temperature of the body.
In the third place, their general out-of-door life gives them such a
robustness that if there is any tax upon the system it is fully ready
to meet it.
But I am asked, “Would you advocate white people, especially girls
and women, getting wet? Think of their skirts bedraggled in the rain,
and how these wet skirts cling to the ankles and make their wearers
uncomfortable.”
[Illustration: INDIAN KISH IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.]
I have thought a great deal about this, and am not prepared to say
that with our present costume I would advocate women’s going out much
in the rain. But I do say that once in a while they can put on short
skirts and stout shoes and such old clothes as cannot be injured by
getting wet, and then resolutely and boldly sally forth into the rain,
and the harder it comes down the better, if it be warm weather. Then
let them learn to enjoy the pattering of the rain upon cheeks and ears.
Let them hold out their hands and feel the soft and gentle caresses of
the “high-born, noble rain.” Let them watch the drops as they spatter
on the leaves and trickle down the stems, gathering volume and speed
as they reach the bole and fall to the ground, there to give life and
nourishment to the whole plant. Everything in Nature loves to be out
in the rain. How fresh and bright the trees look after a shower! How
the rocks are cleansed and made bright and shining! How their color
comes vividly out in the rain! And upon human beings the effect is
the same, provided they value health and vigor more than they mind a
little discomfort in the bedragglement of their clothes. Years ago I
learned this lesson. I was riding from the line of the railway, over
the Painted Desert, with several Havasupai Indians. It was the rainy
season. Showers fell half a dozen times a day. At first I wished I had
an umbrella. I got wet through, and so did the Indians. I thought I
ought to feel wretched and miserable, but somehow the Indians were as
bright and cheerful as ever, so I plucked up heart and courage, and in
half an hour my clothes were dry again. Four or five times that day and
an equal number the next day, I got wet through and dry again. Riding
horseback kept me warm, and the quick and healthful circulation of the
blood, the active deep breathing caused by the exercise, the absence of
fear in the soul, all combined to make the wetting a benefit instead of
an injury.
My friend W. W. Bass, of the Grand Canyon of Arizona, with whom I have
made many trips in that Wonderland region, tells with great gusto a
true story of my riding over the desert on one occasion, clothed in one
of the old-fashioned linen dusters that reached below my knees. It was
warm weather, and dusty on the railway, hence the duster, I suppose.
But when we got fairly out on the desert it began to rain, and how
it did pour! It came down so rapidly that by and by my pockets were
full of water, and Bass says that when he overtook me, I was jogging
along, singing at the top of my voice (just as the mocking-bird did),
the water splashing out of my pockets as I bounced up and down in the
saddle. The linen duster clung to the sides and back of the horse, and
wrapped itself around my legs so that the picture was comical in the
extreme. But I was happy, and refused to feel any discomfort, and so
got joy out of the experience, as well as health and vigor. For let it
be remembered that when I came from England, twenty-five years ago, I
came as an invalid, broken down in health completely; so much so that I
was even forbidden to read a book for a whole year. Now few men are as
healthy as I. Years of association with the Indian, learning simplicity
and naturalness of him, have aided materially in making the change. I
have learned the value of putting the primary things first. I used to
be so “nice” and “finnicky” that the idea of having my clothes wet
would give me a small panic. “They would get out of shape and look
badly, and have to be pressed before I could wear them again.” But when
I came to the conclusion that I was worth more than clothes, that my
health was of more importance than a crease in my trousers, I found I
was taking hold of a principle which, while it might at times seem to
be rough on my clothing, would have a decidedly beneficial influence on
myself.
And this leads to another important lesson we may learn from the
Indian. He is not as “nice” sometimes as I wish he were, but we are far
too nice, often, for health and comfort. Many a woman ruins her health
by wrecking her nerves, drives her husband distracted, worries and
annoys her children, by being too nice in her house. I have found, in
New England and elsewhere,--aye, even in Old England,--women who valued
a clean house more than they valued their own lives, the happiness of
their children, and the comfort of their husbands. Indeed, in one case
I well remember a woman drove her husband into temporary insanity, and
finally into ignominious flight away from her, by her eternal washing
of floors, shaking of carpets, polishing of furniture, and dusting
down. Every time the poor fellow went in from the workshop he must
change his clothes. If he came in from the outside he must take off his
shoes before he entered the door. If he put his warm hand down on the
polished table he was rebuked, for his wife at once got up, fetched
her chamois leather and rubbed off the offending marks. Poor, wretched
woman, and equally poor, wretched man! No wonder he went crazy, and
finally lost his manhood and ran away.
I know this is an extreme case. But I vouch for its strict truth.
And there are thousands of women (and men too, for that matter) who
are afflicted in a serious measure with the same disease. In that
home where niceness is valued more than health and comfort and work
in life, there lurks serious danger. Go to the Indian, and while I do
not suggest that you lose all niceness by any means, seek to learn
some of his philosophy and place primary things first. First, health,
happiness, comfort, peace, contentment, love; _then_ these other things.
