door was opened, and the anxious crowd of men who had already formed
themselves into a queue, entered in single file. Beside the low bunk
or shelf, on which the figure of the mother was starkly outlined below
the blankets stood a pine table. On this a candle-box was placed,
and within it, swathed in staring red flannel, lay the last arrival
at Roaring Camp. Beside the candle-box was placed a hat. Its use was
soon indicated. “Gentlemen,” said Stumpy, with a singular mixture of
authority and _ex officio_ complacency,--“Gentlemen will please pass
in at the front door, round the table, and out at the back door. Them
as wishes to contribute anything toward the orphan will find a hat
handy.” The first man entered with his hat on; he uncovered, however,
as he looked about him, and so, unconsciously, set an example to the
next. In such communities good and bad actions are catching. As the
procession filed in, comments were audible,--criticisms addressed,
perhaps, rather to Stumpy, in the character of showman,--“Is that
him?” “mighty small specimen”; “hasn’t mor’n got the color”; “ain’t
bigger nor a derringer.” The contributions were as characteristic: A
silver tobacco-box; a doubloon; a navy revolver, silver mounted; a gold
specimen; a very beautifully embroidered lady’s handkerchief (from
Oakhurst the gambler); a diamond breastpin; a diamond ring (suggested
by the pin, with the remark from the giver that he “saw that pin and
went two diamonds better”); a slung shot; a Bible (contributor not
detected); a golden spur; a silver teaspoon (the initials, I regret to
say, were not the giver’s); a pair of surgeon’s shears; a lancet; a
Bank of England note for £5; and about $200 in loose gold and silver
coin. During these proceedings Stumpy maintained a silence as impassive
as the dead on his left, a gravity as inscrutable as that of the newly
born on his right. Only one incident occurred to break the monotony
of the curious procession. As Kentuck bent over the candle-box half
curiously, the child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at his
groping finger, and held it fast for a moment. Kentuck looked foolish
and embarrassed. Something like a blush tried to assert itself in his
weather-beaten cheek. “The d--d little cuss!” he said, as he extricated
his finger, with, perhaps, more tenderness and care than he might have
been deemed capable of showing. He held that finger a little apart from
its fellows as he went out, and examined it curiously. The examination
provoked the same original remark in regard to the child. In fact, he
seemed to enjoy repeating it. “He rastled with my finger,” he remarked
to Tipton, holding up the member, “the d--d little cuss!”
It was four o’clock before the camp sought repose. A light burnt in the
cabin where the watchers sat, for Stumpy did not go to bed that night.
Nor did Kentuck. He drank quite freely, and related with great gusto
his experience, invariably ending with his characteristic condemnation
of the new-comer. It seemed to relieve him of any unjust implication
of sentiment, and Kentuck had the weaknesses of the nobler sex. When
everybody else had gone to bed, he walked down to the river, and
whistled reflectingly. Then he walked up the gulch, past the cabin,
still whistling with demonstrative unconcern. At a large redwood tree
he paused and retraced his steps, and again passed the cabin. Half-way
down to the river’s bank he again paused, and then returned and knocked
at the door. It was opened by Stumpy. “How goes it?” said Kentuck,
looking past Stumpy toward the candle-box. “All serene,” replied
Stumpy. “Anything up?” “Nothing.” There was a pause--an embarrassing
one--Stumpy still holding the door. Then Kentuck had recourse to his
finger, which he held up to Stumpy. “Rastled with it,--the d--d little
cuss,” he said, and retired.
The next day Cherokee Sal had such rude sepulture as Roaring Camp
afforded. After her body had been committed to the hill-side, there
was a formal meeting of the camp to discuss what should be done with
her infant. A resolution to adopt it was unanimous and enthusiastic.
