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The Frontier and The Frontier and Midland Literary Magazines, 1920-1939 University of Montana Publications

3-1931

The Frontier, March 1931

Harold G. Merriam

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Recommended Citation Merriam, Harold G., "The Frontier, March 1931" (1931). The Frontier and The Frontier and Midland Literary Magazines, 1920-1939. 35. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/frontier/35

This Journal is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Montana Publications at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Frontier and The Frontier and Midland Literary Magazines, 1920-1939 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FRONTIER ^ MAGAZINE Of THE NORTHWEST

MARCH Buffalo Run, a bronze by Lone Wolf. Sonnets of a Paper Mill, by Laurence Pratt. Bill Nye and “The Laramie Boomerang/' by W. E. Chaplin. Deerfoot Prints, a story by Howard McKinley Corning. To View the Remains, a portion of a Picaresque Novel, by Ted Olson. Chinook Jargon, by E. H. Thomas. Diary of Mary Richardson Walker on a Trip Overland in 1838.

Stories by Mary Brinker Post. Sally Elliott Allen. Anne Hamilton, Dorothy Marie Johnson. Verse by Benjamin Musser, Ethel Fuller, Moe Bragin, Harold Vinal, W . E. Kidd. Raynesford Mulder, Arthur T . Merrill, Raymond Kresensky, Robertson Nelson, John R. McCarthy, Irene W . Grissom. L o r i Petri, Paul Tracy,,Homer Parsons. The Sluice Box, Folklore, Open Range, and Historical Sections. Notices of Books on the West ______Literary News

Volume X I MARCH, 1931 Number 3

PUBLISHED IN N O V E M B E R , JANUARY, MARCH, AND MAY AT THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA, MISSOULA. FORTY CENTS A COPY—ONE DOLLAR AND A HALF A YEAR 1

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Volume Eleven MARCH, 1931 Number Three CONTENTS Buffalo Run, from a bronze by Hart Merriam Schultz, “Lone W olf” ...... 206 Sonnets o f a Paper Mill...... L. Laurence Pratt...... 207 Holiday, story...... _...... Mary Brinker Post...... 215 Bill Nye and “The Laramie Boomerang,"article...... W. B. Chaplin...... 223 Deerfoot Prints, story...... Howard McKinley Corning...... 227 Mountains, Beasts, and Men, poems...... 231 Mountain ...... Benjamin Musser Klickitat Hills ...... - ...... Ethel Romig Fuller Rain ...... Moe Bragin Mountain Cattle ...... Harold Vinal Bedded Sheep...... Walter Evans Kidd Weaning Time...... H. Raynesford Mulder Swede Mother...... Arthur Truman Merrill Wind-Swept Lane...... Arthur Truman Merrill April— West Oregon...... L. Laurence Pratt Down to Cloquet, ballad...... Raymond Kresensky...... 234 In League with the Stars, story...... Sally Elliott Allen...... 235 Chinook Jargon, third article...... E. H. Thomas...... 243 Three Poems Ballad of Jed Strong Smith...... John Russell McCarthy...... 246 Concrete Worker...... Robert Nelson...... 247 When the Railroad Comes...... *...... Irene Welch Grissom...... 248 Highways are Happy Ways, story...... Dorothy Marie Johnson...... 249 To View the Remains, story, third installment o f A Picaresque Novel, Ted Olson...... 257 Mysterious Jeremy Pinch...... George W. Fuller...... 267 The Wishing Ring, poem...... Lori Petri...... 268 SLUICE BOX The Pioneer on Esthetics...... Paul E. Tracy...... 269 Ballade of Good Food...... Homer Parsons...... 269 Blue Serge, a short-short...... Anne Hamilton...... 269 Linoleum Cut ...... 1...... Frances Faick...... 272 FOLKLORE Medicine Ceremonies, and Devil’s Dance...... Albert B. Reagan...... 273 Colonel Crockett’s Ride on a Buffalo, a tall tale 1 edited by V. L. O. Chittick...... 276 OPEN RANGE A Frontier Picture...... Mrs. T. A. Wickes...... 277 A Pioneer Child s Story...... Mrs. Frances E. Albright...... 280 Long Horns ...... | Pat T Tucker 282 HISTORICAL SECTION ...... P 1 T ‘ T ...... HI “ aLy ®i?hardson Walker, 1838...... edited by Rufus A. Coleman...... 284 BOOKSHELF—LITERARY NEWS—ABOARD THE COVERED WAGON ...... ••...... Front and Back Advertising Sections BOARD OF EDITORS Editor...... H a r o l d O. Merriam r Grace R aymond H ebard Assistant Editors...... )« bace Stone Coates Advistory Editors University of Wyoming (B rassil Fitzgerald for the Histori- P aul C. P hillips r™___ ieal Section...... J University of Montana Frank B. L inderman A rcher B. H ulbert JAMES Stevens Colorado College Lew Sarett P h ilip A shton R ollins H. L. D avis Princeton Advisory Editors for the Folklore SectionlV- C h ittick , Reed College , (H arry T urney-H ig h , University of Montana BuHneZsUMan>JnJ!?l-0Ul<*. to Editor; business communications to Madison Turner, ger j 0hn h uJh*^>8criJ>tions to Kenneth Good., Circulation Manager; Publicity Mana- ger, John C. Prohlicher-all at the State Vniversity of Montana, Missoula, Montana. Entered ? — —.frr*am- Published in November, January, March and May.______the Act of March 3° 1~879S3 matter May 4» 1928, at the postoffice at Missoula, Montana, under THE FRONTIER is a member of the Missoula Chamber of Commerce. GRACE STONE COATES

Associate Editor of The Frontier and a frequent contributor, has collected her delightful sketches of childhood on a Kansas farm, depicting the growth of a little girl through her own mind, and they are

now offered in one volume entitled— BLACK CHERRIES

At the age of five, Veve is just beginning to become conscious o f the world around her. She investigates life on the farm and records it in her own terms, terms which most of us have long for­ gotten. Mrs. Coates vividly recalls all the queries, tragedies, disillusionment, and supreme content which are the lot o f the sensitive and impressionable child who trys to understand, whose life is one prolonged “ w h y .” As Veve grows older, she realizes more and more clearly that her quaint fancies and vivid im­ agery, her attempts to translate every-day happen­ ings into beauty, are for herself alone, that she is an individual. In a final chapter showing Veve as a grown woman visiting her father, Mrs. Coates com ­ pletes her story, subtly showing how Veve’s early experiences have influenced her life. As a picture of childhood, with its perfection of form and penetrat­ ing insight, Black Cherries stands alone.

Price $2.50

at your bookstore or direct from Alfred A. Knopf 730 Fifth Ave., N. Y. ABOARD THE COVERED WAGON “DESERT POEMS” By ADA HASTINGS HEDGES Poems of the High Desert east of the Cascades. Four contributors, all known to Frontier Mrs. Hedges has contributed poems to readers, live In Portland, Oregon— Ethel leading magazines of America and Eng­ Romig Fuller, Howard M. Coming, L. Laur­ land. The arid plateau region of the western United States has at last found ence Pratt, and V. L. O. Chittick. Mr. Com­ an interpreter in one, gifted with feeling, ing's story he designates “a moral portrait expression and observation— who has lived in that vast land of somber allure­ of the Northwest.” Mr. Pratt worked In a ment and who has learned the spirit of paper mill. Three contributors live in Eu­ its quietude. The book, beautifully printed and bound gene, Walter E. Kidd, Sally E. Allen, and in cloth is $1.25. Paul E. Tracy. “THE MOUNTAIN IN THE SKY” Washington is the home o f three of the By HOWARD McKINLEY CORNING contributors—Mary B. Post, Spokane; George A book of Oregon poems, dealing W. Fuller, librarian of the Spokane Public particularly with the country west­ Library; and E. H . Thomas, Seattle. Mr. ward o f the mountains. Fuller’s new history of the Pacific North­ Mr. Coming has won an outstanding west will be issued by Alfred Knopf early place for himself as a poet with his first volume, “These People.” All those who in the spring. Mrs. Post will have two read that book will be eager for the stories in this year's issues of The Prairie enjoyment of this one, and many new readers will surely be added because of Schooner. the vividness and imagination of "The Mountain in the Sky.” From Montana come the contributions of This book in cloth is $1.25. Robertson Nelson and Frances Faick, Uni­ versity students; Rufus Coleman, professor METROPOLITAN PRESS of English at the University, and three early PORTLAND, OREGON comers to the state, Mrs. T. A. Wickes, Mrs. PUBLISHERS TO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST Frances Albright, and Pat Tucker. Irene “Books of the Oregon Trail” W. Grissom is the poet laureate of the state of Idaho.

California claims six of the contributors— W . E. Chaplin, formerly of Wyoming; Ar­ thur T. Merrill, Anne Hamilton, and John McCarthy, who live in or near Los Angeles; WHY NOT Homer Parsons, San Bernardino, and Lori Petri. Mr. Merrill and Miss Petri published USE BEET SUGAR? volumes of verse last year. Benjamin Musser lives in New Jersey; Moe Bragin and Harold Vinal in New York; Raynesford Mulder in Ohio, formerly in the Hood River valley, Oregon; Raymond Kre- Experienced cooks find the use sensky in Iow a; Dorothy Johnson in Wiscon­ sin, formerly in Montana; and Ted Olson in o f Wyoming, although he is spending the pres­ ent year in Europe. All are skilled and known writers. Mr. Bragin recently had a BEET SUGAR fine story in The Midland.

advantageous in the making of The FOLKLORE section is new with this Fine Candies and Pastries issue. It is under the advisory editorship of Professors V. L. O. Chittick of Reed Col­ lege, Portland, and Harry Turney-High of the State University of Montana. Dr. Albert Reagan has spent over thirty-one years in the U. S. Indian Service, in that time having been in charge of four divisions of the West AMALGAMATED Coast Indians. For the Bureau of American SU G AR CO. Ethnology he made a study of two divisions of these Indians, and his collection o f myths and traditions of the Hoh and Qulleute In­ dians will soon appear in “American Folk- Lore.” Advance Announcement Books of Importance For Early Spring NORTHWEST VERSE Compiled and Edited by H. G. Merriatn A collection of poems written by more than one hundred poets of Montana, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Poets whose reputations are already made as well as those who are younger, or less known, are Included. A handbook of Northwest writers o f verse, and a milepost in the development of Northwest literature. De Luxe Edition (Ltd.) $8.00. Popular Edition $3.00. VERSE OF THE NEW WEST By Irene Welch Grissom A volume of lyric poetry by Idaho’s poet laureate. The poems are inspiring in conception and charming in their simplicity. Illustrated throughout by Glen H. Spurgeon, the Caxton Staff Artist, whose sympathetic brush has appropriately portrayed the spirit of Idaho. De Luxe Edition (Ltd.) $5.00. Popular Edition $2.25. ARROWROCK, Songs and Stories of a Prodigal By Earl Wayland Bowman A collection of the author’s hitherto unpublished poems, embodying every con­ ceivable form, style, meter, and theme, together with seven of his best known short stories. A book that no one can fail to enjoy. De Luxe Edition (Ltd.) $10.00. Popular Edition $3.00. Order from your book dealer or direct from THE CAXTON PRINTERS, Ltd. Printers Publishers Binders CALDWELL, IDAHO

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Information, reservations, tickets, gladly furnished. M. J. EMMERT Agent, Missoula Phone 4367 and 3422 The MILWAUKEE Road LITERARY NEWS A History of the Pacific Announcing “Northwest Verse" a collec­ Northwest— $ 5.00 tion of the best work of Northwestern writers edited by H. G. Merriam, Miss Harriet Mon­ by roe, editor o f Poetry, a Magazine of Verse, says: “This collection will include verse GEO. W. FULLER by several poets familiar to our readers— H. L. Davis, Gwendolen Haste, Ethel Fuller, To be published in May H. M. Corning, W. E. Kidd, Mary B. Post, Idella Purnell, Paul E. Tracy, etc. Mr. Mer­ “The Mysterious Expedition of Jere­ riam has also published recently a volume my Pinch,” published in this issue of of poems by Donald Burnie of Idaho, under The Frontier, is only one of the very the title Tsceminicum, Snake River People.” The volume is dedicated to that subtle, gen­ interesting historical features of this uine poet, the late Hazel Hall of Portland, most important work. Oregon. The volume will be ready for dis­ tribution in March. Place your order at once so that you Robert Emmet Johns is a unique literary may be sure of getting an autographed figure of the day. Writing less than two first edition. years, he has sold twenty-eight stories to Danger Trail, Short Stories, West, etc., plac­ ing most o f them on their first trip out. Mr. Johns was born in Kansas City, and went to the Pacific coast at the age of four. After finishing school he followed his father’s pro­ 707 to 711 Sprague Ave. fession of mining, prospecting and mining from Sonora, Mexico, to the Arctic Circle. 708 to 716 First Ave. He punched burros all over southwestern SPOKANE deserts, and spent four years in and around WASH. Death Valley. He walked across Death Val­ ley one July day in 1909. He has prospected and worked underground in mines in Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Alaska and Yukon Terri­ tory. He spent eight years in the North without intermission, and in one trip trav­ Card Writers Supplies eled the width o f Alaska by dog team. In 1910 he floated down the Yukon from White Horse to Fort Gibbon in an open boat, a We carry a complete line of distance of 1100 miles. He has lived in Seattle since 1918. Cardboard, Show Card Following the appearance of his second volume, “The Mountain in the Sky” (Metro­ Colors and Brushes. politan Press, Portland), Howard McKinley Corning has been giving a series of readings in coast cities, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and Vancouver, B. C. His volume has met We have a most complete stock of high praise and success, and like Ada Hast­ paints, wallpaper, glass and painters’ ings Hedges’ “Desert Poems” from the same supplies and can offer you expert ad­ press, is beautifully printed. vice on any of your finishing problems. In late January a friend phoned William Freeman Hough asking, “How’s the writing? What’s the news?” He answered, “Two checks in the morning mail, one for a long story, one for a short.” So it goes consis­ tently with “Bill” Hough. His “Tiger Lady,” a novelette, sold to Ranch Romances; “ Lucky Catch,” to Rangeland Love Story; “Here Comes the Groom” (rich humor) to Ranch W. P. Fuller & Co. Romances— all in little more than a week. 312 Higgins Ave. Kenneth Gilbert, author of animal stories and westerns, appears in Western Story Mag­ MISSOULA, MONT. azine, January, with “Double Decoy,” a hu­ man interest story of a boy and a dog. Frank Richardson Pierce, known to thou­ sands of devoted readers as Seth Ranger, WESTERN MONTANA

The Scenic Empire

“ Montana’s Garden City,” Missoula is called. Down at the bases of mountains which sweep upward majestically in every direction, it has been described as a community placed in a perfect setting. Missoula is the center of one of the finest recreation areas in the country. Several weeks can be spent in this region, and every day a trip may be made to some scenic spot or sportsman’s paradise, a different tour for each day and each one packed with thrills and pleasure. Thirty-seven fine fishing streams can be found within a radius of 20 miles of Missoula, offering unusual opportunities for fishing; also hunting, camping, mountain climbing and all varieties of recreational pleasures are offered to those who love the glorious out-of-doors. Missoula also is Montana’s University city. The State University is located on the southeast edge of the city, and from the campus proper Mount Sentinel swoops abruptly up into the high distance. A glorious view of the surrounding country may be gained by ascending one of the several trails up the mountain. Lumbering is one of Western Montana’s main industries, and a thorough knowledge of the work, from the planting of tiny trees to the finishing of high grade lumber, can be obtained here. The Forestry School nursery has a large area devoted to the culture of trees of various kinds. A trip through the nursery is a pleasure and an in­ structive pastime. At Milltown and Bonner, just east of Missoula and on both the motor highway and the street-car line, are the lumber mills of the Anaconda Copper Mining company, where visitors are shown how the logs are pulled dripping from the river and in a few moments are piled as lumber in the drying yards. For Further Information Inquire of

T h e M i s s o u l a C h a m b e r o f C o m m e r c e MISSOULA, MONTANA has sold another serial to Western Story Magazine. At the present time he has one running in Argosy; and another, “Buckaroo Adventurer,” running in Western Story Mag­ HEALTH azine. Mrs. I. B. Solberg, Seattle, who writes Is Very Essential to All under the pen name of Lorena Daniel, recent­ ly sold an article to Good Housekeeping on Success and Prosperity. “ Design in Landscape Architecture.” The editor asked for more. She says, “I write stories and sell articles.” Ninety-five of her The John F. Class articles have sold on their first mailing. Colette Burns of Seattle, new associate Health Parlor editor o f Muse and Mirror, has placed lyrics with the New York Sun, and appears with at several poems in Muse and Mirror, American 115 W. Broadway Poetry, and Stratford Monthly. Ruth Bailey Harlow, of Seattle, has placed stories with the Saturday Evening Post, and Makes expensive trips to health sold poems to Life, Judge and College resorts unnecessary and is equip­ Humor. ped to help you regain excellent Dr. Ernest Fewster, for many years presi­ health. dent of the Vancouver (B. C.) Poetry So­ ciety, has appeared with an autographed limited edition of his poems, entitled “White Desire”. Dr. Charles G. D. Roberts says of See Us for Information his w ork: “ It is authentic in its inspiration, transparently sincere, rich in color and music, Morse and Morse and dedicated always to a sane, clear sighted MISSOULA MONTANA idealism.” Helen Maring, editor of Muse and Mirror, Seattle, will have a volume of poetry out in late spring. A feature story in the Colorado Springs, Colo., Gazette of Dec. 21, 1930, carries inter­ esting information of the work of the Stew­ art Commission on Western History, of TEACHERS Colorado College. Following the Issue of “Transcontinental Trails,” a six-volume reference set containing 360 blue-print maps from original government surveys by which REGISTER NOW the journals and diaries of pioneers become FOR 1931 for the first time intelligible, the Commission is Issuing a new series of five volumes on College graduates needed with or “Great Western Stage Coach Routes”. Vol. 1 of this series, edited by Archer B. Hulbert, without experience. director of the commission, is entitled “The FREE ENROLLMENT TO Deadwood Trails” and was published Dec. 17. “Roaming the Rockies” by John T. Faris MONTANA TEACHERS is a recently published book that devotes 50 Write or call at office for personal of its 300 pages to Glacier and Yellowstone parks. Faris has written 20 books of travel. interview. This one has a short introduction by Horace 1931 certification booklet free with M. Albright, until 1929 superintendent of enrollment. Yellowstone park, and now director of the national park service. With Will James, of Pryor, nominated for Vanity Fair's Hall of Fame; and Florence E. L. HUFF Stevens, of Circle, Montana, selected as repre­ sentative of Montana on a national honor Teachers Agency roll of girls who have gone to New York and made good; and Max Big Man, Crow Indian, 226-28 Hammond Bldg. drawing crowds in Columbus Circle, New York, Montana need not feel that the eastern MISSOULA, MONT. press is neglecting it. Miss Stevens is the subject of a biography by Mary Field Par- ton in the February, 1931, McCall’s Magazine. Up to Date with modern equipment and menu.

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Come in and look us over Through the kindness of Mrs. McDowell and the Roosevelt Birthplace, The Poetry Society of America will provide a table where books of verse by active members will be Eddy’s placed on sale at the society’s monthly meet­ ings. The display is limited to three copies of any original volume published within the last five years. Copies may be replaced as sold. Pan “Craters of the Moon” , an authoritative pamphlet dealing with Idaho’s great national Dandy monument, is a book by Dr. Harold Stearns, now on sale from Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho. In paper, 25c; leather, Bread $ 2. 00. An attractive “ Montana Miniature Series” is issued from the Billings Polytechnic In­ stitute under the direction of Olga Weyde- meyer, instructor in art. Miss Weydemeyer is a contributor of ornithological and nature Old stories to Bird Lore, American Forests and Forest Life, Awh, Condor, Montana Farmer, Plantation American Journal of Minerology. Henry Harrison, editor of Poetry World, Cake N. Y., is planning an anthology of Washing­ ton poets for spring publication. Mary T. Elmendorf, Seattle, is publishing verse in the Lyric, The Harp, Unity, Youth and The Frontier. She states that Bettie Sale, a for­ Famous for Quality mer resident of Washington, now in Glen­ dale, Cal., is at work on a novel and a vol­ ume of verse. Sheba Hargreaves’ “Ward of the Red­ skins” , first issued by Harper & Brothers, went into a 75c edition by A. L. Burt in February, 1931. Her book, “ Heroine of the Prairies” , had a satisfactory sale, and she is now at work on a full length novel featur­ ing the Overland Trail during the Gold rush of ’49. “Before the Covered Wagon”, a serial fea­ ture by Randall Parrish that appeared in the Oregonian, was issued in book form, last INTERSTATE February, by the Metropolitan Press of Port­ land. Mr. Parrish is a staff writer on the Oregonian. LUMBER COMPANY John Scheffer, of Eugene, Ore., is working on his graduate thesis in English, and is represented by several poems in the “New Collegiate Anthology” (Harpers). Alicia O’Donnell, State University of Montana, is also represented in it. Q U A L IT Y Vardis Fisher’s novel, “Dark Bridwell”, has been accepted for spring publication by Building Material Houghton Mifflin Co. The story is set in Idaho. Last summer Mr. Fisher rode all and over Europe on a bicycle, sleeping and eat­ ing in small out-of-the-way places where Fuel tourists seldom go. He wanted to find out what various continental peoples are like, how they live and what they think; espe­ cially, what is their attitude toward Ameri­ cans and the War. He found out! For a year Walter Kidd has severed con­ nection with writers and magazines to let a few of his own ideas and experiences ripen in their own natural way, that he may ex­ press them authentically as he has long HOUSEHOLD HARDWARE NEW and MINING TEXACO MACHINERY M otor O il Montana Hardware LASTS LONGER DEPT. OF ANACONDA CRACK-PROOF COPPER MINING CO. THE West Park TEXAS COMPANY BUTTE U. S. A.

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(><#>■ i wanted to. He would measure himself by trees, brooks, mountains, stars; and by hu­ manity, not by writers and magazines. Mr. Kidd is working on a novel that he does not hope to finish in less than two years. Mrs. Neta Lohnes Frazier, of Opportunity, Wash., says that through the publication of her work in The Frontier her stories were brought to the attention of Edward J. O'Brien and the O. Henry memorial award committee. Mrs. Frazier is an associate ed­ itor of The Spokane Valley Herald. Dorothy Marie Johnson, whose quick suc­ cess with the Saturday Evening Post rated oblique mention in The Writer, is secretary to the advertising manager of a paper-con- verting factory in Menasha, Wis. She is a western girl temporarily exiled, and is at present working on a 9000-word murder mystery and studying the pulps. Invites all in terested Ethel Romig Fuller heads a group of Port­ in Alaska to send for land writers who are demonstrating the truth of what Rebecca West maintains in book of recommend­ “A Room of Her Own.” They have offices impenetrable to household interruptions, and ed Northern Pacific devote business hours to the business of writing. One could enumerate twenty mag­ cruises. azines to which Mrs. Fuller has recently sold poems. She contributes innumerable articles to newspapers and magazines; sells second Address any Northern serial rights on her work through Curtis Brown, Ltd.', London. Mrs. Fuller’s radio Pacific Ra ilway rep­ poem, “ Proof,” goes round and round the world, usually marked “author unknown.” resentative or consult It was published in Sunset five years ago. Dick Wetjen has a story in the Saturday Evening Post of January 24, and recently N. H. Mason, Agent placed two others with them. Good wine needs no bush, and Wetjen’s sea stories are Telephone 3161 too authentically good to need praise. Missoula, Montana Queene B. Lister’s mail was flooded with “fan” letters following the publication of her ballad of the riverfront, “Caesar and Lizz" in The Frontier (Nov., 1930). She has established herself successfully with the pulp magazines, as has Borghild Lee, also of Portland, and Ivy Jean Richards, an excep­ tionally clever writer of Sacramento, Calif. Alexander Hull’s “Shep of the Painted Hills (Stokes Co.) is making a good sale. This With many other books of Northwestern Album writers it appears on the shelves of the Free Historical Library, Helena. Reporters from the Helena papers look, daily, for new west­ ern volumes there, and give those they find generous publicity. Idaruth Scofield Fargo of Salem, Ore., has enough published poems for a volume, and enough published stories for another. Her work appears in Sunset, McClure's, Independ­ ent Woman, American Cookery, Forestry, Overland Monthly and many other period­ icals. Mrs. Fargo is a member of the North Coast Limited Writer’s Section, Salem Arts League, an or­ ganization of ten years standing. She finds Neweet of Transcontinental Train* ,<* the discussions of the group stimulating. Continued on page SOI Goethe says: “There is in man a creative disposition which comes into activity as soon as his existence is assured. As soon as he has nothing to worry about or to fear, this semi-divinity in him, working effectively in his spiritual peace and assurance, grasps material into which to breathe its own spirit.” V ir g in ia W oolf says: “Fiction is like a spider's web attached to life at all four cor­ ners. These webs are not spun in mid-air by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and we are attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in. So that when I ask you to earn money and have a room of your own, I am asking you to live an invigorating life in the presence of reality.” An Announcement To all writers, Professional, Amateur and Would-Be. There need no genius come from the Classic Past nor from the Hit-or-Miss Present to tell us:— WHAT EVERY WRITER KNOWS “The writer needs periods of uninterrupted quiet and solitude for the actual execution of his work.” “The whole history of writing is one long tale of the crippling or the crushing of the spirit of creative genius by the petty plagues of noise, crowded places, financial and other worries.” “ For ready and successful accomplishment the writer needs an environment that will afford not only free opportunity for work but the inspiration that comes from knowing per­ sonally, successful writers, critics, editors.” How to meet these needs is a problem of elimination as well as of supply. Since 1900 the leader of the Holbrook Colony has learned by the trial and error method how simple but how insistent are the requirements of its members for timely and sure execution in the field of writing. The list of essentials includes not only the right working conditions, but skilled and practical guidance as needed and—most difficult condition of all—this combination must be available at a very modest rate. Experiment has proved that such needs are best met by colony life and the conference plan— Round Table discussions of professional problems relating to Short Story Writing, Novel Writing, “Juvenile” Writing, Play Writing, Verse Writing, Article and Feature Writ­ ing, Textbook Writing, Advertising Writing, Play Production, Marketing, etc. It has been proved, also, that background talks on these subjects, individual conferences on manuscripts with successful writers, plays presented in the Little Theatre, are invaluable aids to imag­ inative creation—all such lectures and conferences being entirely optional. The Holbrook Writers Colony—in residence from June 14 to August 15 on the campus of Montana University, in the heart of the Rockies—has at its command all the rich aca­ demic resources of the University Summer School: the regular teaching staff, augmented by nationally known authors, a library of 150,000 volumes, a reading room of 200 period­ icals. It provides, also, delightful opportunities amid fresh scenes for health building and recreation—the swimming pool, gymnasium, golf links, week-end mountain excursions, trips to near-by places of interest, to Glacier Park and to Yellowstone. For details address: The Holbrook Writers Colony TWIN CITY OFFICE, Parkview Studios, Harmon Place and Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota. T H E FRONTIER a magazine of the Northwest devoted to the cause of regional literature welcomes THE HOLBROOK WRITERS COLONY to Montana because— The affiliation of the Colony with the State University, a recognized center for the development of the literature of the Northwest, will make the Colony a helpful factor in that development The coming of such a group of writers to this region will bring a wider recognition of the rich resources of the Northwest, both physical and cultural. The Colony will add to the inspiration and practical value of the Writers Conference, July 6-10, which THE FRONTIER is promoting. lEveryPricpL,

"J^O W that it’s time to choose spring wardrobes, let’s be sure not to practice false econ­ omy. The unbecoming frock picked up as a bargain (and never worn) is always more ex­ pensive in the long run than the dress chosen where trend is tem­ pered with taste. You will never sacrifice smartness for saving if you shop here, because our fash­ ions — though exclusive — are priced so reasonably that they make bargain hunting a futile task.

M is s o u l a M e r c a n t il e COMPANY The Buffalo Run by Lone Wolf (Hart Merrlam Schultz) In B ronze-The Gorham Company, New York City. Reproduced by Courtesy of Mr. Schultz. THE FRONTIER A MAGAZINE OF THE NORTHWEST

"The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, hut wherever a man fronts a foot.” —T horeau. _____

SONNETS OF A PAPER MILL B y L. L au rence P ratt

THE EIGHT O’CLOCK SHIFT With clamping tread and lively, voluble hum, Italians in swart groups approach to ply soft hands on hard machines. Their heads raised high, the Swedish loggers pass, god-like and dumb. Prom Shacktown by the pond dark faces come with glint of teeth and flash of jungle eye as Filipino workers chatter by, near Lithuanian barkers, harsh and glum.

Now dapper office clerks are swinging past, stenographers with rouge and cigarette. The spruce young office manager drives in ; the foremen meet their crews. There comes at last the great mill manager himself. Now let steam hiss and plungers pound, and mad wheels spin.

HEAD LOGGER They called me “ Slaughter” in the old ring days when I was mixin’ it with heavyweights and mashin’ mugs. I drew some handsome gates and put the crimps in “ Dempsey” Jones’s plays. But fellows, I was brought up on the bays and in the woods near Tillamook—and fate’s recalled me, drawn me to my rightful mates, the hemlock rafts, the woods and waterways.

The wind is fresh out where the logs are tied; the river’s like a springy, swishy mat. My punch that used to knock the heavies out now takes the forest champions for a ride. I swing a wicked peavie, spit for spat, and challenge hemlock giants to a bout. FIREFACE PETER Old Fireface Peter of the night shift sat beside the glory hole, or shoveled in the sawdust till the furnace roared like sin, and smoked his pipe, told dirty yarns, and spat. 208 The Frontier

Profane and wicked, jolly, red-cheeked, fat, he said he wouldn’t give a cotter-pin for heaven and harps, and feathered cheer-yu-bin; he d rather stoke down where his friends was at.

The glory hole was centered in the floor. One night old Peter disappeared, and Boe, a timid chap, took Peter’s job. He swears that when the hottest blazes rage and roar he hears a wicked laugh far down below, and sees weird faces when the furnace glares.

PILING The cedar piling needed for the dock came riding in on flat cars through the rain like huge asparagus—long poles, straight grain, tied on with wires to stand the jolt and shock of gravity and railroad curves. A flock of dagoes armed with peavies met the train, with their Norwegian foreman, where the main track runs a spur out to the river rock.

Lars Larsen, huge of chest, was six feet fiv e ; he cut the wires, then leaped beneath the car to safety; did it well—but once too often. Not even a Viking can remain alive buried in logs. How short most caskets are! They had to send to Landport for a coffin.

t h e w o o d m i l l -zing | whang------zing------whang------zing, the snarling drag-saws bare their fangs and rend the stricken forms of monster trees. They send their grinning teeth deep, deep. They gloat and sing, devour their victims piecemeal, whine, and fling from slavered jaws the sawdust morsels— spend their greed on bark and bones. Their chortles blend m zing whang zing------whang------zing.

To free the soul, ascetics flagellate and mortify the flesh. To purge the gold of dross, the searching fires torment and burn, to make a metamorphosis, their fate brings hemlocks to the mill where gaunt saws hold grim rites where steam drives hard, and steel is stern. The Frontier 209

BENITA OF THE BAG FACTORY Someway the clatter of the bag machine sounds musical today. Poor Jean looks tired. I ’d like to help the kid. She may get fired for sluffing on the job ; the boss is mean. This diamond sure is swell. I ’ve never seen as swell a ring. Gee, soon as I was hired Bill fell for me. I mighty near expired when he made up to me instead of Jean.

Bill says I ’m lovely as the stars at night, and classy as his new sports model car. He says, “ Benita, you ’re an angel’s dream” He sure is swell. Jean made a nasty fight and lied like hell. What cats some people are! Poor kid. This diamond has an old rose gleam.

BACKSLIDER Three years ago I had this very job— this cockroach-haunted desk, this swivel chair that wears me into leather; same hook there held my old coat when Preachin’ Bill played hob with my ideas, and dragged me up to sob and pray before the altar and declare I ’d leave my wicked friends who sin and swear, and turned me to a Bible-crazy snob.

Three years— good Godfrey!— prayin’ like a saint, and talkin’ holiness and sanctity but longin’ for the good old flesh pots. Well, that’s that. I ’m back to sin and swear. I ain’t afraid of bein’ damned. By God, you’ll see, it’s prayin’ hypocrites that go to hell.

HEAD PAINTER The answer is— ? I wonder what. The hope of being art’s true votary was mine. I dreamed I might achieve the faultless line of Leonardo, or the mighty scope that Buonaroti dared. I ’d climb the slope to Raphael’s realm, where beauty is divine. But dreams and beauty were deluding wine. They thrilled, then faded, leaving me to grope. 210 The Frontier

I paint flat walls, protecting them from rain, and dead machines, preserving them from rust. I keep ten painters daubing in the mill I will not think my life is lived in vain; I leave the shrine— descend— because I must. Could I have saved the dream ?—No, no!—But still—.

JIM SARLIS They caught Jim Sarlis stealing groceries—Jim, delivery man and clerk for seven years and nothing wrong—a simple chap, with ears that stuck out slantwise— got the goods on him. The company grocer thought his stock looked slim: “ Strange how that hard-wheat flour disappears.” Poor stupid Jim, entrapped, broke down in tears, scared if a word was harsh or face looked grim.

