THE NAIL-FILE AND THE CHIPPEWA
At Many Glaciers they advised us to visit the lovely Waterton Lakes
lying in the Canadian extension of Glacier Park.
“There’s only one bad place,--north of Babb. It’s flooded for some
miles, but all you have to do is climb the canal bank, and run along
the top.”
As people were always advising us to undertake some form of acrobatics,
we stored the canal bank in the back of our minds, and started for Babb
and Canada.
Babb proved as short of population as of syllables. We went the length
of the town, and encountered only one building,--the postoffice and
store. That its populace was treated more generously in the matter
of syllables we discovered by idly reading the mailing list of
Blackfeet citizens, pasted on the wall. Among Babb’s most prominent
residents are Killfirst Stingy, Mary Earrings, Susie Swimsunder, Ada
Calflooking, Cecile Weaselwoman, Xavier Billetdoux, Joe Scabbyrobe,
Alex Biglodgepole and Josephine Underotter Owlchild.
I have been told that many Indian tribes name a child from the greatest
event in the life of its oldest living relative. When the child
reaches maturity, he earns a name for himself by some characteristic
achievement, goaded to it, no doubt, by the horrors of his given
name. Thus by a glance at the census lists we are able to read past
history, and compare the amorous agitations of Xavier Billetdoux’
granddaddy with the bucolic and serene existence of Ada Calflooking’s
great-aunt. Not a bad way of checking up one’s ancestry against one’s
own worth. If we followed the same system, Cornelius Rowed Washington
across the Delaware might be rechristened C. Shimmyfoot, while
Adolph Foreclosedthewidow’smortgage might earn the nobler surname
of Endowsahospital. It is really a remarkable system of shorthand
autobiography, enabling a complete stranger to tell whether one
belongs to a good family going downhill, or a poor one coming uphill,
or a mediocre at a standstill. How many a near Theda Bara who would
like to be named Cecile Weaselwoman would have to be content as Mary
Ear-rings. How many a purse-proud Biglodgepole would have to confess
his grandfather was named Scabbyrobe. Perhaps this is the reason we
leave such nomenclature to the heathen Indian.
Reflecting thus, Toby and I amused ourselves with renaming ourselves
and our friends, until we reached a place where some altruistic citizen
had inundated the road in order to irrigate his patch of land. Here we
were supposed to take to the top of the canal, but the bank was high,
narrow and shaly. It looked too much like a conspiracy against both us
and the canal, so we disregarded our advice and skirted the open land.
By leaving the road altogether and keeping to the hills we avoided most
of the bog, and got through the rest with a little maneuvering. A mile
further we learned that the canal bank had given way under a car the
previous day, and carried car and occupants into the water.
The beautiful Flathead Mountains had faded away behind us, leaving
a prairie country of no charm, dry and burnt. At the border, as at
Mexico, we found our little customhouse less formal and more shabby
than our neighbor’s, but at both we received clearance and courteous
treatment. When we said we came from Massachusetts, the Canadian agent
sighed.
“Massachusetts! What do you see in a God-forsaken hole like this to
tempt you from such a state? I wish I could go there,--or anywhere away
from this place.”
Everywhere we heard the same refrain. Three years of killing drought
had scorched the treeless plains to a cinder. The wheat, promise
and hope of Alberta, had failed, and immigrants who had gone there
expecting to return to the old country in a few years with a fortune,
were so completely ruined they could neither go back nor forward, but
saw dismal years of stagnation before them.
There are more cheerful places than Alberta in which to face
bankruptcy. So near the border, this part of Canada is half
American,--American with a cockney accent. But it is newer and rawer
than our own west by a decade or two, with less taste apparent, less
prosperity, more squalid shiftlessness. The section through which we
drove had been mainly conquered by the Mormons, driven into Canada when
the United States was most inhospitable to their sect. They in turn
have converted many of the immigrants from the old country. The church
or tithe lands make sharp contrast in their prosperity, their thousands
of sleek, blooded cattle and irrigated fields to the forlorn little
settlements of individuals. As every Mormon pays a tenth of all he has
to his church it is easy to understand this contrast.