[Illustration: HOPI CHILDREN ENJOYING THEIR DAILY SPORT ON THE BACK OF
A BURRO.]
I’m going to make a confession that I am afraid will bring me into
sad repute with some of my readers. When my first boy was born,
we were naturally very proud of him. As he grew out of his baby
clothes we liked to see him look nice and neat and clean. He must be
a pretty little cherub, dressed in white and have the manners of a
Little Lord Fauntleroy. Then I came to the conclusion that we were
valuing “niceness” more than the healthy development of the child.
I remonstrated and urged a change but to no effect, so I resolved
on a _coup d’état_. One morning after the youngster was dressed up
in his white bib and tucker, and as uncomfortable and unhappy as
any and all healthy children feel at such treatment, I took him by
the hand and led him out of doors and out of sight of all watchful
eyes, where there was plenty of mud and plenty of water. In half an
hour his changed appearance was a marvel. We started a little stream
of water, which we then dammed. We made mud pies, and I helped him
mix the “dough” in his apron. We reveled in mud from top to toe. I
rolled him in it, so that back was as vividly marked as front. Not a
remnant of niceness was left in him. We went home happy and contented,
laughing and merry, but bedaubed and beplastered everywhere. We had had
such a good time. And it was such fun going out with father. We were
going again to-morrow and the next day and the next. And so we did.
It needed no words, no argument. It did not take long to get two or
three suits of brown canvas or blue denim, and the youngster grew up
healthy, happy, vigorous, strong, tough, and often dirty, rather than
anæmic, miserable, dyspeptic, weak and ailing, and _nice_. There would
be far less demand for children’s tombstones, surmounted with marble
angels and inscribed with wretched doggerel, if mothers valued health
rather than niceness, vigor before primness, and strength immaculate
rather than bibs and aprons. So I say, let us not be over-nice. And
especially let us not train our children to value clean hands and
clothes more than the rugged health that comes from contact with the
soil in out-of-door employments. I find one can enjoy Homer, and
Browning, Dante, and Shakspere, all the better because his body is
vigorous and strong, his brain clear, and his mind active as the result
of rough-and-tumble mountain climbing, desert tramping or riding, and
walking on canyon trails.
Another result of this frank and fearless acceptance of out-of-door
conditions is manifested in a readiness to meet difficulties that
over-niceness is disinclined to touch. Let me illustrate. Two or three
months ago I made a journey with two Yuma Indians and four white men
down the overflow of the Colorado River to the Salton Sea. We were
warned beforehand that it would be “an awfully hard trip.” We were told
that it was “hell boiled down” to try to go through certain places. The
river for ten or twelve miles left its bed and ran wild over a vast
tract of land covered with a mesquite forest. Mesquite is a fairly
dense tree growth covered with strong and piercing thorns. When we
came to this place we had to cut our way through the thorny thicket,
and our faces, hands, and bodies all suffered with fierce scratchings
and thorn-pricks. Several times we stuck fast, and there was nothing
for it but to jump out into the water with ax in hand and cut away the
obstructions or lift over the boat. My Indian, Jim, though dignified
and serene, as I shall fully explain elsewhere, had the promptness
that over-niceness destroys. He was out over the side of the boat as
quickly as I was, ready for the hard and disagreeable work. Had I
been “nicely” dressed, and “nice” about the feeling of water up to my
middle, too “nice” to wade for hours, sinking into quicksands, in order
to find the best passage for the boats, we should have been there yet.
We cut down three mesquite trees, under water, in order to get our
boats over the stumps. We forced our way through tall and dense arrow
weeds, one in front and the other behind the boat, lifting and forcing,
pulling and pushing. It was not “nice” work, but it was invigorating,
stimulating, and soul-developing.
[Illustration: IN THE MESQUITE FOREST ON OUR WAY TO THE SALTON SEA.]
The other day I went photographing on the Salton Sea. When the launch
stopped twenty feet from the island covered with pelicans, where I
wished to make photographs, I shouldered my camera, stepped out into
the water, which came up to my thighs, and walked ashore. The engineer
wondered. Why should he? Had I waited, the pelicans would have flown
away. Speed was necessary. “Niceness” would have prevented my getting
what I went for. When I stand on the lecture platform, or in the
pulpit, or in the drawing-room; when I meet ladies in the parlor and
go with them for an automobile ride, I dress as neatly as I can afford,
and endeavor to look “nice;” but when I go into my garden to work, I
put on blue overalls, a flannel shirt, and a pair of heavy shoes, and I
try not to be nice. I roll around in the dirt, I feel it with my hands,
I revel in it, for thus, I find, do I gain healthful enjoyment for
body, mind, and soul. I owe many things to the Indian, but few things
I am more grateful for than that he taught me how to value important
things more than “looking neat” and being “nice.”