It is to be feared that the hero of this chronicle began life as an
impostor. He was offered to the credulous and sympathetic family of a
San Francisco citizen as a lamb, who, unless bought as a playmate
for the children, would inevitably pass into the butcher's hands.
A combination of refined sensibility and urban ignorance of nature
prevented them from discerning certain glaring facts that betrayed his
caprid origin. So a ribbon was duly tied round his neck, and in pleasing
emulation of the legendary “Mary,” he was taken to school by the
confiding children. Here, alas the fraud was discovered, and history was
reversed by his being turned out by the teacher, because he was NOT “a
lamb at school.” Nevertheless, the kind-hearted mother of the family
persisted in retaining him, on the plea that he might yet become
“useful.” To her husband's feeble suggestion of “gloves,” she returned
a scornful negative, and spoke of the weakly infant of a neighbor, who
might later receive nourishment from this providential animal. But even
this hope was destroyed by the eventual discovery of his sex. Nothing
remained now but to accept him as an ordinary kid, and to find amusement
in his accomplishments,--eating, climbing, and butting. It must be
confessed that these were of a superior quality; a capacity to eat
everything from a cambric handkerchief to an election poster, an
agility which brought him even to the roofs of houses, and a power of
overturning by a single push the chubbiest child who opposed him, made
him a fearful joy to the nursery. This last quality was incautiously
developed in him by a negro boy-servant, who, later, was hurriedly
propelled down a flight of stairs by his too proficient scholar.
Having once tasted victory, “Billy” needed no further incitement to his
performances. The small wagon which he sometimes consented to draw for
the benefit of the children never hindered his attempts to butt the
passer-by. On the contrary, on well-known scientific principles he added
the impact of the bodies of the children projected over his head in his
charge, and the infelicitous pedestrian found himself not only knocked
off his legs by Billy, but bombarded by the whole nursery.
Delightful as was this recreation to juvenile limbs, it was felt to be
dangerous to the adult public. Indignant protestations were made, and
as Billy could not be kept in the house, he may be said to have at
last butted himself out of that sympathetic family and into a hard and
unfeeling world. One morning he broke his tether in the small back yard.
For several days thereafter he displayed himself in guilty freedom on
the tops of adjacent walls and outhouses. The San Francisco suburb
where his credulous protectors lived was still in a volcanic state
of disruption, caused by the grading of new streets through rocks and
sandhills. In consequence the roofs of some houses were on the level
of the doorsteps of others, and were especially adapted to Billy's
performances. One afternoon, to the admiring and perplexed eyes of the
nursery, he was discovered standing on the apex of a neighbor's new
Elizabethan chimney, on a space scarcely larger than the crown of a hat,
calmly surveying the world beneath him. High infantile voices appealed
to him in vain; baby arms were outstretched to him in hopeless
invitation; he remained exalted and obdurate, like Milton's hero,
probably by his own merit “raised to that bad eminence.” Indeed, there
was already something Satanic in his budding horns and pointed mask as
the smoke curled softly around him. Then he appropriately vanished,
and San Francisco knew him no more. At the same time, however, one Owen
M'Ginnis, a neighboring sandhill squatter, also disappeared, leaving San
Francisco for the southern mines, and he was said to have taken Billy
with him,--for no conceivable reason except for companionship. Howbeit,
it was the turning-point of Billy's career; such restraint as kindness,
civilization, or even policemen had exercised upon his nature was gone.
He retained, I fear, a certain wicked intelligence, picked up in San
Francisco with the newspapers and theatrical and election posters he
had consumed. He reappeared at Rocky Canyon among the miners as an
exceedingly agile chamois, with the low cunning of a satyr. That was all
that civilization had done for him!
If Mr. M'Ginnis had fondly conceived that he would make Billy “useful,”
as well as companionable, he was singularly mistaken. Horses and mules
were scarce in Rocky Canyon, and he attempted to utilize Billy by making
him draw a small cart, laden with auriferous earth, from his claim to
the river. Billy, rapidly gaining strength, was quite equal to the task,
but alas! not his inborn propensity. An incautious gesture from the
first passing miner Billy chose to construe into the usual challenge.