He never played the women. No, by heck! H e’d just delivered Mrs. Jones some bread; she called him to an inner room; her duds were quite askew. Her arms went round his neck: Fred’s always gone on Friday nights,” she said; I need some tea, and best grade flour, and spuds. ’ ’

POINT OF VIEW The manager thought busily: “ Dan’s crew must raze the old head shop by Wednesday night; the underwriters whipped me in that fight— Unless our Waterbury screens come through before that wire on Eight gives out, we’re due for heavy losses— pressure’s getting light 11 *n ^ a t lake pipe-line; Browne must make it right. ’ ’— “ What’s that? The screen on Eight has ripped in two!”

The oil man in his greasy shed talked on and chewed his “ snus” : “ Ye’re damn slam right,” he said; the manager don’t know no more than me. Us fellows runs the mill. I f he was gone, wy, me and you could do his stuff, by gee!” The oil man paused to scratch his unkempt head.

ELECTRIC SUB-STATION Continuum of pulsing, throbbing hum, the purring of a fierce gargantuan cat that may be pleased to drowse upon its mat, or may leap snarling up—a steady thrum, The Frontier 211

the ominous rumble of a jungle drum, where savages may caper, friendly-fat, or steal dark-silent as the vampire-bat to strike the vision dark, the voices dumb.

All day, all night, the currents flow to speed the hundred motors and the thousand wheels, to drive machines like robots at their job. One day a burn—a cruel cat-like deed; one night a savage flash—a workman reels; but still the steady, pulsing, droning throb.

TH E DANCE There’s dancing at the Company Hotel; verandas open to the lanterned lawn, Hawaiian melodies from dark till dawn, the wavering lights; the music’s ache and swell. The dancers go responsive to its spell, with easy motion pausing, swaying on; and one is careless as a drifting swan— one masks his eyes to hide an inward hell.

The glance, the smile, the word. “ Next Tuesday night beyond the bridge.” . . . “ Yes, F red’s 0. K .” . . . “ Those beads look hideous with that gown.” ... “ I love that glide.” . . . “ Bedell must keep his place; he’s got no right outside his own depart— ” . . . “ Your husband needs promotion: yes, July.” . . . “ It’s cool outside.”

THE MANAGER’S SECRETARY If I were amorous, or with a flair for sly intrigue, or avaricious— then I know the where for those things, and the when. But why should I hunt trouble or fish for care? I work efficiently, and stop right there. If what I see, I cared to use again, I could enjoy (through what I know of men) passion and power, and sealskin coats to wear.

A word to Prescott’s wife—divorce—he’s mine; there’s Morton, ruined if the manager knew— I could blackmail him. There’s De Vere, there’s Blair— But give me books, my car, my flowers. I t ’s fine to feel assured, when each day’s work is through I ’ve played the game, and they all know I ’m square. 212 The Frontier

BILL MACINTOSH Bill Macintosh flew into fifty rages when his first boy, sixteen, was caught with Jane; “ Why couldn’t those two filthy scamps restrain their lust till marriage— live by decent stages? Shell beastly creatures should be shut in cages! ’ ’ He kicked Joe out. “ Don’t come back here again. That black-eyed Jenson slut gives me a pain. You took a job ; see how you like the wages!”

Next day Bill Macintosh met Tillie Flack, who mumbled to him in a low, flat tone of something Bill had very near forgotten. His memory went leaping long years back. It puzzled her to see him frown, and groan: “ The kid’s 0. K. By God, I ’ve acted rotten.”

BROTHERS Laverne and Bill, two husky lads, had come together to the mill to make their way. Bill chose the smithy— heavy work, good pay— and beat the anvil like an iron drum. Laverne avoided work so burdensome, and took an office clerkship under Grey. He dreamed he would be manager one d ay; he toiled and planned, and carefully kept mum.

Bill s wife and kids are healthy and well-dressed; he owns two farms—no stumpage, little brush— a Hup, a summer cottage by the sea. Laverne has left his auditing to rest, thin-chested, hollow-eyed, with cheeks aflush ; the doctors say three months to go— T. B.

NADINE Nadine was rosy as the hawthorne spray beside her dad’s garage— a slender thing, all gentleness and laughter. In the spring Supe Adams brought his son to learn the way the whole bag factory worked. Soon Hugh would stay near her machine as long as he could bring some poor excuse to bear. Next came the ring; Hugh loved Nadine, and married her one day. 213 The Frontier

His folks had social prospects for their son. They loathed this factory chit and her red cheeks that lured him. But Nadine was such a joy— so good— so sweet— soon even their hearts were won. Now they can scarcely wait the next six weeks to see which it will be, a girl or boy.

THE ACID TOWER As though a tree should suck through many a root destructive poisons, till the virulence, by cumulation growing more intense, had penetrated every twig and shoot and made it bear a bitter, blasting fruit to harm unwary things— so with offence to heaven the acid tower breathes out its dense depressing fumes that strangle and pollute.

A whiff of dragon breathings from the tower, and men cough restlessly and clear their throats. A stronger blast— one blinks— one gasps and chokes. And when the poison comes in greatest power the grasses wither, birds forget their notes; leaves crumple on the devastated oaks.

ED N E W G A TE For twenty years Ed knew the tang and thrill of gipsying with the strong, unwedded sea down watery paths to lands of mystery. He watched a thousand tropic sunsets spill gold prophecies that golden dawns fulfill. But he has married pretty Pearl Barzee, who keeps him home. And Ed finds he must be construction foreman in the paper mill.

A year—two years. Restrained and cramped, he feels his spirit scream for room. The hot wheels spin. Gray, choking dust. Is it entirely chance ?— the concrete mixer—buzzing shafts and wheels— blue denim jumper caught and twisted in— Ed whirled to death in wild macabre dance. 214 The Frontier

PRODUCTION W e’ll make a record, boys; she’s going great! Watch Number Twelve machine roll out the news. What? Beaters Seven and Two are down? H ell’s blues! W e’ll soon need stock. Two castings broke? Can’t Nate replace ’em? None on hand? Black blazes! Wait! Hey, central, ring Brad’s house— Brad, where the deuce is casting P for Beaters Seven and Two’s main drive? Quick, Brad. Stock’s low. Y ou ’ll be too late.

Brad on the foundry phone: “ I want Long Bill, night foreman— Bill, are those P castings poured? Out of the sand ? Say, good enough! Have Brown put two outside. I ’ll get ’em.” Then the thrill of speeding forty miles. Thank Henry Ford, old Number Twelve machine will not shut down.

SUNDAY AT THE PLANT There’s something shocking in the quietness; the gray hush startles like a ghostly thing, The ten-foot saws have ceased their strident swing. No motors hum. No cylinders now press strong wood on whirling pulp-stones for a mess of mushy stock. No shake-screen rumbles bring their thunder to the ear. No hammers ring. Like weary beasts, machines droop motionless.

Outside, the sad rain drizzles in the yard and soaks the mountain piles of folded lap. The car tracks are deserted. No one calls his orders there. Within, a few work hard to make repairs while wheels are stopped—to slap new wires and blankets on. Dead silence falls. 215 The Frontier HOLIDAY

B y M ar y B rin ker P ost

V FISCH ER stood in front of the brown and the grip on the wheel made bus station, watching her fellow two veins stand out along the back. Ev E passengers clamber into the big would have given her last cigarette to yellow motor coach that lay hove to be­ touch it. Without thinking she put out side the curb. It reminded her of a boat her hand. Then she drew it back with she had seen in Seattle with its broad a sudden fear in her throat. yellow belly smack up to the side of Instead of watching the fields of green the pier. The driver, a small, slender and yellow and brown go by, her eyes young fellow, trim in olive drab breeches kept straying to the man’s profile be­ and grey shirt open at the throat, was side her. His cap was pulled low over stowing away his passengers, punching his forehead and his eyebrows were tickets and handling change. He looked drawn together as though he were puz­ up at her when the last one was in, his zled. The nose was slender and the black eyes taking her in and questioning. mouth under it serious. Once he glanced She nodded and stepped forward. Every up at her while she was staring and, seat was filled but the one beside the though her business was meeting men’s driver. She smiled. That, of course, eyes, she had to look away. was what she had waited for. They were going rather fast and the Ev had a cheap straw basket with a wind of their speed blew E v ’s hair into picture of a lady in a short bathing her eyes. She reached into her handbag suit pasted on its side. The driver slung and took out a package of cigarettes. it up onto the rack on top of the bus. She lit one, exhaling the smoke through Then he held the door open for her to her nostrils. The driver looked up climb in. She had to make quite a high quickly and said something she could step. She smiled again, feeling her not catch. Ev offered him the cigarettes. skimpy silk dress slide up over her knee. He shook his head and spoke louder. “ Oh,” she said, “ pretty strict, ain’t Well, he ought not to mind. The door shut with a snap. The driver they?” and threw the cigarette out the climbed in on the other side, started the window. engine with a zoom, threw it into gear Ev Fischer was taking a holiday. She and broke away from the curb with a picked up her hat and crossed her knees. roar. The smaller cars in the way scur­ A thin smile twitched her bright lips as ried to the right. The big yellow bus the wind blew the silk back. What was roared up the street. E v ’s body quiv­ there in a woman’s knee that made men stare? She replaced the skirt and hat ered with delight. She took o ff her enormous floppy and leaned her elbow on the window. They were going through the apple black hat and hung it on one knee. With her two hands she patted her short pale country now. Ev liked the looks of the hair into the windblown waves she de­ rows and rows of soft green that were manded of it. The driver kept his eyes the more distant orchards. The hills on the road. She glanced over at his around them rolled away brown and hand on the wheel. It was narrow and grey; there were some thin jagged peaks 216 The Frontier

like rocky staircases half-seen through hot and mussy. There were men here, the August haze. too, of course. She was sick of their The two men in the seat behind were stares and their smirks. On the beach, saying, “ Forest fires. Yup, God damn bathers were lying under parasols, and tourists.” in the water, boys and young women were “ God damn slashings,” someone else swimming and diving. There was a big said. raft with a high dive. The sun beat “ Sure is hell the way they burn ’em with a steady hot rhythm upon the bril­ up every summer.” liant water and the white beach and the Ev thought it was too bad that the people in bathing suits. She would have smoke hid the staircases. She got a thin to get into the shade, this was going to feeling in her throat looking up at them; be a scorcher. her eyes got lost in the blue, like looking The park grass was damp from recent into water. sprinkling. She felt the grateful cool­ She had to laugh, thinking about her ness through her low-cut shoes with their holiday. It sure was a relief not to have narrow strips of leather made to simu­ a guy tagging along. Her eyes slanted late straw. She chose a place away to her side. Even so she couldn’t get from the walk and the rhythm of sun. away from thinking about them. Habit, Closed in by green of shrubs and trees, like cigarettes, or biting your finger­ and green of even, springing grass, she ! nails—men. The ones with narrow lips, found the day not so scorching. like that, and brown hands with crooked Ev sat down under a young maple veins along the back weren’t the worst, tree, with retinosperas on each side. She by any means. She bit rouge o ff her lay back against the slender, cool trunk lip. Those were the ones she hadn’t got and shut her eyes. The greenness about to know. That’s the way it was. her seeped into her temples, dripped From a distance the lake was bluer against her lids. When she opened her t;han the sky, but when you got nearer eyes her tiredness and the vague drum it was so bright and shimmering that of headache were gone. She felt re­ color was dazzled. The bus stopped and freshed and hungry. Ev waited while the driver handed down In her basket Ev had stowed two pack­ baggage. When he put down her bas­ ages of neat, fresh sandwiches that she ket she smiled. He gave her a short had made in her room, two hard-boiled glance, disinterested and disapproving, eggs and several slices of cold ham. and turned to the other passengers. She There were other picnic things, olives went away feeling snubbed. He hadn’t and cake and a bottle of “ rotten beer, given her a tumble. She shifted the but something to wet your whistle on.” basket to her other hand. She was sick She began on the basketful, munching of men anyway. This was a holiday. and sipping from the bottle, gazing “ Say, girlie, want a hand?” dreamily o ff over the wide soothing One of the men who had sat behind lanes of the park. her was keeping pace with her, smiling The sandwiches were good, the beer She looked at him with a curling lip. cool. She was contented physically and Lay o f f ! ” She passed him frigidly. her mind was too drowsy to bother. The Ev walked up the board walk feeling smell of the grass drying out under the The Frontier 217

sunshine and the rough scent of the Ev yawned and spat out the olive shrubs made her sleepy. She kicked off pit. The birds had vanished like rain. her tight shoes, doubled up her silk coat She had not even seen them go. That for a pillow and stretched out on the was the way with birds; yes, and of grass with the big hat over her eyes. people, too—a single thoughtless move Ev did not sleep, nor yet was she and they were gone up in smoke. She j awake. Her body was pleasantly inert sighed, biting at the inside of her lip. and her mind full of the sounds of the What was there in it, though, soft soap water toboggan and the cries of the and * ‘ yes, yes, ’ ’ and ‘ ‘ you ’re a wonder. ’ ’ bathers. People passed on the gravel, Putting on nice clothes so that people their voices floating nebulously in the wouldn’t know what you were like in­ stillness and the warmth. side. The park attendant came, bringing Blah! She flipped a cigarette out a sprinkler. Ev sat up, yawning and of her bag. You had to be yourself. pulling down her skirt. She took out When you weren’t, then you got sick a small mirror and comb and tidied her of it and got to feeling ashamed for hair. She fished in the basket for a all y ou ’d done and hadn’t done, got to I green olive and sat nibbling it, watch­ feeling sorry because of goodlooking ing the water playing in the air. The bus drivers. What a joke! cloudy little rainbows delighted her. She had a sudden fit of laughing. After a while the attendant moved the She took the cigarette out of the corner sprinkler away. of her lip and buried her face in the Ev wanted to do nothing but sit and rolled-up coat, her shoulders shaking. smell the grass and feel the tempered She laughed until she was hot. Then sunshine. This was a real holiday. She she lay still with her eyes shut. Sud­ would like to sit here all her life, in denly something hard and hot punched her ears nothing but the far-off splash­ at her heart and she buried her face ing of the bathers and the nearby whirr again. Her shoulders shook unevenly. of invisible sprinklers, and in her mind She had forgotten how it felt to cry. and body this vast content. The long hot ache of each sob went The trees were tall and the sunlight into her body like a surgeon’s knife, skipped from leaf to leaf on their out­ cleaving and laying bare and burning spread branches. There were pines a raw edge. scattered in dark clumps among the “ Oh, what a fool!” She blew her light, summery maples and oaks. You nose noisily and smothered her face in couldn’t get away from pines in this powder. The powder puff pressed the part of the country. Ev chewed a quivering edges of her nostrils firmly, maple leaf and looked at the pools of indignantly. Over her trembling lips shade on the bright grass. Birds scat­ she drew a smile in paint. “ A hell tered about after her picnic crumbs. of a way to spend a holiday.” They were very business-like, chatter­ ing a great deal and stepping on each The green quiet closed about her other’s toes. They darted round, again. The park attendant moved the beady glances at her and fluttered up sprinkler over to a flower bed. The water sprayed into the dancing air. at the sound of people walking. 218 The Frontier

Brilliant drops spattered the rose izing, with a little edge of companion­ leaves. This was the life ! ship. ‘ ‘ Tha’s all right. Neither do I. ” Ev Fischer packed things back into She dug tunnels with her heel. “ Uh- the gaudy basket. What you bring huh, I guess not today.” back from a picnic is half-empty olive The little boy scrambled up, and bottles, a dirty spoon and some dry stared at her accusingly for a minute, sandwiches. You can’t bring home the then went running down the edge of green shade under the maples or the the water with funny little skipping, quiet play of water against the sun­ splashing steps. He was cute, all right. light. Where would you put it in a A good thing, though, that she wasn’t dinky grey room over a dirty river­ crazy about kids. front street? She was thirsty, so she decided to get She mosied on down to the beach, a root beer at the fountain where the swinging her basket, which made the bus came in. She glanced at the link beer bottle clank against the olive bot­ bracelet watch on her wrist. Wouldn’t tle. Some guy on the board walk hol­ be going back before seven, but she’d lered, “ Sounds s’picious. Can’t I have walk through the place and maybe grab a snort?” She went on, not caring, a bite at some dump. not really hearing. She could be her­ The crab “ louie” that she ordered self on her holiday. at Jake’s Cafe wasn’t strictly fresh; The sun was still hot, but the deadly it tasted wilted. Flakes of crab meat rhythm was broken. The sands were clung to the roof of her mouth. She so hot they burned through E v’s shoes. drank deeply of a cup of dark-looking She sat down on a little weather-pol­ coffee. The dump smelled of perspira­ ished log and watched the bathers. It tion and stale onions. The fat man with must be thrilling, all right, to come the cook’s cap who stood by the win­ whizzing down the water toboggan and dow turning sizzling hamburgers on a .land with a splash in the lake, but it smoking electric plate looked actually was pleasanter to paddle around near as though he were melting. Great the shore, where the water was charged streams of sweat rolled down the with the sun’s heat. Some children grooves beside his nose, his shirt was were playing near her in the shallow plastered to his skin and below his water, splashing each other and dis­ rolled sleeves the heavy hairs of his covering things in the sand. They were arms were wet. cute, all right, but she wasn’t crazy She returned some remark of his. about kids— a good thing. The dazzle “ Yeah, hot day. Sure is hot in here of the water made her eyes smart. and oh, boy, have we got onions?” A little fair-haired boy sat down up The black-haired cashier half-turned to his waist in water, in front of her her sharp profile. “ H ’mph. ” She log. He looked up at her, squinting lifted the black lines over her sharp his blue eyes and smiling. eyes. “ You shouldn’t be so choosy.” “ Ain’tcha cornin’ in?” Ev gave her a hard smile, shrugged She shook her head. “ I dunno how her shoulders, and pushed back her to swim.” chair, wiping her lips carefully. “ Rot­ The youngter’s smile became patron­ ten crab, too,” she observed. 219 The Frontier

The big man nodded. “ Ever’thin’s to go, made Ev feel bad. What was rotten at this hash house, includin ’ the the use of a holiday if you hadn’t a female help!” He shot a glance toward place to go home to! the cashier. The lady was diligently At Post Falls the three other passen­ counting piles of half dollars. She slid gers got out, a farmer with no collar Ev’s seventy-five cents off the rubber on, and two heavy women with market mat into the drawer without touching bags. Unless passengers flagged the it. Ev half closed her eyes and laughed. bus, there would be no more stops until “ Ain’t that lily nose cold, honey!” Spokane. She went out with a swagger. The Ev leaned back in her corner and hamburger man tapped on the window looked at the driver. Something had after her. She waved and went up the changed him since the morning trip. street. He kept his narrowed eyes on the road, It was queer how cool and light the but his mouth was hard and betrayed. air could be after so much brilliant The whole set of his body was differ­ heat. The shop windows didn’t need ent; he looked like a runner who has lights, but they gave the street a cosy set his body for a goal and fallen short look. Ev suddenly remembered how by a hand. His shoulders hadn’t any as a child she had always been glad to starch in them, he was actually hunched go home when the lights came on. Her over the big wheel. But he was step­ mother would be tired and silent, but ping on it all right. The distance the small house would be warm and seemed to come up and meet them. The quiet and smelling of the stew they had hum of the hot tires on concrete went had for supper. As she grew older she round in E v ’s head. She put her face had wanted to stay out with the lights; to the rushing wind of their speed. they had lit a strange fire in her body. Now there was a goldenness in the They were cosy-looking now, but she air. The fields were steeped in amber wished she could be going home from quiet. Low-flying, predatory birds of evening sailed over the pale grain. The them. There weren’t so many people to get sky had no blue in it; it seemed vaster on the bus, going back, but she slipped and higher than it had ever seemed, into the seat beside the driver anyway. all a fainter shade of the evening’s She was sick of men, but an awful lone­ amber, with gathering grey at the edge. liness was upon her and she wanted Ev wondered if that was where the company. There was something re­ dark came from, the place where the assuring in sitting beside a man. The sky rested on the earth. driver hardly looked at her. His face They were flying over a golden earth, was dark and aloof; she didn’t think a road of soft, sweet-smelling dust. Ev he knew she was beside him. felt her body growing lighter, finer, as They started up the little lighted the car swung into a steeper pace. Farm street slowly. Once out of Coeur houses appeared, smoke dreamed up d ’Alene the bus began to hum and roar. from low chimneys, cows moved over The highway was not crowded, but the the dry pastures with children driving homegoing cars and the loaded cars them. There seemed no noise on the of gysying tourists who had a place face of the earth but the leashed thun- 220 The Frontier

der of the motor and E v’s heart beating ed far and husky and full of secret in her breast. She smelled hay and depth. dusty chaff from a threshing machine He glanced away from the wheel to left in a field of garnered wheat. Pine look at her. His eyes were full of gold, : scent quivered through the sweets of his face was like faces she saw in clover. Along the road flared wild dreams, meaningless and pale, but too geranium and shut yellow weeds and terribly lovely to look at. If he would elderberry bushes. turn to her like that and smile, mur­ She wished she were the weeds grow­ mur her name or touch her arm— that ing beside the road, or the still, dark would be the reach of the amber sky pines blurring together by the fences. and the deepness and savor of the dark Anything that could grow and feel roots earth. pressing down into the beautiful earth, His eyes went down, down, she could the dark-grained, moving earth that feel them deep inside of her, burning fed and yielded and took again into its golden, beautiful. When he drew them body. out she had to clasp her hands sudden­ Ev thought that if she could reach ly over her heart lest the living blood out her hands she might gather the gush out and stain her crimson. She golden dusk and far, faint sky and the trembled so that she could not keep deep, grainy soil into them and have her lips together. them, and they would be something to He shook his head, hunching over the touch and feel. She wanted to get her wheel, flashing the bus back into the hands in them, she wanted to know road again. them. She yearned for an intimacy “ In trouble, are you?” Her words with these beautiful things that she was were as beautiful as a proud lady’s. flying through. Here in the dusk, with her body aflame The man beside her spoke suddenly. and her hands pale gold, how could he “ G od !” know she was not a lady? She was not sure that he had made He shrugged. “ Not any kind a the word, it dropped out of silence and woman’d understand.” was there between them, the single She pressed her palms together and word, the single, great, engulfing, ter­ looked at him with excitement making rible word. Her whole being shivered. her body raw. What had he said? She looked at him “ I might. I—understand things.” and from the bitterness at his mouth “ Women—you can’t trust ’em.” He j she knew it had not been a word of laughed and broke it off snap as one power, nor of ecstasy—she knew it had breaks a brittle twig. “ They know too been blasphemy. She had never thought much.” of it as blasphemy before; she had The gesture of his body, wrenching said it, had heard it, had screamed it itself out of a slump to fall into a in pain. Now she drew it into herself slump again, jerked out the stiff pain as she might gather the pale sweet eve- he was feeling. She was pitying him ning, or the cries of the hawks pounc­ so much that she was not herself, not ing into the grain. her caste, not her cog of society. She Whatsa matter ? 1 ’ Her voice sound- was only the quivering pity of a woman 221 The Frontier for a man in pain. Her breast ached ing nightfall and calling birds. To die, from the desire to hold his head there to die— the tongue loved the words. and rock back and forth. The ghost Why should she caret Because of of low croons trembled in her warm his narrow brown wrists, perhaps, or throat. his eyes with the flecks of pain in them. “ Oh, it is too bad. D on’t take it Because there was a sweetness about too hard. Don’t.” him like the sweetness of this brooding When he looked at her she knew he evening. Because he made her want saw only the soft pale waves of her to be something better than what she hair, the gold lines of her face in the was. Are those the things that make shadowy corner, the pity throbbing up love? She had not known such. It through her intense body. He didn’t was a thing of hands and lips and sharp see what he would have seen in day­ flame, but a thing that wore thin and light: the look of other men’s pawing had to be cast aside. W hy should she and fondling her, the hardness of hav­ caret Because he made her feel like a proud lady, because she wanted to ing to set her face in the bright lines that please, her sharp callousness that die tonight before she lost it, before her fought against the fear of being holiday was over. snubbed. He saw her only as the gold­ “ Who am I to you?” The headlights of the oncoming cars en dusk and the faintly aromatic earth would have him see her. Something of blazed at them, blinded them, were gone his pain, she saw, ebbed because of her and night was as before. “ I— I like you.” It was hard to say sympathy. it, and yet it was the right thing, and “ Why should you care!” he said, easy after it was done. scornful of his own hurt, trying to be “ Thanks, lady. Though I don’t know brusque to the pity that was restoring why you should.” His smile pulled up some of his lost faith in himself. one side of his serious young mouth. She looked away. The grey line at They said no more. Why should they t the sky’s edge must have spread while His shoulders straightened a little, the she had not been watching. All the sky bus hummed steadily on, the greyness was grey, floating, covered. It would and the muted wail of insects faint above feel sleazy and sheer like grey chiffon the motor, were sweet. Was there any­ if she could touch it. There were small thing more she might have said? She rents in the chiffon and starpoints knew he felt better because of her. And winked through. The sweetness, the she—she was proud and filled to the gentle melancholy were gathering brim with something that had not been closer. The swift, sure passage of the in life before. The night rushed back bus drove the nebulous thrill, the ex­ at her through the open window. A citement that hurt it was so keen, so sentimental popular rhythm went edged with danger and sorrow, deeper, through her mind, over and over, until until she was riding over the crested it became beautiful and sad because of corn, a tall, flying woman, with hair the softness of the air and the pride in blowing back and breasts lifted. If only her heart. “ Without you, sweetheart.” she might die now, said her heart, in She sang the cheap words and beat out this strange divinity of speed and rush­ 222 The Frontier

the wailing tune. She wanted to sing liness, leaning in the corner in the gold and sing; stand on that low hill just twilight with the far sky and the noble out of the pines; sing anything. earth in her to make her a proud lady. The electric glare of signs and street Her hand rubbed the sleazy silk over her lights all about was like stepping into knees. How cruel the bright lights were. a noisy dance hall. There was some­ It would be sweet to go. thing theatrical in the blaring streets, “ Won’t you go?” the artificiality of the small city’s night Ev Fischer shook her head, smiling activities. The bus went slowly up the softly and friendly-like. She picked up street, weaving between cars. Farmers her absurd big hat and her bulgy purse. and cowboys from Idaho ranches and “ Thanks all the same. But— I can’t. Washington farms were in town for Sat­ I t ’s sweet of you to ask me, though.” urday night excitement. There was She started to open the door. The great bustle of parking and horn-tooting driver got out quickly and opened it for and jangle of street cars. How, sudden­ her. He gave her his hand. She leaned ly, had this bedlam enveloped the still hers heavily in it and tasted with all grey dusk? What had happened to the her soul the firm, hard clasp of his flowing road and the hawks over the brown fingers. He looked at her, dis­ fields ? appointed, but game. At the bus station the driver parked “ Well, I ’m sorry. I thought— you the big car, then sat for a moment. Ev were so good to me. We might be began to pick up her purse and hat. He friends, if you say so.” touched her gently on the arm. His He handed down the cheap straw bas­ smile was friendly and interested. ket, and the olive bottle clanked against “ Say, how about a show tonight? the beer bottle. Ev took it from him That is—if you aren’t doin’ anything with a deep, long look. and would like to go.” “ We are friends,” she said. Ev fidgeted with her things, trembling As she went up the street there was and avoiding his eyes. What did he a terrible sinking in her heart and a mean, oh, what did he mean ? She man­ black ache in her throat, but she held aged to look up at him at last. His eyes up her small, uncovered head in pride. were meaning only what his lips had She did not see the smiles of the men said. She was bumingly ashamed. hanging around Jimmie Dovan’s Soft Drink Parlor, nor hear the footsteps of Her lips formed the words of accept­ the man who followed her to her room­ ance. Suddenly she thought of her love­ ing-house. 223 The Frontier BILL N Y E

By W . E. C h a p l i n

T the age of 26 Edgar Wilson ford, Nye became acquainted with Clara (Bill) Nye decided to change his Frances Smith. It was a case of love A residence from Wisconsin to at first sight and they certainly “ lived some point in the west. He purchased happy ever after.” Their home was a ticket to Cheyenne, Wyoming, the ever a haven of sweet accord. Their greatest distance his means would carry means were at first limited to an exceed­ him. There he called upon a former ingly small salary, but soon were aug­ acquaintance, United States Attorney mented by income from other sources, John J. Jenkins, whom he had known such as correspondence with papers of in Wisconsin. Jenkins assisted him in national repute, justice of the peace, many ways and was instrumental in United States Commissioner, and finally securing him a position with The Daily postmaster. Nye made the following Sentinel, published by Hayford & Gates comment upon his marriage: “ Conclud­ in Laramie. Armed with a letter of in­ ing that I had more poverty than one troduction to Judge N. L. Andrews, Nye person was entitled to I made up my went to Laramie about May, 1876. At mind to endow some deserving young that time I was employed in the Sentinel woman with a part of it.” Their home office as an apprentice and recall Judge was an exceedingly modest one during Andrews and Nye coming to the office all the time they lived in Wyoming. At and talking with Dr. Hayford, the ed­ that time Laramie had few pretentious itor. It was arranged that Nye should residences and very few bath tubs. do the city reporting, his compensation There were no telephones, no electric being $10 per week and board. He lights, no phonographs, no radios, no roomed at the Hayford home. Being a automobiles, no sewers, no sidewalks in good mixer, he at once entered into the the residence districts and no movies. business and social life of the communi­ There was really little to spend one’s ty. He had done some newspaper work money for. in Wisconsin as correspondent of several Socially Nye was a genial companion papers and at one time made applica­ and excellent company. He enjoyed tion for a position in St. Paul, but with­ goodfellowship. His associates were the out success. He had also studied law, best men in the town. He liked a glass but beyond being admitted to the bar of beer and after the morning Sentinel there was not much evidence of it. His had gone to press it was not unusual humor was keen, spontaneous, satirical. to see him at John Huempfner’s New It bubbled up on all occasions. His York House with Henry Mills, enjoying strongest point was quick change from a schooner and the wonderful free lunch the sublime to the ridiculous. On occa­ served there. After marriage this light sion he could give savage thrusts his diversion was dispensed with and there opponents could not answer or over­ was no place like home for Nye. He enjoyed dancing, but was as awkward as come. Not long after coming to Laramie, a clown in a ballroom. He and Mrs. through their mutual friend, Mrs. Hay­ Nye were very hospitable. He had a 224 The Frontier very warm feeling for his office force well enough, and if he can evade the and treated them all with the greatest penitentiary and the vigilance com­ consideration. The first Thanksgiving mittee for a few more years, there after the establishment of The Boom­ is a chance for him to end his life in a natural way. If he don’t tell erang the entire force was invited to a the truth a little more plentifully, turkey dinner at the Nye home. In­ however, the people of Green River cluding Mrs. Nye, there were nine at will rise as one man and churn him table. His experience in carving was up till there won’t be anything left evidently very limited. When the tur­ of him but a pair of suspenders key was brought in he showed some em­ and a wart.” barrassment. After struggling with it It was not often that Nye lapsed into for some time, he gave it up and asked poetry. He did not seem to have much Mrs. Nye if she would not have it carved talent in that direction. His “ Ode to in the kitchen. This was graciously ac­ the Cucumber” shows something of his ceded to and the dinner from that time poetic turn of mind: on was a great success. 0, a cucumber grew by the deep rolling sea Nye could meet unkind words with And it tumbled about in reckless flashing, vitriolic sarcasm. On one oc­ glee casion the paper had published an ad­ Till the summer waned and the vertisement for the leading dry goods grass turned brown, house of the city in which there unfor­ And the farmer plucked it and took tunately appeared a number of errors. it to town. The brother of the proprietor, who was Wrinkled and warty and bilious only a clerk, came storming down the and blue, street toward the office and met Nye It lay in the market the autumn on the way: “ I’m going down to see through; the S. 0. B. who set that ad to tell him Till a woman with freckles on her what I think of him,” said he. “ Hold cheek on,” said Nye. “ We prefer to talk to Led in her husband, so mild and meek. the proprietor; not the man who sweeps out the store.” That settled the argu­ He purchased the fruit at her re­ ment. The clerk turned about and went quest back. And hid it forever under his vest; For it doubled him up like a kan­ In newspaper repartee he was without garoo, a peer. On one occasion he was drawn And now he sleeps ’neath the vio­ into a controversy with the editor of the lets blue. Green River paper, The Sweetwater Ga­ Bill Nye wrote many western sketches zette. As a final clincher he made this relating to the Indians, the Mormons, comment: the mines, the bandits, etc. At the time “ We have nothing more to say Big-Nosed George (George Parrott) and of the editor of The Sweetwater his gang infested the region contiguous Gazette. Aside from the fact that he is a sqint-eyed, consumptive liar, to the Union Pacific and not only held with a breath like a buzzard and a up trains but committed murder, Nye record like a convict, we don’t know was doing newspaper work at Laramie. anything against him. He means Big-Nosed George’s gang held up a The Frontier 225

