first rate.
When I was in Wyoming on that trip I met many old friends, all of whom
shook me warmly by the hand as soon as they saw me. I visited the
Capitol, and both houses adjourned for an hour out of respect to my
memory. I will never again say anything mean of a member of the
legislature. A speech of welcome was made by the gentleman from Crook
county, Mr. Kellogg, the Demosthenes of the coming state. He made
statements about me that day which in the paper read almost as good and
truthful as an epitaph.
Going over the hill, at Crow Creek, whose perfumed waters kiss the
livery stables and abattoirs at Camp Carlin, three slender Sarah
Bernhardt coyotes came towards the train, looking wistfully at me as if
to say: "Why, partner, how you have fleshed up!" Answering them from the
platform of the car, I said: "Go East, young men, and flesh up with the
country." Honestly and seriously, I do think that if the coyote would
change off and try the soft-shell crab diet for a while, he would pick
right up.
When I got to Laramie City the welcome was so warm that it almost wiped
out the memory of my shabby reception in New York harbor last summer,
on my return from Europe, when even my band went back on me and got
drunk at Coney Island on the very money I had given them to use in
welcoming me home again.
Winter had been a little severe along the cattle ranges, and deceased
cattle might be seen extending their swollen carcasses into the bright,
crisp air as the train whirled one along at the rate of seven to eight
miles per hour. The skinning of a frozen steer is a diverting and
unusual proceeding. Col. Buffalo Bill, who served under Washington and
killed buffalo and baby elephants at Valley Forge, according to an
Italian paper, should put this feature into his show. Maybe he will when
he reads this. The cow gentleman first selects a quick yet steady-going
mule; then he looks for a dead steer. He does not have to look very far.
He now fastens one end of the deceased to some permanent object. This is
harder to find than the steer, however. He then attaches his rope to the
hide of the remains, having cut it with his knife first. He next starts
the mule off, and a mile or so away he discovers that the hide is
entirely free from the cold and pulseless corps.
Sometimes a cowboy tries to skin a steer before the animal is entirely
dead, and when the former gets back to the place from which he was
kicked, he finds that he has a brand new set of whiskers with which to
surprise his friends.
The Pacific roads have greatly improved in recent years, and though they
do not dazzle one with their speed, they are much more comfortable to
pass a few weeks on than they were when the eating-houses, or many of
them, were in the hands of people who could not cook very well, but who
made a great deal of money. Now you can eat in a good buffet-car, or a
first-class dining-car, at your leisure, or you can stop off and get a
good meal, or you can carry a few hens and eat hard-boiled eggs all over
your neighbors.
I do not think people on the cars ought to keep hens. It disturbs the
other passengers and is anything but agreeable to the hens. Close
confinement is never good for a hen that is advanced in years, and the
cigar smoke from the rear of the car hurts her voice, I think.
A PROPHET AND A PIUTE
VI
I have bought some more real estate. It occurred in Oakland, California.
In making the purchase I had the assistance of a prophet, and I hope the
prophet will not be overbalanced by the loss. It came about in this way:
A prophet on a bicycle came to Oakland suddenly very hard up a few weeks
ago, and began to ride up and down on his two-wheeler, warning the
people to flee to the high ground, and thus escape the wrath to come,
for, he said, the waters of the great deep would arise at about the
middle of the month and smite the people of Oakland and slay them, and
float the pork barrels out of their cellars, and fill their cisterns
with people who had sneered at his prophecy.
This gentleman was an industrious prophet and did a good business in his
line. He attracted much notice, and had all he could do at his trade
for several weeks. Many Oakland people were frightened, especially as
Wiggins, the great intellectual Sahara of the prophet industry, also
prophesied a high wave which would rise at least above the bills at the
Palace Hotel in San Francisco. With the aid of these two gifted
middle-weight prophets, I was enabled to secure some good bargains in
corner lots and improved property in Oakland at ten per cent. of the
estimated value. In other words, I put my limited powers as a prophet
against those of Professor Wiggins, the painstaking and conscientious
seer of Canada, and the bicycle prophet of the Pacific slope. I am
willing to stand or fall by the result.
