I go back to my hotel and go to bed, and I do not get up again for
two weary weeks. I have the mountain fever (so called in Utah,
though it closely resembles the old-style typhus) and my case is
pronounced dangerous. I don't regard it so. I don't, in fact,
regard anything. I am all right, MYSELF. My poor Hingston shakes
his head sadly, and Dr. Williamson, from Camp Douglas, pours all
kinds of bitter stuff down my throat. I drink his health in a dose
of the cheerful beverage known as jalap, and thresh the sheets with
my hot hands. I address large assemblages, who have somehow got
into my room, and I charge Dr. Williamson with the murder of Luce,
and Mr. Irwin, the actor, with the murder of Shakspeare. I have a
lucid spell now and then, in one of which James Townsend, the
landlord, enters. He whispers, but I hear what he says far too
distinctly: "This man can have anything and everything he wants;
but I'm no hand for a sick room. I NEVER COULD SEE ANYBODY DIE."
That was cheering, I thought. The noble Californian, Jerome
Davis -he of the celebrated ranch- sticks by me like a twin
brother, although I fear that in my hot frenzy I more than once
anathematised his kindly eyes. Nursers and watchers, Gentile and
Mormon, volunteer their services in hoops and rare wines are sent
to me from all over the city, which, if I can't drink, the
venerable and excellent Thomas can, easy.
I lay there in this wild, broiling way for nearly two weeks, when
one morning I woke up with my head clear and an immense plaster on
my stomach. The plaster had OPERATED. I was so raw that I could by
no means say to Dr. Williamson, "Well done, thou good and faithful
servant". I wished he had lathed me before he plastered me. I was
fearfully weak. I was frightfully thin. With either one of my
legs you could have cleaned the stem of a meerschaum pipe. My
backbone had the appearance of a clothesline with a quantity of
English walnuts strung upon it. My face was almost gone. My nose
was so sharp that I didn't dare stick it into other people's
business for fear it would stay there. But by borrowing my agent's
overcoat I succeeded in producing a shadow.
. . . .
I have been looking at Zion all day, and my feet are sore and my
legs are weary. I go back to the Salt Lake House and have a talk
with landlord Townsend about the State of Maine. He came from that
bleak region, having skinned his infantile eyes in York county. He
was at Nauvoo, and was forced to sell his entire property there for
50 dollars. He has thrived in Utah, however, and is much thought
of by the Church. He is an Elder, and preaches occasionally. He
has only two wives. I hear lately that he has sold his property
for 25,000 dollars to Brigham Young, and gone to England to make
converts. How impressive he may be as an expounder of the Mormon
gospel, I don't know. His beefsteaks and chicken-pies, however,
were first-rate. James and I talk about Maine, and cordially agree
that so far as pine boards and horse-mackerel are concerned, it is
equalled by few and excelled by none. There is no place like home,
as Clara, the Maid of Milan, very justly observes; and while J.
Townsend would be unhappy in Maine, his heart evidently beats back
there now and then.
I heard the love of home oddly illustrated in Oregon, one night, in
a country bar-room. Some well-dressed men, in a state of strong
drink, were boasting of their respective places of nativity.
"I," said one, "was born in Mississippi, where the sun ever shines
and the magnolias bloom all the happy year round."
"And I," said another, "was born in Kentucky--Kentucky, the home of
impassioned oratory: the home of Clay, the State of splendid
women, of gallant men!"
"And I," said another, "was born in Virginia, the home of
Washington: the birthplace of statesmen: the State of chivalric
deeds and noble hospitality!"
"And I," said a yellow-haired and sallow-faced man, who was not of
this party at all, and who had been quietly smoking a short black
pipe by the fire during their magnificent conversation--"and I was
born in the garden-spot of America."
"Where is that?" they said.
"SKEOUHEGAN, MAINE!" he replied; "kin I sell you a razor strop?"