Union Pacific train near the Medicine gros grain burlap. Holes are then Bow river and thereafter murdered cut for the eyes and one for the mouth and the robber is thoroughly Widdowfield and Vincent, deputy sher­ disguised. Proceeding to a good iffs of Carbon county, Wyoming. Big- point on the stage roads between Nosed George was thereafter captured towns of some importance, the cap­ and on the way to Rawlins, the county tain places his men in such posi­ tions that the coach or other outfit seat, friends of the deputies took him will meet the cold, repulsive gun from the train at Carbon and strung barrel of the gang before there is him up. They let him down to get what time to make any preparation. This he might have to say and were induced the road agent does for his own to permit him to be taken to Rawlins protection and not for the pleasure of witnessing the glad surprise of for trial. He was tried, convicted and the pilgrim. The captain then tells sentenced to be hung, but before the the tourist to throw up his hands. date of the execution he assaulted Jailer This suggestion is generally obeyed, Rankin and for this was taken from the victim laughing heartily all the the jail by a mob and hanged. Bill time. The driver and passengers Nye’s comments upon his arrest and are then required to get down and form in line, still holding their trial show how he generally treated such hands as high as they can without items of news: standing on something. The gang “ Today Judge Peck sentenced still stands so that the squad of pil­ Big-Nosed George to be hanged by grims may be raked fore and aft the neck until he is dead. He has and the captain proceeds to rum­ been hanged by the neck before, mage the pockets of the squad. In but not till he was dead. That, many instances these travelers have therefore, will be the great distin­ things in their pockets they would guishing characteristic of the hang­ like to keep, but they hardly ever ing. Big-Nosed George is what is mention it at the time. I knew one known and respected as a road man who had only enough fine-cut agent. A road agent is one who to last him one day and the holdup takes up an involuntary contribu­ band took the last crumb he had, so tion from the tourist occasionally. he had to go on without it. He was It may be well to describe the fall the crossest man I ever saw for the and winter style of road agent in next two days. He lost at the same Wyoming, for the benefit of those time $1,500 in cash, but he did not who have never experienced the mind that. He spoke of the loss wild and exhilirating experience of of his shining dross cheerfully and being robbed. The prevailing style even hilariously, but tobacco was of disguise among the elite of W y­ something he needed right along all oming road agents is the lower half the time. of a brown canvas overall leg. Tak­ “ Big-Nosed George, however, got ing the fragment alluded to, the excited easily and killed people be­ artist rips it up a few inches on cause he was afraid that while he both sides, so that when it is pulled was turning their pockets inside out down over the head a flap of the and reading their letters they might goods cut decollete hangs down be­ get irritated and kill him. This got low the face in front and down the people down on George, and when back behind. The top is then gath­ they caught him one night they tied ered into a pompadour wad and him up to a telegraph pole and tied with a string of old gold or asked him a lot of impudent ques- 226 The Frontier

tions about his past life. They while Nye was connected with it. In asked him if he killed so-and-so and less than a year he sold the job office who helped him, and a lot more to raise funds, and when he finally left such questions that he had to answer the paper it was financially in a very while his eyes hung out on his bad way. In the winter of 1882-3 he cheeks like a loose overcoat button and his tongue was so swollen he was taken ill and for a time his life couldn’t talk fluently. Then he was in the balance. As soon as he was asked them to take him down where able to travel Mrs. Nye took him to he could get his breath and maybe Greeley and shortly thereafter to Wis­ he could think of some more things consin. Prom Wisconsin he wrote to to say. He said he never spoke in me offering his stock for sale to three public before and it seemed to con­ fuse him. of us employed on the paper. As his ability as a humorist was believed to be “ So they took him down and he told them a lot of things they want­ a great asset, we declined to pay the ed to know, and then they took him price he asked, par, one-half cash and away to jail. When he came to balance in six months and one year at trial he didn’t seem to think he had 18% per annum. A little later he re­ a good case and the lawyers didn’t turned to Laramie and sold his stock seem to want to defend him, be­ cause there was a good deal of pop­ to Matthew Dawson of the Wyoming ular feeling against Big-Nosed National bank for 30 cents on the dollar, George, and lawyers who were not not knowing that Cashier Dawson was prepared to climb the golden stairs acting as our agent. We purchased a — and most of them are not— con­ major portion of the stock of the com­ cluded not to take the case. So pany at this price. Nye then presented George plead guilty, and unless something happens he will pass up a bill to the company for $3,300, stating the flume.” that it was indebted to him in that sum. As a business man Nye was not a This was a poser. We didn’t have the startling success. Of course, in the es­ money. We told him that the only way we would consent to settle was through tablishment of The Boomerang the cap­ the court. If he would bring a friendly ital provided was small and the field suit we would endeavor to pay what of operations limited. All the money was actually due him. That course was raised by the stock company was $3,000. pursued. The court, after taking all Of this sum he spent only $1,800 for the available testimony, gave him a material and used the remainder to pay judgment for $213. This was paid to expenses while getting the paper on its Nye’s attorney and his interest in The feet. It never really found its feet Boomerang was at an end. The Frontier 111

DEERFOOT PRINTS

By H o w a r d M c K i n l e y C o r n i n g 1 lie in the Seven Devils saloon on the was born in a ship’s cabin at Em­ waterfront. But gold was struck that pire, on Coos Bay, in the 1850’s, on day at Sixes River, and salvaging his I a February night when the sea was dreams we three fled to stake a holding. gulfing more than its own. There were 6 cries in the darkness and next morning But the gravel bar we staked turned driftwood wreckage strewed the beach. scarcely a trace of color. I wandered So was I cast upon the world. off looking for flowers and pulled up a 2 rootfull of nuggets. We were wildly I lay in a log cradle playing with pine happy. cones and a rabbit’s foot. I tangled my 7 mother’s hair when she kissed me, cry­ We never found any more. ing when the wolves howled on the for­ 8 est side of town. My father pinched The army of drifters slunk away. The me and said I ’d be killing the beasts empty shacks faced toward winter, their some day, or going to sea with another canvasses whipping away in the wind. kind of wolf. I listened to the roaring Only the Chinamen stayed on, slinking rain and fell asleep. among the heaps of gravel, taking out the least precious trace of dust. For 3 My father had been a sea captain but my father, dispirited, the glamor of liv­ lured by the local rush for gold had sold ing was over. his ship. The money he invested in a 9 That winter we nearly froze to death. stock of merchandise consisting of a bar­ rel of whiskey, a case of tobacco, and a 10 supply of overalls to sell to the miners. In the spring we made our way down His first profits were fine enough, but the tortuous river to the open bottoms. the mushroom gold camps moved so fast In a clearing of green fertility we erect­ he could not keep up with the rumored ed the first log ranch house and spaded strikes. He settled in Empire with a the first garden plot in the Sixes River slack trade. I learned to walk holding country. That summer of ’62 the world onto cases and trouser legs. Among started over again. these were the ‘ ‘ Forty Thieves, ’ ’ released 11 convicts from the “ Golden Gate.’’ I belonged to the forest. I grew with 4 the spruce trees; I drank from the water­ My misty-eyed mother dipped her own falls and was still thirty. Once I saw candles and I insisted on helping her, a fawn like a shaft of sunlight melting burning myself with the hot tallow. I into shadow; when I sought to follow lay and watched the log fire, puzzling him he was gone and a cloud was over at the meaning of flame. the sky. I found only his footprints. 5 I ran to a fern flat and cried in its When I was seven my father gambled sweetness, sick with a nostalgia I could away his possessions to Gum Boot Char­ not understand. 228 The Frontier

12 18 My mother was lonely. In some breathless manner I reached 13 Myrtle Point, across the mountains. But Three years passed. We lived fru­ when I begged for a stage ride to Cot­ gally but sufficiently. Our mules tage Grove they found out who I was worked well fed and our cattle munched and rustled me back to the Sixes with on the swale grass. Our hogs ran wild two prospectors, dazed with a tarnished in the forest, fattening on acorns and dream. In familiar country again I roots. We never knew how many the managed to elude them. This time I wolves and the bears got. I disliked fled to the coast, following the shore butchering. down to Port Orford. It stood a white 14 town in the full sun before the blue One fall my father and I drove the sea. That night I crept aboard the Ore­ mules down to the coast to distill a keg gon Beaver and hid in the stowage. We of salt for the winter. A ship passed let up at daybreak, north, for Astoria out to sea and my father cried— the only and Portland. I cried with determina­ time I ever saw him. When we re­ tion and pride, dirtying my face with turned to the cabin after a week we the grimy canvas. I was young to be found mother pinned dead to the door a man. by a scalping knife. We never found 19 out who did it. Before we buried her After a time I grew hungry and crept I cut off a strand of her dark hair and out of hiding; when the mate beat me sealed it in an acorn shell. We buried and put me to scrubbing down the gal­ her on the highest ridge where father ley floor. It didn’t seem so bad, for I went every sunset to gaze at the distant was free and glad with that large ex­ sea. Afterward I was always afraid to pectation of youth. go up. 20 15 The second morning, while crossing the Columbia bar, the captain killed the That winter my father drank a great second mate in a fight, throwing his deal. The wolves came out of the forest body overboard. It frightened me. and howled every night. I wondered why we stayed on. When we reached Astoria I jumped ship with three of the crew, who got drunk 16 and were dragged into a back room to In the spring he journeyed down to sleep it off. I hung round awhile. I Port Orford. He stayed so long I guess they must have thought me too thought he had taken to sea. When he young, they didn’t try to make me did come back he brought a Siletz squaw drink. Afterwards I heard that two of with him for wife. She wasn’t my them were shanghaied, while the third mother. They were both drunk and joined back when the Oregon Beaver kicked me out to the bams to sleep with returned from Portland, putting out for the mules. sea. I was alone. 17 21 The next morning I visited my moth­ I did odd jobs about the wharves, er s grave . . . and ran away. mostly getting in the way. One day a 229 The Frontier horny Scotch fisherman, after yarning Scotch fisherman, took the yawl out with me all day over his net-mending, alone, her white sails crimsoning in the gave me a berth on his Jenny. He talked sunset on the down tide. The next morn­ dreamily about a daughter I never saw. ing the salmon fleet brought him home 22 through the dawn flush. He had drowned I became a salmon fisherman, fishing himself in his nets. The dead girl was out toward “ the bar.” We were only the daughter he had often told me one of the hundreds of crafts supplying about. the canneries. We drifted our nets all 27 night, hauling in at daybreak. Three It turned me sick and I cursed As­ years of this kept me too busy to be toria, the Columbia, and the sea. I lonely. My muscle grew harder. dug back into the timber and became 23 a logger. Life was hard. I fought a I was seventeen now and beginning man; the sight of blood seemed good. to feel my oats. But somehow I didn’t 28 care much for the stories and the hard For the first time in my life I got liquor dispensed in the Astor street sa­ drunk. I was a man. loons. Once a blousy girl put her arm 29 around me and tried to lead me into a I wandered up to Portland and the dark room. I laughed her off and she street of homeless men. At times I mumbled “ K id,” a cynical smile twist­ worked along the waterfront and at ing her carmined lips. When I got out­ other times I was drunk. All one winter side I felt sick. I lived with a Swede girl who said she 24. was straight; but I found her one night There was a bluff over south of town with two other drunks who said forty where I used to go of nights to put others knew her and for me to get the things away from me. Up there where hell out if I was going to get hard the dark firs stood over the Columbia about it. and the lights of the town crept out 30 toward the forest it was beautiful and I was sick of the stench of living. elemental. The time I ran away from That night I watched the oily Willam­ the carmined lips I surprised a pale ette a long, long time. Just before day­ girl sitting there alone and crying in break I hopped a stage for up valley. her hands. I felt foolish and edged off, Spring was fresh on the air. but my sympathy drew me back. I tried 31 to say something but what I said was I flopped at Lebanon. For two years only ridiculous. Then when I moved I worked for a rancher, clearing his away again she looked up, still sobbing. acres of stumps. One night, wandering But before I could get the straight of through the timber, I found the cabin what was the matter she rose and fled of a hermit, who was a kind of mystic away into the timber. They found her and who took me up a golden stairs to dead body three days after, heavy with commune with philosophers and poets child. and the eternities. He was cracked, but 25 his faith was whole. God grew bigger. The following day MacDonald, the old 230 The Frontier

32 trail and I got lost among Christ and When I concluded my work I returned Dante, Buddha and Spinoza; while the to Portland, wanting to learn more. I moon sifted a pearl mist of healing. I worked less, haunting libraries in idle raced from peak to peak. The winds hours. I questioned and studied. Life housed me with ice. But I was in the began to have a meaning. I decided to sky and I didn’t care. Then when morn­ get educated. ing came I tripped on a bar of its gold 33 and fell into the crater of the world Instead I was kicked by a horse and where the people were flies feeding put to bed by a lonely mother who had on the carrion I had left. I fled from a sickly daughter. We got well together. them to wander into the prairie. But when we married I found I had 36 died. One night, three months after, I forgot to come back to her, and when I Alone now, my thirst is never regained my mind I was riding down quenched. The flowers I gather wither. The Dalles-California highway in the Life is an endless prairie and the moun­ blinding spring sun with the desert of tains keep so far away the sun only wild flowers blowing around me and crimsons their tops. There is no longer the bull-driver throwing his whip. I any fabulous forest of desire, where all saw all life like that. my wish was to reach beyond it, and the deer-print trail lost itself in cool shad­ 34 ows. For where did the trail lead if I cleared at Bend. Taking another not to this prairie where I journey in stage I crossed to Canyon City, where aimless circles! So that I keep asking: Joaquin Miller read me more poetry Are life and dream only this, that I than law. I joined the Vigilantes and must be satisfied with life ? For by that we tarred and feathered a half-breed for journey into the sky and by those who rape, which any one of us might have die, I know that some day I shall find committed. I tended store and became the printed trail of the stars and shall a good citizen. Sometimes I dreamed blow the small world away like a bubble. of the coast. I know that back of the mystery that 35 first was shadow I shall find the healed One summer, weary of prosaic living, heart and the completed vision and shall I went with a climbing party into the sit down in knowledge with the Christ high Wallowas. I became lost and wan­ of beauty and the fisherman’s daughter, dered for two weeks alone, killing a bear with the blowsy girl in the Astoria sa­ finally with my knife. Drinking some of loon and the girl-wife I married and the warm blood I felt new again; and left, with my mother who loved her son climbing a bouldery mountain I came in­ and my father who loved the sea and to the great sky. The dark had many his flesh. And we shall not die any stars and all of them were deerfoot more. prints running over the night and I tried 37 to follow them; but they were an aimless How eternally time passes and passes! The Frontier 231

MOUNTAINS, BEASTS, AND MEN

I. M O U N TA IN

B y B e n j a m i n M u s s e r There is an isolation in this peak That tears the heart. Granite above the lands, Immutable, through centuries it stands, Voiceless, that strives to speak.

Prisoner to the plain, as man to child, Tethered by puny vines and gagged with snow, Subjected to the Liliput below, Still, but unreconciled.

Its shaggy head waits patiently a span, Until new convolutions of the earth Break the long silence, and it shouts its birth In godhood that was man.

II. K LICKITA T HILLS

B y E t h e l R o m i g F u l l e r

These are no fat Great ribs showing And pampered hills Through a thin W ith brooks and trees Taut-stretched acreage To serve their wills. Of skin;

Soil denuded, Each year, more gaunt, Blanched by suns More furrow-browed, To semblances Yet arrogant somehow, Of skeletons; Uncowed; And so refined, So honed by stress, They break the heart With loneliness.

III. RAIN

B y M o e B r a g i n

In the dark wooden stalls They shout and sing their jokes, The foddered horses champ; Their mouths wet with mirth; The hands are swapping jokes Their eyes swell up like seed Under the stable lamp. Pushing the soaked earth.

Outside the rain falls Blessed is the spreading rain And picks like a great hen; Under whose long soft wing The heart of the sky is heavy, A horse may break his hay But not the heart of the men. And a hired hand sing. 232 The Frontier

IV. MOUNTAIN CATTLE

B y H a r o l d V i n a l They, of all creatures, know the worth of patience: Upon their hills, still biblical in green, They stand, those clumsy monarchs of routine, Knowing the sun’s sharp heat, the sky’s adjacence, The dewy sunrise and September, pale With the first frost, the tempest and the stars; The spring’s bright emerald and the winter’s scars, And yet their timeless patience does not fail.

Rimmed round with velvet solitude, they drain The summer’s plush, the pools of d ay ; the blue Drifts overhead, no omen of the rain Disturbs their inward fortitude, content, They contemplate the eternal hills, a few The yoke of ridicule has never bent.

V. BEDDED SHEEP

B y W a l t e r E v a n s K i d d These flocks, we gave for winter bed Then crowd to keep their bodies warm The comfort of a lambing-shed, Beneath the threats of flying storm, Now nuzzle ground of sullen ice And stare through weather nine below For summer grass, paw once or twice, With bleats as colorless as snow.

VI. WEANING TIME

B y H. R a y n e s f o r d M u l d e r You take the gray, I ’ll ride the little mare, W e’ll cantei1 to the climb, then loosen rein, For horses find bits easier to wear With a free head; and trails are like a lane. They need no fence, yet will arrive some place At top zigzagging around bluff walls and up A coulee where cow hoofs have left their trace. Bench-winds blow chill, a cool refreshing cup To cheer a heart across the miles. Beyond W olf Butte the herd grazed quietly last night. Yes, there, the old cows watch us near; still fond Of half-grown calves they turn as if for flight, Huddle about their young as leaders sniff The wind for scent of us. I t ’s weaning time, And on the range an autumn rite. Where cliff And prairie join, corrals receive the prime New blood of range-stock fat with summer growth. 233 The Frontier

Their pounding wild hearts cannot understand This high unfriendly fence, as bawl of both Spent herd and calves insist. Though each ranch-hand Seems unconcerned, yet none will sleep for three Pull nights. Just hear! Cow melody defies To silence coyote mirth, a tidal sea Of sound, fresh as bold winds that whip the skies. Yet filled with lonely ache like solitude When sable dusk and watching stars invite Us out to join their sentimental m ood; And blind we grope our way through desert night.

Something distresses me at weaning time, Like stricken youth with its first sorrowing; Or breaking spirit of the range at prime When asters bow to frost while blossoming.

VII. SWEDE MOTHER

B y A r t h u r T r u m a n M e r r i l l There is something I seem to hear the flowers confess In the stillness of her eyes To the priestly winds that pass That always seems to bring That love is a great giving The peace and strength of morning skies And a self-forgetfulness. Over long sweet miles of prairie grass;

VIII. WIND-SWEPT LANE

B y A r t h u r T r u m a n M e r r i l l Behind a cabin on a Northwest plain What though red oleanders grow in Jericho I know a length of wind-swept lane And scented yellow Cadiz roses blow With sifting drifts of winter snow Where dreams are made in Spain! Heaped high beneath the lonely three Such lures are made for him in vain White birches and a tall pine tree. Who knows a length of wind-swept lane With sifting drifts of winter snow.

IX APRIL—WEST OREGON

B y L . L a u r e n c e P r a t t

We did not violate the hillside flowers, Nor swing our scythe where moss-root blossoms stood; And yet we took all spring delights for ours: We harvested the leaf-young April wood.

One who will probe our singing hearts may find The light rispetto of the April wind, The still, sweet tinkle of red currant bloom, And laughter of white trilliums through the gloom. 234 The Frontier

DOWN TO CLOQUET

B y R a y m o n d K r e s e n s k y

Down, down, the lumber goes to Cloquet Till the forests of pine are cut away. Today a thousand lumberjacks go In the mists of autumn, in the clouds of snow. The sounds of their axes sharply ring Through a bed of ferns in early spring. When summer hangs low with silent heat Ten thousand pines lie at their feet.

In the camps they chew tobacco, and sit Telling old stories when the lamps are lit— Drowsing through cards and a jiggy tune. Outside a snow-covered winter moon Lays shadows on the trees that dropped That day. The treacherous rivers, stopped W ith the floating mass of leafless trees, Perhaps will mirror one of these Tall men whose courage the swift stream broke. Now they sit, and talk, and sing, and smoke.

Down, down the winding road to Cloquet— A ll of these men have gone away. Here is a weary desolation Of dead trees, felled trees of time’s creation. A score of daring farmers grub The land, and only one low scrub Grows here among the rotting stumps. The song is dead! The farmer humps His back and rubs from his face the smirches Of fire and smoke. But the slim birches Grow slender, and the young pines straight. The romance of trees can never wait For men like these who plow the sod. It will rise upward and touch its god.

Down, down the winding road to Cloquet— The romance of lumber has died away, But the romance of young men such as these Lives and grows like the sturdy trees. East, West, wherever they may be They live again in this growing tree. The Frontier 235 IN LEAGUE WITH THE STARS

B y S a l l y E l l i o t t A l l e n

R. HENDERSON’S mind halted should be given an opportunity to ex­ in its ruminations on whether to plain, if he can explain, his actions. I, D put Mrs. Maxwell’s baby on myself, have been instrumental in modified milk and whether that trouble bringing about this meeting and I am of Lorena Nelson’s could be cancer; willing to shoulder the blame, if blame for the doors of the small, frame church there be, for requesting these men and he was passing were open, and from women to come together to listen to it rolled an oratorical voice. He stood this young man. Let us do so with still, listening. what tolerance we can, under the cir­ “ Dear me, they’re holding that meet­ cumstances, maintain.” The speaker ing for Arnie Ransome that Anne was pressed his wide lips together and telling me about. I suppose, now, I turned his face to where a boy, with ought to go in .” He glanced at his hands thrust deep in his pockets, sat watch and a deep-worn crease of low in his seat. “ Arnold Ransome,” amusement showed in his cheek. “ I he said, his summoning voice rounded guess Mrs. Small’s rheumatism will with unction, “ I yield the floor to you. ” wait for me.” He stooped automat­ He sat down heavily in the high chair ically as he went through the high door­ at one side of the pulpit and looked out way, folded himself into a hard pew over the people in the uneasy pews, his at the back, put down his worn bag, straight and narrow face set in a con­ and looked about. scious gravity. There were fifty-odd people seated People craned their necks; voices in the cheerless room, listening tensely murmured. Why didn’t Ransome get to a tall man, thin but flabby, who up? Wasn’t he going to speak? No stood with one hand on the narrow defense, probably. What was to be pulpit and who was speaking with a done then? studied resonance. One or two glanced But after a moment, the boy’s slen­ at the doctor as he came in, but their der figure pulled itself up and slouched faces were blank and strained. slowly to the front of the room. He “ And therefore,” the weighty voice did not mount the platform, but turned was saying, “ I felt it to be fitting that and cronfonted the curious, hostile we, his neighbors, who are kindly dis­ faces, his brows lowered, his eyes sul­ posed toward this young man, should len. Then he threw the hair back from ask him to meet here with us and ex­ his forehead with a defiant gesture of plain to us his conduct. W e are re­ the head. liably informed that he attended a “ I don’t know,” he said, and his meeting of a so-called pacifist society. nervous voice rang loud in the silence, The action has occasioned much criti­ “ why I should have to explain to any­ cism, bitter criticism and, I cannot but body what I did. But my mother believe, just criticism. There have been wanted me to come tonight, so I did.” threats— . But I, for one, felt it to be A whispering blew through the little due to an even-handed justice that he crowd. His poor mother! It must be 236 The Frontier

hard to be ashamed of one’s son when A plump man with a bald head stood other mothers were being so brave and up briskly. “ I’ve known Arnie Ran­ so proud. some all his life,” he announced in a “ I did go to a meeting in New York high voice, “ and I have a word to say. of people who think war is wrong. He has a good mother, none better. Nothing happened but talk. I think But he hasn’t been too good a son to war is wrong, too. So did you before her. H e’s always gone his own way. all this propaganda got you.” He always wants to be different from “ Slacker!” said a voice distinctly. what other folks are. He talks big The doctor’s big body stirred. People about ideals and all that, but he don’t looked about but no one could see who keep rules. Now that may go for a had spoken. while, but in a time like this when the The boy swung around. “ Oh, I was welfare of the whole w orld’s at stake, drafted, all right, but I have a bad we can’t have that kind of thing, that’s heart and didn’t get in.” all. Boys can’t just be fresh and get “ Very convenient.” It was the com­ away with it, now. If we stand for ment of a small man sitting in the front that sort of thing, the sacrifices all the pew. rest of us are making are going to go A bony man with a harsh beard stood for nothing— ” up. “ Such a meeting in time of war, He was interrupted. Prom one of the young man,” he said raspingly, “ is giv­ side seats, a woman in black had risen. ing aid and quarter to the enemies of She was trembling all over but there your country. It is a traitorous activ­ was a sort of exultation in her face. ity.” He sat down. She put up her hand and the plump Hands were clapped. The eyes man stopped his speech. People turned turned back to Arnold Ransome. to look at her. “ I don’t agree with you,” the boy “ I— ” she said hoarsely. She stopped said stiffly. “ That meeting was held and cleared her throat. * ‘ I had a boy, ’ ’ in the— the interests of humanity. I she said, her voice trembling like her tell you I haven’t done anything trait­ body. “ He didn’t go to meetings. He orous.” went to war. He went because his A small woman with sharp eyes and country needed him. He is dead. He sandy hair shot up near Dr. Hender­ is— dead.” Her voice broke and she son. “ I should like to ask Arnold Ran­ fell back into her seat, sobbing. some if he has bought Liberty bonds Dr. Henderson turned his face away. or contributed to the Red Cross.” She Rising murmurs eddied about among bit o ff the words and sat down prompt­ the little crowd. ly, with a preening motion of her “ Make him subscribe to the Liberty shoulders. Loans, and to the Red Cross, twice his The eyes swept back to him again. quota,” said a voice at the back. “ No,” said Ransome loudly. “ I “ That’s too good for him. I ’d say haven’t. ’ ’ ride him out of town on a rail,” called “ ‘ Humanity’, ” someone breathed, another. “ and doesn’t subscribe to the Red “ Tar and feathers,” said someone Cross!” vehemently. 237 The Frontier

The man in the pulpit chair rose and who w on’t answer his country’s call in spread out large, soft hands for si­ the hour of her need— ” His voice was drowned in the re­ lence. sponse of his audience. They were on “ My friends,” he said, “ we are not their feet. The man sitting on the plat­ met here to condemn this man, but to form did not move now, but sat watch­ give him an opportunity to explain ing, a deep glow of excitement in his himself, if such a thing be possible. We eyes. People pressed forward. One are met here, even in this great crisis, or two took their women’s arms and when the fate of democracy, of human­ started to lead them out of the church. ity, is at stake—we are met here, I Then there was a slowing of the say, in the spirit of neighborly kind­ movement, a dying away of the noise. ness, to listen to this lad and try, if For Dr. Henderson, who had stood up may be, to show him the error of his with the rest, had moved down the aisle ways. Arnold, have you anything fur­ and was standing beside Arnold Ran­ ther to say ? ’ ’ some. He put his long arm across the The boy was very white, but he boy’s shoulders and stood still, turning pulled himself up with a spasmodic his eyes from one to the other. People jerk and ran his fingers through his paused, looking at him in surprise, and hair so that it stood out untidily. there was a moment’s silence. “ Yes,” he said. His voice had grown il i guess all of you know me, he shrill. “ Yes. I think war is terrible. said mildly. ‘‘I guess we’re all friends I’m glad I was exempted. I didn’t here. W e’re angry now and excited, want to go to kill people, boys just as and likely to do something we’ll be decent as Mrs. Baker’s boy. I t ’s all sorry about tomorrow. It’s a hard time terrible, I tell you. I don t believe it we’re going through. War hurts so gets you anywhere, ever. Read his­ much we hardly know what we’re tory. Use your heads. And I w on ’t about.” He looked down at the b oy ’s pay to support it or to cure up boys to dropped head. “ We don’t any of us go back and kill some more. I won’t— ” here believe in killing, either, Arnie, Down the aisle a figure came strid­ not really. But I guess most of us have ing, a handsome, full-bodied boy in a figured that since we couldn’t stop natty lieutenant’s uniform. He swept the war, it might be better to put it Ransome aside so that the boy stum­ through as fast as we could. I ’ve bled against the platform, and took it bought bonds and all that, God forgive himself in one leap. Low on the wall me, and maybe I ’m wrong and the b oy ’s at the back hung a flag, and he lifted right. As for the flag there— ” He a corner and draped the bright silk turned his head to look at it. ‘ Look across his shoulder. out there, Fred, you’ll pull it down, he added, speaking to the young sol­ “ What are you listening to him dier, who let go of it hastily, glancing for?” he shouted. “ He’s insulting uncomfortably up to where it was fas­ every one of us. H e’s insulting your tened. “ As for that flag— you see, dead, those who, gave the last full we’ve all been taught to care about it measure of devotion to their country. ever since we were little shavers. His He’s insulting this sacred flag. A man 238 The Frontier

eyes dwelt on it, then he faced back, tated, for the people had begun to shaking his head. “ Don’t know but stream out of the little white church and I ’m too fond of it,” he said, looking there were angry voices. “ W e’ll take about on the surprised, indecisive faces this boy along if you don’t mind,” he with a slow grin. “ But we’d be said. “ Climb in, Arnie.” ashamed if we did anything to Mrs. “ I don’t want to run away,” said Ransome’s boy, here. H e’s a good boy, the boy violently. “ Let them do their and he’s got a good idea, too. It damnedest. ’ ’ wouldn’t do the other boys any good to But Dr. Henderson’s hand fell on his bother him, now would it? Let’s go shoulder. “ I guess I wouldn’t act like home and cool off. Come on, Arnie.” that, Arnie. They’ll feel different in He began to walk down the aisle, his the morning, I hope.” arm still across Arnold Ransome’s The leader of the meeting came down drooping shoulders. the walk. “ With all due deference to “ But, doctor— ” someone said pro- you, Dr. Henderson— ” he began. testingly, as he passed. “ Sorry,” said the doctor. “ I have And another, “ That’s all very well, a patient. Let’s go.” Pushing Arnold but— ” Ransome before him, he climbed into the People commenced to talk again, turn­ car, and the young man in the front ing, moving uncertainly after them, to­ seat gave a small, derisive laugh as he ward the door. threw in the gear. “ Got your bicycle, A rnie?” the doc­ “ I ’m on,” he said. “ I ’ve heard a tor asked in a low voice, as he stopped crowd that sounded that way, myself. to pick up his bag at the back. ‘ L et’s g o ’ is right.” The boy shook his head. He was shiv­ The car jolted off and the boy ering violently and taking deep gulps slumped down in the back seat, his head of air. dropped into his hands. ‘ * Do you think “ Guess I ’ll walk home with you, I’m a coward, doctor?” His voice then.” They started down the steps quavered. together. The doctor’s big hand fell on his knee. In front of the church, a battered car “ No, you’re a brave boy, Arnie, braver was standing and, as they came out, a than most of us. I figured it wouldn’t young man jumped out of it and ran do much good for me to talk and lose up the walk, leaving the engine on. “ Is out on my usefulness here, maybe go Dr. Henderson in this meeting?” he to prison. And there was Anne to con­ asked hurriedly. sider. But I don’t know, I don’t know. “ I ’m Dr. Henderson.” Now you stay here while I get my “ Oh, I ’ve been looking for you, doc­ things. ’ ’ tor. My name’s Miles Winter. I came ‘ ‘ Slacker ? ’ ’ inquired the driver brief­ to get you for my—my wife. She’s ly as they waited. having a baby and she needs you right “ Pacifist,” answered young Ransome o ff.” 8 defiantly. All right, ” said the doctor. ‘ ‘ We ’ll “ M-m-m. Better take a short trip, stop at the house for some things. ’ ’ He I ’d say, from the sound of that mob started to climb into the car, then hesi­ back there. Not a healthy job you’ve 239 The Frontier taken on. A ll ready, doctor! M eg’s figure in a soiled khaki coat appeared at the tourist camp five miles out and at the door, in the light from the car, I’m going to step on it.” and Miles Winter leaped down and went There was a few moment’s silence as hurriedly to put his arm about her. the little car rattled along the highway, ‘ ‘ I brought the doctor all right, and the doctor sat with his hands on his Meg,” he said. “ How are you feeling knees, his body hunched over in the now, dearest!” cramped car, his eyes peering out at “ Pretty good,” said a girl’s voice the sky. clearly. It was a vibrant, flexible voice, Presently he gave a little chuckle. with a deep sweetness. Just now it was “ Never have cared much about going strung to courage. so much faster than with a horse. But The doctor climbed out of the little you know I sort of like to watch the car and took the girl’s firm hand, that stars. They don’t seem to move much quivered in his. He glanced beyond her even when other things go racketing into the tent, and about him. “ Not a by.” very good place for what’s before us,” Young Ransome roused himself from he said cheerfully. “ How often are the his brooding. “ I ’d better get out and pains coming!” go home, wouldn’t I ! ” he said. No She lifted her dark eyes to his and point in my traveling around.” smiled. The comers of her lips trem­ “ Oh, you just stick about with us bled, then closed firmly. “ About every for a bit, Arnie. Does no harm. What five minutes, I should think, doctor, but you planning to do!” I haven’t been timing— ” Her voice “ God knows,” said the boy wearily. snapped off. Her fingers closed desper­ “ I don’t much care. W hat’s the use, ately about his, but no sound came from whatever I do!” her. The doctor pulled his watch out “ You’d better light out,” Miles Win­ hastily and held it into the light of the ter flung back from the front seat. “ No car. Arnold Ransome slipped out of his use giving that gang the satisfaction of seat and disappeared into the darkness. torturing you.” Miles Winter tightened his arm about “ I t ’s all so silly,” said the boy, “ and her ^shoulders. Then a long breath of not real, somehow. They always seemed relief passed her lips and she turned to sort of nice people.” smile into the strained eyes beside her. “ I’m through with ‘nice people’,” “ D on’t worry, Miles dear,” she said, a said the driver. His voice cut. ‘ ‘ They re lilt of determined gaiety in her voice. the worst. Give me sinners, every time.” “ This sort of thing has happened for “ Oh, well, now,” said the doctor, his every person in the world, you know. voice amused, “ all depends on what you Miles did not answer and his face mean by ‘ nice,’ doesn’t it! And all this questioned the doctor. isn’t very real, Arnie, one way you look at it. Doesn’t last, you know, comes “ If y ou ’ll get your things, Mrs. W in­ ter, with your husband’s help, I believe and goes, sort o f.” we’ll run in town. There’s plenty of The car turned into a small tourist time.” camp, bumped over the grass, and There was a moment’s hesitation. stopped before a shabby tent. A girl’s 240 The Frontier

