"I do believe there shall be a winter yet in heaven--and in hell."
--_Paradise and the Periscope._
"Realism, _n._ The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads."
--_The Devil's Dictionary._
"They sit brooding on a garbage scow and tell us how bad the world
smells."
--BERTON BRALEY.
"Just round the block" is a phrase familiar to you. To get the same
effect in the open country you would say "thirty miles" or sixty;
and in those miles it is likely there would be no water and no
house--perhaps not any tree. Consider now: Within the borders of New
Mexico might be poured New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Delaware. Then drop in another small state and all of Chesapeake Bay,
and still New Mexico would not be brimful--though it would have to
be carried carefully to avoid slopping over. Scattered across this
country is a population less than that of Buffalo--half of it
clustered in six-mile ribbons along the Rio Grande and the Pecos.
Those figures are for to-day. Divide them by three, and then excuse
the story if it steps round the block. It was long ago; Plancus was
consul then.
Some two weeks after the day when Johnny Dines went to horse camp,
Charlie See rode northward through the golden September; northward
from Rincon, pocket of that billiard table you know of. His way was
east of the Rio Grande, in the desperate twisting country where the
river cuts through Caballo Mountains. His home was beyond the river,
below Rincon, behind Cerro Roblado and Selden Hill; and he rode for a
reason he had. Not for the first time; at every farm and clearing he
was hailed with greeting and jest.
Across the river he saw the yellow walls of Colorado, of old Fort
Thorne, deserted Santa Barbara. He came abreast of them, left them
behind, came to Wit's End, where the river gnaws at the long bare
ridges and the wagon road clings and clambers along the brown
hillside. He rode sidewise and swaying, crooning a gay little saddle
song; to which Stargazer, his horse, twitched back an inquiring ear.
_Oh, there was a crooked man and he rode a crooked mile_----
Charlie See was as straight as his own rifle; it was the road he
traveled which prompted that joyful saddle song. As will be found upon
examination, that roistering ditty sorts with a joyful jog trot. It
follows that Charlie See was not riding at a run, as frontiersmen do
in the movies. It is a great and neglected truth that frontiersmen on
the frontier never ride like the frontiersmen in films. And it may be
mentioned in passing that frontiersmen on frontiers never do anything
at all resembling as to motive, method or result those things which
frontiersmen do in films. And that is the truth.
The actual facts are quite simple and jolly. In pursuit of wild stock,
men run their horses at top speed for as short a time as may be
contrived; not to make the wild stock run faster and farther, but to
hold up the wild stock. Once checked, they proceed as soberly as may
be to the day's destination; eventually to a market. Horse or steer
comes to market in good shape or bad, as the handling has been
reckless or tender; and the best cowman is he whose herds have been
moved slowest. At exceptional times--riding with or from the sheriff,
to get a doctor, or, for a young man in April, riding a fresh horse
for a known and measured distance, speed is permitted. But the rule is
to ride slowly and sedately, holding swiftness in reserve for need.
Walk, running walk, pace, jog trot--those are the road gaits, to which
horses are carefully trained, giving most mileage with least effort.
Rack and single-foot are tolerated but frowningly.
The mad, glad gallop is reserved for childhood and for emergencies.
Penalties, progressively suitable, are provided for the mad, glad
galloper. He becomes the object of sidelong glances and meaning
smiles; persistent, he becomes the theme of gibe and jest to flay the
skin. If he be such a one as would neither observe nor forecast, one
who will neither learn nor be taught, soon or late he finds himself
set afoot with a give-out horse; say, twenty-five miles from water. It
is not on record that wise or foolish, after one such experience, is
ever partial to the sprightly gallop as a road gait. Of thirst, as of
"eloquent, just and mightie Death," it may be truly said: "Whom none
could advise, thou hast perswaded."
The road wound down to the bottom land for a little space. Then sang
Charlie See:
_Oh, mind you not in yonder town
When the red wine you were fillin',
You drank a health to the ladies round
And slighted Barbara Allan?_
Followed a merry ditty of old days:
_Foot in the stirrup and a hand on the horn,
Best old cowboy ever was born!