Lowering his head, from which his budding horns had been already pruned
by his master, he instantly went for his challenger, cart and all. Again
the scientific law already pointed out prevailed. With the shock of
the onset the entire contents of the cart arose and poured over the
astonished miner, burying him from sight. In any other but a Californian
mining-camp such a propensity in a draught animal would have been
condemned, on account of the damage and suffering it entailed, but in
Rocky Canyon it proved unprofitable to the owner from the very
amusement and interest it excited. Miners lay in wait for Billy with
a “greenhorn,” or new-comer, whom they would put up to challenge the
animal by some indiscreet gesture. In this way hardly a cartload of
“pay-gravel” ever arrived safely at its destination, and the unfortunate
M'Ginnis was compelled to withdraw Billy as a beast of burden. It
was whispered that so great had his propensity become, under repeated
provocation, that M'Ginnis himself was no longer safe. Going ahead
of his cart one day to remove a fallen bough from the trail, Billy
construed the act of stooping into a playful challenge from his
master,--with the inevitable result.
The next day M'Ginnis appeared with a wheelbarrow, but without Billy.
From that day he was relegated to the rocky crags above the camp, from
whence he was only lured occasionally by the mischievous miners, who
wished to exhibit his peculiar performances. For although Billy had
ample food and sustenance among the crags, he had still a civilized
longing for posters; and whenever a circus, a concert, or a political
meeting was “billed” in the settlement, he was on hand while the paste
was yet fresh and succulent. In this way it was averred that he
once removed a gigantic theatre bill setting forth the charms of the
“Sacramento Pet,” and being caught in the act by the advance agent, was
pursued through the main street, carrying the damp bill on his horns,
eventually affixing it, after his own peculiar fashion, on the back of
Judge Boompointer, who was standing in front of his own court-house.
In connection with the visits of this young lady another story
concerning Billy survives in the legends of Rocky Canyon. Colonel
Starbottle was at that time passing through the settlement on election
business, and it was part of his chivalrous admiration for the sex to
pay a visit to the pretty actress. The single waiting-room of the little
hotel gave upon the veranda, which was also level with the street. After
a brief yet gallant interview, in which he oratorically expressed
the gratitude of the settlement with old-fashioned Southern courtesy,
Colonel Starbottle lifted the chubby little hand of the “Pet” to his
lips, and, with a low bow, backed out upon the veranda. But the Pet was
astounded by his instant reappearance, and by his apparently casting
himself passionately and hurriedly at her feet! It is needless to say
that he was followed closely by Billy, who from the street had casually
noticed him, and construed his novel exit into an ungentlemanly
challenge.
Billy's visits, however, became less frequent, and as Rocky Canyon
underwent the changes incidental to mining settlements, he was presently
forgotten in the invasion of a few Southwestern families, and the
adoption of amusements less practical and turbulent than he had
afforded. It was alleged that he was still seen in the more secluded
fastnesses of the mountains, having reverted to a wild state, and it was
suggested by one or two of the more adventurous that he might yet become
edible, and a fair object of chase. A traveler through the Upper Pass of
the canyon related how he had seen a savage-looking, hairy animal like
a small elk perched upon inaccessible rocks, but always out of gunshot.
But these and other legends were set at naught and overthrown by an
unexpected incident.
The Pioneer Coach was toiling up the long grade towards Skinners Pass
when Yuba Bill suddenly pulled up, with his feet on the brake.
“Jimminy!” he ejaculated, drawing a deep breath.
The startled passenger beside him on the box followed the direction of
his eyes. Through an opening in the wayside pines he could see, a few
hundred yards away, a cuplike hollow in the hillside of the vividest
green. In the centre a young girl of fifteen or sixteen was dancing and
keeping step to the castanet “click” of a pair of “bones,” such as negro
minstrels use, held in her hands above her head. But, more singular
still, a few paces before her a large goat, with its neck roughly
wreathed with flowers and vines, was taking ungainly bounds and leaps
in imitation of its companion. The wild background of the Sierras, the
pastoral hollow, the incongruousness of the figures, and the vivid color
of the girl's red flannel petticoat showing beneath her calico skirt,
that had been pinned around her waist, made a striking picture, which
by this time had attracted all eyes. Perhaps the dancing of the girl
suggested a negro “break-down” rather than any known sylvan measure; but
all this, and even the clatter of the bones, was made gracious by the
distance.