But an animated discussion in regard to the manner and feasibility
of providing for its wants at once sprung up. It was remarkable that
the argument partook of none of those fierce personalities with which
discussions were usually conducted at Roaring Camp. Tipton proposed
that they should send the child to Red Dog,--a distance of forty
miles,--where female attention could be procured. But the unlucky
suggestion met with fierce and unanimous opposition. It was evident
that no plan which entailed parting from their new acquisition would
for a moment be entertained. “Besides,” said Tom Ryder, “them fellows
at Red Dog would swap it, and ring in somebody else on us.” A disbelief
in the honesty of other camps prevailed at Roaring Camp as in other
places.
The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection.
It was argued that no decent woman could be prevailed to accept Roaring
Camp as her home, and the speaker urged that “they didn’t want any more
of the other kind.” This unkind allusion to the defunct mother, harsh
as it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety,--the first symptom
of the camp’s regeneration. Stumpy advanced nothing. Perhaps he felt
a certain delicacy in interfering with the selection of a possible
successor in office. But when questioned, he averred stoutly that he
and “Jinny”--the mammal before alluded to--could manage to rear the
child. There was something original, independent, and heroic about the
plan that pleased the camp. Stumpy was retained. Certain articles were
sent for to Sacramento. “Mind,” said the treasurer, as he pressed a
bag of gold-dust into the expressman’s hand, “the best that can be
got,--lace, you know, and filigree-work and frills,--d--m the cost!”
Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of
the mountain camp was compensation for material deficiencies. Nature
took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere
of the Sierra foothills,--that air pungent with balsamic odor, that
ethereal cordial at once bracing and exhilarating,--he may have found
food and nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted asses’ milk
to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the
latter and good nursing. “Me and that ass,” he would say, “has been
father and mother to him. Don’t you,” he would add, apostrophizing the
helpless bundle before him, “never go back on us.”
By the time he was a month old, the necessity of giving him a name
became apparent. He had generally been known as “the Kid,” “Stumpy’s
boy,” “the Cayote” (an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by
Kentuck’s endearing diminutive of “the d--d little cuss.” But these
were felt to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed
under another influence. Gamblers and adventurers are generally
superstitious, and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought
“the luck” to Roaring Camp. It was certain that of late they had been
successful. “Luck” was the name agreed upon, with the prefix of Tommy
for greater convenience. No allusion was made to the mother, and the
father was unknown. “It’s better,” said the philosophical Oakhurst,
“to take a fresh deal all round. Call him Luck, and start him fair.”
A day was accordingly set apart for the christening. What was meant
by this ceremony the reader may imagine, who has already gathered
some idea of the reckless irreverence of Roaring Camp. The master of
ceremonies was one “Boston,” a noted wag, and the occasion seemed to
promise the greatest facetiousness. This ingenious satirist had spent
two days in preparing a burlesque of the church service, with pointed
local allusions. The choir was properly trained, and Sandy Tipton was
to stand godfather. But after the procession had marched to the grove
with music and banners, and the child had been deposited before a mock
altar, Stumpy stepped before the expectant crowd. “It ain’t my style
to spoil fun, boys,” said the little man, stoutly, eyeing the faces
around him, “but it strikes me that this thing ain’t exactly on the
squar. It’s playing it pretty low down on this yer baby to ring in
fun on him that he ain’t going to understand. And ef there’s going to
be any godfathers round, I’d like to see who’s got any better rights
than me.” A silence followed Stumpy’s speech. To the credit of all
humorists be it said, that the first man to acknowledge its justice was
the satirist, thus stopped of his fun. “But,” said Stumpy, quickly,
following up his advantage, “we’re here for a christening, and we’ll
have it. I proclaim you Thomas Luck, according to the laws of the
United States and the State of California, so help me God.” It was
the first time that the name of the Deity had been uttered otherwise
than profanely in the camp. The form of christening was perhaps even
more ludicrous than the satirist had conceived; but, strangely enough,
nobody saw it and nobody laughed. “Tommy” was christened as seriously
as he would have been under a Christian roof, and cried and was
comforted in as orthodox fashion.