Hi, yi-yippy, yippy-hi-yi-yi,
Hi-yi-yippy-yippy-yay!_
_Stray in the herd and the boss said kill it,
Shot him in the ear with the handle of the skillet!
Hi, yi-yippy, yippy-hi-yi-yi,
Hi-yi-yippy-yippy-yay!_
That rollicking chorus died away. The wagon road turned up a sandy
draw for a long detour, to cross the high ridges far inland.
Stargazer clambered up the Drunkard's Mile, a steep and dizzy cut-off.
High on an overhang of halfway shelf, between water and sky, Stargazer
paused for breathing space.
_The world has no place for a dreamer of dreams,
Then 'tis no place for me, it seems,
Dearie!... My dearie!_
Echo rang bugle-brave from cliff to cliff, pealed exulting, answered
again--came back long after, faint and far:
"Dearie!... My dearie!"
He looked down, musing, at the swirling black waters far below.
_For I dream of you all the day long!
You run through the hours like a song!
Nothing's worth while save dreams of you,
And you can make every dream come true--
Dearie! My dearie!_
Drunkard's Mile fell off into the valley at Redbrush and joined the
wagon road there. They passed Beck's Ferry and Beneteau's; they came
to a bridge over the _acequia madre_, the mother ditch, wide and
deep. Beyond was a wide valley of cleared and irrigated farm lands.
This was Garfield settlement.
* * * * *
You remember Mr. Dick and how he could not keep King Charles' head out
of his Memorial? A like unhappiness is mine. When I remember that
pleasant settlement as it really was, cheerful and busy and merry, I
am forced to think how gleefully the super-sophisticated Sons of Light
would fall afoul of these friendly folk--how they would pounce upon
them with jeering laughter, scoff at their simple joys and fears; set
down, with heavy and hateful satisfaction, every lack and longing;
flout at each brave makeshift, such as Little Miss Brag crowed over,
jubilant, when she pointed with pride:
_For little Miss Brag, she lays much stress
On the privileges of a gingham dress--
A-ha-a! O-ho-o!_
A lump comes to my throat, remembering; now my way is plain; if I
would not be incomparably base, I must speak up for my own people.
Now, like Mr. Dick, I must fly my kite, with these scraps and tags of
Memorial. The string is long, and if the kite flies high it may take
the facts a long way; the winds must bear them as they will.
Consider now the spreading gospel of despair, and marvel at the power
of words--noises in the air, marks upon paper. Let us wonder to see
how little wit is needed to twist and distort truth that it may set
forth a lie. A tumblebug zest, a nose pinched to sneering, a slurring
tongue--with no more equipment you and I could draw a picture of
Garfield as it is done in the fashion of to-day.
Be blind and deaf to help and hope, gay courage, hardship nobly
borne; appeal to envy, greed, covetousness; belaud extravagance and
luxury; magnify every drawback; exclaim at rude homes, simple dress,
plain food, manners not copied from imitators of Europe's idlesse;
use ever the mean and mocking word--how easy to belittle! Behold
Garfield--barbarous, uncouth, dreary, desolate, savage and forlorn;
there misery kennels, huddled between jungle and moaning waste;
there, lout and boor crouch in their wretched hovels! We have left out
little; only the peace of mighty mountains far and splendid, a gallant
sun and the illimitable sky, tingling and eager life, and the
invincible spirit of man.
Such picture as this of Garfield _comme il faut_ is, I humbly
conceive, what a great man, who trod earth bravely, had in mind when
he wondered at "the spectral unreality of realistic books." It is what
he forswore in his up-summing: "And the true realism is ... to find
out where joy resides and give it a voice beyond singing."
This trouble about Charles the First and our head--it started in 1645,
I think--needs looking into.
There are circles where "adventurer" is a term of reproach, where
"romance" is made synonym for a lie, and a silly lie at that.