“Esmeralda! by the living Harry!” shouted the excited passenger on the
box.
Yuba Bill took his feet off the brake, and turned a look of deep scorn
upon his companion as he gathered the reins again.
“It's that blanked goat, outer Rocky Canyon beyond, and Polly Harkness!
How did she ever come to take up with HIM?”
Nevertheless, as soon as the coach reached Rocky Canyon, the story was
quickly told by the passengers, corroborated by Yuba Bill, and highly
colored by the observer on the box-seat. Harkness was known to be a
new-comer who lived with his wife and only daughter on the other side of
Skinners Pass. He was a “logger” and charcoal-burner, who had eaten his
way into the serried ranks of pines below the pass, and established in
these efforts an almost insurmountable cordon of fallen trees, stripped
bark, and charcoal pits around the clearing where his rude log
hut stood,--which kept his seclusion unbroken. He was said to be a
half-savage mountaineer from Georgia, in whose rude fastnesses he had
distilled unlawful whiskey, and that his tastes and habits unfitted him
for civilization. His wife chewed and smoked; he was believed to make a
fiery brew of his own from acorns and pine nuts; he seldom came to Rocky
Canyon except for provisions; his logs were slipped down a “shoot” or
slide to the river, where they voyaged once a month to a distant mill,
but HE did not accompany them. The daughter, seldom seen at Rocky
Canyon, was a half-grown girl, brown as autumn fern, wild-eyed,
disheveled, in a homespun skirt, sunbonnet, and boy's brogans. Such were
the plain facts which skeptical Rocky Canyon opposed to the passengers'
legends. Nevertheless, some of the younger miners found it not out of
their way to go over Skinners Pass on the journey to the river, but with
what success was not told. It was said, however, that a celebrated New
York artist, making a tour of California, was on the coach one day going
through the pass, and preserved the memory of what he saw there in a
well-known picture entitled “Dancing Nymph and Satyr,” said by competent
critics to be “replete with the study of Greek life.” This did not
affect Rocky Canyon, where the study of mythology was presumably
displaced by an experience of more wonderful flesh-and-blood people, but
later it was remembered with some significance.
Among the improvements already noted, a zinc and wooden chapel had been
erected in the main street, where a certain popular revivalist preacher
of a peculiar Southwestern sect regularly held exhortatory services. His
rude emotional power over his ignorant fellow-sectarians was well known,
while curiosity drew others. His effect upon the females of his flock
was hysterical and sensational. Women prematurely aged by frontier
drudgery and child-bearing, girls who had known only the rigors and
pains of a half-equipped, ill-nourished youth in their battling with the
hard realities of nature around them, all found a strange fascination in
the extravagant glories and privileges of the unseen world he pictured
to them, which they might have found in the fairy tales and nursery
legends of civilized children, had they known them. Personally he was
not attractive; his thin pointed face, and bushy hair rising on
either side of his square forehead in two rounded knots, and his long,
straggling, wiry beard dropping from a strong neck and shoulders,
were indeed of a common Southwestern type; yet in him they suggested
something more. This was voiced by a miner who attended his first
service, and as the Reverend Mr. Withholder rose in the pulpit, the
former was heard to audibly ejaculate, “Dod blasted!--if it ain't
Billy!” But when on the following Sunday, to everybody's astonishment,
Polly Harkness, in a new white muslin frock and broad-brimmed Leghorn
hat, appeared before the church door with the real Billy, and exchanged
conversation with the preacher, the likeness was appalling.
I grieve to say that the goat was at once christened by Rocky Canyon as
“The Reverend Billy,” and the minister himself was Billy's “brother.”
More than that, when an attempt was made by outsiders, during
the service, to inveigle the tethered goat into his old butting
performances, and he took not the least notice of their insults and
challenges, the epithet “blanked hypocrite” was added to his title.
