EXPOUNDING THE SCRIPTURES
I wonder how many persons live in Jesse's body? On the surface he is the
rugged whimsical stockman, lazy, with such powers in reserve as would
equip a first-class volcano. Sing to him and another Jesse emerges, an
inarticulate poet, a craftless artist, an illiterate writer, passionate
lover of all things beautiful in art and nature. And beneath all that is
Jesse of the Sabbath, in bleak righteousness and harsh respectability,
scion of many Smiths, the God-fearing head of his house, who reads and
expounds the Scriptures on Sunday evenings to sullen Billy, the morose
widow, and my unworthy self. Hear him expound in the vindictive mood:--
"When I survey the pasture in these here back blocks of Genesis, I know
we got to make allowances. These patriarchs is only sheepmen anyhow, and
sheep herders is trash. They're not what we call white men, but Jews,
which is a species of dago. When they get religion they're a sort
Mormons, a low-lived breed, yet useful for throwing population quick
into a lonesome country where they don't seem popular.
"Now here's Laban. He hasn't got religion, but keeps a trunk full of
no-account gods, believed in by ignorant persons. Instead of attending
to business, he trusts his foreman Jacob, so it serves him right if he's
robbed. Yet the Lord ain't down on him quite so much as you'd think, for
he's allowed to graze government land, with no taxes, mortgage, or
railroads to rob the meat off his bones. Maybe the Lord's sort of sorry
for the poor sheep-herding dago without no horses--the same being good
for men's morals, though Jones did kick me out of the stable this very
morning. Moreover, Laban lives in a scope of country where men is surely
scarce, or he'd never give more'n one of his daughters to such a swine
as Jacob. Laban tries to be white, so he'd get my vote at elections.
"You'd think that if the Lord could stand Jacob He must be plumb full of
mercy--so there's hope for skunks. He's got so many millions of
thoroughbred stud angels that even the best of men is low grade stock
to Him. And regarding us mavericks, He has an eye on them as takes
kindly to their feed. Yes, He claps His brand on them as know their
work.
"So He sees Jacob is a sure glutton, and more, a great stockman,
projucing an improved strain of ringstraked goats and sheep. And Jacob
does his duty to his country, begetting twelve sons--mean as snakes but
still the best he can raise. Yes, there's excuses for Jacob, and
lynching ain't yet invented.
"Jacob throws dirt in old man Laban's face, then skins out for his own
reservation. On this trail he's got to cross Esau's ranch--the first man
he ever swindled. Just you watch him, abject as a yaller dawg, squirming
and writhing and crawling to meet the only gentleman in that country.
You or me, Billy, would have kicked Jacob good and plenty, but we're
only scrub cow-boys, and that's what the Bible instructs.
"The mean trash agrees to keep off Laban's grass; he puts up bribes to
Esau; he plays his skin game on the folks at Succoth, which I explain
because there's ladies present, and the only comfort is that the angel
of the Lord has sized him up, being due to twist his tail in next
Sunday's chapter. Now let us get through praying, quick as the Lord
will let us, because them calves ain't had their buttermilk."
When we knelt, the widow still sat rigid, and with her wooden leg
scratched out upon the oil-cloth vague outlines of a gallows. Afterward
she explained. "Yer husband, Mrs. Smith, bad cess to him, is mighty
proud av his spectacles, phwat he can't see through and all, and showing
off his learning and pride av a Sunday."
"But why draw gallows on the floor?"
"And why for should I not draw gallows on the flure, seeing he'll never
drown? It's hung he'll be for a opprissing the fatherless and the widow,
and burn he will afther for a Protestant. Yis," she flashed round on her
son, "feed buttermilk to thim calves, and hould up yer head _alladh_,
'cause you inherit glory while he's frying!"
Away from the widow's hate and her son's vengeance, I led my man out
under the stars. I gave him his cigar, that black explosive charged with
deadly fumes, lighted him a sulphur match. It soothes his passions, and
the pasture scent makes him gentle, but when I fear my grizzly bear, and
hardly dare to stroke, I lead him by the keen silver spring, across the
hollow where our flowers would make a devil smile, and on through the
wild rose tangle, to my cathedral pines. To-night he seemed suspicious,
even there, biting off tags of the vindictive Psalms. Nor would he sit
under the father tree until I sang to him.
"When Faith's low doorway leads into the church,
Light from austere saints mellows dusty gloom,
Sad music echoes in the stony heavens,
And this bleak pavement masks a charnel hell.
Yet in man's likeness God makes Pain divine
And here Truth's dawn breaks upwards towards the Light.
Come to the hill-top: blackbird choristers
Peal their clear anthem to the kneeling gorse;
The old trees pray, their thirsty faces rapt,
While congregations of great angel clouds
Receive the holy Sacramental Light
From God's high priest, the ministering Sun!"
"What do you want?" asked Jesse, all the rancor gone.
"Jesse, do you know that it's nearly a year since we married?"
"Ten months, Kate, and fourteen days. Do you think I don't reckon?"