And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp. Almost
imperceptibly a change came over the settlement. The cabin assigned to
“Tommy Luck”--or “The Luck,” as he was more frequently called--first
showed signs of improvement. It was kept scrupulously clean and
white-washed. Then it was boarded, clothed, and papered. The rosewood
cradle--packed eighty miles by mule--had, in Stumpy’s way of putting
it, “sorter killed the rest of the furniture.” So the rehabilitation
of the cabin became a necessity. The men who were in the habit of
lounging in at Stumpy’s to see “how The Luck got on” seemed to
appreciate the change, and, in self-defence, the rival establishment
of “Tuttle’s grocery” bestirred itself, and imported a carpet and
mirrors. The reflections of the latter on the appearance of Roaring
Camp tended to produce stricter habits of personal cleanliness. Again,
Stumpy imposed a kind of quarantine upon those who aspired to the honor
and privilege of holding “The Luck.” It was a cruel mortification to
Kentuck--who, in the carelessness of a large nature and the habits of
frontier life, had begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle,
which, like a snake’s, only sloughed off through decay--to be debarred
this privilege from certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the subtle
influence of innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly every
afternoon in a clean shirt, and face still shining from his ablutions.
Nor were moral and social sanitary laws neglected. “Tommy,” who was
supposed to spend his whole existence in a persistent attempt to
repose, must not be disturbed by noise. The shouting and yelling which
had gained the camp its infelicitous title were not permitted within
hearing distance of Stumpy’s. The men conversed in whispers, or smoked
with Indian gravity. Profanity was tacitly given up in these sacred
precincts, and throughout the camp a popular form of expletive, known
as “D--n the luck!” and “Curse the luck!” was abandoned, as having a
new personal bearing. Vocal music was not interdicted, being supposed
to have a soothing, tranquillizing quality, and one song, sung by
“Man-o’ War Jack,” an English sailor, from her Majesty’s Australian
colonies, was quite popular as a lullaby. It was a lugubrious recital
of the exploits of “the Arethusa, Seventy-four,” in a muffled minor,
ending with a prolonged dying fall at the burden of each verse,
“On b-o-o-o-ard of the Arethusa.” It was a fine sight to see Jack
holding The Luck, rocking from side to side as if with the motion
of a ship, and crooning forth this naval ditty. Either through the
peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his song,--it contained
ninety stanzas, and was continued with conscientious deliberation to
the bitter end,--the lullaby generally had the desired effect. At such
times the men would lie at full length under the trees, in the soft
summer twilight, smoking their pipes and drinking in the melodious
utterances. An indistinct idea that this was pastoral happiness
pervaded the camp. “This ’ere kind o’ think,” said the Cockney Simmons,
meditatively reclining on his elbow, “is ’evingly.” It reminded him of
Greenwich.
On the long summer days The Luck was usually carried to the gulch, from
whence the golden store of Roaring Camp was taken. There, on a blanket
spread over pine-boughs, he would lie while the men were working in
the ditches below. Latterly, there was a rude attempt to decorate
this bower with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs, and generally some
one would bring him a cluster of wild honeysuckles, azaleas, or the
painted blossoms of Las Mariposas. The men had suddenly awakened to
the fact that there were beauty and significance in these trifles,
which they had so long trodden carelessly beneath their feet. A flake
of glittering mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a bright pebble
from the bed of the creek, became beautiful to eyes thus cleared and
strengthened, and were invariably put aside for “The Luck.” It was
wonderful how many treasures the woods and hill-sides yielded that
“would do for Tommy.” Surrounded by playthings such as never child out
of fairy-land had before, it is to be hoped that Tommy was content. He
appeared to be securely happy, albeit there was an infantine gravity
about him, a contemplative light in his round gray eyes, that sometimes
worried Stumpy. He was always tractable and quiet, and it is recorded
that once, having crept beyond his “corral,”--a hedge of tessellated
pine-boughs, which surrounded his bed,--he dropped over the bank on
his head in the soft earth, and remained with his mottled legs in
the air in that position for at least five minutes with unflinching
gravity. He was extricated without a murmur. I hesitate to record the
many other instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfortunately, upon
the statements of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a
tinge of superstition. “I crep’ up the bank just now,” said Kentuck
one day, in a breathless state of excitement, “and dern my skin if he
wasn’t a talking to a jaybird as was a sittin’ on his lap. There they
was, just as free and sociable as anything you please, a jawin’ at each
other just like two cherry-bums.” Howbeit, whether creeping over the
pine-boughs or lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above
him, to him the birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers
bloomed. Nature was his nurse and playfellow. For him she would let
slip between the leaves golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within
his grasp; she would send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm
of bay and resinous gums; to him the tall red-woods nodded familiarly
and sleepily, the bumble-bees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumbrous
accompaniment.