Curious! The very kernel and meaning of romance is the overcoming of
difficulties or a manly constancy of striving; a strong play pushed
home or defeat well borne. And it would be hard to find a man but
found his own life a breathless adventure, brief and hard, with ups
and downs enough, strivings through all defeats.
Interesting, if true. But can we prove this? Certainly--by trying.
Mr. Dick sets us all right. Put any man to talk of what he knows
best--corn, coal or lumber--and hear matters throbbing with the
entrancing interest born only of first-hand knowledge. Our pessimists
"suspect nothing but what they do not understand, and they suspect
everything"--as was said of the commission set to judge the regicides
who cut off the head of Charles the Martyr--whom I may have mentioned,
perhaps.
Let the dullest man tell of the thing he knows at first hand, and his
speech shall tingle with battle and luck and loss, purr for small
comforts of cakes and ale or sound the bell note of clean mirth; his
voice shall exult with pride of work, tingle and tense to speak of
hard-won steeps, the burden and heat of the day and "the bright face
of danger"; it shall be soft as quiet water to tell of shadows where
winds loiter, of moon magic and far-off suns, friendship and fire and
song. There will be more, too, which he may not say, having no words.
We prate of little things, each to each; but we fall silent before
love and death.
It was once commonly understood that it is not good for a man
to whine. Only of late has it been discovered that a thinker is
superficial and shallow unless he whines; that no man is wise unless
he views with alarm. Eager propaganda has disseminated the glad news
that everything is going to the demnition bowwows. Willing hands pass
on the word. The method is simple. They write very long books in which
they set down the evil on the one side--and nothing on the other. That
is "realism." Whatsoever things are false, whatsoever things are
dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, whatsoever things are impure,
whatsoever things are of ill report; if there be any vice, and if
there be any shame--they think on these things. They gloat upon these
things; they wallow in these things.
The next time you hanker for a gripping, stinging, roaring romance,
try the story of Eddystone Lighthouse. There wasn't a realist on the
job--they couldn't stand the gaff. For any tough lay like this of
Winstanley's dream you want a gang of idealists--the impractical kind.
It is not a dismal story; it is a long record of trouble, delay,
setbacks, exposure, hardship, death and danger, failure, humiliation,
jeers, disaster and ruin. Crippled idealists were common in Plymouth
Harbor. The sea and the wind mocked their labor; they were crushed,
frozen and drowned; but they built Eddystone Light! And men in other
harbors took heart again to build great lights against night and
storm; the world over, realists fare safelier on the sea for
Winstanley's dream.
There is the great distinction between realism and reality: It is the
business of a realist to preach how man is mastered by circumstances;
it is the business of a man to prove that he will be damned first.
You may note this curious fact of dismal books--that you remember no
passage to quote to your friends. Not one. And you perceive, with
lively astonishment, that despairing books are written by the
fortunate. The homespun are not so easily discouraged. When crows pull
up their corn they do not quarrel with Creation. They comment on the
crows, and plant more corn.
This trouble in King Charles' head may be explained, in part, on
a closer looking. As for those who announce the bankruptcy of an
insolvent and wildcat universe, with no extradition, and who proclaim
God the Great Absconder--they are mostly of the emerged tenth. Their
lips do curl with scorn; and what they scorn most is work--and doers.
For what they deign to praise--observe, sir, for yourself, what they
uphold, directly or by implication. See if it be not a thing compact
of graces possible only to idleness. See if it be not their great and
fatal mistake that they regard culture as an end in itself, and not
as a means for service. Aristocracy? Patricians? In a world which has
known the tinker of Bedford, the druggist's clerk of Edmonton, the
Stratford poacher, backwoods Lincoln, a thousand others, and ten
thousand--a carpenter's son among them?
Returning to the Provisional Government: Regard its members closely,
these gods _ad interim_. The ground of their depression is that
everybody is not Just like Them. They have a grievance also in the
matter of death; which might have been arranged better. It saddens
them to know that so much excellence as theirs should perish from
the earth. The skeptic is slacker, too; excusing himself from the
hardships of right living by pleading the futility of effort.