As a prophet I have never attracted attention in this country, mostly
because I have been too busy with other things. Also because there was
so little prophesying to be done in these degenerate days that I did not
care to take hold of the industry; but I have ever been ready to
purchase at a great discount the desirable residences of those
contemplating a general collapse of the universe, or a tidal wave which
would wipe out the general government and cover with a placid sea the
mighty republic which God has heretofore, for some reason, smiled upon.
Moreover, I can hardly believe that the Deity would commission a man to
go out over California on a bicycle to warn people, when a few red
messages and a standing notice in the newspapers would do the work in
less time. Reasoning in this manner with a sturdy logic worthy of my
rich and unctious past, I have secured some good trades in down-town
property, and shall await the coming devastation with a calm and
entirely unruffled breast.
California, at any season of the year, is a miracle of beauty, as almost
every one knows. Nature heightens the effect for the tenderfoot by
compelling him to cross the Alpine heights of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains and freeze approximately to death in the cold heart of a snow
blockade. Thus, weather-beaten and sore, he reaches the rolling green
hills and is greeted with the rich odor of violets. I submitted to the
insults of a tottering monopoly for a week, in the heart of the winter,
and, tired and sick at soul, with chilblains on my feet and liniment on
my other lineaments, I burst forth one bright morning into the realm of
eternal summer. The birds sang in my frozen bosom. I shed the gunnysack
wraps from my tender feet even as a butterfly or a tramp bursts his hull
in the spring time, and I laughed two or three coarse, outdoor laughs,
which shook the balmy branches of the tall pomegranate trees and
twittered in the dense foliage of the magnolia.
The railroad was very kind to me at first. That was when I was buying my
ticket. Later on it became more harsh and even reproached me at times.
Conductors woke me up two or three times in the night to gaze fondly on
my ticket and look as if they were sorry they ever parted with it. On
the Central Pacific passengers are not permitted to give their tickets
to the porter on retiring. You must wake up and converse with the
conductor at all hours of the night, and hold a lantern for him while he
slowly spells out the hard words on your ticket. I did not like this,
and several times I murmured in a querulous tone to the conductor. But
he did not mind it. He went on doing the behests of his employer, and in
that way endearing himself to the great adversary of souls.
I said to an official of the road: "Do you not think this is the worst
managed road in the United States--always excepting the Western North
Carolina Railroad, which is an incorporated insult to humanity?"
"Well," he replied, "that depends, of course, on the standpoint from
which you view it. If we were trying to divert travel to the Southern
Pacific, also the rolling stock, the good-will, the culverts, the
dividends, the frogs, the snowsheds, the right of way and the new-laid
train figs, everything except the first, second and third mortgages,
which would naturally revert to the government, would you not think we
were managing the business with a steady hand and a watchful eye?"
I said I certainly should. I then wrung his hand softly and stole away,
as he also began to do the same thing.
[Illustration: _I improved the time by cultivating the acquaintance of
the beautiful and picturesque outcasts known as the Piute Indians_ (Page
57)]
At Reno we had a day or two in which to observe the city from the car
platform, while waiting for the blockade to be raised. We could not go
away from the train further than five hundred feet, for it might start
at any moment. That is one beauty about a snow blockade. It entitles you
to a stop-over, but you must be ready to hop on when the train starts. I
improved the time by cultivating the acquaintance of the beautiful and
picturesque outcasts known as the Piute Indians. They are a quiet,
reserved set of people, who, by saying nothing, sometimes obtain a
reputation for deep thought. I always envy anybody who can do that. Such
men make good presidential candidates. Candidates, I say, mind you. The
time has come in this country when it is hard to unite good
qualifications as a candidate with the necessary qualities for a
successful official.
The Piute, in March or April, does not go down cellar and bring up his
gladiolus, or remove the banking from the side of his villa. He does not
mulch the asparagus bed, or prune the pie-plant, or rake the front yard,
or salt the hens. He does not even wipe his heartbroken and neglected
nose. He makes no especial change in his great life-work because spring
has come. He still looks serious, and like a man who is laboring under
the impression that he is about to become the parent of a thought. These
children of the Piute brave never mature. They do not take their places
in the histories or the school readers of our common country. The Piute
wears a bright red lap-robe over his person, and generally a stiff
Quaker hat, with a leather band. His hair is very thick, black and
coarse, and is mostly cut off square in the neck, by means of an adz, I
judge, or possibly it is eaten off by moths. The Piute is never bald
during life. After he is dead he becomes bald and beloved.