Such was the golden summer of Roaring Camp. They were “flush
times,”--and the Luck was with them. The claims had yielded enormously.
The camp was jealous of its privileges and looked suspiciously on
strangers. No encouragement was given to immigration, and, to make
their seclusion more perfect, the land on either side of the mountain
wall that surrounded the camp they duly pre-empted. This, and a
reputation for singular proficiency with the revolver, kept the reserve
of Roaring Camp inviolate. The expressman--their only connecting link
with the surrounding world--sometimes told wonderful stories of the
camp. He would say, “They’ve a street up there in ‘Roaring,’ that would
lay over any street in Red Dog. They’ve got vines and flowers round
their houses, and they wash themselves twice a day. But they’re mighty
rough on strangers, and they worship an Ingin baby.”
With the prosperity of the camp came a desire for further improvement.
It was proposed to build a hotel in the following spring, and to
invite one or two decent families to reside there for the sake of “The
Luck,”--who might perhaps profit by female companionship. The sacrifice
that this concession to the sex cost these men, who were fiercely
sceptical in regard to its general virtue and usefulness, can only be
accounted for by their affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But
the resolve could not be carried into effect for three months, and the
minority meekly yielded in the hope that something might turn up to
prevent it. And it did.
The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foothills. The snow
lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river,
and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a
tumultuous water-course that descended the hill-sides, tearing down
giant trees and scattering its drift and débris along the plain. Red
Dog had been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned.
“Water put the gold into them gulches,” said Stumpy. “It’s been here
once and will be here again!” And that night the North Fork suddenly
leaped over its banks, and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring
Camp.
In the confusion of rushing water, crushing trees, and crackling
timber, and the darkness which seemed to flow with the water and
blot out the fair valley, but little could be done to collect the
scattered camp. When the morning broke, the cabin of Stumpy nearest the
river-bank was gone. Higher up the gulch they found the body of its
unlucky owner; but the pride, the hope, the joy, the Luck, of Roaring
Camp had disappeared. They were returning with sad hearts, when a shout
from the bank recalled them.
It was a relief-boat from down the river. They had picked up, they
said, a man and an infant, nearly exhausted, about two miles below. Did
anybody know them, and did they belong here?
It needed but a glance to show them Kentuck lying there, cruelly
crushed and bruised, but still holding the Luck of Roaring Camp in his
arms. As they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they saw that
the child was cold and pulseless. “He is dead,” said one. Kentuck
opened his eyes. “Dead?” he repeated feebly. “Yes, my man, and you are
dying too.” A smile lit the eyes of the expiring Kentuck. “Dying,”
he repeated, “he’s a taking me with him,--tell the boys I’ve got the
Luck with me now”; and the strong man, clinging to the frail babe as a
drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy
river that flows forever to the unknown sea.
THE CITY OF THE SAINTS
SIR RICHARD BURTON
From “The City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to
California.” Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Harper and
Brothers, New York.