Had he really reformed? Had his pastoral life with his nymph-like
mistress completely cured him of his pugnacious propensity, or had
he simply found it was inconsistent with his dancing, and seriously
interfered with his “fancy steps”? Had he found tracts and hymn-books
were as edible as theatre posters? These were questions that Rocky
canyon discussed lightly, although there was always the more serious
mystery of the relations of the Reverend Mr. Withholder, Polly Harkness,
and the goat towards each other. The appearance of Polly at church was
no doubt due to the minister's active canvass of the districts. But had
he ever heard of Polly's dancing with the goat? And where in this plain,
angular, badly dressed Polly was hidden that beautiful vision of the
dancing nymph which had enthralled so many? And when had Billy ever
given any suggestion of his Terpsichorean abilities--before or since?
Were there any “points” of the kind to be discerned in him now? None!
Was it not more probable that the Reverend Mr. Withholder had himself
been dancing with Polly, and been mistaken for the goat? Passengers who
could have been so deceived with regard to Polly's beauty might have as
easily mistaken the minister for Billy. About this time another incident
occurred which increased the mystery.
The only male in the settlement who apparently dissented from the
popular opinion regarding Polly was a new-comer, Jack Filgee. While
discrediting her performance with the goat,--which he had never
seen,--he was evidently greatly prepossessed with the girl herself.
Unfortunately, he was equally addicted to drinking, and as he was
exceedingly shy and timid when sober, and quite unpresentable at other
times, his wooing, if it could be so called, progressed but slowly.
Yet when he found that Polly went to church, he listened so far to the
exhortations of the Reverend Mr. Withholder as to promise to come
to “Bible class” immediately after the Sunday service. It was a hot
afternoon, and Jack, who had kept sober for two days, incautiously
fortified himself for the ordeal by taking a drink before arriving. He
was nervously early, and immediately took a seat in the empty church
near the open door. The quiet of the building, the drowsy buzzing of
flies, and perhaps the soporific effect of the liquor caused his eyes
to close and his head to fall forward on his breast repeatedly. He
was recovering himself for the fourth time when he suddenly received a
violent cuff on the ear, and was knocked backward off the bench on which
he was sitting. That was all he knew.
He picked himself up with a certain dignity, partly new to him, and
partly the result of his condition, and staggered, somewhat bruised and
disheveled, to the nearest saloon. Here a few frequenters who had
seen him pass, who knew his errand and the devotion to Polly which had
induced it, exhibited a natural concern.
“How's things down at the gospel shop?” said one. “Look as ef you'd been
wrastlin' with the Sperit, Jack!”
“Old man must hev exhorted pow'ful,” said another, glancing at his
disordered Sunday attire.
“Ain't be'n hevin' a row with Polly? I'm told she slings an awful left.”
Jack, instead of replying, poured out a dram of whiskey, drank it,
and putting down his glass, leaned heavily against the counter as he
surveyed his questioners with a sorrow chastened by reproachful dignity.
“I'm a stranger here, gentlemen,” he said slowly “ye've known me only a
little; but ez ye've seen me both blind drunk and sober, I reckon ye've
caught on to my gin'ral gait! Now I wanter put it to you, ez fair-minded
men, ef you ever saw me strike a parson?”
“No,” said a chorus of sympathetic voices. The barkeeper, however, with
a swift recollection of Polly and the Reverend Withholder, and some
possible contingent jealousy in Jack, added prudently, “Not yet.”
The chorus instantly added reflectively, “Well, no not yet.”
“Did ye ever,” continued Jack solemnly, “know me to cuss, sass,
bully-rag, or say anything agin parsons, or the church?”
“No,” said the crowd, overthrowing prudence in curiosity, “ye never
did,--we swear it! And now, what's up?”
“I ain't what you call 'a member in good standin','” he went on,
artistically protracting his climax. “I ain't be'n convicted o' sin;
I ain't 'a meek an' lowly follower;' I ain't be'n exactly what I orter
be'n; I hevn't lived anywhere up to my lights; but is thet a reason why
a parson should strike me?”
“Why? What? When did he? Who did?” asked the eager crowd, with one
voice.
Jack then painfully related how he had been invited by the Reverend
Mr. Withholder to attend the Bible class. How he had arrived early,
and found the church empty. How he had taken a seat near the door to
be handy when the parson came. How he just felt “kinder kam and good,”
listenin' to the flies buzzing, and must have fallen asleep,--only he
pulled himself up every time,--though, after all, it warn't no crime to
fall asleep in an empty church! How “all of a suddent” the parson came
in, “give him a clip side o' the head,” and knocked him off the bench,
and left him there!