Johnson Sides is a well-known Piute who had the pleasure of meeting me
at Reno. He said he was a great admirer of mine and had all my writings
in a scrap-book at home. He also said that he wished I would come and
lecture for his tribe. I afterward learned that he was an earnest and
hopeful liar from Truckee. He had no scrap-book at all. Also no home.
Mr. Sides at one time became quite civilized, distinguishing himself
from his tribe by reading the Bible and imprisoning the lower drapery of
his linen garment in the narrow confines of a pair of cavalry trousers,
instead of giving it to the irresponsible breeze, as other Piutes did.
He then established a hotel up the valley in the Sierras, and decided to
lead a life of industry. He built a hostelry called the
Shack-de-Poker-Huntus, and advertised in the _Carson Appeal_, a paper
which even the editor, Sam Davis, says fills him with wonder and
amazement when he knows that people actually subscribe for it. Very soon
Piutes began to go to the shack to spend the heated term. Every Piute
who took the _Appeal_ saw the advertisement, which went on to state that
hot and cold water could be got into every room in the house, and that
electric bells, baths, silver-voiced chambermaids, over-charges, and
everything else connected with a first-class hotel, could be found at
that place. So the Piute people locked up their own homes, and,
ejecting the cat, they spat on the fire, and moved to the new summer
hotel. They took their friends with them. They had no money, but they
knew Johnson Sides, and they visited him all summer.
In the fall Mr. Sides closed the house, and resuming his blanket he went
back to live with his tribe. When the butcher wagon called the next day
the driver found a notice of sale, and in the language of Sol Smith
Russell, "Good reasons given for selling."
Mr. Sides had been a temperance man now for a year, at least externally,
but with the humiliation of this great financial wreck came a wild
desire to flee to the maddening bowl, having been monkeying with the
madding crowd all summer. So, silently, he obtained a bottle of Reno
embalming fluid and secreted himself behind a tree, where he was asked
to join himself in a social nip. He had hardly wiped away an idle tear
with the corner of his blanket and replaced the stopper in his tear jug
when the local representative of the U. G. J. E. T. A. of Reno came upon
him. He was reported to the lodge, and his character bade fair to be
smirched so badly that nothing but saltpeter and a consistent life could
save it. At this critical stage Mr. Davis, of the _Appeal_, came to his
aid, and not only gave him the support and encouragement of his columns,
but told Mr. Sides that he would see that the legislature took speedy
action in removing his alcoholic disabilities. Through the untiring
efforts of Mr. Davis, therefore, a bill was framed "whereby the drink
taken by Johnson Sides, of Nevada, be and is hereby declared null and
void."
On a certain day Mr. Davis told him that the bill would come up for
final passage and no doubt pass without opposition, but a purse would
have to be raised to defray the expenses. The tribe began to collect
what money they had and to sell their grasshoppers in order to raise
more.
Johnson Sides and his people gathered on the day named, and seated
themselves in the galleries. Slim old warriors with firm faces and
beetling brows, to say nothing of having their hair roached, but yet
with no flies on them to speak of, sat in the front seats. Large,
corpulent squaws, wearing health costumes, secured by telegraph wire,
listened to the proceedings, knowing no more of what was going on than
other people do who go to watch the legislature. Finally, however, Sam
Davis came and told Mr. Sides that he was now pure as the driven snow. I
saw him last week, but it seemed to me it was about time to get some
more special legislation for him.
Once Mr. Davis met Mr. Sides on the street and was so glad to see him
that he said: "Johnson, I like you first-rate, and should always be glad
to see you. Whenever you can, let me know where you are."
The next week Sam got quite a lot of telegrams from along the
railroad--for the Indians ride free on account of their sympathies with
the road. These telegrams were dated at different stations. They were
hopeful and even cheery, and were all marked "collect." They read about
as follows:
_Sam Davis, Carson, Nev._:
WINNEMUCCA, NEV., March 31.