I sat down on the root of the little governess tree, the humblest in the
grove. "In the Bible, dear, who was the son of Jesse?"
"David, of course."
"Do you remember, dear: 'for I have provided a king among his sons'?"
He looked away across the thundrous misty depths of the canyon, and the
moonlight caught his profile as though it were etched in silver. "A
mighty valiant man," he whispered, "prudent in matters, and a man of
war."
"Jesse, I've got such a confession to make. When you settled Mr.
Trevor's estate--"
"His estates were debts, and we paid 'em. There ain't no need to fuss."
"You paid the debts. You were hard driven to meet the interest on your
mortgage."
"That's paid off now. Besides we've a clear title to our land, mother's
gravestone's off my chest, we don't owe a cent in the world, and there's
nary a worry left, except I'm sort of sorry for them poor robbers. Why
fuss?"
"You earned six thousand dollars, at goodness knows what peril. I let
you still imagine that you were poor."
"We got plenty wealth, Kate, wealth enough for--for David."
"I wanted you, Jesse, just you, I wanted poverty because you were poor.
I have been content, and now you've won the capital to free the ranch,
to buy a thoroughbred stallion, to stock the place."
"That's so."
"Jesse, under my dear father's will, I have seven thousand five hundred
dollars a year."
"A _what_!"
"I'm a rich woman, dear. I've been saving my income, and there's ten
thousand dollars for you at the bank."
So I gave him my check, which he receipted promptly with a kiss. He is
so rough, too.
Then we discussed improvements. A bunch of East Oregon horses, three
cow-boys to handle our stock, a man to run the Sky-line contract, an
irrigated corn field, and winter feed, two Chinese servants, so many
'must haves' that we waxed quite despondent over ways and means. Jesse
must go to Vancouver on business, and thus after much preamble I came at
last to the point.
"Take Billy with you."
"But if I go, he's got to look after the ranch."
Men are so stupid. When I sing to my dear bull pines, they breathe a
swaying thin echo like some distant chorus; yet at the sight of Jesse,
become impassive as red Indian chiefs. How could I tell such a man of
peril? The widow understands, and no sacrifice is too great for a
mother.
"You preach at Billy," I said, "you pray at him. Remember he's wild as
these woods, son of a dangerous felon. His mother goads him on, and
there's danger, Jesse."
I knew while I spoke the folly of appealing to any sense of fear. He
chuckled softly.
"Why, Billy daresn't say good morning to my pinto colt. He was bucking
plentiful to-day, and me spitting blood before I got him conquered. Now
just you leave me to tame colts and cow-boys. I propose to rub old man
Jacob into Billy by way of liniment until he supples, yes, and works.
Dreams earn no grub."
"Take him away, Jesse, dear."
"He bin making love to you, Kate?"
My heart stood still, and to my jealous husband silence means consent.
Two bats came darkly by, with a business manner, having perhaps an
appointment with some field mouse. Then the hypocrite in me sighed, and
Jesse flinging away his cigar stub, said with an oath that Billy should
be on his way to Vancouver by daybreak.
Yes, Jesse is hard to manage, but presently he remembered about the
check, which made him for the first time in his life feel rich. He's too
rough when I let him love me. Indeed I had to do up my hair in the dark,
though the fireflies offered the dearest little lamps. Besides a little
jealousy is good for Jesse. I should not like to see his love go hungry.
III
Last night Jesse came home from Vancouver, and it being Sunday evening,
he read and expounded the Scriptures to the amazement of the three new
ranch-hands. The Chinamen, being heathens, were let off.
"Not being wise in the ways of high society, I ain't free to comment on
Mrs. Potiphar, who kep' a steward instead of doing her job as
housekeeper, or on this General Sir Something Potiphar, C.O.D., C.P.R.,
H.B.C., P.D.Q., commanding the Haw-Haw Guards, who seems to neglect his
missus. As a plain stockman I pursues after Joseph."
By this time three godless cow-punchers, crimson with suppressed
emotions, were digging one another fiercely in the ribs.
"This here Joseph is a sheep-herding swine from the desert, smooth
because he's been brung up among range animals, but mean because he's
raised for a pet by Jacob, the champion stinker of the wild west."
At that Pete exploded, and had to retire in convulsions, while the other
two infants reproached him for interruption.
"Smooth and mean is Joseph, a cream-laid young person like Pete, who's
going to have black draft to heal his cough before morning. Joseph is
all deportment and sad eyes, with a crossed-in-love droop. His brothers
is mean so far as they knows how without reading newspapers, but even
they can't stand Joseph. General and Mrs. Potiphar don't seem to like
his perfume. When he's in jail he's steward, so that the other prisoners
has dreams of grub but nary a meal till he goes.
"I dunno, but if I was a self-made man, I'd hate to have my
autobiography wrote by my poor relations, or the backers I'd cheated and
left on my trail to Fifth Avenue. Them brethren, the Potiphar outfit,
and the jailbirds, is plumb full of grief that they ever seen this
Joseph, and you'll notice that when he dies, the Egyptians don't
subscribe for a monument. He's a city man, a financier, and the Lord is
with him, watching his natural history, this being the first warning of
the plagues of Egypt.