Unfair? Of course I am unfair; all this is assumption without
knowledge, a malicious imputation of the worst possible motives,
judgment from a part. It is their own method.
A wise word was said of late: "There are poor colonels, but no poor
regiments." It would be truer to change a word; to say that there are
poor soldiers, but no poor regiments. The gloomster picks the poorest
soldier he can find, and holds him up to our eyes as a sample. "This
is life!" says the pessimist, proud at last. "Now you see the stuff
your regiments are made of!"
If one of these pallbearers should write a treatise on pomology he
would dwell lovingly on apple-tree borers, blight and pest and scale.
He would say no word of spray or pruning; he would scoff at the glory
of apple blossoms as the rosy illusion of romance; and he would
resolutely suppress all mention of--apples. But he would feature hard
cider, for all that; and he would revel in cankerworms.
These blighters and borers--figuratively speaking--when the curse of
the bottle is upon them--the ink bottle--they weave ugly words to ugly
phrases for ugly books about ugly things; with ugly thoughts of ugly
deeds they chronicle life and men as dreary, sordid, base, squalid,
paltry, tawdry, mean, dismal, dull and dull again, interminably
dull--vile, flat, stale, unprofitable and insipid. No splendid folly
or valiant sin--much less impracticable idealisms, such as kindness,
generosity, faith, forgiveness, courage, honor, friendship, love; no
charm or joy or beauty, no ardors that flame and glow. They show forth
a world of beastliness and bankruptcy; they picture life as a
purposeless hell.
I beg of you, sir, do not permit yourself to be alarmed. What you hear
is but the backdoor gossip of the world. And these people do not get
enough exercise. Their livers are torpid. Some of them, poor fellows,
are quite sincere--and some are merely in the fashion. It isn't true,
you know; not of all of us, all the time. Nothing is changed; there is
no shadow but proves the light; in the farthest world of any universe,
in the latest eternity you choose to mention, it will still be playing
the game to run out your hits; and there, as here, only the shirker
will lie down on the job.
In the meantime, now and here, there are two things, and two only,
that a man may do with his ideals: He may hold and shape them, or
tread them under foot; ripen or rot.
What, sir, the hills are steep, the sand heavy, the mire is
Despond-deep; for that reason will you choose a balky horse? Or will
you follow a leader who plans surrender?
The bookshelviki have thrown away the sword before the fight. They
shriek a shameful message: "All is lost! Save yourselves who can!"
The battle is sore upon us; true. But there is another war cry than
this. It was born of a bitter hour; it was nobly boasted, and brave
men made it good. Now, and for all time to come, as the lost and
furious fight reels by, men will turn and turn again for the watchword
of Verdun: "They shall not pass! They shall not pass!"
Pardon the pontifical character of these remarks. They come tardy off.
For years I have kept a safe and shameful silence when I should have
been shouting, "Janet! Donkeys!" and throwing things. I will be
highbrow-beaten no longer. I hereby resign from the choir inaudible.
Modesty may go hang and prudence be jiggered; I wear Little Miss
Brag's colors for favor; I have cut me an ellum gad, and I mean to use
it on the seat of the scorner.
* * * * *
"Everything in Nature is engaged in writing its own history." So says
Emerson or somebody. Here is the roll call of that lonesome bit
between the Rio Grande and Caballo Mountain. Salem, Garfield,
Donahue's, Derry and Shandon; those were the hamlets of the east
side. Sound Irish, don't they? They were just what they sound like, at
first. A few Irish families, big families, half of them girls--Irish
girls; young gentlemen with a fancy to settle down settled right there
or thereabouts. That's a quick way to start settlements. There was
also a sardonic Greenhorn, to keep alive a memory of the old-time
Texans, before the fences. A hundred years older than Greenhorn was
the old Mexican outpost, San Ysidro; ruthlessly changed to Garfield
when the Mississippi Valley moved in. Transportation was the poorest
ever; this was the last-won farm land of New Mexico.