In our six months of travel we had driven over the reservations of the
Papago, Pima and Maricopa, the Apache, Hopi, Havasupai, Navajo, Ute,
Piute, Pueblo, Shoshone, Blackfeet and Flatheads. We were now on the
Blood Indian reservation, though we saw few inhabitants. Those we saw
were red-skinned and tall, resembling the other Northern tribes. The
country grew less inhabited. We met no other cars and few people. Fifty
miles north of Browning, our last town, we came to a lumber camp, and
seven miles further our car quietly ceased to move, and rested in peace
on a hillside.
Since its wetting in Nambe creek, the ignition had been prone to such
sudden stops and starts. From past experience we knew that the ignition
system must be completely taken apart, exposing its innermost parts to
the daylight. All I knew about it was summed up in my brother’s parting
advice, “Never monkey with your ignition.” All Toby knew was that Bill
of Santa Fé had taken it apart, done something to it, put it together
again, and it ran. So we decided to follow Bill’s procedure as far as
we could, and began by taking it apart. That went very well until we
discovered some covetous person had removed all the tiny tools used in
operating on this part of the engine, leaving us only a monkey wrench
and a large pair of pincers. Toby nearly stood on her head trying to
unscrew very little screws with the big wrench, and progressed but
slowly, as she had to change her entire position with each quarter turn.
After about an hour we had every nut and screw in the forward part of
the engine in rows on the running board. My task was to take the parts
as Toby unscrewed them, and lay them neatly from left to right, so that
we should know in what order to replace them. Then I glanced at the
remains which Toby had succeeded in uncovering.
“The distributor needs cleaning,” I said expertly, thereby greatly
impressing Toby. I remembered Bill had said the same thing, but for the
life of me I couldn’t remember what the distributor was. By opening the
cock of our tank, and holding a tin cup beneath, catching a drop at a
time we managed in another hour to get enough gasoline to bathe the
affected parts, as druggist’s directions say.
So far, not a hitch. And then a little wire flapped before our eyes
which seemingly had no connection with any other part. Toby thought
it belonged in one place, and for the sake of argument, I held out
for another, but neither of us was sure enough to make a point of our
opinion. Meanwhile the car could not start until this wire was hitched
to something, yet we dared not risk a short-circuit by connecting it to
the wrong screw. So we stood still in the hot, dusty road and waited
for something to turn up.
“I have a hunch, Toby,” I said, “that when we really give up and go for
help, the old lady will begin running again.”
“Then you’d better start at once,” said Toby.
“No, it won’t be as simple as that. We shall have to work for what we
get.”
At this moment a Ford containing four men drew up and stopped. We
explained our trouble.
“You took it apart without knowing how to put it together again?” said
one of them. They exchanged glances which said “How like a woman!”
“When we took it apart,” answered Toby with hauteur, “we knew how to
put it together again, but so many things have happened in the meantime
that the exact process has slipped our minds. But if you will explain
the principles of this ignition system to us I think we can manage.”
The man muttered something about a Ford not having one, and drove on.
Like most men, he was willing to stay as long as he could appear in a
superior light, but no longer.
Though they were poor consolation, the horizon looked very lonely after
they left. Later in the afternoon, two Indian boys with fish-poles over
their shoulders sauntered by. Having exhausted our combined knowledge
we had decided to give up and telephone to the nearest garage. I
hastened to them, not knowing when we should again see a human soul.
“How far away is the nearest garage?” I asked them.
The younger boy giggled, but the older answered in very good,
soft-spoken English, “At Browning, fifty miles away.”
A hundred dollars for towing, and days of delay! I caught at a straw.
“Is there by any chance an electrician back at the lumber camp?”
“No, ma’am.”
Then noticing my despair, he added diffidently, “I studied electricity
at Carlisle. Perhaps I can help you.”
Our guardian angels fluttered so near we could almost see their
wings. Here was Albert Gray, for so he was hight, transplanted from
his Chippewa reservation for a two days’ visit to his Blood cousins,
for the sole purpose of rescuing us from our latest predicament.