“ We haven’t money for a hospital, I ’m case up the brick walk behind the young afraid— ” couple, who clung to each other’s hands. “ Oh, that’s no matter. W e’ve only Anne Henderson, plump and competent, one, anyhow, and it’s too full now. But took Meg briskly into her charge, and I was thinking of a bed at home I use set the two young men to work moving sometimes. My Anne’s a capital substi­ furniture, bringing sheets and towels, tute for a trained nurse. Likes nothing heating water. better than someone to fuss over. Oh, “ There, that’s all we need from you,” Arnie! ’ ’ The doctor turned, calling into she said crisply after a while. “ You the darkness. “ Can you drive this car two boys go out in the back yard. By back for us ? Mr. Winter here will want the way, Arnie, don’t you go home. to sit with his w ife.” Your mother’s been telephoning me. Of course I can. ’ ’ The boy came There’s some folks been at your house eagerly out of the shadows. looking for you and she’s worried. But there was another moment of They’ve been here, too, and gone, so hesitation. Dr. Henderson caught the they probably w on’t be back here again. look that passed from the dark eyes to You’d better sleep out in Nat’s old room Miles W inter’s, and saw the man’s in the bam tonight.” young shoulders square themselves. “ If “ Yes, Mrs. Henderson,” said the boy w e’re going to your home, Dr. Hender­ gratefully. son,” he said, and the words were cold “ Now you kiss your wife and get out, from the effort that brought them out, Mr. Winter. You young husbands all “ you should know— ” take this business so hard,” she scoffed. The girl’s smooth head lay against his And then added, clicking a drawer shut, shoulder. “ You see, I ’m not his w ife,” “ Not that I ’d have any use for you if she said softly. you didn’t.” But the baby is mine, ’ ’ added Miles ‘ * Perhaps you ought to know that I ’m Winter with pride. not her— ” Miles began. Well, then, ’ ’ said the older man with “ Oh, tush,” snapped Anne Hender­ vigor, “ you’d better quit talking so son. “ W e’ve got more important busi­ much and get this girl into town as ness on hand tonight, the doctor and I .” quick as the Lord will let you. Climb At the door, she met her husband. in, Arnie, and easy does it.” Their looks crossed and together their No one talked on the way back. The eyes turned toward the bed. The carven girl, wrapped in an auto robe and with oval of the girl’s face, pale between her Miles arms about her, sat quietly in dark braids, lay quiet upon the pillow, the back seat. Once a little moaning but her shadowed eyes were lifted to breath passed her lips. “ I ’m sorry,” smile at the other young face with its she said quickly, “ I didn’t mean— ’ ’ tortured forehead. Miles Winter’s teeth grated together Ten minutes later, Dr. Henderson “ Oh, hush.” came into the back garden. The two In the town, they stopped before an young men were tramping silently back old, square house with high windows, and forth on the box-bordered walk to set in a mass of trees and flowers. Arn­ the old bam, but the doctor took Miles’ old Ransome carried the battered suit­ arm and led him farther from the bed­ 241 The Frontier room window to where some garden by him, even the fools, even these ‘ right­ chairs stood near a small sundial. eous’ people. He’s so damn decent to “ Come on over here and sit down. everybody. Say, have a smoke, won’t Your Meg’s all right, and my Anne will y ou ?” stay with her. Say, you’ll have to pick The deliberate stride came back up up all those cigarette stubs you’re throw­ the walk in a few minutes. “ Guess I ’ll ing around, Amie, or Anne will be on go in and see how that girl’s getting your neck in the morning.” on,” Dr. Henderson remarked. Miles Winter stood rather stiffly by Miles watched him go in, and sat, the chair, facing the doctor. “ I want tense and silent, staring at the light in the window. When the doctor finally to tell you about Meg and me,” he be­ reappeared in the doorway, Miles stood gan. “ Guess I ’ll go to bed,” said Arnold up and his breath hissed between his Ransome. “ I t ’s getting late, isn’t it? teeth. The doctor crossed the grass “ Don’t go, Ransome. You’re a—a without hurry and sat down, the chair fellow rebel. I don’t mind your hear­ creaking beneath his bulk. “ She said a nice thing just now,” he ing.” “ She’s a lovely thing, your Meg, remarked gently. ‘ 1 She said, I m glad said Dr. Henderson. “ Anybody with I ’m having Miles’ baby, doctor’.” A strangled sound came from Miles’ half an eye can see that. Knows how to do with suffering, too.” He stooped to lips. “ She’s a lovely thing,” said the doc­ sniff at the honeysuckle on the sundial. tor again. He leaned forward, elbows “ Ever notice how extra sweet flowers on knees, his head sunk, slowly tracing are at night?” patterns on the grass with his finger. “ She’s had a lot of suffering,” said “ You know,” he paid presently, as if Miles, his voice hardening. ‘ ‘ I wanted he were thinking aloud, I see things to save her some, but I got her into something like this. It s like like a more.” river. There are cross-currents and “ Been on the road long?” inquired rapids and little backed-up pools and the doctor. He had knelt awkwardly to all— hut it does go to the sea. It does. pull a thistle that was crowding the And our job is to get into the steady honeysuckle vine. flow of it, all we can, anyhow. Some­ “ Nearly half a year, and with only times the cross-currents make a fellow odd jobs to keep us going. But even seem against it, don’t they? Like you that wasn’t as bad as— . H e’s divorcing three young folks.” her at last. Thank God, we can live “ I don’t think I understand.” Miles outside the rotten system. I never want for a moment had half-forgotten, as the her to have to call me husband.” doctor would have him, the struggle at “ Better sit down,” said the doctor, pulling himself up. “ Quite a wait the house. ahead.” He wandered slowly off down Even in the light of the stars, they the garden walk, and Miles dropped could see that he was smiling at them. suddenly into the chair. ‘ 1 Well, I ’d count kindness in that main current, wouldn’t you; and the need “ Great old guy,” said Arnold Ran­ for beauty? As for love, that s just some. “ Everybody around here swears 242 The Frontier

both of those, isn’t it? Well, then, there “ But they got him,” said the boy you are—you and your Meg, and Arnie quickly, “ and killed him.” here—really with the current even if There was a pause before the doctor you’re being tossed about just now. answered gently, “ Well, if that’s really Pretty hard to tell sometimes whether the way you feel about it, Arnie, you’d it’s better to buck those cross-currents, better leave town, I ’d say.” maybe go clear to the bottom in the “ Oh, I know— ” the boy muttered. whirlpools; or to go way round, shortest “ That didn’t end it.” way home, you know.” He stood up “ No,” said Dr. Henderson. “ No, it again, pacing back and forth, then he didn ’t .” stopped, leaning against the old dial, After a little, he went in again and looking up. “ They don’t seem to change stayed longer than before, and when he much, the stars, do they now ? But they came out he put his hand on Miles’ do move, though it’s pretty slow. And shoulder. “ Not long, now,” he said, if we can get the feel somehow that we ’re “ and everything’s going all right. What on the same side with them— ” But he are you going to call the little chap?” stopped to chuckle at himself. “ Well, “ Meg says ‘Miles’ if it’s a boy.” The I do get my figures mixed up, now, voice had the pride and tenderness that don’t I, what with rivers and stars and the doctor had heard such countless a ll?” times. A slow-paced clock struck midnight. “ ‘Miles’— ?” He paused. “ Well, I “ What shall I do, doctor?” asked should sort of think he’d need your last Arnold Ransome abruptly, out of the si­ name, too, when you can manage it. lence that had fallen. ‘ ‘ Go away ? Or Kind of hard for a little fellow the other try to fix things up ? Or talk pacifism w ay.” and get arrested?” The doctor shook his head. “ I don’t Miles Winter stirred. ‘ ‘ Whatever know, ^>oy. That’s your puzzle. And Meg says, of course— ” there’s your mother to think of. You’ll A light breeze brushed their faces and have to do whatever’s going to make fluttered delicately the leaves above you feel right. If you’ve got the spunk their heads. A tight-held groan stole and the stamina you’d need—well, I out through the lighted window. don t know. Only this, try not to get “ O h,” cried Miles, gripping the doc­ bitter, Amie. Just remember how slow­ tor’s arm, “ oh, she’s so brave.” ly those stars do move.” He paused. The doctor’s eyes were looking up “ You know, I take a lot of comfort again beyond the shifting leaves. “ Yes,” sometimes, thinking about that steady he said gravely, “ oh, yes. It takes cour­ old Socrates and his hemlock.” age ; it takes courage. ’ ’ 243 The Frontier

CHINOOK JARGON III

B y E. H. T h o m a s

Jargon Words That Come From the Kwanesum, with the ah a is always in Pure Chinook Dialect. the Jargon, too. Now we come to ikta and find it used N the very first page of Boas’ both for what and for thing, just as it is Chinook Texts we find an old used in the Jargon. Sometimes Boas O friend, alta. It is pronounced spelled it Ekta, with a capital E. ahlta, both in the Jargon and in the Another old friend, rather nude and original Chinook. It means now, the uncouth in appearance, is a word he present. strangely spells aiaq. The meaning in The next one is not so easily recog­ Boas’ translation is quick; so we readily nized, due to Boas’ attempt to give it recognize hyak, which is Jargbn for the exact sound of Cultee’s pronuncia­ quick, fast, hurry. tion— smokst, the equivalent of the nu­ Then we encounter naika, the first meral two. It is moxt in the Jargon. personal pronoun I in Chinook, which Kwanisum, with a long a is pure Chin­ in the Jargon is nika. Likewise it is ook ; kwa/nesum, with an ah a in the used for me and m y; and mika is you Jargon. and yours, but is maika in the original Shaw says he-he, the Jargon for and mika in the Jargon. laugh, is onomatopoeia, or a rude at­ O-pol e ka is really two words, accord­ tempt to imitate sound; but Boas’ rec­ ing to Boas, or rather it is an odd-ap­ ord of the Cikla myth uses he-he as pearing word that means night thus. Chinook for laugh. We must accept the The Jargon word is not so strange in word, therefore, as of Chinook origin. its spelling, for in it night is polakli. We find in the same text the strange­ It is also used for dark, or for the dark­ ly spelled word ncitkum. It is used for ness. the expression, I am half. H alf in the Enatai, pronounced enati, is the Jargon is sitkum. Cultee probably pro­ equivalent of across, on the other side, nounced it with a partial elision of the both in Chinook and in the Jargon. n sound and an explosive s sound for Boas gives kanauwe as Chinook for the c. In Jargon sitkum dolla is half all. The Jargon uses konaway. He gives a dollar. Sitkum siwash is half Indian, ikanim for canoe; in the Jargon it is half breed, or literally half savage, as canim, long a and accent on the last siwash, a generic term applied to all the syllable. Indians of the Northwest, is merely a In Boas’, or Cultee’s, anqate, long corruption of the French word sauvage. ago, we have no difficulty in recognizing Farther along we find kwanisum ahnkuttie, Jargon for the same expres­ again, but this time Boas spells it kua- sion. nesum, giving a q sound to the ku, a There are many others but these will long a and using the capital E to de­ be sufficient. Cultee was talking the note a partial elision of the sound of language of the ancient Chinooks to Dr. that vowel. Kwanisum, wherever he Boas, a tongue that had been in use for uses it, is the equivalent of always. untold centuries by an active, powerful, 244 The Frontier

warlike, once-numerous trading tribe of Callicum’s use of the word was nat­ intelligent Indians. These words are ural. He was talking to a stranger, a found alike in their dialects and in the foreigner, a man from another tribe, Jargon. Their pronunciations have un­ even though the tribe was white. The dergone some transformations, modified Jargon was the common means of com­ by long use among the many differing munication under such circumstances tribes and the half-century or more of among all the hundreds of tribes and later contact with white traders; but families of the whole vast region. The there is not much doubt that more than Nootkans used it in their relations with half of the present Jargon vocabulary Jewet for the same reason, and so did was in use as a primitive, prehistoric Concommolly, the Chinook chief, or trading language long before these In­ Tyee, in his attempt to talk to Lewis dians knew that a white man or white and Clark. race existed. That the whites could not respond in Concommolly, chief of the Lower kind may have given the natives a poor Chinooks, spoke words taken from the opinion of the visitors’ attainments. original Nootkan when he said, waket They may have felt that the whites contmatux, for I do not understand, to lacked education, and from the Indian Lewis and Clark in 1804. That was standpoint they did; but they respected seven years before there had been other the force of ships and firearms and the than maritime traders on this coast, wealth of goods the ships and traders and seventeen years before there was brought with them, and in time taught a Hudson’s Bay post anywhere on the them the Jargon. At that point they shores of the Pacific. all finally found a common ground, for One word in Meares’ account of his they could communicate with each other. experiences on the Northwest Coast in Though there were many ships in the 1788, a phrase or two in the Journal of maritime trade prior to 1800 there was Lewis and Clark, ten words of the Noot­ little contact before that with the na­ kan vocabulary given by Jewet, two tives. This accounts for the meager­ others in the body of his Narrative— ness of the records. The ship masters Tyee and pechak— and his discovery cared only for furs. They cruised off that the tribe had two languages, one shore during the summer and the In­ he thought for purely poetical expres­ dians came out to them in canoes. When sion in their war songs and lyrics and all the trading was done the laden ves­ the other for common use, show beyond sels sailed for the ports of China, or, if doubt that the Jargon existed and was out for several years, wintered in the used by widely separated tribes at least Sandwich Islands. These ship traders going all the way back to Meares’ knew nothing of native customs, tribes quotation of the word cloosh spoken by or languages; cared nothing for them, Callicum— thirty-two years before the had no interest in such squalid people Astor party arrived at the mouth of the except the trade they could carry on Columbia. For kloshe is original Chin­ with them in the most primitive methods ook ; it is also Jargon, and it was spoken of exchange and barter. by a Nootkan in 1788 o ff the west coast It is for this reason that study of their of Vancouver Island. logs and records offers so little evidence 245 The Frontier

that the whole country was occupied by either for or against the prehistoric the Chehalis, another Salishan tribe. origin of the trade jargon now known They told me, however, that a few of their relatives, who still continued to as Chinook. speak Clatsop, lived on Shoalwater Bay Boas’ Chinook Texts among the Chehalis. “X went to search for this remnant Before this interesting native race, of the Clatsop and Chinook peoples, and the Lower Chinooks, lost their last iden­ found them located at Bay Center, Pa­ cific County, Washington. They proved tity some valuable work was done by to be the last survivors of the Chinook, Franz Boas in collecting and recording who at one time occupied the greater part of Shoalwater Bay and the northern their myths and stories. These were pub­ bank of the Columbia River as far as lished by the Bureau of Ethnology of Grays Harbor. The tribe has adopted the Chehalis language in the same way the Smithsonian Institution under the in which the Clatsop have adopted the title Chinook Texts, but are now out of Nehelim. The only individuals who spoke Chinook were Charles Cultee and Cath­ print and copies are rare and difficult erine While I was unable to obtain to obtain. anything from the latter, Cultee proved to be a veritable storehouse of informa­ In his introduction to this collection tion. His mother’s mother was a Kat- lamat, (Cathlamet) and his mother’s Dr. Boas says: father a Quilapax; his father’s mother was a Clatsop, and his father’s father a “The following texts were collected in Tinneh of the interior. His wife is a the summers of 1890 and 1891. While Chehalis, and at present he speaks Che­ studying the Salishan languages of halis almost exclusively, this being also Washington and Oregon I learned that the language of his children. He has the dialects of the Lower Chinook were lived for a long time in Katlamat, on the on the verge of disappearing, and that southern bank of the Columbia River, only a few individuals survived who re­ his mother’s town, and for this reason membered the languages of the once speaks the Katlamet dialect as well as powerful tribes of the Clatsop and the Chinook dialect. He uses the former Chinook. This fact determined me to dialect in conversing with Samson, a make an effort to collect what little re­ Katlamat Indian, who is also located mained of these languages. at Bay Center. Until a few years ago he “ I first went to Clatsop, where a small spoke Chinook with one of his relatives, band of Indians are located near Sea­ while he uses it now only rarely when side, Clatsop County, Oregon. Although conversing with Catherine, who lives a a number of them belonged to the Clat­ few miles from Bay Center. Possibly sop tribe, they had all adopted the Ne- this Chinook is to a certain extent mixed helim (now generally spelled and pro­ with Katlamat expressions, but from a nounced Nehalim) language, a dialect close study of the material I conclude of the Salishan Tillamook. This change that it is on the whole pure and trust­ of language was brought about by fre­ worthy. quent intermarriages with the Nehelim. “ I have obtained from Cultee a series I found one middle-aged man and two of Katlamat texts also, which appear to old women who still remembered the me not quite so good as the Chinook Clatsop language, but it was impossible texts, but nevertheless give a good in­ to obtain more than a vocabulary and sight into the differences of the two a few sentences. The man had forgotten dialects. It may be possible to obtain a great part of the language, while the material in this dialect from other women were not able to grasp what I sources. wanted; they claimed to have forgotten “ My work of translating and explain­ their myths and traditions, and could ing the texts was greatly facilitated by not or would not give me any connected Cultee’s remarkable intelligence. After texts. One old Clatsop woman, who had he had once grasped what I wanted, he been married to a Mr. Smith, was too explained to me the grammatical struc­ sick to be seen, and died soon after my ture of the sentences by means of ex­ visit. The few remaining Clatsops had amples, and elucidated the sense of dif­ totally forgotten the history of their ficult periods. tribe, and even maintained that no al­ “This work was more difficult as we lied dialect was spoken north of the conversed only by means of the Chinook Columbia River and on Shoalwater Bay. (Now Willapa Harbor.) They assured me Jargon.” 246 The Frontier

Boas’ texts are written first in the came from the dialects of these Chin- pure Chinook dialect, as spoken by Cul- ookan tribes. tee, with an accompanying literal trans­ These facts do seem to show beyond lation line for line beneath the original. any possibility of doubt that the Jargon Each of the stories is followed by a free translation entirely in English. came into existence during some long These texts, as he relates, were told past pre-historic period as a polyglot of to him by Cultee, transcribed into the native words use in inter-tribal com­ difficult and complex dialect of the orig­ mercial and trading intercourse, and inal Chinook, translated literally and that it was later enlarged to fit the re­ again in free form, all by means of the quirements of trade when the fur com­ Jargon, which shows its marvelous flex­ panies established posts in the region. ibility, as the entire vocabulary contains The dominance of Chinook words also but little more than 500 words. Of this seems to indicate that the Chinooks were, number, however, nearly half, or two as the early explorers and traders re­ hundred and twenty-one words, are of peatedly said, the dominant tribe of the Chinook origin. Only twenty-four are Pacific between the 42nd and the 57th from the Nootkan dialects, thirty-nine degrees of latitude. are from the various other Salish tribes This dominance of Chinook words in other than the Chinook, and all the rest, the Jargon doubtless made it easier for except forty, which are imitations of Dr. Boas so faithfully to record these natural sounds, are the contributions of texts. Study of them will show the the French voyageurs and English and marked present-day similarity of many American traders. The most guttural Jargon words to the Lower Chinook of the Jargon words are those which dialect from which they came.

BALLAD OF JED STRONG SMITH

B y J o h n R u s s e l l M c C a b t h y

Hark to the song of Jed Strong Smith, A many seek Adventure, Young knight of traps and furs | Leave true loves behind, He wooed the wench Adventure And home at last in happy rags And knew no bed but hers. To find their own loves kind.

Oh, some men stack their silks away But Jed, he followed Adventure And lock their honor up, (His own true love was she) And stumble forth at the break of day By mountain, sink and desert, To drain Adventure’s cup. And worshipped faithfully.

And many have loved Adventure, Once the wench Adventure Her breasts are cold as snow, (His own true love was she) Her dancing gown is flowing mist Took claws and mouth of a grizzly Where winds on waters blow. And kissed him bloodily. 247 The Frontier

Jed laughed at his lover’s antic, But Jed, he loved this spider-maid; Had his ear sewed back on his head, Despite lost men and furs And soon was off over no-man’s land He set his grim lips unafraid, To the shores of the sunset red. He knew his soul was hers.

He reached Wind River rendezvous He followed the witch who mocked him, And met his pard, Sublette; The first of all her train, He sold his share in the furs and Prom the Great Salt Lake in Utah traps,— To California’s main. A lover has more to get.

Over old Mount Joseph ’Twixt Arkansas and Cimarron The wench went beckoning east; Lies a hot, dry bed for love, Jed followed Hell’s daughter, with And there at last a wench might wait sweat for water, For the chance she was dreaming of. An old dead horse for a feast. And there at last the wench did wait, Adventure, golden-locked— Then back across the desert; Eve’s own daughter, changed to water— His true love whirled again A gay mirage, she mocked. In a band of wild Mojaves, She smiled and killed his men. Jed stumbled on for the Cimarron, For life and Santa F e; But the spider-maid he loved so well But Jed was a stronger lover Gave in, and named her day. Than the swift Adventure knew— When she took the trail to Vancouver Gave Jed a river clean and blue— He grinned and followed her through. Her body for a river— Then with Comanche fangs she slew How kind, the bitch Adventure! And feasted on her lover. Led Jed to Willamette’s shore, Now Jed Strong Smith, who loved so Then swooped, in a thousand Umpquas, true, Is Adventure’s self, forever. To feast on flesh and gore.

CONCRETE WORKER

B y R o b e r t s o n F r e d e r i c N e l s o n

H i! The clatter and roar of the cement machine And you work in the same old rut. Oravell Cementl Qrwvel! Cement! And water to throw in her gut! Yi! Hi! The days roll by! A slush and a slush and a squidge! Empty her out; Fill her again! The public must have a bridge! 248 The Frontier

Ho! The rattle and din of the grey-green thing, And you ache and bake in the sun. Gravel! Cement! Gravel! Cement! And dump her, then give her the gun! Y o! H o! The hours drag on! The blaze of the sun at its peak! Empty her out! Fill her again! The public must cross the creek!

H a ! You muck away in the sun and heat, And you sweat and choke in the dust! Gravel! Cement! Gravel! Cement! And you work ’til you damn near bust! Y i! Y o! The day is done, Hurrah! The bullcook’s bell! Clean her up! Let her set! The public can go to hell!

WHEN THE RAILROAD COMES

B y I r e n e W e l c h G r i s s o m

The children play their merry games Where dusty roads of summer gleam. On Main street rise square, wooden frames Of busy stores. A patient team, White flecked with sweat, of shaggy limb, Stands at a post. The driver smiles— The straggling town means much to him. The rails have conquered weary miles And brought world markets to his land. The long freight train just pulling by Fills him with joy. He waves his hand To the engineer, who shouts reply In jovial words he faintly hears Through clanging bell and grinding wheels. The sounds are music in his ears. And watching it contentment steals Into his heart and brain. He sees His eager dreams at last come true— The cool, deep green of spreading trees Above the homes so raw and new; The dusty road a wide paved street Of gray stone blocks, that echoes roar Of trade and tramp of many feet. The train unlocks a kingdom’s door! 249 The Frontier HIGHWAYS ARE HAPPY WAYS

B y D o r o t h y M a r i e J o h n s o n “ Highways are hajrpy ways When they lead the way to home.” LL her life, Diz had watched the swered. “ I can get on at the shed and army of apple-knockers come I ’m going to learn to pack.” A like conquerors with the first “ Go ahead then!” her father shout­ ripening fruit and leave carelessly when ed, his temper worn with worry over the harvest was over. All her seventeen the shortage of pickers and the multi­ years she had envied them. tude of difficulties that the fruit harvest Mostly unskilled were the pickers; brings. “ You won’t make enough to roughly clothed men who drifted with earn your bread and butter. Sensible the fruit harvest because they would women sit at the grader and sort, if always drift, women who could climb they work down there, but no— you've a sixteen-foot picking ladder without got to be learning to pack. Going to getting scared, and who didn’t care if be just another bum, aren’t y ou ?” rain-wet branches slapped their faces. “ Now, W ill!” interposed his wife. Some didn’t care how they picked ap­ “ All right! I just bet I can support ples, either; they were paid by the box, myself!” shot back Diz, her dark eyes and what difference did it make if they blazing. “ I’ll live in town, too, and clawed off the fruit-spurs with the fruit, won’t have to do housework like Ma or threw apples into the bags so hard does after she picks in the day time. that they were bruised or stem-punc­ And if I have any debts by the season’s tured f D i z had heard her father grum­ end, I ’ll pick your lousy apples for you ble about it often enough: “ Darn free for twenty years.” bums,’ ’ he called them— especially when So she had to learn to pack. In the he had to borrow money at the co-op roar of the graders the packers did their work, under the dazzle of electric lights, warehouse to pay them off. The pickers were privates in the army moving their stands from bin to bin. of fruit harvesters. They swarmed She learned to toss the shining fruit through orchards and stripped the trees. from one white gloved hand to a wrap­ After that, loose-boxes of fruit were per in the other, twist it, set the apples trucked to the warehouse where the in rows that would come out the right number to a box, and lift the filled box, aristocracy of the harvest took charge skilled sorters, highly paid packers and heavy as it was, onto the rollers and give it a shove down the line. Then the lidders. It was a rush season when Diz first same thing all over again, with eight or ten other packers on the same grader went to work in the co-op packing shed, doing the same thing, endlessly, the ap­ and her father was sour about it. ‘ ‘ Stay ples rolling down endlessly from the around and help clean out those Winter sorters, dropping automatically into the Bananas. You can make plenty for a bins for different sizes, tripped by kid like you are. I ’ll pay you like the weights. With muscles tired and back rest. ’ ’ aching, hands cramped from the con­ He blustered; he would not beg. tinual wrapping, she went on and on. “ I’ve tried that before,” Diz an­ 250 The Frontier

Diz was a good packer, small and quick. and turned back to his everlasting She happened to be the only packer pound, pound, pound, flip the box, in the whole shed who was native there. pound again. No time for foolishness The sorters were wives of growers or when the fruit is coming fast. business men, working for some money And Diz, strolling unconcernedly of their own, or to help out the family, back to her stand, with the eye of the but the other packers were wanderers foreman sharp upon her, saw none of who followed the fru it: apples here in the tiresome turmoil, heard none of the Washington, down to California for the ceaseless roar. She heard only his laugh­ orange crop, perhaps lettuce in Arizona, ing promise, “ See you at six.” and cantaloupe, maybe, in Imperial The harvest ended, the packers took Valley. Skilled workers, these were, their southward road to California or who made big money and spent it all, the Florida grapefruit harvest, and Diz whose homes were tourist camps and went back to high school. But she was cheap hotels, in towns crowded by the apart from the rest. They had picked fury of the harvest swarms, whose treas­ in their father’s orchards, perhaps, dur­ ures were flivvers, and whose ambition ing that fall vacation period, or just was the next harvest. Pariahs who helped around home, but she was a laughed at the stay-at-homes and envied packer— and she was practically en­ them sometimes, who were despised by gaged. the stay-at-homes, but were vital to the She moved back to the ranch, of seasonal work of harvesting. course, when the harvest was over, and Bert Enders was of that wandering came in to school on the bus. But she crew, a smiling giant who lidded for had a bank book to show her father. two graders without anxiety or exertion, “ One hundred and thirty-seven dol­ wielding his box hatchet hour after hour, lars,” he read with dazed eyes. “ Well, flipping the completed boxes onto the I ’ll be hanged!” carriers with a deft turn of the hand. That startling revelation lasted for Diz climbed one day over the rolling almost a week, and Diz took advantage track where the boxes travelled, to argue of it to get her sister to do the dishes. with the checker about yesterday’s rec­ Winter was a dreary time. Some ord, and slipped on the rickety step. pruning was to be done, in the dark, But just before she hit the rollers, Bert cold orchard beneath a grey sky, but Enders caught her in his arms and did mostly there was nothing to do but plan not let her go. for next year and worry about the light “ You clumsy k id !” he shouted above snow-fall. the din. “ Look where you’re going, “ If this dry weather keeps up the why don’t you?” But he was grinning. government ditch will be dry by mid­ “ I will, after this.” Her smile was summer. Aw well,” her father philoso­ impish and startled. “ Let me go— the phized, “ if the drouth don’t get the whole gang of old biddies up the line is crops, worms will.” But he had money watching. ’ ’ in the bank and a new Buick. Ma had With mock ceremony he set her down a new coat, and they talked some about and firmly dusted o ff the seat of her an electric range. overalls. ‘ ‘ See you at six, ’ ’ he shouted, During those long winter evenings The Frontier 251

Leslie often dropped in, from the ranch fruit miraculously swelling on the bur­ next to theirs. Leslie was old stuff; dened trees. he smoked a pipe and talked to her “ That’s your next year’s bacon and father instead of to Diz, comparing beans,” her father told the boys sol­ prices on Jons and Saps and Delicious, emnly. “ See that you thin out the urging new spray methods, discussing misshapen fruit, now, and leave the new irrigation projects, listening to the best, or you may get just beans.” radio. He ate pop-corn with her father, Another harvest opened with a bang. too. He did everything her father did, Pears and ’cots went through the sheds, except take o ff his shoes. And he called all the rest of the soft fruit. Piles of her Bessie, as her father did. clean boxes lay under the propped “ He’s only twenty-three,” Diz often branches in the tangled alfalfa. The had to remind herself. “ But he acts bunkhouse was cleaned out for the fifty, talking about that old orchard of pickers, and her folks planned for long his aud lime sulfur this, lead arsenate hard hours in the orchard. Diz worked that, and the scale and the worms and in the packing shed again, and wel­ the water.” comed the familiar odor of fruit, fresh Nevertheless, he was visiting Diz. It and sharp and sweet, the lights, the was comforting to have a steady; when racket, the ordered confusion. And she you got to be a senior in high school you welcomed Bert Enders. really ought to have, just to talk about. “ How’s my little girl friend?” was Actually, though, he fitted in so well his greeting. “ Been stepping out on with the family around the heating stove papa an y?” that it was easy to forget he was there. “ Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.” She “ It wouldn’t be like that if Bert was smiled from the corners of her eyes. here,” she meditated, watching sandy- “ There’s an end to everything.” He haired Leslie hunched over the checker­ smiled down at her, his thumbs hooked board across from her father. “ We’d in his belt. “ I bet your freedom’s just be out riding, and we wouldn’t care about ended!” how cold it was. And w e’d get some In November they were married. good jazz on the radio instead of those Her mother looked pleadingly and funny old Carry Me Back to Old Vir- her father belligerently into the smiling ginny programs.” eyes of Diz Enders’ new husband when Still, when Leslie didn’t come over, it was time to leave for good. Settled things and settled people would be done she missed him. Her father wandered around uncomfortably in his stocking with now, for Diz. feet, and finally went to sleep in his Leslie sauntered up the lane to shake rocker. Her mother fussed aimlessly hands violently with Bert. “ Take good in the kitchen, rattling pans, and the care of Bessie. She’s a fine girl. Fine kids scrapped over their arithmetic girl.” and got sent to bed. Diz found she The flivver jolted down through a couldn’t even enjoy her book so much. lane of patient, barren trees, and Diz But of course that was all foolishness. turned to wave back at Dad and Another summer passed, with blos­ Mother and the kids, but Leslie had dis­ soms fallen and forgotten, and green appeared. The rest waved and threw 252 The Frontier

kisses, and Diz looked in vain to wave hearty, men in worn corduroy, some of at Leslie. the women wearing overalls and boots. “ Well, that’s over and you’re a mar­ “ That’s the old k id !” they shouted, ried woman, Diz Enders. Got a kiss or “ Well, how ’s the boy? Married, are for your old man?” you? Well, whaddaya know about They narrowly escaped running into that! Be settling down, first thing the ditch while Diz kissed her new hus­ you know!” And after that there was band. The familiar orchards and ranch raucous laughter of men and sharp- houses receded behind them, along the eyed women. “ By gee, think of old dusty highway. They were off to Cali­ Bert settling down!” fornia. Diz, close beside her husband, smiled Their southward journey was like a and loved the easy friendliness of it flight from winter. Day by day they all, the generosity and the freedom left cold behind them, for oranges are from worry that they all boasted. pampered fruit and grow only in soft They found a town that suited them climates. Bert’s erratic driving gave in California, and Bert breezed into the them unnecessary jolts, but Diz, tired nearest packing shed and hit the boss as she was from riding two and three up for a job for both of them. He hundred miles a day, gazed with starry lidded and Diz packed, as before. The eyes as the world went by. odors were different, the feel of the “ Honey, I never was away from fruit was strange, but the noise and the home before more than a hundred hurry and the system were much the miles. Why, I thought Wenatchee was same as the apple packing sheds in a big city! And now I’m free to see Washington. Diz learned easily, and the w orld !” they piled up big checks each week. “ Y ou ’ll see plenty of it,” her hus­ It was there that they met Hank and band promised easily. “ Frisco and Astrid, packing at a different shed. L. A. and San Diego. Next year we There were the same effusive greetings might run over to Florida for the grape­ as at other meetings with Bert’s old fruit, just for the trip. ’ ’ friends. Bert slapped Hank’s shoulder “ Gee, I didn’t know anybody could lustily, and put an easy arm around the be so happy.” She snuggled against tall, soft blonde. “ Hi ya, kid?” he Bert and his arm went around her. said to both of them, and introduced “ Guess you ’ve driven with one hand Diz. “ Meet the little wife, folk s! Hank, before, haven’t y ou ?” she inquired Diz, Astrid, Diz. That’s all done now. with that impish sidewise glance. H ow ’s everything along the line?” “ Hope to tell you, kid. Best thing A strid’s slow, smiling gaze dismissed I do, aside from pack apples and lid Diz casually. “ Fine, Mister Enders. and a few other things.” So you got roped in, did y ou ?” She Bert had friends in every town, it smiled queerly. seemed. There were packers from other “ And you’re the little black-eyed sheds, keepers of low-rate hotels— these beauty that did it, are you?” Hank’s last none too jovial, but pleasant voice was caressing. He tucked her enough. The fruit tramps they met in surprised arm under his and suggested, tourist camps were boisterous and “ L et’s all go eat, folks.” The Frontier 253