I am here.
JOHNSON SIDES.
Every little while for quite a long time Mr. Davis would get a bright,
reassuring telegram, sometimes in the middle of the night, when he was
asleep, informing him that Johnson Sides was "there," and he then would
go back to bed cheered and soothed and sustained.
THE SABBATH OF A GREAT AUTHOR
VII
I awake at an unearthly hour on Sunday morning, after which I turn over
and go to sleep again. This second, or beauty sleep, I find to be almost
invaluable. I do it also with much more earnestness and expression than
that in the earlier part of the night. All the other people in the house
gradually wake up as I begin to get in my more fancy strokes.
By eight o'clock everybody is stirring, and so I get up and glide about
in my pajamas, which makes me look almost like the "Clemenceau Case" in
search of an engagement.
Mr. Rogers is going to have me sit to him in my pajamas for a group of
statuary. He also wishes to model an iron hitching post from me.
On waking I at once take to me tub and give myself a good cold bath.
I then put in my teeth.
After doing some little studies in chiropody I throw a silk-velvet
dressing gown over my shoulders and look at my bright and girlish beauty
in a full-length mirror, comparing the dimpling curves, as I see them
reflected, with those shown in the morning paper.
After reading a little from the chess column of some good author, I
descend to the _salon_ and greet my family smilingly in order to open
the day auspiciously. We all then sing around the parlor organ a little
pean entitled, "It's Funny When You Feel That Way."
We now go to the breakfast room, where the children are taught to set
aside the daintiest bits for papa, because he might die some time and
then it would be a life-long regret to those who are spared that they
did not give him the tender part of the steer or the second joint of the
hen.
After breakfast, which consists of chops, hashed brown potatoes, muffins
and coffee, preceded by canteloupe or baked beans, we proceed to
quarrel over who shall go to church and who shall remain at home to keep
the cattle out of the corn.
We then go to church, those who can, at least, whilst the others remain
and read something that is improving. Sometimes I shave myself on Sunday
mornings. Then it takes me quite a while to get back into a religious
frame of mind. I do not manage very well in shaving myself, and people
who go by the house are often attracted by my yells.
I go to church quite regularly and enjoy the sermon unless it is too
firm or personal. If it goes into doctrine too much I am apt to be quite
fatigued at its end on account of the mental reservations I have made
along through it.
I like to go and hear about God's love, but I am rarely benefited by a
discourse which enlarges upon his jealousy. When I am told also that God
spares no pains in getting even with people, I not only do not enjoy the
information, but I would sit up till a late hour at night to doubt it.
[Illustration: _He sometimes succeeds in getting himself disliked by
some other dog and then I can observe the fight_ (Page 67)]
I shake hands with the pastor, and after suggesting something for him to
preach about on the following Sabbath, I go home.
In the afternoon I go walking if no one calls. We have dinner at 2
o'clock on Sunday, consisting of jerked beef smothered in milk gravy.
This is the remove. For side dishes we have squash or meat pie. We
sometimes open with soup and then have clean plates all around, with
fowl and greens, tapering off with some kind of rich pie.
After dinner I sometimes nap a little and then fool with the colt. This
is done quietly, however, so as not to break in upon the devotional
spirit of the day. After this I go for a walk or converse intelligently
with any foreign powers who may be visiting our shores.
When I walk I am generally accompanied by a restless Queen Anne dog,
which precedes me about a mile. He sometimes succeeds in getting himself
disliked by some other dog and then I can observe the fight when I catch
up with him.
As the twilight gathers all seem ready again for more food and we begin
to clamor for pabulum, keeping it up until either square or round
crackers and smearcase are produced. These are washed down with foaming
beakers of sarsaparilla.
As the evening lamp is now lighted, I produce some good book or pamphlet
like "The Greatest Thing in the World," and read from it, occasionally
cuffing a child in order to keep everything calm and reposeful. At 9
o'clock the cat is expelled and the eight-day clock is wound up for the
week. Gazing up at the bright cold stars after kicking forth the cat, I
realize that another Sabbath has been filed away in the great big brawny
bosom of the past, and with a little remorseful sigh and an incipient
sob when I think that I am not making a better record, I drive a fence
nail in over the door latch and seek my library which, on being properly
approached, opens and becomes a beautiful couch.
