IN BARNRIFF
It has been said that the pretentiousness of a newly carpentered
Western American settlement can only be compared to the "side" of a
nigger wench, weighted down under the gaudy burden of her Emancipation
Day holiday gown. Although, in many cases, the analogy is not without
aptness, yet, in frequent instances, it would be a distinct libel. At
any rate, Barnriff boasted nothing of pretentiousness. Certainly
Barnriff was not newly carpentered. Probably it never had been.
It was one of those places that just grow from a tiny seedling; and,
to judge by the anemic result of its effort, that original seedling
could have been little better than a "scratching" post on an
ill-cared-for farm, or perhaps a storm shelter. Certainly it could not
have risen above an implement shed in the ranks of structural art. The
general impression was in favor of the "scratching" post, for one
expects to grow something better than weeds on a rich loam soil.
The architect of Barnriff--if he ever existed--was probably a
drunkard, not an uncommon complaint in that settlement, or a person
qualified for the state asylum. The inference is drawn from strong
circumstantial evidence, and not from prejudice. As witness, the
saloon seemed to have claimed his most serious effort as a piece of
finished construction. Here his weakness peeps through in no
uncertain manner. The bar occupies at least half of the building, and
the fittings of it are large enough to accommodate sufficient alcohol
for an average man to swim in. His imagination must have been fully
extended in this design, for the result suggested its having been
something in the nature of a labor of affection. The other half of the
building was divided up into three rooms: a tiny dining-room
(obviously the pleasures of the table had no great appeal for him), a
small bedroom for the proprietor (who seemed to have been considered
least of all), and one vast dormitory, to accommodate those whose
misfortunes of the evening made them physically incapable of
negotiating the intricacies of the village on their way home.
Of course, this evidence might easily have been nullified, or even
have been turned to the architect's favor, had the rest of the village
borne testimony for him. A clever counsel defending would probably
have declared that the architect knew the people of the village, and
was merely supplying their wants. Of course he knew them, and their
wants--he was probably one of them.
However, the rest of the village was all against him. Had he been an
abstemious man, there is no doubt but the village market-place would
have been a square, or a triangle, an oval, a circle, or--well, some
definite shape. As it was, it had no definite shape. It was not even
irregular. It was nothing--just a space, with no apparent defining
line.
Then there were no definite roads--at least, the roads seemed to have
happened, and ran just where the houses permitted them. It was a
reversal of ordinary civilized methods, which possibly had its
advantages. There were certainly no straight lines for the men-folk to
walk after leaving the saloon at night for their homes.
As for the houses which composed the village, they were too uncertain
to be described in any but a general view of their design, and their
grouping. In the latter, of course, the evidence was all against the
designer of the place. Who but a madman or a drunkard would set up a
laundry next to the coal yard?
Then another thing. Two churches--they called them "churches" in
Barnriff--of different denomination, side by side. On Sundays the
discord that went on was painful. The voices of the preachers were in
endless conflict through the thin weather-boarding sides, and when
the rival harmoniums "got busy" there was nothing left for the
confused congregations but to chant their rival hymns to some
popular national tune upon which they were mutually agreed beforehand.
The incongruities of this sort were so many that even the most
optimistic could not pass them unheeded.
As regards the style of the buildings themselves, the less said about
them the better. They were buildings, no one could deny that; but even
an impressionist painter could claim no beauty for them. Windows and
doors, weather-boarding, and shingle roof. One need say no more,
except that they were, in the main, weatherproof. But wait. There was
one little house that had a verandah and creepers growing around it.
It was well painted, too, and stood out amongst its frowzy neighbors a
thing approaching beauty.
But Barnriff, as a residential hamlet, was hardly worth considering
seriously. It was a topsyturvy sort of place, and its methods were in
keeping with its design. It was full of unique combinations of trade.
Some of them were hardly justifiable. The doctor of the place was also
a horse-dealer, with a side line in the veterinary business. Any tooth
extraction needed was forcibly performed by John Rust, the blacksmith.
The baker, Jake Wilkes, shod the human foot whenever he was tired of
punching his dough. The Methodist lay-preacher, Abe C. Horsley, sold
everything to cover up the body, whenever he wasn't concerned with the
soul. Then there was Angel Gay, an estimable butcher and a good enough
fellow; but it hardly seemed right that he should be in combination
with Zac Restless, the carpenter, for the disposal of Barnriff's
corpses. However, these things were, and had been accepted by the
village folk for so long that it seemed almost a pity to disturb
them.
Barnriff, viewed from a distance, was not without a certain
picturesqueness; but the distance had to be great enough to lose sight
of the uncouthness which a close inspection revealed. Besides, its
squalor did not much matter. It did not affect the temper of the folk
living within its boundaries. To them the place was a little temporary
"homelet," to coin a word. For frontier people are, for the most part,
transient. They only pause at such place on their fighting journey
through the wilder life. They pass on in time to other spheres, some
on an upward grade, others down the long decline, which is the road of
the ne'er-do-well. And with each inhabitant that comes and goes, some
detail of evolution is achieved by the little hamlet through which
they pass, until, in the course of long years, it, too, has fought its
way upward to the mathematical precision and bold glory of a modern
commercial city, or has joined in the downward march of the
ne'er-do-well.
The blazing summer sun burned down upon the unsheltered village. There
was no shade anywhere--that is, outside the houses. For the place had
grown up on the crests of the bald, green rollers of the Western
plains as though its original seedling had been tossed there by the
wanton summer breezes, and for no better reason.