"Thar's only one man as can afford to know the Honorable Joseph. Pharaoh
has an ax, so any gent caught with more'n four aces, is apt to fade away
out of Egypt. Yes, he can afford to know Joseph, and they're birds of a
feather all right.
"Now horses is so scarce that up to now there ain't one in the Bible,
until Pharaoh loans Joseph his second-best chariot, and gives him a sure
fine sleigh-robe to go buggy riding.
"And Jews is scarce. This Pharaoh is the first king to get a Jew
financier to do his graft.
"It ain't the king who pays for that corner in wheat, and you can bet
your socks it's not Joseph. It's the bleeding, sweating, hungry
Egyptians who pays the wheat trust which makes Pharaoh and Joseph
multimillionaires. So there on the high lonesome is the Jew and His
Majesty, with no club of millionaires to tell them they done right, and
nobody in all Egypt left to swindle.
"Old Pharaoh's in a museum now, Joseph is located at Chicago, Egypt is
sand-rock desert; but God's in His Heaven, and judging by the way us
human beings behave, them golden pavements ain't got crowded yet.
"Oh, Lord, Thou knowest that we who ride herd in Thy pastures, haven't
got much to be selfish about on earth. We cayn't make dollars out of Thy
golden sunshine, or currency bills out of Thy silver streams, but all
the same, deliver us from selfishness, and lead us not into the
temptations of a large account at the bank, 'cause we're only kids when
we gets down to civilization, and all our ways is muddy so soon as we
quit Thy grass."
The cow-boys slipped away, no longer hilarious, perhaps even a little
awed, for Jesse's quaint observances are spray from a sea, sparkling on
the surface, but in its depths profound. And we two women waited, the
widow longing for news about her son, while I was concerned for my man.
Hard, bitter, sinister the sermon, humble and reverent the appeal for
help, and now when the men had left us, Jesse remained in prayer. Almost
with tears he pleaded for widows and fatherless children, until my
servant's austere face became quite gentle, and she was able to hobble
off to her bed feeling that all was well.
The night being cold, Jesse had his cigar beside the stove, while I sat
on the low stool so that the fumes might rise above my unworthy head.
"The widow believes," I said, "that her boy will get rich in the city."
"I got Billy a job."
Jesse's face looked very grave.
"At a grocery," he added.
I sighed for the romantic lad, condemned to an apron behind the counter.
"And the young hawk flew off."
"I'm glad!"
"Ye see it's this way, Kate. He's shying heaps at Ashcroft, the first
town he ever seen, where there's a bit of sidewalk, electric lights, and
waitresses. I had to kiss the fluffy one to show him they don't bite.
"Then thar's the railroad. By that time he's getting worldly, all
'you-can't-fool-me,' and 'not-half-so-slick-as-our-ranch' until we comes
to his first tunnel, and he jumps right out of his skin. After that he
wants everybody to know he's a cow-boy wild and lone, despising the
tenderfoot passengers right through the two hundred and fifty miles to
Vancouver. At the depot he points one ear at the liners in port, and the
other ear at them sky-scraping, six-story business blocks up street. He
feels he'd ought to play wolf, shoot up saloons, and paint the town, but
he's getting scary as cats because there's too many people all at once.
He loses count, thinks there's three horns goes to one steer, and wants
to hold my hand. That's when a motorcar snorts in his ear; a
street-car comes at him ears back, teeth bare, and tail a-waving; and a
lady axes him what time the twelve o'clock train leaves. Then he hears a
band play, and it's too much--he just stampedes for the woods. When I
rounds him up next afternoon, he's just ate a candy store, he's gorged
to the eyes, and trying to make room for ice-cream. The next two days
Billy's close-herded, and fed high to give his mind a rest. He seen the
sea, pawed the wet of it, snuffed the big smell--yes, and the boy near
crying. Town men who can't smell, or see, or hear, or feel with their
hands, would have some trouble understanding what the sea means to a
sort of child like that.
"He's willing to start work as a millionaire, but don't feel no holy
vocation for groceries. So in the end he runs away, out of that
frying-pan into the--wall, the rest ain't clearly known, although the
police has a clue. It seems my wolf cub leads some innocent yearling
astray down by the harbor, said victim being the crimp from a sailors'
boarding-house. To prove he's fierce, Billy has a skinful of mixed
drinks, and this stranger is kind enough to take him to see a beautiful
English bark which is turning loose for Cape Horn. Seems the ship takes
a notion to Billy, and the captain politely axes him to work. He's been
shanghaied."
"This will kill his mother."
"Not if she thinks her son's another Joseph getting rich."
"Oh, it's too awful!"
"Wall, maybe I'm a fool, Kate, but seems to me that this young person
had to be weaned from running after a woman, before he'd any chance to
be a man."