Efficiency and economy must have been the watchword of those
ministering spirits of ours, for not only did they send the only
electrician within fifty miles, but then sent one whose knowledge,
combined with our own, was just sufficient. I do not believe Albert
really knew a fuse from a switchbox, but he did remember one essential
we had forgotten,--that the points should be a sixteenth of an inch
apart. But without tools he said he could do nothing. So we proffered
a nail-file, by happy inspiration, with which he ground the points.
We screwed together all the parts, connected the mysterious wire by a
counting-out rime, and turned the engine. Nothing moved.
I turned my back on the exasperating car, and started to walk the seven
miles back to the lumber camp. Then, on remembering my hunch it seemed
as if all conditions were now fulfilled, so I returned, put my foot on
the starter,--and the engine hummed. And until we reached Boston again,
it never ceased to hum.
A prouder moment neither Toby nor I ever had, when by grace of a
Chippewa and a nail-file we monkeyed with our ignition fifty miles from
a garage,--and conquered it.
I shall always remember slow spoken, polite Albert Gray. Like Lucy of
the same sur-name, he made oh, the difference to me!
* * * * *
The good looking garage helper at Cardston met us with a beaming smile.
“I’ve filled your radiator,” he said, “and your canteen, and put in oil
and gas, and I’ve infatuated all your tires.”
It was this same delightful Mr. Malaprop of whom we inquired,
discussing various automobiles, “Do you like the Marmon?”
“I’m not one myself,” he answered cautiously, “but my father-in-law is,
and I get on pretty good with him.”
Through his connections-in-law he obtained for us the privilege of
seeing the interior of the new Mormon Temple, which is to rival Salt
Lake’s. Our unfailing luck had brought us here at the only interval
when Gentiles are allowed to enter a Mormon church, after completion
and before its dedication. This little town of not more than five
thousand inhabitants, surrounded by the brown, parched prairie,
is dominated by a million dollar edifice, far more beautiful than
the parent Temple in Utah, and magnificent enough for any city. A
perfect creation in itself, fitted like the Temple of Solomon with
matched marble and granite brought from the ends of the earth, it
looks strangely out of keeping with the bare shacks and ugly little
frontier shanties surrounding it. Its architecture was modified from
Aztec designs. The young Salt Lake Mormons whose plans won the award
in competition with many renowned architects achieved an arrestingly
original building of massive dignity and grace, managing at the same
time to conform to the exacting requirements of Mormon symbolism. No
two rooms are built on the same level, but rise in a gradual ascent
to the roof, from which one may look miles over the rolling plains of
Alberta. This requirement, which must have caused the designers and
builders much anguish, is meant to symbolize the soul’s ascent from
a gross and carnal to a spiritual life. The ground floor has many
dressing-rooms where those who “work for the dead” change from street
clothes to the garments prescribed by Mormon ritual. Above are rooms
paneled in the most costly woods,--Circassian walnut, tulipwood,
mahogany and rosewood,--for the use of the church officials, and beyond
these, larger rooms called “Earth,” “Purgatory,” “Heaven,” decorated
with beautiful mural paintings with appropriate scenes. “Earth” held
great attractions for me, with its frieze of jungle beasts threading
their way through gnarled forests,--an able and artistic piece of work,
done by Prof. Evans of Salt Lake. The stout little Cockney Mormon who
accompanied the Bishop and ourselves through the Temple gave us this
information, though from his lips it sounded like “Prof. Heavens, of
the Heart Department.” We passed on from Earth to the assembly room in
the center of the Temple, a magnificent chamber with an altar, where
services are held and marriages performed.
“Here, if you wish,” the Bishop said, “you can be sealed to eternity.”
Toby who had all along, I think, expected to be pounced on as a
possible plural wife backed away from the altar, but the Bishop was
speaking impersonally. He explained that any Mormon happy in his
present matrimonial venture (I use the singular, as polygamy is now
illegal both in Canada and the United States) may extend that happiness
to eternity, and insure getting the same wife in Heaven by this
ceremony. He himself had been sealed,--“the children sitting on each
side of us in their white robes,”--the ceremonial garment,--and was
secure in the belief that his family happiness would continue after
death.
[Illustration: A MORMON IRRIGATED VILLAGE.]