So Bert paired off with Astrid. Saunders couple, middle-aged, uncom­ Diz was glad when Hank and Astrid municative people who packed as had a row with the warehouse boss and though their lives depended on it. quit in the middle of the season to seek “ Gosh,” Bert chuckled, “ those birds greener pastures. work like that all the time, as if they “ You never did tell me what their had fourteen kids to support. Been at last name was,” she remarked to Bert. it for fifteen years or more, trying to “ I don’t mind Hank, but I don’t care save for an orange grove. Think we’ll much for his wife.” buy us a grove some day, most likely. ’ ’ “ Heck, she’s not his wife,” Bert an­ A few months before, Diz would have swered in a matter-of-fact way. laughed. But she answered seriously, “ They’re just traveling together. She ‘ ‘ It sounds like a good idea. Why don’t was with another fellow last year. we start saving up for it before we get She’s a good packer.” old like they are?” “ Oh,” was all Diz could say. “ Sure, that’s what we’ll do.” But The orange harvest over, they went somehow they never got started. And on the road again. Diz learned that the Saunders couple didn’t have a cent put by, for all their “ Gee, think of all the women that are keeping house all the time and years of serious effort. “ They’ve got a girl in a private missing all this! ’ ’ Bert chuckled as the school,” Bert informed her. “ In va­ miles rolled past. “ They never go any cations she bums with them.” place, and never have any money.” But what, Diz wondered, had they “ Must be tiresome,” Diz answered, done with that daughter when she was and watched the world go by. a baby? What did wanderers— she pre­ But Bert and Diz never seemed to ferred not to say “ fruit tramps”—do have any money, either. You don’t when they had children? But she didn’t want to start a bank account when mention her thoughts to Bert, because you’re only going to be in a place for they weren’t going to have any children. a month or two, and there are so many Another apple harvest came, but it things to do with money! A new dress seemed better not to go “ home. you happen to see— of course it will get “ The crop has been better around awfully mussed in the suitcase, but Yakima,” she wrote to her mother. there’ll be a cleaner in the next place ‘ < And as the season will be longer there, you stop. New shoes get scuffed when Bert thinks we’d better work there this you wear them in the car. Maybe that year. Probably we can run up for a coat would look nice, but you’ll be visit after the sheds close.” South in the winter. Gas and oil and When the sheds closed, though, she groceries, room rent if you stay at a had to write, “ I f we are going to get hotel, four bits apiece for lunches to Florida in time for a good chance money went fast enough. Sometimes it to look around, we will have to start worried Diz a little, but it never Bert. right away, so guess the visit will be “ Plenty more where that came from, postponed until next year.” kid. What’s the use of having money While she wrote, she blinked rapidly, if you don’t spend it?” for she had just discovered that no mat­ At one packing shed she met the 254 The Frontier

ter how many miles of orchards they it in before dark or somebody would passed, no orchard looked just like the be sure to steal it. She watched, on one at home; no gate was built just like Mondays, home-keeping women hanging D ad’s. And lovely as the world was, out snowy sheets and linens in the wind with trees heavy-laden and fruitful, or on lines in their own back yards, clothes stark and bare after the harvest, it was to be ironed with meticulous care the after all someone else’s world, and she next day and folded gently away in and her husband were wanderers in it. closets or dresser drawers. Diz jammed “ Next year, sure, w e’ll go home, won’t things hurriedly into a suit case or a we, hon?” roll of bedding in the back seat of the “ Sure, kid. Next year w e’ll go see flivver. She thought about things like your old feller and the folks.” that, but Bert was snobbish about peo­ It was about then that she began to ple who just stuck in one place. put small amounts of money away from Bert was always restless. “ A fellow time to time, a five, or a two— just in can’t just sit around and play rummy case they might run short. Bert was all the time,” he argued. “ We got to always running short of cash. go places and be with people. Saw As- “ Loan me a couple dollars, kid? trid and Hank today; they’re slinging Dropped mine in that crap game last a party and the gang will be there.” night.” When she refused he got along The gang was half drunk when they good-naturedly without it, but often she reached the rooming house. Astrid, the found it necessary to slip a dollar under tall and buxom blonde, opened the door the table to him so he could pay for herself and fell, laughing loudly, into their meal. She learned to excuse her Bert’s arms. He did not let her go at fibs by telling her conscience, “ But I once, but propelled her ahead of him haven’t really got any money for him; into the smoke-clouded room, with his it’s in my handkerchief case in the startled wife following. grip.” She said nothing to Bert about “ Here’s us!” Bert shouted, “ and we the hoarded dollars. That would be a found this crazy blonde out in the hall, surprise some day. half swacked. Where do you suppose When they drove late into the eve­ she got the stu ff?” ning she could watch people sitting com­ “ Right here, old kid, right here!” fortably around set supper-tables in a man’s voice shouted. “ Have a little lighted windows. The meals she set for shot?” That invitation it was impos­ Bert were not leisurely and pleasant like sible for Bert Enders to refuse. that. Sometimes they ate from tin plates Diz lost him in the rowdy confusion, in the tourist park, always in a hurry, and found herself with Hank, who was because some of the gang was going on very courtly and intoxicated. “ Well, a party and wouldn’t like to be kept you’re a fine little kid,” he answered waiting. Or they hurried through poor­ every thing she said. “ And another ly cooked meals, sloppily served, in res­ little drink wouldn’t do us any harm.” taurants full of din and chatter and Diz was pushing him away impatiently smoke from burned grease. when Astrid lurched by. Diz did some of their washing on “ There’s the little kid from Washing­ Sundays and had to be careful to get ton, Bert,” she screamed, “ and darned The Frontier 255 if she hasn’t got my old man! Never confusion to touch Bert on the shoul­ mind, Diz, Hank thinks all women are der. ‘ ‘ Come on, big boy, we ’re leaving. ’ ’ little darlings!” She gave him a shove They were on their way to another and swayed over to Bert. Somebody apple harvest, and Diz was twenty. Diz had a phonograph going, and somebody sat at a restaurant table and was utterly else was singing ‘ ‘ Sweet Adeline.” miserable. A dirty restaurant, some­ Diz looked up just in time to see her where in southern Oregon, run by a Mrs. husband kiss Astrid heartily upon the Evans. mouth— and it was as though he had A short, firm lady, was Mrs. Evans. kissed her many, many times before. She never smiled. Without seeming Diz’s heart almost stopped. She felt haste, but with unbelievable sureness sick. She turned to Hank, who blinked and dexterity she waited tables, fixed stupidly. short orders, and kept order in the ‘‘You’d better call off your dog,” she midst of chaos among the boisterous, snapped. ‘‘And go tell my husband hungry fruit workers. Bert had strayed I ’d like to go home.” away somewhere, and Diz sat alone, dull­ ‘ ‘ Sure, I ’ll shtop her. Sure. But how eyed and worried. c’n you go home? You ain’t got no ‘‘You a tramp, too?” Mrs. Evans in­ home! You’re a tramp.” He lurched quired, with a sharp glance and discon­ to his feet, shaken with laughter. ‘ ‘ B ert! certing frankness, as she set down the Hey, Bert! Th’ little woman says she pork chops. wants to go home! And I ’m just telling ‘ ‘ Why, I ’m a packer,” Diz answered her she ain’t got no home.” with some resentment. Diz’s eyes blazed. ‘‘You—you didn’t ‘ ‘ Folks are either tramps or they need to rub it in ! ” she choked. But ain’t ,” Mrs. Evans stated firmly. nobody noticed. ‘ ‘ Them that follows the fruit are tramps. ’ ’ She heard a man’s appraising voice. ‘ ‘ Astrid’s going it . . . whiskey’s get­ ‘ ‘ I ’m not. I ’m going to settle down. ’ ’ ting her. She’s as crazy about Bert Diz caught her breath sharply. Enders as ever, and Hank knows it.” ‘ ‘ I never argue,” the busy lady said. Diz stopped crying. She heard noth­ ‘ ‘ Since I left my husband, I don’t have ing more, but she had heard enough. to.” She passed on to another table She could see, suddenly, into the years with a firm step. Diz sat still and stared ahead. Years of working in cold and into the smoky air. heat, years of earning and spending, Bert strolled in, greeting friends, and traveling and loafing and planning to dropped into the chair across from Diz. save and never saving. Years of wan­ ‘‘Funny old bird, this Evans wom­ dering with Bert, who had wandered an,” he remarked, looking at the pen­ with another woman—no telling how ciled bill of fare. “ She used to be a many other women. And she saw what good packer, and she up and quit her old man like nobody’s business. She’s she had been afraid to see before, that bringing her little girl up to be a mu­ the shining road across the world was dirty and long and rough, and worse, sician. She hates everybody.” ‘‘ Cranky old thing,” agreed Diz, star­ it was a road without an end. She crossed through the smoke and ing miserably at nothing. 256 The Frontier

“ I ’ll say she is. Her old man’s in Diz pushed back her untouched plate the fruit business yet. Saw him a couple and stood up. of years ago down in Imperial Valley. “ I guess you didn’t hear me, after Drink’s getting him down. He used all,” she answered slowly. “ I ’m going to pack, too.” to have a baby. And I have to have a Diz shifted her tragic gaze to Bert’s home.” She turned away, tears blind­ carefree face. “ When are we going to ing her. settle down, B ert?” “ Sit down here, you little fool,” her “ Oh, when we get old w e’ll buy us husband ordered sharply. “ W e’ll talk an orange grove and stay in Sunny Cali­ this over sensibly.” fornia, ’ ’ he murmured easily around his “ Your idea of sense isn’t like mine. cigarette. I have to have a home. I f you won’t “ What’ll we buy it with—worn out settle down and help me make a home, tires?” pursued Diz. I ’ll just go back to the one I used to “ Y ou ’re always worrying about some­ have.” Her voice was toneless. thing,” he scowled. “ No use worry­ Bert’s anger blazed, but he sounded ing. Why cross your bridges before queerly relieved. “ Go on, then! Go you come to ’em ?” running back to pa and ma! I never “ Maybe the bridge’ll be out,” his thought y ou ’d be a piker. I thought wife mused bitterly. “ And there w e’ll you wanted to see the w orld!” be, stuck on the bad side of the river. “ Not any more,” she choked. Then what?” She walked wearily out of the place “ D on’t you worry, kid. D on’t you and left him sitting there, confidently worry.” Bert lit another cigarette and waiting for her to return. But she never helped himself to the French fried on went back. She went instead to their his w ife’s plate. “ W e’re young and room and counted the bills in her hand­ healthy. We make around a hundred kerchief case, and packed her clothes. and thirty-five a week when we work, She never saw Bert again. between us. What more do you want ? ’ ’ Diz always remembered the relief in “ I t ’s not what I want, it ’s what I his voice in that last angry moment, his have to have,” Diz told him, staring head held back defiantly and his eyes bitterly ahead. “ I didn’t want to tell blazing. After a while it did not hurt you here, but— I ’m going to have a to remember him. Later still, she re­ baby. ’ ’ membered him, just as something that “ Huh? What’d you say?” His had happened, long ago. mouth dropped open and he lost his D iz’s boy is big enough to walk now. cigarette. He squeals and toddles recklessly to the Didn t you hear me ? ’ ’ Her voice door when he sees Leslie come striding was tired, and her mouth quivered. up the lane through the orchard. “ I ’m afraid—I ’m awfully afraid, I Leslie argues with the old man about did! ’ He pondered for a moment, his new spray dope and bees for polleniza- brows knitted. “ Well, you ask Astrid tion, while Diz rocks her boy and listens what to do. She knows. ’ ’ He chuckled. gravely, because on these things depend “ Gosh, she ought to.” the lives of the fruit growers. The Frontier 257 TO VIEW THE REMAINS

B y T e d O l s o n

TUNNEL gulped the Overland the parking row before either found Limited for a long minute of more to say. A din and blackness and sooty “ Jeff,” Dan fumbled, “ I’m sorry. stench. Then it was light again, and at You know that, though I ’m a dub at Dan Madison’s elbow was a vista of saying things. flowing jade prairie dipping down in “ Sure. I understand. Everybody’s a giant trough to lift again into the been awfully good. You learn who crumpled wall that was the Ghost your friends are, time like this.” Range. In the summer distance it He thrust out a hand and turned into was blue and white like calico, and Mountain avenue, and Dan stole another Dan’s throat was suddenly taut with look at his brother. It was shocking, the clutch of recognition. He could not the change in him. Somehow Dan hadn’t get his eyes full of that familiar beauty. realized that Jeff would be changed. And then the porter was taking away And yet— it was thirteen years. But his bag, and the train was slowing past it hurt to see Jeff shrunken and sagged, a street of dingy rooming-houses and his ruddy face seamed, his blue eyes soft drink bars and pawnshops, and the bleached behind incongruous horn­ big man in the wrinkled brown suit who rimmed spectacles. Jeff, of all people, stood on the platform and scanned the in horn-rimmed spectacles! Pullman windows so anxiously was in­ “ I wanta stop in at the Pioneer of­ fice and tell ’em about the funeral,” dubitably Jeff. Jeff. His hand closed on Dan’s Jeff explained. “ We decided to wait greedily, after that first hesitant mo­ until tomorrow so Emily’s sister could ment when recognition had not been get here from Florida, and then this morning she wired she couldn’t come. quite certain. “ You old horse-thief,’ ’ he said. “ You Better come in with me. Rawleigh will damned old horse-thief! ’ ’ be glad to see you.” Rawleigh professed to be. He, at any “ How’s everything, Jeff?” “ Fine. I mean—well, about as usual, rate, looked no different— perhaps a bit other ways. Hard trip? Plenty hot, grayer, a bit more bowed of back, but with no diminution in the professional I ’ll bet.” zeal with which he hurled his catechism “ Not so bad.” at Dan. Not until he had tucked into They paused, awkwardly, ill at ease. his diminutive notebook the material for Jeff suddenly discovered that he was a ‘ ‘ personal ’ ’ did he remember the still squeezing Dan’s hand; he dropped amenities of the situation, and recite: it hastily and reached for his brother s “ I want to express my deepest sympa­ suitcase. thy in your bereavement.” It was ob­ “ The flivver’s outside. Say, what do viously a speech that had done similar you think of our new depot? Some im­ provement on the old shack, ain t it? service times without number. Dan thanked him, and Jeff set about “ Nice,” Dan agreed. They were in dictating a list of pallbearers. His the car and Jeff was backing out of 258 The Frontier

hand was on the doorlatch when he with the wire-gate; a cattle-guard gave thought of an addendum: them unhindered passage. The river- “ Oh, yes, put in that friends may bridge clattered under the wheels; the view the remains tomorrow from ten water was smooth as oil in the late slant a. m. to noon. Thanks.” of the sun, save where a trout dimpled Outside he turned doubtfully to D an: it briefly. A gust of red-winged black­ ‘ ‘ I guess you could see her now, if birds rose bickering from the willows as you wanted to. Or would you rather they passed. wait until tomorrow?” “ Look natural?” queried Jeff. ‘ ‘ I think I ’ll wait. Y ou’ll be want­ “ Looks great,” Dan answered. ing to get home, won’t you ? ’ ’ ‘ ‘ Yeah, I reckon I ’d better. There’s More cattle-guards, another hill— and chores to be done. But maybe you’d like there was the ranch, its emerald meadows to stick around and meet people . . . ? ” flanking the bluff, the buildings “ Lord, no! I want to see the ranch. sprawled in the shade of the cotton­ I ’ve always been intending to come out woods. Dan blinked at a treacherous for a visit, or stop o ff sometime, but moisture. The log house seemed strange­ something always turned up.” ly low, shrunken in upon itself, some­ “ I wish you could have. Emily was how. There was a new porch and a awful interested in you. She always square of lawn, incongruously sleek. The read your letters, and kept prodding me spruces he and Jeff had planted in a to answer quicker than I did.” fever of youthful ambition were lank “ I ’d like to have known her.’ ’ and tall. She was sure proud of that wedding “ Emily got me to build on that porch present. Said it was the nicest thing and put in a patch of lawn,” Jeff ex­ we got.” plained. “ And we’ve got water piped They were out of Grandon, and the into the house from that spring up un­ battered little car took the road like a der the bluff. I boarded up the old hunter under J e ff’s big hands. Fields well.” of potatoes and grain and alfalfa swept Dan felt a queer resentment when b y ; hedges of sweet clover bathed them they stepped inside. This wasn’t the briefly in a tide of rich fragrance. cluttered, homely kitchen he remem­ Ahead of them the range lifted higher, bered. There was something prettified fragile in its afternoon pastels of mauve and false about the dainty curtains, the and plum. Dan was glad to be here— chairs that looked too frail for the loung­ glad in the way of a boy whom he had ing weight of tired men. He rebuked left behind one night thirteen years ago, himself for the feeling; it was only be­ when he had ridden to Grandon, run­ cause the habit of memory had made the ning away. So much of his life, Dan older order sacrosanct, bound up ob­ thought, had been a going away from scurely with all his recollections of his things he loved, and for no better rea­ mother, all his boyhood associations. son. Jeff had hung up his hat and was They passed the familiar covey of doffing his coat. Dan saw that he was mail-boxes and turned from the high­ shinily bald to the crown. way. There was no need now to wrestle “ Make yourself at home, Dan,” he The Frontier 259 said. “ I ’ll pail the cows and then w e’ll remembered a capacious oblong of have some grub.” crash. “ Got an extra pair of overalls? I ’ll “ Hope you ’ll make out,” J eff depre­ help— though I ’m a little out of prac­ cated. “ I’m sort of out of the way of tice.” baching. Emily was a swell cook. She “ Shucks, you don’t have to. You’re made biscuits that would melt in your company. Take it easy. W e’re only mouth. We used to have biscuits about milking five, and two of them’s strip­ every night. They do in the south, you pers.” know. Emily was from Alabama.” “ But I want to. Rustle me some “ How did you meet her, Jeff? overalls and quit arguing.” You’re a rotten letter-writer, you The overalls draped Dan voluminous­ know. ’ ’ ly, but they served, with a few tucks “ Why, it was in the hospital. She at the bottom. Jeff eyed his brother was a trained nurse. I landed in there with a grin. with a broken leg— Dusty turned a som­ “ Why didn’t you finish growing erset with me when we was heading a while you was about it, k id ?” he gibed. cow on a rocky sidehill. It was four Dan warmed at the long forgotten weeks before I could hobble about on nickname. crutches, and it got lonesome as hell. “ I did my growing from the neck And she was new up here, and lone­ up,” he retorted. The raillery put them some, too, and we got to talking to­ more at ease. gether. And she took a lot of interest in the ranch and everything; she’d read His fingers ached from the unaccus­ about the west and always wanted to see tomed labor when they had filled the it for herself. She said I was the first mangers and turned toward the house cowboy she’d ever known. She always with the brimming pails. But it was insisted on calling me a cowboy.” He good to turn the separator handle chuckled a little sheepishly. And again, watching the spouting streams when I got out again we got started churn up a rich suds; good to see the going together, and two years ago come gangling calves guzzle and butt their September we got married.” way to the bottom of their pails; good to spill the slops down the hog trough and He paused, gazing past Dan with a share vicariously the greedy delight of little absent-minded frown, while he the plump Poland-Chinas. Dan was ab­ stirred his coffee assiduously. Dan surdly pleased that he still knew them waited in silence. He was facing the for Poland-Chinas. window; the west was a tide of flame brimming through the cottonwoods. His Meanwhile Jeff had a fire going and heart quickened to the splendor of it, the fragrance of frying steak and po­ tatoes greeted Dan when he entered. as it had always quickened. How often that memory had sought him out in the He scrubbed face and hands at the im­ years of exile—whenever he was tired maculate white washstand that had sup­ and distraught and dubious of the logic planted the old granite basin, and hesi­ of his wanderings. Was there any logic tated a moment before sullying the so sure as this simple statement of scanty white towel hanging where he 260 The Frontier

beauty, this unassuming ecstasy of pure You were in such a rush to get back to color ? those magazines your nose was always Jeff came back to the business of eat­ buried in. Still read as much as ever?” ing, suddenly matter-of-fact again. They “ Too much else to do, most of the talked desultorily—of Dan’s work in time. But I do like it.” New York, of the price of beef and wool, “ Y ou ’d have liked Emily. She was of how Jeff had turned fifty acres of a great hand for books, too— deep stuff. wheat land into alfalfa and leased a You want to look them over. Maybe school section to the south for pasture. there’d be some you ’d like. She’d be Then Jeff rose and went to the stove glad for you to have ’em. I ’m too dumb with an air of mystery and pride. to appreciate that kind, I guess. She “ Plum pudding,” he announced. used to read to me at night, at first, but “ Pretty nice, huh? Mrs. Nellen sent finally she gave it up as a bad job. I it over. The neighbors sure have been always kept dozing off.” decent, about everything. Prank want­ He let the sudsy water gurgle down ed to do my chores, too, until after the the drain, rinsed out the dishcloth and funeral, but I told him it wasn’t nec­ hung it neatly away, and gave the kitch­ essary.” en a final judicial scrutiny. “ Mrs. Nellen’s awful proud of her “ Emily kept the place looking like— plum-pudding,” he went on reflectively. well, neat as a pin,” he explained. “ You “ Always makes some for ladies’ aid could’ve eat your meals offa the floor. meetings, and takes prizes at the fair, . . . L et’s go in the other room and you know. We was over there one Sun­ have a smoke.” day, and there was plum-pudding for It was a chaste and immaculate room dessert. And Emily must have said they entered. The walls were papered something, or maybe she didn’t praise in delicate creamy tints. There were it up enough; I never did get the pictures—a dusky cathedral interior, a straight of it. Anyway, Mrs. Nellen color etching of the Bridge of Sighs, an froze up like a water-hole in January, “ Age of Innocence.” On a brittle- and never did really thaw out. We asked looking table lay an Atlantic Monthly them over twice after that, but they al­ and a Mentor. Jeff looked queerly ways had an excuse. And yet here she huge and awkward as he lowered him­ comes with this plum-pudding now. self into an obese chair, so obviously a Women are funny.” concession to masculine ideas of comfort Many a wise man has found that that it appeared uncomfortable itself in out,” Dan assented. that setting. He tendered Dan a cigar It was fun to be doing dishes with from a half-full humidor, and took one Jeff again. Dan insisted on washing himself when his brother declined in them while Jeff wielded the towel and favor of a cigarette. stowed them trimly away. The task * * Since when have you joined the plu­ stirred both to gleeful reminiscence. tocracy, J e ff? ” Dan quizzed. “ Lordy, how you used to hate doing “ Joined what? Oh, you mean these. up the dishes at night!” Jeff chuckled. Emily liked ’em— I mean she liked to see “ Especially when there was three in­ me smoking ’em, after sup— dinner. stallments, sort of cold and crusted. She’d get me my slippers— can you fea­ 261 The Frontier ture me in slippers T—and light my cigar see any joke, and Capps was hostile and plant me here while she read. Only for a month.” I couldn’t help dropping off, after a He rose and stretched, with a mighty yawn, and walked to the screen door to hard day.” peer out into the murmurous night. He sucked deep at the cigar, and blew a slow balloon of smoke into the quiet ‘ ‘ W in d’s coming up,” he remarked. room. Outside a nighthawk shrilled ‘‘Hope it doesn’t blow up a storm to­ briefly; a miller blundered in ragged morrow. ’ ' orbits around the snoring gasoline lamp. Turning, he paused by a sectional ‘‘Emily took a lot of pride in this bookcase, and said: ‘ ‘ H ere’s Em ily’s books. She had a room,” Jeff resumed. ‘‘It sure don’t trunkful of them when she came, and look much like most ranch houses. That she used to get more by mail from Den­ carpet, now, cost as much as I got out of one of those steers that topped the ver.” Dan peered at the triple tier of shelves. market in Denver two years ago.” He ‘‘An American Tragedy,” ‘‘The For­ chuckled deeply. ‘‘Billy Capps was syte Saga,” ‘‘Many Marriages,” ‘‘Jur­ over here one evening, dealing for a gen,” ‘‘Point Counter Point”—it was couple of ton of oats. Maybe you re­ like a list of best-sellers of the last half- member how he gets waving his hands when he talks! Well, first thing he dozen years. ‘‘No ordinary ranch library, he re­ shook o ff a big wad of cigar ashes on marked. ‘‘I remember most folks got the carpet. And Emily scuttles over along with the Bible, and ‘Ben Hur,’ and plants an ash tray by him. He and the latest editions of Montgomery never takes any notice, and pretty soon Ward and Sears Roebuck.” another chunk of ashes hits the floor. ‘‘They still do. Mrs. Stroud’s quite And Emily stands it as long as she can, a hand for reading, though, and when and then slips over, sort of gentle, and she found out that Emily liked books moves the ash tray. No good; he still she brought over an armful to lend her.” scatters ashes; and Emily keeps moving He grinned reminiscently. ‘ ‘ And Emily the ash tray at him; and I keep trying loaned her a bunch in exchange. It to keep from busting out laughing. It wasn’t much of a bargain. Emily looked looked so damn funny. And finally the lot over and said she never saw such Emily gives the ash tray another shove; trash. And a few days later Mrs. Stroud and just then Billy wants to make a breezes back with Em ily’s books. Emily diagram so he shifts his cigar over to asked her if she’d liked ’em. ‘ I can’t the left hand, and Emily has to start s a y I did,’ she snapped. ‘ I didn’t know all over again. And I let loose a snort, they were allowed to publish such just as Emily was trying to make an­ things. Why, they’re just plain d irty!’ other shift, and Capps looks at me a “ And Emily said they were a lot de­ moment and then suddenly gets wise. center than Mary J. Holmes and Mrs. He got red as a beet and slammed the Southworth, ’cause at least they were cigar down into the ash tray, and then honest, and Mrs. Stroud said she didn’t up and stalked out without ‘Goodbye’ believe i t ; thank goodness the people she or ‘Go to hell’ or anything. Funny? knew weren’t like that. And they had I like to ’a’ died. But Emily couldn’t 262 The Frontier

it hot and heavy, and Mrs. Stroud tion was still unanswered when sleep marched home and she hasn’t been here found him. since.” II. “ Literary censorship on Paint Riv­ Dan followed Jeff at the heels of Mr. er,” commented Dan. “ I suppose Drei­ Oliver, and wondered why undertakers’ ser and Anderson would be a bit strong assistants were so sleek and buttery of for the average Wyoming stomach.” manner, walking with exaggerated deli­ Jeff stretched and yawned again. cacy, nursing you with their solicitously “ Well, they were a bit strong for me. muted voices. They made of death I sort of gagged when Emily read some something a little surreptitious and vul­ of the things they said, out loud. She gar. Jeff looked uncomfortable in that told me I was narrow-minded—and shining high collar, and embarrassingly there wasn’t any particular argument conscious of his role of chief mourner. about that.” Dan, rebellious, suppressed the impulse He picked up the lamp and turned to tiptoe, as his brother certainly was toward the kitchen. ‘ ‘ Reckon I ’ll turn in, doing. if you don’t mind, Dan. Got to get an “ Just as if she were asleep,” soothed early start tomorrow. You can have Mr. Oliver, hovering possessively over your old room, if you want to.” the gray casket. The room under the eaves was aching­ “ What a damned lie!” Dan told him­ ly familiar. It had escaped the trans­ self. Sleeping people didn’t look that forming hand that had changed the rest way— frozen and immaculate. Sleeping of the house to something alien and fin­ people were towseled and bleary and icking. The window stood open and flushed. This was death. Why pre­ through it came the vibrant cadence of tend? the frogs, the moist sweet fragrance of And so here was Emily. Not in the flowering meadows, the stir and ferment least the woman he had imagined. He of summer night. He gazed out into had pictured her a little spinsterish and the darkness; the Ghost range bulked edged and acrid. This was a child-face, huge against the stars. The moon must essentially, strangely young for its be rising in the east, for the higher thirty-five years; rounded of chin even peaks were incandescent with a frosty now, with a broad low forehead under fire. Dan remembeed how he had stood hair that must have been like honey here on similar nights long ago, and once, and an abrupt nose and an upper looked unseeing past that mighty west­ lip a trifle too short. Even in death ward wall toward an imagined world of it was a wistful face, bewildered and a lights and color and glamour. Well, little grieved at life. he had seen that other world, or some “ She looks awful natural,” Jeff mur­ of it, at any rate; and it seemed to him mured huskily. He had forgotten to be now there was nothing in it so precious awkward .now. Dan’s hand found his as the beauty and the peace of these and they tightened. mountains. “ Perhaps you ’d like to see the flow­ And yet he had had to go away to ers?” Mr. Oliver purred. They followed learn that. Would he forget it if he him down further corridors of muffling were here among them again? The ques­ carpet; it sank under them like turf at The Frontier 263 a swamp’s edge. The flowers were an Again a warning glance. explosion of incongruous color in that “ The flowers are lovely,” Mrs. Nel­ gray solemnity. Two women hurriedly len proffered, with a sort of doleful en­ abandoned the pastime of looking over thusiasm. “ I guess everybody on Paint the cards and came cluckingly forward. River must have sent some. I always “ Poor Jeff! We’re all so sorry.” said nobody had more friends than Jeff “ It was such a shock.” Madison.” “ And she was so young; her life be­ “ And Emily,” Mrs. Stroud supple­ fore her, you might say.” mented. “ The ways of the Almighty are hard “ And Emily, of course.” to understand, sometimes.” “ Emily was so good-hearted.” “ But I suppose it’s all for the best.” “ Yes,” sighed Mrs. Nellen. “ She was “ At least she didn’t have long to suf­ good-hearted. I always was sure she fer, as some d o.” meant well. Of course our ways was a This in a duet from Mrs. Stroud and little strange to her, I suppose.” Mrs. Nellen, as they clustered on Jeff. There was a minute of exhausted si­ He submitted, his ruddy face ruddier lence. Dan fumbled automatically for with embarrassment, and fumbled for a cigarette, and then remembered. He words of acknowledgment, though they wished desperately that Jeff would re­ were hardly needed in that torrent of turn. This precarious fidelity to the commiseration. He won a respite when edict that nothing but good may be they spied Dan, and when the exchange spoken of the dead began to be wearing. of greetings began to ebb he made a He delved for something safe and im­ gesture of escape. personal with which to alleviate that ‘ ‘ Excuse me a minute, will you, folks ? gravid silence. I want to see Mr. Oliver about the cars. ’ ’ “ That plum pudding sure hit the “ Is there anything (we can d o ?” spot, Mrs. Nellen,” he managed at last. “ No, thanks just the same, Mrs. Strange how easily the old manner of Stroud. Y ou ’ve been swell. W ait for speech returned to him. “ Jeff and I me, Dan.” just about ruined it last night.” “ Poor man,” crooned Mrs. Stroud, “ Why, I ’ll send over another, first when he had gone. “ He bears up awful chance I get.” She preened visibly. “ I well, though.” always keep a few cooked up. They “ It’s been hard for him, all along,” keep so well, you know; and it’s handy agreed Mrs. Nellen, with a grim nod. to have something quick like that for There was a swift glance of warning dessert on a busy day. I do think I from Mrs. Stroud. '“ I mean,” she ex­ had good luck with the last batch. plained, “ her being sick that way, and “ You always do, from what I hear.” the busy season coming on, and— and “ Well, most folks seem to think so.” everything.” A little tartly, “ I ’ve never found oc­ “ He said everybody’d been so help­ casion to try any other recipe, the way some people have suggested, hinting ful,” Dan contributed. “ We tried to do our Christian duty. mine was soggy. It suits the judges at Though it wasn’t always the easiest the county fair, anyway.” She set her lips with an air of grim triumph. thing. ’ ’ 264 The Frontier

“ Here’s Jeff back,” Mrs. ytroud hur­ “ Lordy, I wish they’d get started,” ried to interpolate, with obvious relief. muttered Jeff. “ I guess everything’s fixed up, Dan,” “ Me, too.” his brother said. He was warm and Still the minutes inched past. Then, ruddy; he polished his bald spot with at last, Mr. Oliver was at the door. a damp handkerchief. “ I had to round “ I f you ’ll come with me, please,” he up another pallbearer. Jim Clintock whispered. phoned that a horse tromped on his They tiptoed down a velvet-shod cor­ instep this morning and he couldn’t ridor, and suddenly music broke on them hardly hobble. I got Joe Anderson.” — the stertorous thunder of an organ. “ If there’s anything we can do, There was a rustle of many people, a Jeff . . .” proffered Mrs. Stroud glimpse of craning heads, a simmer of vaguely. whispers. And he and Jeff were pacing “ Thanks a lot, but I guess every­ up the aisle toward a mound of flowers thing’s fixed up. Have—have you seen that seemed somehow alien and unim­ her?” portant, no matter how often he told “ Yes; she looks so natural, don’t himself that it was Emily— his sister- she?” in-law, J e ff’s wife. “ Just like she was asleep,” supple­ It was rather confused, after that. A mented Mrs. Nellen, glumly. choir sang; they stood up and sat down The funeral was set for two-thirty. again; a prayer was droned, and he sat The cars were clustering already around with his eyes focussed on a flaw in the the mortuary when they returned. Dan wood of the pew ahead; it looked gro­ felt a splash of moisture on his cheek tesquely like a half-winking eye. Then and another on his hand as they turned the Reverend Herbert Gormley was in through a scattering of men who talking. His knuckles were huge when mumbled awkward greetings and drew his hands grasped the stand and he aside to let them pass. They were ush­ leaned over, and he had a way of stop­ ered into a room that felt plushy and ping while his Adam ’s apple worked airless. Then there was an intermin­ strangely; it gave one the sensation of able interval. Mr. Oliver glided in for seeing the words moving visibly toward a muted word to Jeff, and vanished the threshold of utterance. Dan found again, with the air of mighty responsi­ it hard to keep his mind on what he bilities upon him. The brothers waited. was saying: something about ‘ ‘ The Lord Dan found himself craving a cigarette, has given and the Lord has taken away; and foolishly ashamed of the craving. blessed be the name of the Lord.” After He wondered if he looked as uncomfort­ a while he stopped trying. Jeff, be­ able as Jeff, perched precariously on the side him, was very still, his hands fold­ edge of the gray plush, his brown fists ed in his lap, his eyes staring straight locking and interlocking, his eyes fixed ahead. Despite the seamed brown skin miserably on nothing. Outside there above the tight collar, the curve of bald were dulled rumors of activity, furtively pate, he looked strangely young and hurrying steps, the drone of arriving pathetic and puzzled, like a boy who motors. In Dan’s pocket his watch was had been punished for something and ticking nervously and unnaturally loud. who did not quite know why. The Frontier 265