I
On the road we saw for the first time a train of Mormon wagons,
twenty-four in number, slowly wending their way toward the Promised
Land. The “Captain”--those who fill the dignified office of guides are
so designated, and once a captain always a captain is the Far-Western
rule--was young Brigham Young, a nephew of the Prophet; a _blondin_,
with yellow hair and beard, an intelligent countenance, a six-shooter
by his right, and a bowie-knife by his left side. It was impossible
to mistake, even through the veil of freckles and sun-burn with which
a two months’ journey had invested them, the nationality of the
emigrants; “British-English” was written in capital letters upon the
white eyelashes and tow-colored curls of the children, and upon the
sandy brown hair and staring eyes, heavy bodies, and ample extremities
of the adults. One young person concealed her facial attractions under
a manner of mask. I thought that perhaps she might be a sultana,
reserved for the establishment of some very magnificent Mormon bashaw;
but the driver, when appealed to, responded with contempt, “Guess old
Briggy won’t stampede many o’ that ’ere lot!” Though thus homely in
appearance, few showed any symptoms of sickness or starvation; in fact,
their condition first impressed us most favorably with the excellence
of the Perpetual Emigration Funds’ traveling arrangements.
The Mormons who can afford such luxury generally purchase for the
transit of the plains an emigrant’s wagon, which in the West seldom
costs more than $185. They take a full week before well _en route_, and
endeavor to leave the Mississippi in early May, when “long forage” is
plentiful upon the prairies. Those prospecting parties who are bound
for California set out in March or April, feeding their animals with
grain till the new grass appears; after November the road over the
Sierra Nevada being almost impassable to way-worn oxen. The ground in
the low parts of the Mississippi Valley becomes heavy and muddy after
the first spring rains, and by starting in good time the worst parts of
the country will be passed before the travel becomes very laborious.
Moreover, grass soon disappears from the higher and less productive
tracts; between Scott’s Bluffs and Great Salt Lake City we were seldom
out of sight of starved cattle, and on one spot I counted fifteen
skeletons. Travelers, however, should not push forward early, unless
their animals are in good condition and are well supplied with grain;
the last year’s grass is not quite useless, but cattle cannot thrive
upon it as they will upon the grammas, festucas, and buffalo-clover
(_Trifolium reflexum_) of Utah and New Mexico. The journey between St.
Jo and the Mormon capital usually occupies from two to three months.
The Latter-Day Saints march with a quasi-military organization. Other
emigrants form companies of fifty to seventy armed men--a single
wagon would be in imminent danger from rascals like the Pawnees,
who, though fonder of bullying than of fighting, are ever ready to
cut off a straggler--elect their “Cap.,” who holds the office only
during good conduct, sign and seal themselves to certain obligations,
and bind themselves to stated penalties in case of disobedience or
defection. The “Prairie Traveler” strongly recommends this systematic
organization, without which, indeed, no expedition, whether emigrant,
commercial, or exploratory, ought ever or in any part of the world
to begin its labors; justly observing that, without it, discords and
dissensions sooner or later arise which invariably result in breaking
up the company.
In this train I looked to no purpose for the hand-carts with which the
poorer Saints add to the toils of earthly travel a semi-devotional work
of supererogation expected to win a proportionate reward in heaven.
Near the Pine-Tree Stream we met a horse-thief driving four bullocks:
he was known to Macarthy, and did not look over comfortable. We had
now fallen into the regular track of Mormon emigration, and saw the
wayfarers in their worst plight, near the end of the journey. We passed
several families, and parties of women and children trudging wearily
along: most of the children were in rags or half nude, and all showed
gratitude when we threw them provisions. The greater part of the men
were armed, but their weapons were far more dangerous to themselves
and their fellows than to the enemy. There is not on earth a race of
men more ignorant of arms as a rule than the lower grades of English;
becoming an emigrant, the mechanic hears that it may be necessary
to beat off Indians, so he buys the first old fire-arm he sees, and
probably does damage with it. Only last night a father crossed Green
River to beg for a piece of cloth; it was intended to shroud the body
of his child, which during the evening had been accidentally shot, and
the station people seemed to think nothing of the accident, as if it
were of daily recurrence. I was told of three, more or less severe,
that happened in the course of a month. The Western Americans, who are
mostly accustomed to the use of weapons, look upon these awkwardnesses
with a profound contempt. We were now in a region of graves, and their
presence in this wild was not a little suggestive.