Anthony Smallbones, familiarly known to his intimates as
"fussy-breeches," because he lived in a dream-fever of commercial
enterprise, and believed himself to be a Napoleon of finance--he ran a
store, at which he sold a collection of hardware, books, candy,
stationery, notions and "delicatessen"--was on his way to the
boarding-house for breakfast--there was only one boarding-house in
Barnriff, and all the bachelors had their meals there.
He was never leisurely. He believed himself to be too busy for
leisure. Just now he was concentrated upon the side issues of a great
irrigation scheme that had occupied his small head for at least
twenty-four hours, and thus it happened that he ran full tilt into
Peter Blunt before he was aware of the giant's presence. He rebounded
and came to, and hurled a savage greeting at him.
"Wher' you goin'?" he demanded.
"Don't seem to be your way," the large man vouchsafed, with quiet
good-nature.
"No," was the surly response.
"Kind of slack, aren't you?" inquired Peter, his deep-set blue eyes
twinkling with humor. "I've eaten two hours back. This lying a-bed is
mighty bad for your business schemes."
"Schemes? Gee! I was around at half after five, man! Lying a-bed?
Say, you don't know what business means." The little man sniffed
scornfully.
"Maybe you're right," Peter responded. He hunched his great loose
shoulders to shift the position of a small sack of stuff he was
carrying.
He was a man of very large physique and uncertain age. He possessed a
burned up face of great strength, and good-nature, but it was so
weather-stained, so grizzled, that at first sight it appeared almost
harsh. He was an Englishman who had spent years and years of hardy
life wandering over the remotenesses of the Western plains of America.
Little was known of him, that is to say, little of that life that must
once have been his. He was well educated, traveled, and possessed an
inexhaustible fund of information on any subject. But beyond the fact
that he had once been a soldier, and that a large slice of his life
had been lived in such places as Barnriff, no one knew aught of him.
And yet it was probable that nobody on the Western prairies was better
known than Peter Blunt. East and west, north and south, he was known
for a kindly nature, and kindly actions. These things, and for a
devotion to prospecting for gold in what were generally considered to
be the most unlikely places.
"Right? Why o' course I'm right. Ef you'se folk jest got busy around
here, we'd make Barnriff hum an elegant toon. Say, now I got a dandy
scheme fer irrigatin' that land back there----"
"Yep. You gave me that yesterday. It's a good scheme." The giant's
eyes twinkled. "A great scheme. You're a wonder. But say, all you told
me that day has set my slow head busy. I've been thinking a heap
since on what you said about 'trusts.' That's it, 'trusts,' 'trusts'
and 'combines.' That's the way to get on to millions of dollars.
Better than scratching around, eh? Now here's an idea. I thought I'd
like to put it to you, finance and such things being your specialty.
There's Angel Gay. Now he's running a fine partnership with Restless.
Now you take those two as a nucleus. You yourself open a side-line in
drugs, and work in with Doc Crombie, and pool the result of the four.
The Doc would draw his fees for making folks sick, you'd clear a
handsome profit for poisoning them, Gay 'ud rake in his dollars for
burying 'em, and Restless?--why Restless 'ud put in white pine for
oak, and retire on the profits in five years. Say----"
"What you got in that sack?" inquired Smallbones, blandly ignoring the
other's jest at his expense.
"Well, nothing that's a heap of interest. I've been scratching around
at the head waters of the river, back there in the foot-hills."
"Ah, 'prospects,'" observed the other, with a malicious shake of the
head. "Guess you're allus prospectin' around. I see you diggin' Eve
Marsham's tater patch yesterday. Don't guess you made much of a
'strike' in that layout?"
"No." Peter shook his head genially. The little man's drift was
obvious. He turned toward the one attractive cottage in the
settlement, and saw a woman's figure standing at the doorway talking
to a diminutive boy.
"Guess though you'll likely strike more profit diggin' spuds fer folk
than you do scratching up loam and loose rocks the way you do,"
Smallbones went on sourly.
Peter nodded.
"Sure. You're a far-seeing little man. There's a heap of gold about
Eve's home. A big heap; and I tell you, if that was my place, I'd
never need to get outside her fences to find all I needed. I'd be a
millionaire."
Smallbones looked up into his face curiously. He was thinking hard.
But his imagination was limited. Finally he decided that Peter was
laughing at him.
"Guess your humor's 'bout as elegant as a fun'ral. An' it ain't good
on an empty stummick. I pass."
"So long," cried the giant amiably. "I'll turn that 'trust' racket
over in my mind. So long."
He strode away with great lumbering strides heading straight for
his humble, two-roomed shack. Smallbones, as he went on to the
boarding-house, was full of angry contempt for the prospector. He
was a mean man, and like most mean men he hated to be laughed at. But
when his anger smoothed down he found himself pitying any one who
spent his life looking for profit, by wasting a glorious energy,
delving for gold in places where gold was known to be non-existent.
He ruminated on the matter as he went. And wondered. Then there came
to him the memory of vague stories of gold in the vicinity of the
Barnriff. Indian stories it is true. But then Indian stories often had
a knack of having remarkably truthful foundations. Immediately his
busy brain began to construct a syndicate of townspeople to hunt up
the legends, with a small capital to carry on operations. He would
have the lion's share in the concern, of course, and--yes--they might
make Peter Blunt chief operator. And by the time he reached the
boarding-house all his irrigation scheme was forgotten in this new
toy.