And then they were pacing out again, to milk. Awful nice of you, though.” while the organ groaned throatily. ‘ ‘ Some other time, then. While Dan’s Someone obsequious was guiding them here. We’ll call you up.” to a car. It moved away, leading a long There were others at the garage— Joe caravan that snailed across Mountain Anderson, and Henry Stroud, and Will avenue and then gained a modicum of Hogan, and a stubby man whom Dan speed as it turned north along Lincoln did not know and whom no one thought road. The rain was slanting hard to introduce. They were subdued and against the windows; the wiper hissed formal. back and forth like a pendulum, making “ Reverend Gormley preached a nice a little fan of clear glass. sermon, I thought,” the unnamed man They paused at last and got out. ventured. There was a heap of raw yellowish “ Mighty nice,” Will Hogan agreed; earth, down which the rain channeled “ short and yet there was a lot in it.” little furrows, and an oblong hole, walled J eff nodded assent. There was a chastely in gray. Two wide, tape-like strained pause. Henry Stroud brought bands spanned it, and six men were out his pipe absent-mindedly, and then placing that gray box on them. The pocketed it with a little shuttling look Reverend Mr. Gormley was intoning of guilt, hoping no one had noticed. something; there was a subdued hum Joe Anderson bit reflectively at a fin­ and the gray box began to descend. ger-nail. All looked uncomfortable. It “ Dust unto dust— ” a muddy clod broke was the stubby stranger who again broke and spatted on the lid as it went out of the silence. sight. D an’s mind was numb; he was “ Looks like it was settling down for conscious only that the rain was soaking an all-night rain. Hope it don’t bust through his coat sleeves, and that there loose regular now, with haying coming was a chill trickle crawling down behind on.” his ear. He hunched against it and There was a stir and nods of agree­ shivered a little, but Jeff stood immo­ ment. bile. The tight, shiny collar was de­ “ Capps told me they was starting liquescing; his thinning hair was plas­ Monday,” Jeff volunteered. tered hard to the skull. “ Hardesty cut that patch along the It was over. They were in the car creek yesterday,” said Hogan. “ Said again. The man at the wheel, Dan dis­ he was getting short of hay for the barn. covered, was Prank Nellen. He turned He’ll be cussing if this keeps up.” when they were out of the cemetery, and “ Well, I ’m not kicking,’’’ Anderson said: “ Where to, Jeff?” remarked. “ I got forty acres of oats Jeff suddenly was his normal self. that was beginning to blister. This’ll “ Why, Mills’ garage, I guess,” he said. save ’em.” “ The flivver’s there. W e’ll have to be They were at ease again, on the casual starting home, I spose.” terms of everyday. The fact of death “ Like to have you stop by and have ceased to weigh upon them as an im­ supper with us. The missus told me mediate presence, demanding recogni­ to ask you.” tion and fumbling homage. There re­ “ Thanks, Prank. But we got cows mained the familiar things that went 266 The Frontier on in spite of change and decay, the into the bedroom and had the weeps. inexorable and comforting routine of Women are so damn funny.” That the soil which even death could not long sounded a little like disloyalty, and he interrupt. Henry Stroud filled his pipe; sought to amend it. “ I mean . . .” Dan proffered cigarettes. They chat­ but the amendment trailed off into si­ ted desultorily of crops and cattle, until lence. Dan dredged for words of com­ Jeff reminded himself again that it was fort. time to be starting. “ Don’t get to imagining a lot of The road was greasy with rain; the things. I t ’s easy, when somebody dies, little car slued and shied like a nervous to accuse ourselves and say things might colt. Not until they turned off the have been different if w e’d done this or grade and down across the river, where that different. I t ’s usually all imagin­ graveled ruts made the going firmer, ation. You made Emily an almighty did Jeff find time to speak. It came good home; everybody says that. There’s hesitantly, gropingly; he did not look nothing to blame yourself for.” at Dan. “ I hope you’re right,” brooded Jeff. “ You know, Dan . . . I ’m afraid “ I ’d feel better if I could be sure. ’ ’ He . . . I wonder sometimes if I really did not say much more until they came made Emily happy.” dripping into the house. But he was Dan did not know how to answer. He the old Jeff as they faced each other tried over sundry formulae of reassur­ again over a table-cloth on which the ance and dismissed them as meretricious, stains of masculine housekeeping were to end by saying nothing. Apparently already visible. There were so many Jeff did not notice. things to talk over, now that the strange­ “ I tried. I was—I was awful fond ness had worn off. Thirteen years to be of her, Dan. But after the first she bridged; yet somehow they were closer didn’t seem exactly happy, somehow. It now than they had ever been in those got lonesome for her, I suppose. You remote days when they had gulped hur­ know how busy we are, out here— not ried meals in preoccupied silence, Dan much time for calling. And lately folks deep in his magazine, Jeff busy with the didn’t get over very often. Emily got worries of the ranch. They were both a foolish notion it was because they wiser, perhaps; both a little more con­ didn’t like her. Nothing to it, of course. scious of the inevitable loneliness of life You could see for yourself today—all and more appreciative of the precious those flowers, and the way everybody relationships that ameliorate it. on the river turned out.” Again they were hilarious over the Dan managed an inarticulate mur­ dish-washing. Jeff had a disconcertingly mur of assent. It was like Jeff, not to detailed memory of the boy whom Dan suspect that the tribute was in reality had been; he teased his brother with his. reminiscences of that callow youngster, “ I asked Frank Nellen, right out, until Dan retaliated by heaving the dish- once, why they never came over— and rag, dripping and sudsy, so that it when Emily found out she looked at caught Jeff across the face. Jeff me and sort of sobbed, ‘ You did? Oh, swooped down on him; they grappled Jeff Madison!’ and slammed the door and went reeling to the floor, to roll over 267 The Frontier and over, pummeling each other with and the wind had risen; drops from the wild swings, until of common consent eaves splintered on the windows; the they declared an armistice and lay ex­ cottonwoods heaved gustily. hausted with laughter. J eff sank a little heavily in the cav­ And then Jeff was suddenly sober. ernous chair by the table. He looked “ We oughtn’t to carry on this way, tired and dismayingly old. Absent- with Emily— just— under the sod. I t ’s mindedly he delved in the humidor and like w e’d— forgotten her, already.” selected a cigar; he bit o ff the end, spat it out in the ash tray, and fumbled for Dan did not dare to admit that he had a match. Then he paused, still with eyes indeed forgotten Emily. He tried again brooding and remote. For a long half­ to play the comforter. minute he sat with the cigar poised half­ “ You know she wouldn’t want you to way to his lips. Then, with a delibera­ brood. That doesn’t do any good. You tion that had in it something of the som­ can serve her better by carrying on with nambulist, he restored it carefully to the life on normal terms. She’d prefer it humidor. One hand fumbled in his that way.” overalls pocket, the other in his vest, and “ I wonder if—if there is anything in emerged with a scarred briar and a red this life after death. I wonder if she’s can. Carefully he filled the pipe, metic­ anywhere that she can look down and ulously removed a scrap of spilled to­ see us.” bacco from his knee and deposited it in “ I don’t know,” Dan was forced to the ash tray, gravely accepted the light say. “ I hope not,” he told himself. He which Dan proffered. Only when the didn’t think, somehow, that Emily would bowl was glowing did he speak again. be happiest in Paint River, even as a “ Clearing up, after all. Think I ’ll disembodied shade. get the mowing-machines out tomorrow They were subdued and silent as Jeff and put ’em in shape. If she stays fair picked up the gas lamp and led the way I want to start cutting, middle of next to the living-room. The rain had ceased week. ’ ’

MYSTERIOUS JEREMY PINCH

B y G e o r g e W . F u l l e r The spring list of Alfred A. Knopf contains A H .story of the Pacific Northwest, by George Fuller Librarian of the Spokane Public Library and Secretary of the Eastern Washington WState Historical Society. The work is in one volume, with numerous illustrations and maps The foUowing account of I n episode in Northwest history which has very recently come to light is taken from Mr. Fuller’s book, with permission of the publisher. HERE is good reason to believe that a located, they were ahead of David Thomp­ party of Americans somewhat larger son. Thompson, who built the first perma­ T than the Lewis and Clark expedition nent trading posts in the Pacific Northwest, was on Columbia waters in 1807, a year after crossed the Rockies into the valley of the Lewis and Clark went home, and that their upper Columbia on June 30, 1807. He built plan was to build military posts and occupy Kootenae House, near Lake Windermere, and the country. They selected a site, either at stayed there until the spring of 1808. On Lewiston, Idaho, or in the Flathead valley, August 13, 1807, he noted in his diary that Montana, for their first establishment, and it Kootenai Indians told him “that about three is possible that they were in the Spokane weeks ago Americans to the number of forty- region, at Coeur d’Alene lake. Wherever they two arrived to settle a military post at the 268 The Frontier

confluence of the two most southern and con­ prove unwilling to obey American regula­ siderable branches of the Columbia, and that tions, and it asked him not to continue sup­ they were preparing to make a small advance plying arms to the Indians. Pinch wrote post lower down the river. Two of those that “the Pilchenees with their bloodthirsty who were with Captain Lewis were also with allies” had attacked the friendly “Polito them, of whom the poor Kootenaes related palton”® and wounded one of his own sol­ several dreadful stories. The establishment diers. Thompson replied on December 26, of the Americans will give a new turn to saying that he had just received the letter our so long delayed settling of the country, and politely disclaiming responsibility for on which we have entered it seems too late.” 1 settling the boundary question. He made a This part of Thompson’s diary was not copy of this letter and added a note re­ published until 1925, and the information garding the probable identity of the tribes seemed to be only an Indian story until mentioned by Pinch and the arrogance of Professor Robert C. Clark of the University young officers in general. Clark thinks of Oregon found two important letters in that Pinch’s party may have been with the Public Records office, London.2 One is Manuel Lisa, who hastened up the Mis­ from Lieutenant Jeremy Pinch and Is dated souri soon after the return of Lewis and at “Polito palton lake,” September 29, 1807. Clark and built a post at the junction of It is addressed “to British Mercht. traffick­ the Big Horn and the Yellowstone some ing with the Cabanaws” and was evidently time in 1807. With no regular communica­ intended for Thompson. It threatened ex­ tions across the mountains, it would not pulsion of the British traders if they should Continued on page 271 ‘ Elliott, T. C., ed. Discovery of the Source of the Columbia River. Oregon Historical Quarterly, V. 26, 1925, p. 43. 2 Clark, R. C. History of the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Chicago, 1927. v. 1, pp. 122-123, 839-841. See Washington Historical Quarterly, v. 19, 1928, p. 151, for comment on Clark's discovery. 3 The name for the Palouse Indians in the Lewis and Clark Jo u rnals is variously spelled Palletepaller, Pallotepaller and Pellatepaller.

WISHING RING

B y L o r i P e t r i

If I could rub a wishing ring Then, like the farmer, I might find And give a jinnee my commands, A solid worth in planted sod, I would not order him to bring While brooding, with a poet’s mind, Me fame or pleasure, gold or lands. On life that soars from clay and clod.

But I would bid him swell the small, Blue, misty mountains would be taunts Warped cell of self that shuts me in, To start me on a rover’s quest, Until my spirit compassed all And guide me, too, to inner haunts The moods and views that men may win. So, Of peace and prayer within my breast.

So, looking widely on the world, A rose, for me, at once could fit I should, from every depth and height, In learned grooves of growth and form, Behold the scenic sweep unfurled And seem a glowing taper lit Within the range of mortal sight. By Beauty’s hand to keep me warm.

If I might rub a magic ring And raise a jinnee at my feet, I would not call on him to bring Me silks or silver, bread or meat. 269 The Frontier

SLUICE BOX

THE PIONEER ON ESTHETICS BALLADE OF GOOD FOOD B y Paul E. T racy H omer M. P arsons

Your poets keep singing of smoothness Bestes’ grub I ever et And the beautiful cadence of life; Wa’nt in no swell dinin’ car; “—the even, unhesitant sweep of the swallow. Jes' a cabin. I declare, “—the uniform heaves of the tide. Sho' is cookin’ hits de spot. “—the steady, unruffled cruise of the moon Golden cawnpone, pipin’ hot. Hog an’ hominy—ain’t dey keen? through a still cloud bank.’’ Still I ’nounces (pass it on) : And all that. Dey ain’t no food like ’possum meat! But life to me is a series of yanks and jerks. Tell me whar de melon’s at: Gimme plenty elbow-room! Night jerks a black cap over the sky Sweet pertaters, suga’d ham: And all is darkness about me— Lead ’em boy, I follers suit! Even the trees stop breathing. Chicken am my fondes’ fruit— No, it ain’t ; I disagree. The sun pops over the hills with a bright Roast, er bake, er barbecue, bang! Dey ain’t no food like ’possum meat!

And I, as a boy, have been yanked out of bed, Spare-ribs off’n a yearlin’ shote —Out of smoothness, to keep up with it. Make you lick yo’ chops and smack; Smoothness is not life, young man, Bacon, cured in hick’ry smoke— Unevenness is life. Jerks . . . yanks . . . Boy, oh boy! An’ channel cat Tugs are the pulsations of life. Done crisp brown—tell me whereat! Yas, indeed! I highly ’steem Young man, All dem dishes, but—hot damn! I have been jerked through the greasewood Dey ain’t no food like ’possum meat! By a bull. Runaway horses have yanked me L’ENVOI Through a forest, and bronchos Have burned out my hands with hot ropes. Set up, Boss, an’ pass yo’ plate. I have been pitched into rivers to gulp Luscious? Tell ’em, what I mean! ■Gallons of gritty water. I have been yanked 'Nother helpin’? Sho’ is plain Out again. That, young man, is life. Dey ain’t no food like ’possum meat! Life is as uneven and sharp as a wildcat’s teeth. BLUE SERGE B y A nne H amilton The pulse of life is jerking . . . “ I want to see some street dresses . . . Yanking us along. Some day a hand Blue, with white collars, and cuffs, please! Will flick out and jerk me into eternity. And I will be still and motionless. I “ Well, dearie, did you hear me mention I see your poets, young man, find it hard a price? Show me what you got! . . . To fit melodious measures to the free-for-all “ Say, would it be too much trouble to scoot that footstool over here? My feet are fight awful tired! I says to the dancin’ teacher ■Of life. this mornin’ was he trainin’ us for the stage But they will learn. 270 The Frontier

the way he made us step? And he says, about this dress, so after while I asked him hateful like, ‘Hardly, MaDAM! Ziggy don’t did he like it. He shook his head, but I think want ’em over a hundred and sixty pounds!' he meant not to talk while the music was — I suppose he wants ’em stringy like Miss playin’. . . . He’s nuts about that kind of Spencer! . . . music. . . . I like the Harmony Four “There! That’s better! No thank you, better. Ever tune in Wednesdays? . . . it’s no trouble; this soft mink slides off “ I love buyin’ things! We got an apart­ easy. . . . Now show me a blue dress. . . . ment on Portola Drive; everything brand “No, I don’t want to match my eyes; new! George says, ‘Too fluffy, but suit blondes look too big in light blue if they’re yourself!’ . . . not sixteen. . . . “ But he wouldn’t listen to me about his “W ell!! Thank you !! Glad you like it. new office. Now I would have done it mod­ No, not a gray hair! Natural blonde. My ern. Bookcases like skyscrapers; black and George says last night he’s glad I don’t dye silver with a touch of bright green. . . . my hair! . . . No, not if he don’t like it! You know. . . . Mr. Petty that done our Touchin’ up ain’t dyein’, is it? . . . The apartment told me how it oughta be fixed. girls in class was sayin’ this mornin’ they . . . But George said he couldn’t sign oil bet I to the only woman in San Francisco leases with an orchid feather pen! So he that’s been married twenty years and is still got a friend of his that knows about China— crazy about her husband. Museum piece, they we’re goin’ to China on oil business as soon says! George sure will get a kick out of that! . . . as the fightin’s over—and they got a dull old rug that’s frayed on the edges and a tea- “If you’d any idea what I want to pay? wood desk that’s hunderds of years old. No I don’t know myself, dearie! I don’t have nice filin’ drawers, nor anything convenient, to think about prices any more! . . . just two drawers that you have to press “Lucky ? I’ll say! George says he’s goin’ a button to get in t o ! George took to that to make it up to me for the time I hadn’t stuff like a duck to water! . . . nothin’ but gingham house dresses! . . “ He had one of them long paper Jap pic­ “Oh, just about a year ago. But we had tures that he’d been holdin’ on to ever since the land a long time before they struck oil. I’ve known him and he hung that up on the Say, it was a scream when the first one w all! All by itself! Not even a calendar! come in ! George was just wild to give me His friend didn’t want him to use it, but things. And after we come here, it was Miss Spencer—she’s the college girl secre­ charge accounts everywheres and season tary George got—backed George up by sayin’ tickets to everything. . . . He says we that the idea come from China in the first ought to improve ourselves. So I go to place so it was all right. . . . please him if it don’t interfere with some­ thin’ important like my facials or dancin’. You “ I was down there with them and I says, can pick up a lot of ideas places like that! ‘George must be goin’ to make a Chinaman Just last week I seen a woman at a concert out of himself!’ Miss Spencer smiled and with a skirt clear to her ankles! Say, are says, ‘Oh, he’s a thousand years too late for skirts goin to be long ? . . , George says that!’ . . . George just looked out of the he hopes s o ; maybe women are growin’ u p ! window and says, ‘I’m a thousand years too He s a scream! . . . My newest ones are late for a lot of things.’ . . . all long. What he likes suits me—that is, “George is studyin’ China—politics, art, if it’s chick, too! . . . and everything. Thinks there is oil in China, That one’s nice! Only not dark enough. and how can you get a Chinaman’s oil well I want midnight blue, plain, but snappy. . . if you don’t know nothin’ about him? Well, ‘ ^ no> no lace. . . . Don’t you just love everyone to their taste! I only hope there’s lace? I got a dinner dress of the swellest good dress shops in China! . . . coral lace with a nile green bow on the h ip! “George’s Miss Spencer took us to the Wore it the other night when George’s part­ Museum Tuesday to see some Jap pictures ner took us to the opera. Usually George like George’s. I didn’t care anything about compliments me, but he never said a word goin’ but George says, ‘Oh, come on H on!’ The Frontier 271

He feels awful respectful to people who’ve twice before he got me. . . . Usually he been to college. . . . At the Museum she says, ‘More dresses, honey?’ But he was asked me if I’d like to see some textures, sorry that he hadn’t heard me and he wrote no, textiles! . . . She meant material by me out a check in a hurry. He gave it to the yard! . . . I says, ‘No, thank y o u ! Miss Spencer to get cashed and when she Not unless it’s made u p !’ . . . She got red, was leavin’ the desk he raised his head and and George says he’s glad to find out she’s watched her go out the door. . . . human! . . . “It was just the way he used to look at “George got away this mornin’ before I’d m e!" . . . My heart just turned over, and looked in my purse. I’m goin’ to lunch— before I knew it I says—‘Why, George!!’ luncheon, I mean— with some of the girls “ He got red as a beet. ‘N—n— nice dress, and I didn’t have only ten dollars so I went ain’t it, she’s wearin’ ?* he says. . . . Imag­ by the office. . . . It sure was a sight! ine stutterin’ because he liked her dress! . . . Books piled up on the floor with little slips “His little notions mean a lot to me, and of paper stickin’ out of them, and George if George likes a blue dress with white col­ settin’ at that funny desk readin’ aloud lars and cuffs, I’ll get me one! . . . I sure while Miss Spencer wrote things in her note­ was scared for a minute. . . . But he ain’t book. . . . I don’t go there often, but I’m like most husbands. . . . awful glad I did this mornin’ ; that’s where “ Find me one in a hurry, will you? I I got my idea about the blue dress. . . . don't want to keep the girls watin’.” “I guess I disturbed George for he looked at me kinda blank. . . . I had to ask him The End.

MYSTERIOUS JEREMY PINCH of the traders. Nothing further has come to light regarding the mysterious Jeremy Pinch Continued from, page 268 —as to who sent him into the Oregon coun­ have been possible for Pinch to stay very try or what became of his expedition. Many long in the country. have been searching, and an early settler Alexander Ross speaks of seeing the ruins in Missouri by the name of Jeremiah Painsch of an old camp in the vicinity of Ravalli, has been discovered, but he has not been Montana.4 He thought that it belonged to connected with the doughty Lieutenant.8 Joseph Howse, but Howse’s post was on Flat- There can be no question, however, about head lake. This site has been suggested for Pinch’s presence in the region and his lo­ Pinch’s post, but Ross saw only “some faint cation of an American post previous to the traces of civilization,” far more likely to arrival of the British. have been Courter’s Saleesh camp (not (Copyright, 1931, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.) House) mentioned by Thompson—an outpost

‘ Ross, Alexander. Fur Hunters of the Far West. London, 1855. v. 2. p. 9.

HP—at Lewiston, and his association with the Palouse Indians is explained, iney coum nave guided him to Coeur d’Alene lake. 272 The Frontier

Linoleum Cut by Frances Faick The Frontier 273

FOLK LORE

I. THE MEDICINE CEREMONIES OF THE WEST COAST INDIANS B y Albert B. R eagan

The West Coast Indians have three kinds He also blows his breath on these parts, of doctors, principal among whom is the rubs them, then sucks on them, and then witch-hypnotic type, commonly known among generally shows some hard substance which several of the tribes as tomanawis doctor he claims to have extracted from the dis­ or tomanawis medicine man; and the powers eased parts, and which he says was the they exhibit are usually termed tomanawis cause of the ailment. This bad substance or tomanawis powers. he then destroys or takes some distance off Belief in the power of the medicine man and throws away, with the exclamation, “Go exercises a persuasive and paramount in­ away, sickness!” fluence in the lives of these people. He has Should the patient fail to get better it is such charms and songs and such powerful evidence that evil spirits are at work and medicine that he can put himself into com­ that his soul has started on its journey to munication with the higher and powerful the land of the dead. The medicine man’s spirits and can perform many wonderful only resort now is to go to the spirit land things, and, as a material consequence, is and bring it back. To effect this he goes able to perform many cures by exorcising apart by himself, crouches down, covers his the evil spirits causing sickness; they believe head and shoulders with a mat or blanket, that sickness is caused by one’s spirit tem­ and permits himself to go into the trance porarily leaving the body, believing that its state, when his soul leaves his body and leaving is usually caused by a magic spell goes in search of that of his patient; and or by the bad witch power of some medicine should he overtake it before it crosses that man. They believe, too, that the shaman river in the land of the dead, he may be able can restore the departing soul (spirit), pro­ to bring it back. vided he can overtake it, in spirit, before it The medicine performances reached their crosses a certain river in the land of the culmination in the Tsiyuk, Kayklakwal, and dead, they assert. To them he is a person Klukwalle dances about twenty years ago. of influence and is treated with great respect Here the medicine men exhibited their powers or fear, depending whether he is friend or before the populace (and still do in certain foe, for they also believe that he can kill localities, it is reported). Here they went them as well as cure them with his witch through the torture acts to bring back the power. For this reason his good will is fleeting spirits of the deathly sick. sought, lest he should injure them with his We are in one of the isolated places where tomanawis. these ceremonies are still being carried on. When doctoring the sick the West Coast A medicine man hypnotizes a group of medicine man sits down opposite the patient men, then he has them climb the wall, try and recites charms and incantations over to fly and ride imaginary whales, and do him, while the musicians chant and beat many other kinds of absurd things, some even rude drums to aid him and to drown the posing, one on the shoulder of another, as groans of the sick one. To aid in the curing a giant totem pole. Two medicine men toss process, the shaman also manufactures little tomanawis (witch-hypnotic power) to each images to represent the sickness and then other—a performance which looks much like destroys them. In addition, he dips his two persons tossing a ball to each other, hands into cold water and pats the supposed­ except that no visible thing is tossed, one ly afflicted parts with his moistened hands. tossing and the other catching and vice 274 The Frontier

versa. One of them fails to catch the tom- At this moment a patient is brought into anawis thrown to him, it striking against the the building to be doctored; and the medi­ roof of the building with a thud, though no cine man does his utmost to draw out the visible thing is seen to leave the thrower’s sickness but fails, for the sick one’s soul hand. However, he catches it as it bounces is evidently already taking its departure back and then tosses it to his opponent who from the earthly body. The medicine man retosses it to him again, and again he misses then imagines that this soul is held prisoner it and has to clamber up the house wall to on the back of the great thunderbird by evil spirits who are causing the bird to fly get it. Two medicine men fight each other away with it and them (any other imaginary with their tomanavyis power, the hypnotic condition might have been conjured up in power of the stronger silencing the adver­ his subtle mind). Quickly he builds a great sary, who falls to the floor choking and fire and throws wet grass, sea kelp and frothing at the mouth, now wholly hypno­ green salal brush on it to make the most tized. A medicine man takes a little snake possible smoke; for, as you are aware, the out of his neck. Another places a single thunderbird likes smoke and fire and if the feather under a mat and performs over it a people of earth will not furnish them for few minutes, then lifts the mat and there him when he is flying about, he will strike are feathers enough under it to fill an elk something with his lightning bolt and thus skin. Another causes a feather to dance produce both fire and smoke himself. The and to do all sorts of antics. Another picks whole hall is filled with the fearful smoke up and carries scorching hot stones in his till it pours through the smoke hole in the bare hands, handles fire and dances about roof like it was being emitted from an active on burning objects in his bare feet without volcanic vent. Suddenly there is a terrible apparently harming himself. Another throws boom-thunder noise and at once the medicine a stuffed pine squirrel into the fire in the man produces an imaginary rope and pro­ presence of all and immediately thereafter ceeds to lasso the (imaginary) thunderbird a live squirrel is seen to be running up the when he comes to hover over the black-smoke wall of the building. Another produces two area. He encircles its mighty talons and stuffed meadow larks which he tramps on closes the loop around them. He pulls labor- and pounds with a heavy club, then, tossing ously on the unseen rope to bring the bird them into the air, they fly off actually living to earth so he can release the chained soul. birds. Another shaman takes a six gallon The excitement becomes immense as he works sealskin bag of whale oil and drinks the and sweats pulling on the unseen. Medicine entire contents before everyone, then throws sticks are brought into play. Many people the empty bag on the floor and tramps on it become hypnotized and dance the frenzied to show that it Is empty. And so on. And medicine dance. The dancers slash them­ we cannot make the simple-hearted aborigine selves with knives and thrust themselves see that he is being made to believe these through on lips, arms and legs with arrows things because he is hypnotized or because and pointed bones and sticks. The medicine the shaman is tricking him. Instead, he man cuts and gashes himself fearfully in emphatically affirms that it is the medicine his frenzied, hypnotic condition. But the man’s tomanawis, and not the medicine man, captors with the captive soul proceed un­ that is doing these out-of-the-ordinary things. molested to the Shades.

II. THE DEVIL'S DANCE OF THE WEST COAST INDIANS

By A l b e r t B. R e a g a n , P h.D.

-a-. NO,T E O F E X P L A N A T IO N ington) I found the battlefield on the spit there, ni,™ • making a geological survey of the as described, the tide washing up the bones of Olympic Peninsula, Washington, in 1905-06 I the slaughtered Chemakum-Quileutes of that night at the house of a white man terrible night. On my way back to Quileute, S i s had been married to a Clallam Indian, then where I was then stationed in the government “I*?; and his grown daughter told me service, I was told the same story by another or the Chimakum massacre. Later when on white man who was also married to a Clallam the work at Chemakum (Port Townsend, Wash­ Indian woman, then one of the best educated The Frontier 275 women in that whole country. Later that fall “ I vouch for that,” shouts a medicine man I asked my assistant in the school, Gordon B. Hobucket, a full-blood Quileute, if his people near the entrance. “I then saw his tom ­ had any tradition about this terrible massacre, as had the Clallam Indians. He said they had anaicis, a lizard with immense horns, chasing and that after supper that evening he would all the game to the land of the blue ice bring his father and uncle to the office and they would tell me the whole story as it had and the home of the thunderbird. He was been handed down in tradition. The account here is practically word for word as they gave also the cause of the poor whaling last year, it to me. Later practically every medicine for he danced backward in the whale dance. man of the place related this tradition to me, it being essentially the same in each case, I saw him thus dance. He, too, has owl varying only In details.—A. B. R. feathers in his house.” The purpose o f this ceremony. In which “ He has evil influence over others with spite work and petty jealousies of the medi­ his bad tomanawis," asserts another medi­ cine men play an all important role, is to cine man. “ He even causes his enemies to rid the world of witches and bad tom anaicis lose all the gambling games.” (witch-hypnotic) medicine actors. It, too, “I know he is an evil tom anaicis man, for is all that it signifies, for all the horrible­ I have doctored the sick with him,” shouts ness of the Indian ceremonies culminates in the first shaman. “In this last sickness I it. And the writer, who with strenuous often saw him take the soul out of the efforts once prevented the occurrence of one patient’s body and in a hand-clasped, tom­ of them in the region of this paper, thus anaicis grip carry it, in spirit, to yonder saving an alleged tom anawis man’s life, rock near that needle-point amid the boiling hopes that it does not occur anywhere now. surf and imprison it there. And then, help­ Let us visit one of these performances, less, I was compelled to sit by and see his as they were performed in the region only tom anawis spirit laugh and grin a sickening yesterday, so to speak. grin as he tormented the spirit like a moun­ A pestilence breaks out and everywhere tain lion torments a squirrel before it de­ there is disease and death; and the whole vours it. Then I have seen his black tom- is laid to the black tom anawis of a medi­ anrnois spirit send the pleading soul to the cine man by the name of Kleckonbuck. The darkest spot in the land of the dead. He dead people are buried; and at the close is the death doctor of our tribe. He is an of the funeral rites the shamans as one man evil witch tom anawis man, a man of the denounce him and call down vengeance upon blackest art. May the mother earth do unto him. him as he deserves. May the demons of A great assembly of the tribe is at once darkness take his spirit to the lowest, dark­ called and he is dragged before it. In one est Shades.” vigorous, passionate harrangue the leading A unanimous vote decrees him to be burned medicine man against him, abetted by his as a black tom anatois witch, as an evil- colleagues, carries all, for Kleckonbuck is spirited doctor. He is then immediately fet­ given no chance to make a defense. tered and tied to a tree, after which all “My brothers,” begins the medicine man, slink from him to make the final prepara­ “this Kleckonbuck has evil tom anawis. He tions for the tragic act. For, indeed, they has communication with the evil ones. I not only have to kill him and obliterate his have seen him communing with them.” influence, but, of necessity, they also have “That’s so, we have seen him also,” in­ to make a great sacrifice to appease the terrupts many voices in several parts of the wrath of the gods for their having let him big hall. live so long. “To continue,” resumes the leading medi­ Everyone is busy the day following the cine man, in a little more high-keyed voice trial. Some of the women go to the clam as a sinister smile sweeps across his face, beds and gather clams. Others go into the “seven years ago he caused it to be stormy woods and gather berries. Others prepare weather throughout the halibut season. soups and other eatables and collect whale Again he spoiled the elk hunting by his meat, oil and dried fish for the great occa­ tomana/wis' chasing all the game out of the sion. Some of the men drag canoes of every country.” sort to the place of destruction. Others 276 The Frontier collect all the robes and all the household hideous chant. More and more frenzied the goods at hand and pile them in a great heap. actors become. The extreme pitch of violent Other men go to the woods and drag a huge agitation is reached. pile of wood to the place o f meeting. Then With a terrifying, hideous, horrific howl as the sun begins to go down toward his the whole scene instantly changes. Each western home, all again slink into the woods dancer lunges forward from his position in and everything becomes as silent as the the dancing circle and seizes whatever Indian dead, all but the moans of the poor, help­ property he can seize from the collection that less man who knows that for him the last lies in heaps along the outer circle of the sun has set. cleared dancing space, be it robes, canoes, It is in the full moon time. Near the or what not. This is proceeds to destroy, midnight hour an owl hoots in a thicket making the most possible noise by voice and adjacent to the death inclosure. A wolf by any other means he can devise, as he does yelp answers. Quickly following these sig­ so. The air is full of flying debris, the nals, the cleared space around the alleged awful din is sickening. witch is filled with shouting, hallooing, Again the scene changes. Two cougar cubs screaming, shrieking people. The devil dance are thrown into the midst of the maniac­ is on. Near the victim where the intense acting throng. Instantly they are seized by heat will scorch him, they kindle an im­ the teeth o f the human-deman actors and mense fire. Then around it and the helpless literally torn to pieces. Then to a man the man they dance in circular order from left diabolically acting performers rush forward to right. Vigorously they stamp from the upon the helpless man and tear him to pieces very first. Louder and louder grows the likewise.