A FLYER IN DIRT
VIII
I have just returned from a visit to my property at Minneapolis, and can
not refrain from referring to its marvelous growth. The distance between
it and the business center of the city has also grown a good deal since
I last saw it. This is the property which I purchased some three years
ago of a real good man. His name is Pansley--Flinton Pansley. He has
done business in most all the towns of the Northwest. Perhaps a further
word or two about this pious gentleman will not be amiss. Entering a
place quietly and even meekly, with a letter to the local pastor, he
would begin reaching out his little social tendrils by sighing over the
lost and undone condition of mankind. After regretting the state in
which he had found God's vineyard, he would rent a store and sell goods
at a sacrifice, but when the sacrifice was being offered up, a close
observer would discover that Mr. Pansley was not in it.
In this way he would build up quite a trade, only sparing a little time
each day in which to retire to his closet and sob over the altogether
godless condition in which he had found man. He would then make an
assignment.
Pardon me for again referring to the matter, but I do so utterly without
malice, and in connection with the unparalleled growth of my property
here. So if the gentle and rather attractive reader will excuse a bad
pen, and some plain stationery, as my own crested writing-paper is in my
trunk, which is now in the possession of a well-known hotel man whose
name is suppressed on account of his family, I shall refer again briefly
to the property and the circumstances surrounding its purchase. I had
intended to put a good fence around it ere this, but with these peculiar
circumstances surrounding it, I feel that it is safe from intrusion.
The property was sold to my wife by Mr. Pansley at a sacrifice, but when
the burnt offering had ascended, and the atmosphere had cleared, and the
ashes on the altar had been blown aside, the suspender buttons of Mr.
Pansley were not there. He had taken his bright red mark-down figures,
and a letter to his future pastor, and gone to another town. He is now
selling groceries. From town lots to groceries is, to a versatile man, a
very small stride. He is in business in St. Paul, and that has given
Minneapolis quite a little spurt of prosperity.
We exchanged a cottage for city lots unimproved, as I said in a former
article, and got Mr. Pansley to do it for us. My wife gave him her
carriage for acting in that capacity. She was sorry she could not do
more for him, because he was a man who had found his fellow-men in such
an undone condition everywhere, and had been trying ever since to do
them up.
The property lies about half-way between the West Hotel and the open
Polar Sea, and is in a good neighborhood, looking south; at least it
was the other day when I left it. It lies all over the northwest,
resembling in that respect the man we bought it of.
Mr. Pansley took the carriage, also the wrench with which I was wont to
take off the nuts thereof when I greased it on Sabbath mornings. We
still go to church, but we walk. Occasionally Mr. Pansley whirls by us,
and his dust and debris fall upon my freshly ironed and neat linen coat
as he passes by us with a sigh.
He said once that he did not care for money if he only could let in the
glad sunlight of the gospel upon the heathen.
"Why," I exclaimed, "why do you wish to let in the glad sunlight of the
gospel upon the heathen?"
"Alas!" he said, brushing away a tear with the corner of a gray shawl
which he wore, and wiping his bright, piercing nose on the top rail of
my fence, "so that they would not go to hell, Mr. Nye!"
"And do you think that the heathen who knows nothing of God will go to
hell, or has been going to hell for, say, ten thousand years, without
having seen a daily paper or a Testament?"
"I do. Millions of ignorant people in yet undiscovered lands are going
to hell daily without the knowledge of God." With that he turned away,
and concealed his emotion in his shawl, while his whole frame shook.
"But, even if he should escape by reason of his ignorance, we can not
escape the responsibility of shedding the light of the gospel upon his
opaque soul," said he.
So I gave him $2 to assist the poor heathen to a place where he may
share the welcome of a cordial and eternal damnation along with the more
educated and refined classes. Whether the heathen will ever appreciate
it or not, I can not tell at this moment. Lately I have had a little ray
of fear that he might not, and with that fear, like a beam of sunshine,
comes the blessed hope that possibly something may have happened to the
$2, and that mayhap it did not get there.