[Illustration: THE “MILLION DOLLAR” MORMON TEMPLE AT CARDSTON, ALBERTA,
CANADA.]
We broached with some hesitation the subject of polygamy. The Bishop
readily took it up, declaring polygamy entirely abolished.
“Even at its height, not more than three per cent of our men had plural
wives,” he said.
“As few as that?”
“Yes.”
“Then since the majority never sanctioned it, the Church has abolished
it, and you yourself never practised it, I suppose you consider it
wrong?”
“Oh, no--I shouldn’t call it wrong. Why, it was the best advertising
we could possibly have had. People heard of the Mormons all over the
world, and began talking about them,--all because of polygamy. I don’t
suppose we should ever have become so prosperous and powerful without
the free advertising it gave us. It enabled us to extend our faith to
all corners of the earth. While each church has its parish, bishops,
elders and presidents, our system is so complete that in three hours
the Head of the church can communicate a mandate to the furthest
missionary in Japan or India.”
“But it wasn’t very _good_ advertising, perhaps?”
“Any advertising is good advertising, so long as it gets people
talking.”
The way to Waterton Lakes, several hours from Cardston, lay through the
tithe lands of the Church,--a mile north, a mile west, and so on, with
the monotonous regularity of section roads. Then suddenly emerging from
the barren country, we found ourselves again in the Rockies. We motored
past a chain of glassy mountain lakes, each one full to the brim with
trout, so we had been told. The air sparkled; late July here in the
north had the tang of autumn through the golden sun. Forests of pine
edged the shores of the lakes. The same sharply notched peaks we had
known at Glacier Park guarded their solitude. This park, under the care
of the Canadian government, lies in the hinterland of Glacier. Over its
ranges a pack train can make its way in a few days from one park to
the other, and a still quicker route is by the intermittent motorboat
which carries passengers back and forth during the summer. By road it
takes a day or more of rough prairie traveling. With much the same type
of scenery as Glacier Park, though perhaps less dramatic, Waterton
Lakes should be far more widely visited than they are. These two lovely
parks, naturally a continuation of each other, should and could be
easily linked more closely together.
At present the accommodations of Waterton Lakes are far inferior
to those of Glacier. A few ex-saloons (Alberta “went dry”) offer
sandwiches and near beer, but the gaudy paper decorations on the walls,
covered with flies, and the inevitable assortment of toothpicks, catsup
and dirty cruets on the soiled cloths, are successful destroyers of
appetite. I was told that the railroad which had developed Glacier
Park so intelligently, building the few necessary hotels with dignity
and charm, offered to extend the developments to Waterton Lakes, but
that Canada, fearing her tourists would thereby be diverted into the
“States,” jealously refused the offer. A short-sighted decision,
certainly, for the flood of tourists coming from the States would have
been far greater than that turned in the other direction.
Toby and I pitched our little tent on a delightful pebbled beach,
planning to stay several days, if the fishing were as good as it had
been reported. But after a fruitless--or fishless--afternoon of
dangling our lines in the water, with no profit except the sight of the
hills which guarded the blue sparkle, we returned to our tent at sunset
with no prospect of food. We had depended too rashly upon our skill at
angling. Hunger can take all the joy out of scenery.
To tell the truth, sleeping in a tent and cooking our own meals had
somewhat lost their charms. We preferred a lumpy bed in a stuffy room
to a hard bed on the ground; and second-rate meals served at a table
someone else had taken the trouble to prepare to third-rate meals
prepared with greater trouble by ourselves. As we looked wearily at
each other, each hoping the other would offer to make the beds and
“rustle” for food, we suddenly realized that we were homesick. We had
roughed it enough, and the flesh pots beckoned.
“Let’s go back to Cardston,” I said.
“Let’s,” said Toby, gladly.
And on all that beauty of pure woods and clear sunset we turned and
fled to civilization. Fifth-rate civilization it might be, in a
province as crude and unlovely as was any part of our own West in the
roaring eighties. For the first time in six months we had our backs to
the setting sun, the sun which had dazzled our eyes every afternoon
since we left the boat at Galveston. We were leaving the great, free
West, “where a man can be a man, and a woman can be a woman,” and we
were going--home!