COLONEL CROCKETT'S RIDE ON THE BACK OF A B U F F A L O

E d i t e d b y V. L. 0. C h i t t i c k Around no American frontier figure has there grown up a more extensive cycle of tall tales than around David Crockett, adventurer and illiterate backwoodsman, campaigner under Andrew Jackson against the Indians in the Creek War, and three times a member of Congress from Ten­ nessee. While the principal facts of his life seem to have been established beyond question, all recoverable contemporary accounts of him are colored by fiction. Even the formerly supposed authentic Narrative of the Life of Colonel Crockett of West Tennessee (1834), purporting to be an autobiography brought out to correct an earlier and unofficial account, has been pretty clearly proved the work of another than Crockett, though there is little evidence to show that it was not written largely from the famous Tennessean’s dictation, or from notes taken of his familiar talk. All the other early recitals of Crockett's career, or of any of its various alleged incidents, are palpably spurious. These extend from the anonymous Sketches and Eccentricities of Col­ onel David Crockett (1833), the popularity of which probably called into being the Narrative of the ensuing year, through innumerable “Idle Hour” books, American “Joe Millers,” and com ic almanacs down to the time of the Civil War. An indication of how wide-spread they were in their appeal is afforded in the circumstance that the tall tale collection from which the following yarn is reprinted (Traits of American Humor (1852), edited by Thomas Chandler Haliburton), was made by a resident of Nova Scotia and published in London. Though the growth of the Crockett legend took place too soon for the Northwest to m ake much, if any, contribution to it, the pseudo-Crockett was on at least one occasion represented as being aware of the existence and concerns of this district, as witness his presentation of himself to his constituents for re-election to Congress as “one that knows how to talk about Oregon, annex Texas, flog Mexico, swallow a Frenchman whole, and lick John Bull clar out of his britches.” (D a v y Crockett’s A lm an ac, 1847.) The detail that the title of this story does not fit it any too well is of a piece with the recklessness with which it and its kind were often written, and that, in turn, with the reckless spirit of the times which produced such happenings as those they so frequently record. BOUT ten years ago I fell in with a if it cum to skulpin. Besides I was tetota- camp of Konzas, a good piece o ff the ciously tired, and I slepp so sound that I A north fork of the Canadian. The In­ wish my rifle may hang fire for ever if I juns a kyind a sorter give me a sorter tan- don’t think it would have took something yard grin, and the old chief specially puck­ rougher than an earthquake to wake me. ered up his pictur like a green persimmon; So I lay till after daylite, and then one of but there were three real roarers from Salt me comrades shook me, to tell me the Injun River with me, so I didn’t care a picayoon Continued on page 805 277 The Frontier

THE OPEN RANGE Each issue will carry accounts of personal outdoor experiences. Only accounts of actual experiences are solicited,.

FRONTIER PICTURE B y Mrs. T. A . W ickes

Fifty years ago, and to be exact, in Sep­ in camp, were washing their breakfast dishes. tember o f 1880, Wickes, in Montana Terri­ No one had guessed that he was boarding tory, was booming. Some five hundred men the Salisbury coach to bring home, from were employed at the Alta and other mines. Butte the next day, his bride. Concentrators had been built, the smelter But trust a mining camp for gossip! was reducing ores, and families were moving The furnace fires had to be maintained in, for the fame of the temperance camp, in day and night, to prevent what was known the midst of lawlessness, had been widely as “freezing”—and the substitute necessarily placed in charge couldn’t resist telling the published. news at noon, and the next evening when The camp stretched out like a giant hair­ the stage arrived, with a burst of speed pin. Two long gulches sloped down and horses love at the beginning and end of a converged at a center, where stood the post- long line of travel, a goodly crowd had as­ office, the store, the butcher shop and the sembled, to see the new woman— ostensibly Concannon hotel. Opposite, on the mountain­ side, intervening between the gulches, was for many other reasons. Men were there expecting The Helena In­ the concentrator for iron pyrites, reached by dependent and The Butte Miner, with terri­ a difficult grade. Here teamsters held con­ versations with their mules and deemed pro­ torial news; men, expecting letters from ‘ The States.” Black ear-ringed swarthy men were fanity indispensable. Over toward the sun­ there expecting no mail, having left their rise, towering above the smelter and “the names, as well as their crimes, beyond the works,” rose another hill, grass-covered, but criss-crossed to the very summit by long- sea. Men were there to buy fruit from a freight wagon, en route to Helena from since- unused paths, trails of departed buf­ Ogden, Utah, which had arrived that day. falo ; resulting now in squares of fresh fallen Men, leaning against the outer wall of the snow. hotel, tipped back in kitchen chairs, smok­ At night from its sparse patch of tam­ ing! Close by, a row of young men, who arack and spruce could be heard the “whire- were dangling their legs from the hotel plat­ whire” whine of the mountain lion, as he form, where the stage would disgorge its lay in ambush watching the crimson glow of the furnaces, and the smoke, taking form contents. The faces of this waiting crowd were very in the crisp air, above the never-ceasing different, but the swinging legs were much noise of machinery. alike, swathed in gunny sacks, encased in On this early September morning, leaving German socks, and lumberman’s rubber-soled unlocked his rather pretentious cabin of four shoes. The owners looked expectantly, wait­ rooms at the far end of the West Gulch, ing for orders to be sent to Bonanza Chief steadily trudged a middle aged Welshman, the boss of the smelter, in unusual attire. or the Alta mine. Thus all intent, for various reasons, oil Freshly shaven, in his best brown suit, and the incoming stage. shoes shining, a new brown felt hat, and a In a moment, sacks of mail were pitched fur coat over his arm, he hurried past many from the coach; while dropped from roof cottages, but still attracted no attention, for and sides its customary load of a dozen or at that hour, every man in town was at more laborers, each with his roll of bedding, work ; and the three (and only three) women 278 The Frontier

who walked rapidly away. The body of the tired mules, he drew from his wallet a five- coach was bouncing and re-bounding with the dollar gold piece, and two silver dollars change of weight on its leather springs. from his pants’ pocket. He reached over the Apart, with one large foot on a front wheel sideboards of one of his wagons, dumped his of the coach, stood a burly Norwegian, his new shoes onto the floor, and presently in pipe in the pocket of his mackinaw, his six- the shoe-box (number eleven, the shoes) mule team around the corner, still hitched were placed from the Ogden freight wagon, to two empty ore wagons. His face had the four apples (representing four dollars), and full, deep red glow that marks climatic ex­ the balance of space filled with grapes in posure in the Rockies; his features large, heavy bunches. heavy, and unattractive; his pale blue eyes, Surreptitiously, later, they were conveyed unblinking, showed him honestly and eagerly to the doorsteps of the strangers’ home, shoe- scanning the wedding party, as, last of all, box and all, and were the first of many gifts it alighted from the stage. that followed later. Erik Monskagen was looking with a pur­ The gift had nerved Erik also to make pose. The boss was helping down a portly, an early call next morning when his shadow rosy Welsh woman of middle age, followed fell across the open doorway o f the smelter. by two girls, who bore no resemblance to “ Say, boss,” he stammered, and paused for each other, and were, in fact, not related. a moment, watching the puddling of the The younger, the daughter of the boss by silver ore. “ Say boss,” he repeated rapidly, a former marriage in Wales, was smiling “I want one of your girls.” and tossing out grips, and paper bundles, “What’s that? Need a cook?” came the right and left, and lastly extending a crutch leisurely question of the man with the long to the other girl, who seemed not the least iron ladle, lifting into the light the bubbling, interested in the groups around her. She glowing stream of metal. was the only child of the widow, who had “ I want a wife,” said Erik very simply, left all her hardships and cares behind her, and waited. to become the wife of the well-paid boss “ You do? Which one?” quickly responded of the smelter at Wickes. the busy worker of the silver ore. Laden with luggage they started cheerfully “The lame one,” came in hushed tones the for the long walk up the Gulch, except Isa­ reply from Erik. belle who, with bowed head, trudged labor­ “Well, that's all right; better talk to her iously along, leaning on the crutch. Her mother. We can't spare Nettie, but Isabelle hat had been lost on the journey; but in will decorate your cabin with white buck- spite of fresh sunburn, and disheveled hair, berries and stuff, while you go hungry.” and notwithstanding the dust, with which all “Then I’ll get her a Chinaman,” said prac­ were covered, she had a dainty look. A tical Erik. bunch of kinnikinick was pinned to her jack­ The boss raised his eyes at this extrava­ et, and its red berries rivaled the color in gant speech, for the Chinese cooks demanded her cheeks. forty dollars in cash, their “keep” and some­ Thus equipped the party walked up the times that of their various cousins. long gulch, crossed the tinkling brook, to Not long after, Isabelle’s mother was in­ find the house of their destination lighted formed o f the situation and without waiting with a carbon-oil lamp, and a table, myster­ for preliminaries, she adroitly began singing iously but opportunely spread with a “work­ Erik’s praises to Isabelle. Belle gave her ing-man’s supper.” The keen air had fur­ mother a prompt rebuff. With rising color nished the “ working-man’s appetite.” Nor she informed her mother that the nice fellow did they heed the fact that those furnishing in Butte, Welsh, too, and a beautiful singer, the surprise were peering at them from the had long since asked, and received her prom­ cracks over in Bachelor’s Row. ise to wait for him, until he could make a Erik in the meantime found, unconsciously, stake in this new land. He was young, he that his “purpose” had speedily developed was handsome, and—. With a finality of into a firm decision. Still neglecting his tone but with an arm about the girl’s shoul­ The Frontier 279 ders, the mother gently said, “Yes, I liked New dishes, new carpet and a rocking him, bat he’s no good, hasn’t a penny, has chair went with them on the coach. no ‘pull,’ and you’d better forget him. Erik On the mantel, over the open fireplace, owns his mules, gets twenty dollars a day Belle’s mother had placed her wedding gift, hauling ore, has a nice cabin, and they say two beautiful blue and white china teacups he has an undeveloped mine in the same of ancestral date, brought from Wales, across drift as the Alta.’’ the sea, each cup and saucer In the famous Continual dropping will wear even a rock, “ Willow pattern,” with Its birds, Its lovers it is said, and although Belle kept a tintype and its rustic bridge. On either side stood of a stalwart youth under her pillow, she a huge specimen from the concentrator; ore hid it in the daytime and watched daily in brilliant red and yellow upon snow white; when the Comet ore team went by the house, deadly poisonous, but exquisite iron pyrites and sighed! to grace the home. Soon she and Nettie joined the Good Temp­ Harder than ever to realize that far-off lars’ lodge, the only social organization In wedding day, when one of those teacups, the village. They met a lot o f new people. outlasting its owners, is today placed on the The next Saturday night Erik joined the table where this sketch Is being drawn. lodge, and took the two girls home on a Time passed on. hand-sled. Ever, even after a year or two, Erik’s One day, Erik, having been to town pocketbook was cementing the affection of (Helena), brought home from Bailey’s Jew­ that home, in a homely, helpful way. Isa­ elry store an oval pin for Belle, a large belle had a sewing machine, a wringer, and carbuncle in It, set with pearls. Without later on, a baby carriage with a silken spread. a thought of unsuitability in so doing, Belle New Joys and new tenderness were in the gladly accepted it. cottage, but the golden-haired baby, that Only the finest goods were placed on sale, brought the sunshine, came only to leave It in the early day In Helena. Freight was within a few short months in deeper shadow. as heavy on a tin dipper as on a silver Never to be forgotten, the music of that ladle; white silk flannel not so heavy as Elkhorn band! Back from the memories of outing, and far more to be desired. I f in the those far-off years, comes again the funeral market at all, the best could always be had. So music of that band of Welshmen! The won­ derful dirge, the low, sweet, true minor notes soon Isabelle’s pretty wrists wore the longed- of Welsh harmony so loved and mastered by for bracelets, and almost before she knew it a ruby ring was on her forefinger, and that people, as by no other! she was betrothed. No liquor was allowed in camp, in those The marriage, when it came, was a prosy early days. Occasionally, a vinegar jug, or a kerosene container, with intoxicating con­ affair. A stage ride into Helena, Nettie, and Belle’s mother, the only witnesses; Belle tents found its way into the bunkhouse be­ in a ready-to-wear brown silk, bought with yond the Reading Room. Erik’s money; a minister found who would Erik, too, had a quart can labeled “axle take the responsibility of marrying two grease” that he carried from the Comet, in strangers, for no licenses were issued in his ore wagons, whose contents flushed his Montana until a much later date. It was face and made him rough and rude, at home, Jewish New Year’s day. The ceremony over more frequently. they had a wonderful dinner, served by Mr. Life for Isabelle grew lonelier, day by day. Zimmerman in the old Cosmopolitan hotel, One wintry day, the men who did the famous for its Columbia River salmon, its loading at the Comet, were for some reason venison, Its wild fowl, and Its city guests unable to attend to it. Erik had it to do, on that anniversary day. or go without his load, and his pay. Back in an unexpected snowstorm to the Overheated, and driving more slowly than the new home, close to the hillside, where usual, on account of an Icy road, he went today speed the trains through the Great with brakes locked down the slippery grade, Northern tunnel! chilled to the bone, and facing the north 280 The Frontier wind all the way. Pneumonia followed. In mountains of Montana ever carried her most a short week he was gone! loving thoughts, the land of white-capped There was a ready purchaser for the out­ peaks, far away. fit, mules and wagons, but six months passed Soon it was springtime in the Rockies. before the samples of ore from the undevel­ When a letter came with a Montana post­ oped mine were sent to an assayer, and now mark, Isabelle went where she would be again the unexpected happened. The mine all alone, to read the pleading words from was valuable, was sold, and as Erik had no the Butte lover of long ago, who had ever parents living, and no brothers or sisters, loved and waited for her, and now begged by Montana law it all went to Isabelle. her to return to him and happiness. Stranger yet, she knew what she would do The eager journey was soon taken, with with the money. its felicitous conclusion. She would buy beautiful clothes, a seal­ Life, sometimes, as for Isabelle, has its skin cloak, more jewelry, and take a trip compensations! “across the pond” back to Wales, and show Silent, the old smelter is today, in that her faraway kindred her respendent pres­ busiest of early camps, in the Rockies; no ence ! smoke drifts from its tall chimney; hushed, The trip across the sea was taken, and the crunchings of the slag-pile; gone, the excursions into the mountain fastnesses deafening din of the crusher, the whistles, where for a thousand years Isabelle’s an­ the shouts of the drivers; and as still, as cestors had resisted invaders, until, at last, silent, the voices of all those intimately as­ Lewellyn’s title had been given to the heir sociated with this sketch, for they sleep, of the English throne. Isabelle loved the their last unbroken sleep, beneath Montana land where she was born, but the lure of the skies.

A PIONEER CHILD’S STORY B y F rances E . A lbright

I will not tell you anything of the wild larger than it is now, as there was no irri­ outlaws, as I never knew or saw any of gation or city water taken out of it then. them; and their deeds are well told by Father had a partner, Tom Smith, who had Judge Callaway and other speakers on early a big Newfoundland dog which could be days. Rather, I will tell you of a pioneer ridden by a little girl. He also had a sack child’s recollection of life in this old town. of candy, some apples or nuts and would Our train from Fort Bridger was ten men call to me to come over. Although I was and mother and a three-weeks-old child and forbidden to go near the creek, I always a little girl. forgot. The man went inside to get the We came in September, 1863, and lived in treat and just got back in time to pull me a large tent, as the weather was very mild, out of the water as there was only a board until our log cabin was finished, in Spring to cross on. Mother got there about the Gulch, Pine Grove. We moved down to Vir­ same time. And I got what I deserved. ginia City in the spring and lived in a two- It seems funny to think of water being ped­ room cabin with a dirt roof, no floor, and dled in this town; but I have watched a no glass in the windows. We had robes and man fill his barrels at our spring for a long furs on the ground and a fireplace for cook­ time. Every man had a well, and of course ing and were as comfortable as could be. with so many people here and no sewer sys­ The beds were built against the walls and tem the water was not pure. Many died were called “bunks.” The only chairs we with mountain fever, but I am sure it must had were round blocks of wood with three have been typhoid, as you never hear of legs, called stools. mountain fever now. The first thing I remember was the creek School was my next recollection. The first which runs through the town. It was much one was in a log cabin next to Mr. Emslie’s The Frontier 281 stone house and in the library grounds. Here and dry goods. They surely were the cov­ I learned my letters, or A, B, C’s, as they ered wagons! The freighters had three or were called. This was a private school four big wagons trailed together and drawn taught by Miss Royce. Next I went to the by twelve to fourteen yoke of oxen. They public school, also a log house of two rooms, could only make two trips during the sum­ which stood where the Callaway house is mer as the nearest railroad was at Corlnne, now. The small children went to a Mrs. 360 miles away, and oxen travel very slowly. Eldred. Here we were taught “reading and I don’t think I will ever forget the poor oxen, writing and ’rithmetic to the tune of the so tired and weary, with those heavy oaken hickory stick.” She gave you about half bows on their necks, straining and pulling a page of spelling, and every word you those heavy loads, and the driver with a missed she gave you a slap on your hand big whip that he would crack like a gun. with a large wooden ruler. The other studies Fresh fruits, apples, peaches, and plums were were taught the same way. After we were very scarce, as they had to come by express; promoted to the higher grades, the teacher, so our fruits were the dried and canned a Mr. Marshall, did not slap us with a ruler. ones, or the wild raspberry, huckleberry, He had a strap for those who disobeyed the gooseberry, and chokecherry, which we gath­ school rules. I can say very few were so ered ourselves. These berrying trips were punished. However, he would throw pieces considered pleasure trips, as the men fished of chalk at you if you whispered. He was and hunted the wild grouse, ducks, and sage an expert, almost always hitting his mark. hens; and we camped out several days at a Then he said, “ Bring that chalk here and time. Our early vegetables were raised in stand on the floor.” Oh, I had a wonderful hot beds by two French women, who peddled time at school. We had speaking and sing­ them like they did in Brittany in panniers ing every Friday afternoon and spelling bees on the backs of donkeys which they led by once a month, when the town folks came to a halter. spell with the kiddies. Every one who went Another thing that was of great interest took a tallow candle (as there was no other to me was the sleigh riding, mostly in two- kind of light), a lunch, and a tin cup. We seated cutters; the horses wore strings of always took a lantern with a candle in it bells around their bodies and necks, and as when we went out at night. I went to school each bell was a different size or tone they to Mrs. Mary B. Elling, who had a private were quite musical. Father had a large bob­ school one summer before she was married. sled painted green with a name in gay col­ I also went to Mrs. Mary Bennett and her ored letters, “Gambarinus,” on the sides, father, who had a church school. which was the name of the man who first One of the main business streets was from made beer. With a lot of buffalo robes in Vicker’s corner up towards the gulch. It the bed of the sleigh, father would let us was a toll road after you left the city. You gather our little friends for a ride. Many had to pay to get to Summit on it, even times the big flakes of snow would be fall­ people on foot. There was a large hotel, ing down. We surely had a lovely time. picture gallery, several dry goods stores, a This sleigh was very popular for moonlight Catholic church, a hospital, a Good Templars rides. Even the governor’s wife did not hall on this street. The side where the object to a ride in it. I remember when Vanderbeck house is also had a big store, Governor B. F. Potts first came to the town. warehouses, and another hotel. Most of the The citizens wanted to give him a welcome, dances were held in this Good Tempars hall. so they brought the cannon out in front of Here was where I learned what little I knew our house and fired the national salute of about dancing, at the tender age of ten years. thirteen guns as he was coming over the The Ortons, a family of musicians, had chil­ Bozeman trail way. dren’s dances from seven to ten o’clock at You may think I was a cruel little wretch, fifty cents admission. but a funeral was a wonderful sight to me. Another thing I remember was the freight In those days the lodges came out in full trains, the only way we had to get groceries regalia and had one or two brass bands 282 The Frontier

playing funeral dirges and marches. The a treaty of peace with him; but every one processions were from town to the cemetery. kept his gun handy until they moved on. I also recall a Chinese-Masonic funeral. It The Indians all over Montana were on the surely was very wonderful—three or four warpath and were killing and burning out hundred Chinamen marching and throwing all the isolated farmers. We went up one little sheets of red paper, burning joss sticks, Sunday to his camp and he put on a war and firecrackers to keep the devils away; dance for us. The Indians had on their they also had a band playing their strange paint and feathers and strings of scalps. music. Some of them had beautiful em­ They gave their war whoops and beat on broidered silk clothes, and each had a white their tom toms, flourished their tomahawks, sash over his shoulders and all wore wooden and danced so fast and furiously I was shoes. There were many flags and banners, afraid. The chief asked why more did not also several wagons of hired women who come and seemed to think that we did not wailed and cried, and turned around to trust him. laugh. Politics was another thing that had great interest for me, as they had torch light I remember the building of the present processions, bands, and speeches, as well as school house and court house. I also went having the windows of the houses lighted to school in this one to a Mr. T. B. Gray, with rows and rows of candles. Although Mr. R. B. Hassel, and A. A. Leonard, and I did not know what it was about, I thought several others. it a grand time. I don’t remember the date of Ten Doy’s Virginia had a theatrical troupe who lived visit to Virginia City with his five hundred here and put on Shakespeare plays twice a warriors, squaws and papooses; but I re­ week. I remember Hamlet. When the Lady member that the town was guarded by scouts drowned herself, I surely screamed until on all the hills and every man who had no mother said a fisherman had caught her and gun was given one from the arsenal and pulled her out. These shows were partly plenty of ammunition. The cannon was vaudeville, as they had singing, dancing, and placed in a good position and all were told clowns. They had a real circus here one to be ready at the first shot. However, the winter—trained animals, riders and horses. chief said he was friendly and liked the Sleight-of-hand and musical shows came real white folks; so they took a big lot of beef, often, so we had some fun in those old days flour, sugar, coffee, and blankets, and made when I was a child.

THE LONG HORNS

B y P . T . T u c k e r

Fred Remington and Charley Russell were Russell was a born artist. I used to tell born painters; they were both good friends Russell a story, and within a day or two he of mine. They painted the West when it would have it painted—man-hoss-action, was in the rough; they painted the Indian, everything in detail. Remington also paint­ his features and actions; his squaw and ed my word pictures in detail. papoose, his hoss and wickiup. They put I came to Montana in eighteen seventy-six. him on canvas, when he was fighting, On June 1 two “hoss wranglers” and I trailed smeared with war paint; and also pictured in two hundred and forty head of young him in his peaceful camp. They have paint­ saddle ponies that were raised in Texas, and ed the Long Horn ox-teams, with the long were to be used in the United States army. string of freight wagons, the bullwhackers, These horses were to be turned over to the mule-skinner, who drove from eight to Generals Reno and Custer, and were to be sixteen mules. The six-horse stage driver used to round up the poor Indians. was painted when he was being held up. We were camped on the north fork of the Now I am going to say to you : Charley Cheyenne River, when General Custer and The Frontier 283 four hundred brave troopers were to open us, a dust cloud rose here and there, which the battle with the Indians, then he was told our plains-practiced eyes that the In­ to get help. Did he receive help from the dian scouts were on the lookout, knowing men who pledged their word of honor that full well that the massacre of Custer and they would be there with reinforcements his men would mean trouble for them. when the battle began? The trap was set Tobe and I had been sitting on our high for Custer and his brave men by a bevy roost all afternoon. The sun was warm, of cowardly TJ. S. officers, who were afraid and what little breeze there was had just of their own shadows. Ask me if I know; a tang of autumn coolness. We had been I say, “Yes.” I leave it to your own Judg­ rehearsing our experiences on the old Rio ment : would a man, knowing there were Grande, when suddenly our horses threw eight thousand Indians ready to go into up their heads and pointed their ears, as action, willingly risk his own life and that they always do when they sense an approach of 400 of his men, against those heavy odds? which is not yet visible. Custer knew how many Indians were ready We rose hastily, and quietly mounted, for battle, and relying on Reno’s promises ready for action. Several tense moments of help, walked into the well planned trap, passed while we strained our eyes in every where they died fighting, as only brave men direction. Our horses were not to be de­ can die, in a veritable hell of savagery. After ceived, for round a hill along a high rim- the massacre, what became of General Reno? rock there slowly came into view seven He was court-martialed and sent to Chey­ riders. As they trailed straight toward us enne. He has never appeared, in print, since we could see the glint of a bright button, that time. and a blur of blue, and recognized them as Our outfit milled around northern Wy­ U. S. scouts. oming and southern Montana herding these Calamity Jane was with them. They had horses for weeks, and giving the hostile been hunting for our camp for some time, Indians a few of them now and then, to but had given up hope of finding us alive. save our scalps. Owing to the lawlessness, the attitude of Our herd was fat and slick, and we picked the whole country was such as to imbue even up some very good cavalry horses by trading the hardiest with a sense of alarm. The with the Indians. Their horses were well chief scout advised us to trail our horse broken, and some of them good animals, but herd across the Yellowstone and camp at thin and tired from hard riding. After the North Fork of the Tongue River; and running in our bunch for a short time they we lost no time in following his directions. were in excellent condition. When we arrived we found that the Amer­ The long cloudless days dragged into In­ ican Fur Company was camped on the north dian summer, and during this pleasant sea­ side of the Yellowstone river. son, Tobe, one of the wranglers, would often Tobe and I packed our few cooking uten­ saddle his horse at daybreak and ride the sils, food, and bedrolls, on our pack horses highest points, to try and locate some of and swam our herd across the mouth of the- the U. S. troops. Tongue River, then trailed them to Buffalo' Whenever he left me to tend camp I Camp. waited and watched the foothills and jack- Blondy Jim was captain of the buffalo pine ridges, fearing his old Texas horse hunters and a very good friend of ours, help­ would come loping back to camp with an ing us stock our meagre larder with delicious empty saddle. cuts of buffalo and venison. Big hearted One afternoon while camped on Powder Jim, a product of the sunny south, whose River, Tobe Boone and I were sitting on a friendship was genuine, and whose hospi­ high pinnacle, our horses tied to the ground. tality was without rival! Prom this point we could see our herd of Their camp comprised twelve men, and horses, split up in small bunches, quietly the cook—all vigorous, husky, outdoor men, munching the late grass in the Jackpine who never tired. We hunted buffalo for thickets. Down in the lowlands, far below Continued on page 306 284 The Frontier

HISTORICAL SECTION Each issue will carry some authentic account, diary or journal or reminiscence, preferably of early days in this region of the country.

THE DIARY OF MARY RICHARDSON WALKER, JUNE 10-DECEMBER 21, 1838

E dited b y R u f u s A. C olem an Editor's Note: Two administrative organizations were chiefly responsible for the first Prot­ estant missions in Oregon territory: The American Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, the latter a tripartite union Including the Presbyterian, the Congregational and the Dutch Reformed churches. Under the leadership of Jason and Daniel Lee, who were soon supplied with reenforce­ ments, the Methodists established missions in the Willamette valley and at The Dalles on the Columbia. The first settlement authorized by the Board of Commissioners had been made possible by the indomitable Marcus Whitman and his wife, the Reverend and Mrs. H. H. Spauld­ ing, and W. H. Gray, who years later in his History of Oregon was to publish entertaining but not very reliable reminiscences. So promising looked the field that the tiny missions at Waiilat- pu and Lapwai were immediately deemed inadequate. Mr. Gray, therefore, in 1837, returned for reenforcements and succeeded in persuading Reverend and Mrs. Elkanah Walker, Reverend and Mrs. Cushing Eells, Reverend and Mrs. A. B. Smith, and Cornelius Rogers, teacher and bachelor, to return with him. Gray himself brought back a wife. The writer of the following journal, Mrs. Mary Richardson Walker, was born in Baldwin, Maine, April 1, 1811. Raised in a strict religious environment, she naturally grew into the call­ ing of a missionary. She had been appointed by the Board of Commissioners to Siam, but, on her engagement to Elkanah Walker, cast her lot with him to sail for South Africa. When, how­ ever, owing to dissension among the Zulus, the appointment was cancelled, the Walkers were receptive to the overtures of Gray. The missionary group assembled in New York City and from there journeyed westward, stopping at different church centers, where they assumed roles of exhorter or exhorted. The missionaries allied themselves, as was the custom, with a company of trappers—this time men of the American Fur Company under the command of Captain Dripps. They traveled on horse­ back over the customary trail to Fort Hall, where they diverged northward to Fort Walla Walla, located at the junction of the Walla Walla and the Snake rivers, and to Waiilatpu, the settle­ ment of the Whitmans a few miles distant. The journal here printed is from one of three transcriptions made in or before 1917 by Mr. William S. Lewis of Spokane from manuscripts obligingly placed at his disposal by Cyrus Walk­ er. One of these Mr. Lewis owns; the other two are to be found in the Spokane Public Library and in the library of the University of Washington. Occasional excerpts from the Walker manu­ scripts have appeared in newspapers of the Northwest. A few transcriptions, I believe, are in the collection of the Oregon Historical Society at Portland. Most of the Walker originals have since been collected by the Huntington Library. Sunday, 10. Platte River. Today they I know not whither. Without mother or were designing to cross the Platte, but the sister to attend me, can I survive it all? I rain prevents. So we have for the first feel that God is able to carry me through time an opportunity to lay by on the Sab­ all, if he sees good. But I cannot expect bath. I am not sufficiently well to enjoy to escape suffering. Hope I shall have grace it as much as I should. Yet I am glad to to bear it patiently. Thus far I have been rest. I have reflected much on the goodness enabled to keep my temper on all occasions, and mercy of God. * * *i My health at though my feelings have been tried exceed­ present is rather feeble, and I find it diffi­ ingly by some o f the company. * * * cult to keep up a usual degree of cheerful­ Monday, 11. The Platte. R ainy; the wa­ ness. If I were to yield to inclination, I ter came into the tent. I was sick of diar­ should cry half my time without knowing rhea. A little past noon we were summoned what for. My circumstances are rather try­ to cross the Platte. Just at that time the ing. So much danger attends me on every rain ceased. We crossed safely in a boat hand; a long journey yet before me, going constructed of buffalo hides and the bottoms

1 The omissions indicated by the asterisks were made by Mr. Lewis at the wish of Cyrus Walker who thought them too personal for publication. The editor has read these deleted passages in the original diary In the Huntington Library and has found them to be chiefly bits of acrid criticism of her fellow-missionaries or querulous introspections—outbursts easily explainable on the grounds of Mrs. Walker's ill health. They are sometimes only a line or so in length. Their omission does not greatly detract from the Interest of the narrative. Mr. Lewis has likewise modernized the spelling of some of the words. The Frontier 285 of two wagons. In the forenoon I cried Dear God, the mountains speak aloud to think how comfortable father's hogs were. thy power, In the afternoon felt we were dealt with in And every purling rill proclaims thy mercy; I was relieved; the snow capped praise. * • * Mts. appeared. Saturday, June 16. Nothing of particular Tuesday, 12. Made only one camp. The interest. Near to the left a magnificent wall Rocky Mts. covered with snow in view. of granite far to the right another. The Passed what appeared to be slate stone. hunters shot 7 buffalo about 100 rods from Wednesday, 13. Made a long camp, A. M„ the road. short one P. M. Collected pebbles, drank Sunday, 17. Very pleasant. More leisure sulphrous water. Sick a little. than we have sometimes had. Not so hard Friday, 15. Last night camped at the a day’s work. Met some o f Capt. Walker’s Sweet water at the foot of Rock Independ­ company.2 Picked a mass of goose berries. ence, so called because the Fur Company Monday, 18. Made only one camp. Not once celebrated Independence here. This so much fatigued as sometimes. Weather morning, there being no dew, went in com­ quite warm and pleasant. Our tent close pany with Mr. & Mrs. Gray2 to the top of to the bank of the Sweet Water which is the rock. It is I should judge more than a remarkably pleasant stream; not turbid 100 feet high and half a mile in circumfer­ like most we have seen. Most of the country ence, eliptical in form. The rock is a coarse we have traveled since leaving Ft. Williams4 granite, in which the quartz predominates. has been a sandy desert, bearing little but It appears as if it had been scraped hardly sedge and wormwood, flowers and grease by something. I forgot to say that near it wood. Most of the way plenty fuel, though we passed a salt pond half a mile one way, lately we have often had nothing but sedge. and a mile the other, at the edge of which The minerals are interesting. But I have were concretions resembling stone. We ford­ to ride over most of them without picking ed the Sweet Water, and soon passed the them up. If I could only mount and dis­ place where the Rock Mt. is cleft to its base mount without help how glad I would be. and the Sweet Water passes. The rock on Not at all discouraged by the way. Ride either hand perpindicular, is perhaps 200 feet in company with Dr. & Mrs. Gray most of high. Rock Independence form the entrance, the time. Mr. W. gets along without quar­ some say to the Rocky Mts., others say not. reling, a strange thing for which I cannot We have traveled today about 15 miles over be sufficiently thankful. If he had as much a level prairie or plain, encircled by naked difficulty as most o f the company, I think Mts. of solid granite. The scenery has been I should be homesick enough. beautiful, and magnificent; and with me Tuesday, 10. Crossed again the Sweet the pleasure of beholding it has relieved in Water. Made a long over hills of sand. great measure the weariness of the way. Rode to leaving o ff place, dismounted, held a..TT- Mlss Marv Augusta Dix, a handsome, stately brunette, on the evening of the 19th nf pvhrnarv 1838 and became engaged to her the same evening. Six days alter they were married, and on the morning of the 26th started westward to Join the caravan of the American Pur Company.” Bancroft, History of Oregon, vol. 1: 137. 3 “ josenh R Walker was born (1778) in Tennessee. In early life he migrated, to the M issoun he*'was’ £ & & ^ M e x l ^ f^ m

R »ir?»k e Jo raWornla through Walker’s Pass, which took the name from the explorer On P t journey he'riaimtd ‘fTrstJf any American -en Jhe YosemUe His knowledge &Ahy «X T s ht WS S& r4Se£y%ma ^ teins, finaUy settling (1866-7) in Contra Costa County, California, where he died in 1876.