“But what did he SAY?” queried the crowd.
“Nuthin'. Afore I could get up, he got away.”
“Are you sure it was him?” they asked. “You know you SAY you was
asleep.”
“Am I sure?” repeated Jack scornfully. “Don't I know thet face and
beard? Didn't I feel it hangin' over me?”
“What are you going to do about it?” continued the crowd eagerly.
“Wait till he comes out--and you'll see,” said Jack, with dignity.
This was enough for the crowd; they gathered excitedly at the door,
where Jack was already standing, looking towards the church. The moments
dragged slowly; it might be a long meeting. Suddenly the church door
opened and a figure appeared, looking up and down the street. Jack
colored--he recognized Polly--and stepped out into the road. The crowd
delicately, but somewhat disappointedly, drew back in the saloon. They
did not care to interfere in THAT sort of thing.
Polly saw him, and came hurriedly towards him. She was holding something
in her hand.
“I picked this up on the church floor,” she said shyly, “so I reckoned
you HAD be'n there,--though the parson said you hadn't,--and I just
excused myself and ran out to give it ye. It's yourn, ain't it?”
She held up a gold specimen pin, which he had put on in honor of the
occasion. “I had a harder time, though, to git this yer,--it's yourn
too,--for Billy was laying down in the yard, back o' the church, and
just comf'bly swallerin' it.”
“Who?” said Jack quickly.
“Billy,--my goat.”
Jack drew a long breath, and glanced back at the saloon. “Ye ain't goin'
back to class now, are ye?” he said hurriedly. “Ef you ain't, I'll--I'll
see ye home.”
“I don't mind,” said Polly demurely, “if it ain't takin' ye outer y'ur
way.”
Jack offered his arm, and hurrying past the saloon, the happy pair were
soon on the road to Skinners Pass.
Jack did not, I regret to say, confess his blunder, but left the
Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of having committed an
unprovoked assault and battery. It was characteristic of Rocky Canyon,
however, that this suspicion, far from injuring his clerical reputation,
incited a respect that had been hitherto denied him. A man who could
hit out straight from the shoulder had, in the language of the critics,
“suthin' in him.” Oddly enough, the crowd that had at first sympathized
with Jack now began to admit provocations. His subsequent silence, a
disposition when questioned on the subject to smile inanely, and, later,
when insidiously asked if he had ever seen Polly dancing with the goat,
his bursting into uproarious laughter completely turned the current of
opinion against him. The public mind, however, soon became engrossed by
a more interesting incident.
The Reverend Mr. Withholder had organized a series of Biblical tableaux
at Skinnerstown for the benefit of his church. Illustrations were to be
given of “Rebecca at the Well,” “The Finding of Moses,” “Joseph and
his Brethren;” but Rocky Canyon was more particularly excited by the
announcement that Polly Harkness would personate “Jephthah's Daughter.”
On the evening of the performance, however, it was found that this
tableau had been withdrawn and another substituted, for reasons not
given. Rocky Canyon, naturally indignant at this omission to represent
native talent, indulged in a hundred wild surmises. But it was generally
believed that Jack Filgee's revengeful animosity to the Reverend Mr.
Withholder was at the bottom of it. Jack, as usual, smiled inanely, but
nothing was to be got from him. It was not until a few days later, when
another incident crowned the climax of these mysteries, that a full
disclosure came from his lips.
One morning a flaming poster was displayed at Rocky Canyon, with a
charming picture of the “Sacramento Pet” in the briefest of skirts,
disporting with a tambourine before a goat garlanded with flowers, who
bore, however, an undoubted likeness to Billy. The text in enormous
letters, and bristling with points of admiration, stated that the “Pet”
would appear as “Esmeralda,” assisted by a performing goat, especially
trained by the gifted actress. The goat would dance, play cards, and
perform those tricks of magic familiar to the readers of Victor Hugo's
beautiful story of the “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and finally knock
down and overthrow the designing seducer, Captain Phoebus. The marvelous
spectacle would be produced under the patronage of the Hon. Colonel
Starbottle and the Mayor of Skinnerstown.
As all Rocky Canyon gathered open-mouthed around the poster, Jack
demurely joined the group. Every eye was turned upon him.