Along with snakes, centipedes, little yellow bobcats, whisky, poker,
maybe a beef or two--there were other features worthy of note. Each
man had to be cook, housekeeper, hunter, laundryman, shoemaker,
blacksmith, bookkeeper, purchasing agent, miner, mason, nurse, doctor,
gravedigger, interpreter, surveyor, tailor, jailor, judge, jury and
sheriff. Having no sea handy, he was seldom a sailorman.
A man who could do these things well enough to make them work might
be illiterate, but he couldn't be ignorant, not on a bet. It wasn't
possible. He knew too much. He had to do his own thinking. There was
no one else to do it for him. And he could not be wretched. He was too
busy. "We may be poor sinners, but we're not miserable"--that was a
favorite saying. When they brought in supplies or when they packed for
a long trip, they learned foresight and imagination. A right good
college, the frontier; there are many who are proud of that degree.
It is easy to be hospitable, kindly and free-hearted in a thinly
settled country; it is your turn next, you know generosity from both
sides; the Golden Rule has no chance to get rusty. So they were
pleasant and friendly people. They learned cooperation by making wagon
roads together, by making dams and big irrigation ditches, and from
the round-ups. They lived in the open air, and their work was hard,
they had health; there were endless difficulties to overcome;
happiness had a long start and the pursuit was merry.
There was one other great advantage--hope. They had much to hope for.
Almost everything. They wished three great wishes: Water for the
fields, safety from floods, a way to the outside world. To-day the
thick and tangled _bosques_ are cleared to smiling farms, linked by a
shining network of ditches. The floods are impounded at Engle Dam, and
held there for man's uses. A great irrigation canal keeps high and
wide, with just fall enough to move the water; each foot saved of high
level means added miles of reclaimed land under the ditch. To a
stranger's eye the water of that ditch runs clearly uphill. To hold
that high level the main ditch, which is first taken out to serve the
west side, crosses the Rio Grande on a high flume to Derry; curves
high and winding about the wide farm lands of Garfield valley; is
siphoned under the river for Hatch and Rodey, and then is siphoned
once again to the east side, to break out in the sunlight for the use
of Rincon Valley. Rough and crooked is made smooth and straight; safe
bridge and easy grade, a modern highway follows up the valley, with a
brave firefly twinkling by night, to join the great National Trail at
Engle Dam. This is what they dreamed amid sand and thorn--and their
dreams have all come true. Now who can say which was better, the
hoping or the having?
It was pleasant enough, at least, on this day of hoping. Stargazer
shuffled by farm and farm, and turned aside at last to where, with ax
and pick and team and tackle, a big man was grubbing up mesquite
roots. Unheeded, for the big man wrought sturdily, Charlie rode close;
elbow on saddlehorn, chin on hand, he watched the work with mingled
interest and pity.
"There," he said, and shuddered--"there, but for the grace of God,
goes Charlie See!"
The big man straightened up and held a hand to his aching back. His
face was brown and his hair was red, his eyes were big and blue and
merry, and his big, homely, honest mouth was one broad grin.
"Why, if it ain't Nubbins! Welcome, little stranger! Hunting saddle
horses--again?"
"Why, no, Big Boy--I'm not. Not this time."
Big Boy rubbed the bridge of his nose, disconcerted. "You always was
before. Not horses? Well, well! What say we go a-visitin', then?" He
squinted at the low sun. "I'll call this a day, and we'll mosey right
home to my little old shack, and wolf down a few eggs and such. Then
we'll wash our hands and faces right good, catch us up some fresh
horses out of the pasture, and terrapin up the road a stretch. Bully
big moonlight night." He began unhooking his team.
"Fine! I just love to ride. Only came about fifty miles to-day, too."
"I was thinkin' some of droppin' in on old man Fenderson. I ain't been
over there since last night. Coalie! You, Zip! Ged-dap!"
"Mr. Adam Forbes," said Charlie, "I've got you by the foot!"
* * * * *
"Now if you was wishful of any relaxations," said Adam after supper,
"you might side me up in the feet hills to-morrow, prospectin'."
"I might," said Charlie; "and then again I mightn't. Don't you go and
bet on it."
Adam stropped his razor. "You know there's three canyons headin'
off from MacCleod's Tank Park? And the farthest one, that big,
steep, rough, wide, long, high, ugly, sandy, deep gash that runs
anti-gogglin' north, splittin' off these spindlin' little hills from
the main Caballo and Big Timber Mountain--ever been through that?
'Pache Canyon, we call it--though we got no license to."
"Part way," said Charlie. Then his voice lit up with animation. "Say,
Big Chump, that's it! Them warty little hills here--that's what makes
us look down on you folks the way we do. And here I thought all along
it was because you was splay-foot farmers, and unfortunate, you know,
that way like all nesters is. But blamed if I don't think it was them
hills, all the time. We got regular old he-mountains, we have. But
these here little old squatty hills clutterin' up your back yard--why,
Adam, they ain't respectable, them hills ain't--squanderin' round
where a body might stub his toe on 'em, any time. You ought to pile
'em up, Adam. They look plumb shiftless."
"That listens real good to me. You got more brains than people say."
Adam scraped tranquilly at cheek and chin, necessitating an occasional
pause in his speech. "Now you can see for yourself how plumb foolish
and futile a little runt of a man seems to a people that ain't never
been stunted."
"'Seems' is a right good word," said Charlie. He blew out a smoke
ring. "You sure picked the very word you wanted, that time. I didn't
think you had sense enough."
Adam passed an appraising finger tip over his brown cheek; he stirred
up fresh lather.
"Yes," he said musingly, "a little sawed off sliver like you sure does
look right comical to a full-grown man. Like me. Or Hob Lull." He
paused, brush in air, to regard his guest benignantly. "I wonder if
girls feel that way too? Miss Lyn Dyer, now? Lull, he hangs round
there right smart--and he's a fine, big, upstanding man." He lathered
his face and rubbed it in. "First off, I fixed to assassinate him
quiet, from behind. You know them two girls don't hardly know where
they do live--always together, Harkey's house or Fenderson's. So I
mistrusted, natural enough, that 'twas Miss Edith he was waitin' on.
But I was mistook. Just in time to save his life from my bloody and
brutal designs he began tolling Miss Lyn to one side to look at
sunsets and books and such, givin' me a chance to buzz Miss Edith
alone. Good thing for him. That's why I'm lettin' you tag along
to-night--you can entertain Pete Harkey and Ma Fenderson and the old
man, so's they won't pester me and Hobby."
"Like fun I will! If you fellows had any decent feeling at all you'd
both of you clear out and give me a chance."
"Now, deary, you hadn't ought to talk like that--indeed you hadn't!"
protested Adam. "You plumb distress me. You ought to declare yourself,
feller. I'd always hate it if I was to slay you, and then find out I'd
been meddlin' with Hobby Lull's private affairs. I'd hate that--I sure
would!"
"Well now, there's no use of your askin' me for advice." Charlie's
eyebrows shrugged, and so did his shoulders. "You'll have to decide
these things for yourself. Say, you mangy, moth-eaten, slab-sided,
long, lousy, lop-eared parallelopipedon, are you goin' to be all
night dollin' up? Let's ride!"
"Don't blame you for bein' impatient. Hob, he's there now." Face and
voice expressed fine tolerance; Adam looked into a scrap of broken
mirror for careful knotting of a gay necktie.
"I won't be sorry to see Hob once more, at that," observed Charlie.
"Always liked Lull. Took to him first time I ever saw him. That was
seven years ago, when I was only a kid."
"Only a kid! Only--Great Caesar's ghost, what are you now?"
"I'm twenty-five years old in my stocking feet. And here's how I met
up with Lull. El Paso had a big ball game on with Silver City, and
Hob, he wanted to be umpire. Nobody on either team would hear of it,
and not one of the fifteen hundred rip-roarin', howlin' fans. It was
sure a mean mess while it lasted. You see, there was a lot of money up
on the game."
"And who umpired?"
"Hob."