"Encarnped^on*S w eetw ater'm et*thWmen*frora the mountains’’ (Diary of Mrs. Eels for “ a ^ ’f W . Z S££

E'Sie'iarahe^tlit^any'of °the^oilowtagenotestvrill<*r»ta5n f f i S quXation?from ^he°impressionsjo f M rs. Eels. Her diary mav be found in the Transaction, of the Oregon Pioneers Association, Portland, Oregon, June 18, 1889. 4 Port Williams— an early name for Port Laramie, Wyoming. 286 The Frontier

on to trees, and looked down. It was a view to ourselves. Our situation is delightful, in altogether different from anything else I a little grove up in the wood consisting of ever beheld. The declivity was 100 feet some twenty trees, in the forks of Popeasia perhaps; the country for miles appeared as and Wind River. Husband looked more hap­ if the foundation had given away, and the py than I have seen him for a long time. land had sunk. Picked up a peculiar kind Sunday, 24. The first time we have had of stone; knew not what to call it. We rest­ a Sabbath of rest. Mr. S.[mith] has gone ed soon after, while the carts descended a to living by himself. Queary:—Does the hill so steep we walked down. I set off in course he is pursuing cost him some mis­ company with Dr. G. he was so anxious to giving. It will be pleasant not to hear so go ahead, we went on not knowing where. much fault-finding. It is indeed pleasant Lost the company; was obliged to go back. after so long and wearisome a journey to Found the cart train and came on. Had a enjoy a day of rest. It seems almost an hard jaunt, but stood it quite well. Feel earnest of the rest that remains. Mr. Walker better able to drill about than a week or two preached in the A. M. on the judgment, sit­ since. Encamped on Wind River. ting in the open air in the shade of our Wednesday, June 20. Mrs. & G. & S. had beautiful grove. He had 18 hearers includ­ quite a talk. Rode some time with husband, ing himself. We enjoyed the meeting much. which I have not done for some time before. In the afternoon Mr. Eells preached in the I have rode ahead with Dr. & Mrs. Gray, tent. Text, I f I regard iniquity in my heart and Mr. W.[alker] has driven the cattle. &c. Read Saint’s Rest7 between and after So I have been first on the spot and he last. meetings. Husband seems to like to stay in Mrs. S.[mith] is a great hand to hurry, but the tent now. We all put on our Sunday her husband is a real poke, & last ready dresses, and acted as much like Sabbath at about almost everything. Encamped in a home as we could. I think I am rather beautiful spot. happy; But fear I do not live as near the Thursday, 21. Have reached the place Throne of Grace as I ought. near where they rendezvous. Encamped on Monday, June 25. Rendezvous. Spent the South W. side of the Popeasia0 (?) Have most of the day talking and dividing things plenty of wood, water, grass, greens and with Mrs. S.[mith], thickets. Know not how long we may be Tuesday 26. 26 of the cattle having detained here. Health good. Animals in strayed, Mr. Jn. S. Stepton8 had a hard better order most of them than when we jaunt after them. Found them ten miles up started. the river still going ahead. Think I enjoy Friday, 22. Busy repairing, Concluding myself, quite as happy as Mrs. S.[mith] [?] whether we had better cross Popiassia. Mr. For she has seemed to cry half the time. I & Mrs. S. went out and were gone several have not once since she left. Think I have hours; so husband came and made me quite [not] refrained as long before since we left a pleasant visit. Westport.* Saturday, 23.® About noon took a sudden Wednesday, 27. Creg and Roberson9 came start and crossed the river without the least to get their dresses out. Mrs. Gray baked difficulty. Mr. S.[mith) is going to con­ mince pies. Day before yesterday she fried struct him a lodge, so we shall have the tent cakes. This morning Mr. W.falker] got al- Agie river joins the Wind river in central Wyoming to form the Bighorn. Early spelling was phonetic and a name of this complexity would lend itself to varied spelling. ‘ Ride five and one-half hours, encamp on the Popuasua, twelve miles, the water so high we can not cross the river, or we should be at------, which is on the opposite side.” (Diary of Mrs. Eels, Thursday, June 21.) 0 “ Here we expect to spend a few days, but know not how many. Hear nothing from Mr. Spalding or Dr. Whitman or the Indians who were to meet us here.” (Diary of Mrs. Eels for same date.) ’ “Saint’s Rest” is The Saints’ Everlasting Rest by Richard Baxter (1615-1691) published in 1650. ’ Perhaps a mistake for Stephens, who was hired as a cattle driver. iSrit8lP ° , ,was .the eastern terminus of both Oregon and Santa Fe trails. It was on the Missouri river in the present state of Missouri, but has since disappeared. * Roberson” probable mistakes for Craig and Robinson, Indian wives of some of day TuneS27 ) cut an<* help make a dress for Mrs. Craig.” (Diary of Mrs. Eels, Wednes- 287 The Frontier most out of patience with S.[?]. Mr. Walker voice. They halloed, danced, fired and acted traded for a pony; paid 80 dollars in goods as strangely as they could. that in the States would be worth 20. Tent Friday, 6. The same place. Some of the in a clutter all day. squaws came to get some dresses cut. We Friday, 29.1# Made some repairs, regu­ were again saluted by a company on foot. The same inusiek, scalp &c. Their faces were paint­ lated my trunks, wound up my balls &c. Saturday, June 30. Baked pudding, sewed ed. White men acted like Indians. It is said on a hunting dress. Weather w arm ; health that many of the white men in the Mts. try to act as much like Indians as they can & good; mosquitoes plenty. would be glad if they really were so. Sev­ Sunday, July l.11 Public services at half eral squaws were here who united in the past ten. Mr. Smith preached. There were dance. They were warmly clad the weather I judge, as many as forty persons from the excessively hot. For several nights the noise camp, many of whom would not understand in the camp has continued most o f the night. what was said; but they enjoyed the sing­ Some of the Capt.s &, I suppose, many or ing. In the afternoon Mr. W .falker] preached. most of the men are drunk nearly all the The day has been so warm, I felt languid time. enough. Saturday, July 7. Baked some pies in the Monday, July 2. Fried cakes, and sewed morning. Finished putting together my rid­ some. ing dress. Tuesday, 3. Finished the Hunting shirt. Sunday, July 8, 1838.12 One day has been Very tired. Creg came after it as it was to us a day of rejoicing. A company of 14 done, glad to get it off my hands. from the Hudson Bay Company arrived. Wednesday, July 4, The same place. Rode Among them were Rev. Jason Lee from the out in the morning. Mr. Stept—gone. Had Methodist Mission on his way to the states, baked pudding toro (?) & greens for dinner. & several boys who were going to be edu­ Washed a few things; made a few repairs. cated. They came to Green River expecting A fine day hope friends at home have had to find the rendezvous there. But on reach­ some sort of a good time. I do want to hear ing they found no signs. The country was from (them) very much. Could be quite full of Buffalo. But in an old trading house, content if I could hear; but not to see nor they found a line, "Come on to Popeasia: hear— it seems too bad. plenty of whiskey and white women.” They Thursday, 5. Last night disturbed by accordingly came, and on the fourth day drunkards. Rose early and washed. A large found us. company arrived under command of Capt. Mond. 9. Tues. 10, Wedn. 11. Rendez­ Bridger. A band of them came to salute vous.18 Wrote one big letter to all the folks, us. One man carried the scalp of a Black- and one small one to sisters. Forgot to tell foot. The music consisted of tin horns ac­ them how little Indian children ride, and how companied by an inarticulate sound of the the mothers d o ; how much the way is short-

10 Friday 29 “ Mrs. Drips, Mrs. Walker (probably Mrs. Joslah R. Walker), and Mrs. Robinson call on us. Wish me to cut a dress for Mrs. R. (Diary of Mrs. Eels for same date.) 11 Sunday, July 1__“ . . . Three men arrive from Cap’t Bridger’s camp.” (Diary of Mrs. Eels for same date.) 12 - An express from Dr. Whitman, Mr. E— and one Indian for a guide on the opposite side of the river, to escort us over the mountains. Say that we have four fresh horses and pro­ visions at Fort Hall, sent us by Mr. Spalding and Dr. Whitman. Mr. [Frances] Ermatinger is one of the chief factors of the Hudsons’ Bay Fur Company. Mr. Lee, a missionary on the Columbia Mr. Edwards and Mr. Ewen came here with him and are going to the states which gives us 'safe conveyance for our letters.” (Diary of Mrs. Eels for same date.) Mr Edwards is Philip L. Edwards, Kentuckian and layman. "There were also with them F Y Ewing of Missouri, and two Chinook boys named W. M. Brooks and Thomas Adams, who'had been in the mission school for some time. Possibly the three sons of Thomas McKay were also of the party, though there is a conflict on that point in the statements furnished.” (Bancroft— History of Oregon, Vol. 1: 169-70) "Thomas McKay, one of the race of Alexander McKay of the Astor expedition, and one of the company s most celebrated leaders, occupied a farm on the Multnomah (Willamette river) opposite the lower end of Wapato Island.” (Bancroft— History of Oregon, Vol. 1: 15) u Monday 9__"All writing, Messrs Lee, Edwards and Ewen call on us. Mr. Edwards has been with Mr Lee. who is on his way to the States for re-enforcements to that mission. Mr. Ewen has been over the mountains for his health.” (Diary of Mrs. Eels for same date.) 288 The Frontier

ened by the company of plants and minerals. bing and dressing. Feel quite well again. Was sorry not to be able to write more. But 45 miles to ride in one day is hard. Thursday, 12. Enroute.14 Left rendezvous, Tuesday, 17. Crossed Green River. It forded three streams, made a long camp; was quite as high as any we have passed. like my pony very much. On reaching camp, It was divided into two forks. Travelled Mrs. Gray had lost her cloak, and Mr. Ermet- only a few miles. Crossed a good many inger all his pack letters. The cloak was pretty pebbly brooks. Feel much better than found near camp. A man was sent after the I expected to. letters: returned about noon the next day. Wednesday, July 18. Passed mounts that Friday, 13.16 Made one camp o f 10 miles appeared as if they had been Macadamized, over hills of red rock and earth. Attended and along the steep side of a hill, where most of our way by clear, murmuring rivu­ had a horse stumbled, he and his rider lets. Encamped where we found plenty of must have been precipitated into the stream gooseberries. Poor King having his feet below. Encamped near th base of a snow­ blistered, followed making much adoo. Think capped Mt. Went a slivering, the hill back I have not felt so mean since leaving the of the tent being covered with yellow pine. States. Collected a variety o f plants. Thursday, 19. Noon. Have passed most Saturday, 14. Rode ahead, could scarcely of the way through woods of pine & fir. keep (ahead) Think they drive most too Saw yellow violets, and strawberries in blos­ fast. Passed a patch of snow: eat some of som, and a great variety of new plants, the it. A good deal of scolding because they poison hemlock, a plant resembling Angelica, drive so fast.16 Encamped for the last time and good to eat &c. Have been in camp one on the waters o f the Atlantic. hour; and husband is just arriving. Am Sunday, July 15. Last night had quite very glad to see him alive; but am sorry a rain. Followed close to the guide. On he has lost his coat.18 Have suffered more our right, snow-capped mountains. Saw a from fear than anything else. Was so much flock o f antelopes. Last night a large herd excited in descending one hill that when I of buffalos passed so near we could hear reached the foot I almost fainted. Have them pant. Fell in with a company of (felt) that God only could make us go safe­ Snakes. Encamped to trade with them on ly. Perhaps were my eyes opened I might Little Sandy.17 behold angels standing by the way, not as Monday 16. In the forenoon rode ten they stood to stay the wicked prophet but miles. Encamped on Big Sandy. Got my stationed there to guard my feet from fall­ horse in the m ire; not hurt any. Felt w ell: ing. Dread the afternoon ride. P. M. Had picked gooseberries at noon. In the after­ a pleasant ride. Not so very bad places to noon rode 35 miles without stopping. Pretty pass. well tired out, all o f us. Stood it pretty Friday, July 20. Passed at first pleasant well myself. But come to get off my horse groves, and hills covered with plants tall almost fainted. Laid as still as I could and nice, and fields of grass that looked till after tea; then felt revived. Washed like brown-top about ready to be cut. Then my dishes, made my bed, and rested well. suddenly we came to the top o f a hill where In the morning spent an hour washing, rub­ the split rock set along the summit. This

* * IVJI\,Ern^aVnfer eats our tent; loses the letters Mr. Lee sent to his wife by him.” (Diary of Mrs. Eels for same date.) the guide, to go back after the letters; but now he returns with them. (Mrs. Eels) For reference to this guide see Mrs. Walker’s diary for Friday, July 2. r 1 Ermatinger says we are on the backbone of America Scenery, lc, mountains of red sand stone piled on mountains on every side of us, so steep that 'Xf ,°o«niyu p and, do2S,.**i?m sideways; crossed four creeks. My husband is fatigued Eels diary for1SCOUra same date.)j,e4' , W God Sive us strength and grace equal to our day.” (Mrs. ” Little Sandy flows into Big Sandy, a tributary of Green river in southwestern Wyoming. A course J rest throu« h thick pine woods, over high mountains and W a lk !? lo se s the HII W K ground covered with flowers. Mr. Walker loses his coat, Mrs. (Diary of Mrs Eels forThe sarnTdlte1) “ S 10 3 6 a pleC® of our vel,s: a 11 ln goa d health.” 289 The Frontier hill was a quarter of a mile at least, and threaten to leave them without a footing. as steep as an ordinary flight of stairs. I In passing one of the side hills covered with passed down most o f it, as it were, alone. a slaty stone that slid and crumbled beneath Rode a short distance, and passed another the horses feet, my horse apparently came similar to the former. Soon Dr. G.[ray] came near sliding off. He was so close behind on, and we hastened to overtake the guide. Mrs. Smith’s that he had no chance to save Then passing along the side of hill, we heard himself by springing. I was surprised to crackling in the willow bushes. I looked and see a squaw who was riding just before me. saw something black. The hunters sprang The mountain at the top came, as it were, from their horses, drew their guns from their to an edge. cases, and aimed them at the willow swamp. We passed it by going down the base. They watched till they saw the bushes stir, But she with her child in her arms, rode then fired ; then waited till they stirred over the edge. I could scarcely believe it again, then fired. After 5 or 6 shots one possible a horse could stand there; as be­ of the bears was wounded, and ran out to sides being as steep as the roof of a house, escape. But one of the hunters whose gun and a steep one too, there was nothing to was not reloaded rode on and headed him stand on but shelly rocks that slid from off, and drove him back to the thicket. The beneath the feet at every step. I think the firing continued, and soon we heard a growl­ only way I could descend it myself would ing. After a few more charges the other be to slide down. It was really surprising bear was routed, and attempted to escape; to me that so many animals could pass such but just as he had proceeded up the hill places in safety. On reaching the foot of far enough to give a fair view, a hunter the mountain we passed a delightful little lodged a bullet in his neck. He stopped in­ grove, and came at once to an open plain stantly, turned a fine summersault, and lay where the tall grass was in a good state still for a while. They fired again. After to mow. On entering the plain my pony struggling a while he crawled back to a set off on an easy canter; and I reached the bunch of willows and died. We then rode camp, and unsaddled my horse before any to the spot, and took a fair survey of a of the company arrived. As there was abun­ Rocky Mt. bear. He was dark brown, about dance of roses, I picked leaves till my tent the color of a buffalo. The other which was pitched. Find my health very good. was the larger was killed in the bushes: Husband came in with the lost heifer before so we did not see him after he was dead. tea; and glad was I to find we were all Encamped at noon on Thomas Fork.10 Col­ once more safe in camp. I have suffered lected a supply of salt. The water of the considerably least both of us should not stream is not salt. The stream divides into live to reach our journeys end. * * * We several branches, and along the sides for also passed ground where the stones ap­ some rods the ground appears as if covered peared as if composed of pebbles, and earth baked together. When the hunters came in, with a light fall of sleet and snow. When there has been some days sunny weather they brought news that we were surrounded by cows. Concluded to lie by and make meat. there is plenty of salt, but after rain, very Saturday, July 21. Hunters busy killing little. We made a long noon; and our guide meat; others busy cutting and drying. About Batiece returned with Mr. W.[alker] to find noon it was announced that a village of a lost heifer. In the afternoon I rode the old about ten lodges of Indians was approaching. pony. Supposing we had passed hills enough The horses were brought to the picket; the for one day, when I was ready, I rode on Indians went out to meet them. Finding alone, but soon found there were hills enough them peaceable the horses were loosed. They yet. We had some frightful places to pass. We passed along the steep sides of mountains were Bannock: more savage than any we where every step the loose earth slid from have seen in their appearance, as many of beneath our horses feet, and seemed to the boys were entirely naked. A knife was “ Fork of Snake river in southeastern Idaho. 290 The Frontier

put in the hands of some o f their squaws: which is about milk warm ; the water shoots and they assisted in cutting meat One of about two or three times in a minute, much them had a very young child. as water gurgles in a tunnel, or as it boils Sunday, July 22.20 Rather a quiet Sab­ over a hot fire. bath, though the meat requires considerable The orifice whence it issues is on the attention. In the P. M. Mr. W. read a ser­ brink of Bear River. It is now a foot mon. Quite a number of Indians collected or two in circumference; but a concretion around the door of the tent: were much in­ is constantly forming, so that like its neigh­ terested in the singing kept very still during bors, it must ere long be stopped. Near the sermon, and in prayer time remained the spring is a small orifice whence issues with their eyes fixed on the ground. I was only air and gas. A few miles before we surprised to witness their devout appearance. arrived at the springs, we passed a white Do not know how to account for it. I felt soft earth, dried and cracked. It tasted like as if I almost would like to stay with and slaked lime. Whether it was lime or soda instruct them. Would like well to know what I know not. All about here are the Basaltic ideas they have of God &c. rocks, some black, some white, some gray. Monday, 23. In the forenoon still found All of them are full o f little holes. They hills to climb. At noon the horse-flies were descend imperceptibly from that now form­ so thick the men could scarcely pack or ing to the big, black, hard rock. saddle. P. M. Reached the plain, and left Thursday, 28. Yesterday we had a cold the back bone of America.21 The Flies raw rain, and I took cold in a tooth which seemed like a swarm o f bees and plagued ached so that I scarcely slept an hour all the horses exceedingly. Old mountaineers night. Had rather an easy day’s ride. Past say they never saw the like. rocks not basaltic, composed mostly of quartz. Tuesday, July 24. Nooned at a cold spring; Friday 27. Enroute & Ft. Hall.2* Left camped at the Soda Springs.22 My horse the camp ground half past four in the morn­ fell and tumbled me over his head. Did not ing after a sleepless night with tooth ache. hurt me. Passed Basalt in abundance. Set out as usual with Dr. Gray and w ife; Wednesday, 25. In the morning baked But Ermatinger and Batiece (?) came on, soda biscuit, and fried soda fritters; both and they set o ff with them and left me fine. Last night had quite a rain. Encamped behind. Capt. Sutor happened to be with in a grove of red cedar. As for the springs, me, and not having on his spurs, was unable some of them are a rod or two in circum­ to keep up (with them) So he and I were ference. The water seems to boil. When left alone without guide. I suffered my dipped near where it boils, it tastes like pony to do as he pleased; but having left spruce as nearly as anything. After stand­ the trail and seeing no one ahead, he began ing a while it tastes flat and insipid. All to be alarmed, and hastened over the sedge. about the springs are numerous little mounds, I succeeded in checking him and turning his with craters. Evidently they were once head the other way. Saw Mr. Richardson springs, but have filled up. We visited one approaching. He came up, and my pony

™ "• • • , M r ‘ Walker read a sermon, and although they could not understand a word, they were still and paid good attention. They appeared amused with our singing." (Diary of Mrs. Eels for the same date.) 1 When Mrs. Walker says, ‘‘we left the back bone of America” she evidently has in mind the picturesque phrase of Ermatinger which Mrs. Eels quotes in her notes for Saturday 14. “ Soda Springs in Idaho. “ . . . Encamped at the Soda Springs, spoken of by Mr. Spalding in the Herald think that correct." (Diary of Mrs. Eels for same date.) 8T* • • Arrive at Fort Hall; introduced to Mr. MacKay, one of the chief factors of the Company; also to a number of Nez Perces Indians. They came here last directly from Mr. Spalding’s, on an express to the Rev. Mr. Lee, with the painful news or tne death of his wife and infant. The same express will take letters for us to the states; nearly all improve the opportunity. Received kindly at the fort. Mrs. Walker almost mu?' •' Vu (Diary of Mrs. Eels for the same date.) *? Captain Sutter of California fame. ‘‘John Augustus Sutter was a German Swiss 1*03. After serving in the Franco-Swiss Guards (1823-24) he came to America I 1 ? ” * 1 ,an£} embarked in the Santa Fe trade (1836-37). In 1838 he started to California, Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, and Alaska.” (Footnote by Thwaites— Early Western ‘,7fu6, X: . r- Paul Richardson was a mountain man who overtook Jason Lee Tur^r a 7 ne?rs that the diaries have here noted. Thomas McKay, stepson of Dr. McLoughlin, is referred to in the note for Sunday, July 8 . 291 The Frontier kept up with him. So I reach Ft. Hall side, a high wall of basaltic rock. Made after a ride of four hours, pretty well ex­ only one camp of about 25 miles. Opposite hausted by fatigue and tooth ache, and found our camp, quite a stream gushes out o f the breakfast ready which was indeed accept­ rocky side of the hill. It is so white and able. Husband and the rest o f the party gushing that at first I did not suspect it was arrived about an hour after. So I think, a river. Springs in this country are said though no one calls it so much, that we to thus loose themselves in the sand, and have often reckoned the distance 18 miles then gush out again in this manner. The when we did not come farther. After break­ roar of the river is heard for some distance. fast I laid down and tried to compose my­ Before reaching camp we descended a hill self; but my nerves were so excited, and about as bad as any we have ever passed. my tooth still aching, though I laid nearly Last night, water In a covered dipper froze all day I could not get even a nap. So, quite hard. most night, I concluded to have it extracted, Wednesday 8. Made only one camp. after which I felt better. On reaching the Passed more streams gushing from among fort we received letters from our Missionary the rocks. brethern, and the sad intelligence that Mr. Friday 10. Yesterday and today over Lee’s wife and child were dead; and so an what are called mountains. Near the river express goes to overtake Mr. Lee, we have passed lodges o f Indians. Procured salmon. still an opportunity to write home. Made a very short camp in the P. M. Dr. Saturday, 28. Ft. Hall. Pretty much sick all Gray and wife went to the crossing place, day; had to let my work all go. Wrote part spent the night alone. Where we found to­ of letter to our folks. day at noon. (Something seems missing.) Sunday, 29. Slept most of the day. At­ Mr. W.[alker] not very well for some past tended meeting at the fort in dining room. days. Mr. Bells preached. Saturday, 11. Rode 22 miles. Passed hills Monday, July 30. Ft. Hall. Quite well. of drifted sand. Plenty of Indians about; Washed &c. fear they will steal our horses. Passed over hills in the A. M. level plain in the P. M. Tuesday, July 31.24 Left Ft. Hall. Mr. Sunday, 12. Rested; so warm, had no McCay and lady, Battice &c accompanied us to our first encamptment. meeting. Wednesday, August 1, Enroute. Travelled Monday, August 13. Started from picket, five miles, and encamped at the Falls in travelled 35 or 40 miles before stopping. We Snake river. passed two creeks at one of which we should Thursday, 2nd, Friday, 3rd, Saturday, 4th. have stopped, having rode eight and a half No time to write journal. Encamped over hours. Animals very hungry; two gave out the Sabbath on the big river among the tall and were left by the way. Mr. & Mrs. Gray grass. left and went ahead. Sunday 5, Monday 6.25 Sixteen miles in Tuesday, 14; and Wednesday 15. Have the forenoon, Nooned under the shade of a been looking for the fort at the next camp, broad-spreading cedar. P. M. 19 miles. En­ yesterday and today. All along the banks camped on Rock Creek. Cold nights, and of the river where it is sandy the ground rather cool, pleasant days. Had quite a appears to have been a camp bed. Some of pleasant rain Saturday night. Mr. S.[mith] the shells are unbroken. Then the ant hills preached in his old patched pantaloons. Ser­ are spread with fragments of shells. There mon rather flat. Basalt and sedge all the is nothing but clam shell that I can dis­ cover. Were these salt or fresh water clams. way. Tuesday, August 7. Followed down Rock Where the soil is clayey, there is salt on the Creek, properly called so, as it has on either surface or something that resembles it. * “ . Mr. McKay and wife and two or three Indians go with us to our encampment, take tea with us and return” (Diary of Mrs. Eels for the same date.) * ‘Afternoom Mr.^Smith reads a sermon. Two men come from the Fort who will guide and act as Interpreters to Boise.” (Diary of Mrs. Eels for same date.) 292 The Frontier

Thursday, 16. Last night encamped op­ encamped at the lone tree. This tree stands posite Boisie. Had milk and butter for sup­ in the midst of a plain; on both sides of the per. Found that what we had expected was snow-capped mountains. At the tree met an only 40 was nearer a hundred miles. Ani­ Indian with letters from Drs. Whitman & mals pretty well worn out. Today had Gray. salmon, boiled pudding, turnip sauce for din­ Saturday, 25. A. M. 15 miles. Good road ner. One cow at the fort gave 24 quarts and cloudy cool weather. P. M. 25 miles; of milk a day. Have pumpkins too. Weath­ some rocks and hills. Just as we approached er hot. Grand Round we descended a long h ill; Friday, 17. Had Mr. Payette28 (? ) and longer than I ever walked down before. Capt. Sutor to tea. Pumpkin pies, Sturgeon, Conner’s wife was confined. She followed and turnips. camp about 30 miles; at noon she collected Saturday, IS.27 Baked &c. The fields are fuel, and prepared dinner; gave birth to a many of them yellow with sun flowers. daughter before sunset. Grass good; and soil fertile. Sunday, 26. Another quiet Sabbath. The Sunday, 19. Rather a quiet pleasant day. squaw came into camp about ten with her One service Mr. Smith preached. child in her arms, smart as could be. Grand Monday, 20. Left Boisie. Travelled per­ Round is a grand, round. haps 25 or 30 miles. Monday, 27. As the company were catch­ Tuesday, 21. Encamped on Burnt River. ing up, Mr. Roger’s29 horse threw him and Found Choke cherries, Elder berries of the hurt him considerably. He made out to ride finest sort & Sumac the first I have seen on as far as the Big Creek80 where we left him the journey. and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Conner and his Wednesday, 22. Made one camp over hills. squaw. Crossed Grand Round and encamped Conner’s squaw sick. Had to stop. at a beautiful place for a settlement. Thursday, 23. This morning a number of Tuesday, 28. Travelled through woods the animals missing; supposed to be stolen. of beautiful pine and fir, down and over Conners squaw just about to give birth (?) hills, Encamped at a pleasant spot where Can’t move camp on account of horses. Feel we met Williams coming out with fresh anxious to reach the end of this journey. horses to hasten us on. Can’t take much comfort riding. Concluded Wednesday, 29. Waiilatpu. Left baggage it was no use to try to recover the horses. behind to hasten on. Rode my pony through Moved camp about ten. Climbed hills higher the woods, then took Mr. W’s and then than any we have passed at all. They told cantered on. Arrived at Dr. Whitman’s us we were done with mountains long ago; about 2 P. M. Found Mr. & Mrs. Spalding but if these are not hills I know not what there. Mr. Gray and wife gone to Walla they are. The woman safe in camp; think Walla. We were feasted at first on mellons, it a hard case in such circumstances to ride pumpkin pies and milk. Capt. Sutor was some 12 miles up hill and down. Passed with us. Just as we were sitting down to some granite; have seen none before for a eat mellons the house became thronged with long time. Indians. So we were obliged to suspend Friday, August 24.28 Rode 25 miles & eating and shake hands with some 30, 40 or ” Friday 17 Francois Payette was Hudsons’ Bay factor at Fort Boise. . . Some of the gentlemen of the Post send us a piece of sturgeon for breakfast.” (Diary of Mrs. Eels for same date.) ®*ktur

in the Flathead country.” (Diary ol Mrs K / X w a f t h a t made in 1836 by Rev. Henry "Among the important early settlements in I^a r nthe present'settlement^ of Ford. 294 The Frontier

we had been doing. We had an interesting, natives. Then sermon by Mr. Eells— Behold and I think, a happy season, notwithstand­ what manner of love &c was the text. Two ing all the hardness that has existed among expresses from Walla Walla; letters from us. We feel that we have great cause of the Methodist Mission. News of the death gratitude, and much encouragement to go of (?) Mr. Whites’ child, 8 months old.58 forward in the work. Monday, Sept. 10. Waiilatpu. Rose early; Monday, 3. Waiilatpu. We formed a Ma­ worked hard as I could till Mr. Walker got ternal Association, Mrs. Spalding president, ready to start which was at three P. M. Mrs. Whitman corresponding secretary, Mrs. After crying a little picked up and found Gray recording secretary. The Monthly Con­ myself somewhat tired. O h! dear how I cert was observed. The Maternal Association would like to be at home about this time, is to meet on the second and last Wednesday and see brothers, hear from all the good of each month. I was appointed Vice Pres. folks! I wish I could have a letter from We are to hold meetings at each Station, some of them. and report to the Recording Sec. as often as Tuesday, 11. Waiilatpu. Worked with is practicable. Mr. Rogers some. Not very bright today. Tuesday, 4. Waiilatpu. A social feast on Toward night had an express from Clear mellons. Messrs. Spalding & Gray & wives Water.34 Dr. Whitman returned from left us. W.[alla] W.[alla]; brought good news from Wednesday, 5. Waiilatpu. Husband, Eells our husbands (Walker & Eells) Hope they and wife went to Walla Walla; I regulated will make a successful expedition. my room and washed. Wednesday, 12. Waiilatpu. Attended an Thursday, Sept. 6. Waiilatpu. Assisted Indian funeral for the first time. Our Ma­ Mrs. Whitman a little in washing. Sewed ternal Association was observed. Feel very a little. Put up seeds &c. Mr. W.[alker] and much like doing very little. Don’t know Mr. Rogers returned. Mr. Eells and wife took when I shall do all my sewing, it tires me so. a wrong road, and we know not what has Thursday, 13. Felt rather indisposed in become o f them. the A. M. in the P. M. felt better. Washed Friday, 7. Waiilatpu. This morning all the afternoon. rainy, Mr. & Mrs. Eells found their way back Friday, Sept. 14. Baked bread in the morn­ without getting much wet Worked some ing, sewed for myself in the fore noon, with in the kitchen; finished making Mr. W’s Mr. Rogers in the P. M. leather pantaloons. Ironed. Saturday, 15. Gathered seeds in the fore­ Saturday, 8. Waiilatpu. Repaired a pair noon, wrote in the afternoon. Mr. McCay of pantaloons &c. Mr. Eells commenced les­ came. son in musick on the blackboard. Had an Sunday, 16. Waiilatpu. Mr. Smith interesting group of 20 or 30 Indians. They preached. Finished writing my letters, one appear much interested. I feel anxious to to Mr. W[alker’s] folks and one to mine. be able to teach them m yself; think there Monday, Sept. 17. Mr. Whitman set out is every encouragement to labor for their for Vancouver. We rose very early. I churned good. and wrote to Mrs. Perkins &c.85 In the Sunday, Sept. 9. Waiilatpu. Prayer meet­ P. M. began to work on my husband's coat. ing in the morning. Then instruction to The Dr. hurried and austled about just as Jason Lee White named after the missionary, Jason Lee. The father. Dr. Elijah White, «im e with the Methodist delegation in 1837. The following reference from a letter of Mrs. Whitman, dated Sept. 25, 1838, may be found in the Oregon Pioneer Transactions (1887-1892, “ 8-8® 1 Mrs. White, in paying a visit with Mr. Leslie to Mrs. Perkins, at The Dalles, who is expecting to be confined soon, on her return in an Indian canoe, with the Indian pilots, got upset. She was taken up by the Indians, and hung to the canoe, which was bottom upwards. Mr. Leslie was taken up in the same way, but the little son about eight months cdJJ*d not be rescued until life had become extinct. They floated for more than a mile, witn the bodies in the water, before they could be taken to land. Thus you see dangers stand fast on every side.” A more affecting though longer account of this accident may be found on page 120 ff. of this same volume. 31 Spaulding’s mission was on the Clearwater river in Idaho. 38 Mrs. Perkins— probably one of her many eastern friends. 295 The Frontier my husband does. Finally he got in such since he left and longer still before he will a fret that his wife began to cry which return. I can hardly refrain from tears brought him to him self; and he went on every time I think of him. I know I am more calmly till he got ready to start. foolish; but I cannot help it. I ought to be Tuesday, 18. Waiilatpu. Mr. Rogers re­ thankful that I have so good a husband, and turned from Walla Walla. Left Francuis(?) that I have enjoyed his society so much; and Wednesday 19, Waiilatpu. * * * Mrs. not be sad because he is gone a little while. Monday 24. Run here and there; accom­ Bells helped me, and we finished Mr. W ’s plish but little. The weather is so warm coat. Then I washed and did up her silk dress. My health is good and I enjoy myself I can (have) little comfort. Tuesday, 25. Rote verses a considerable quite well: only I want to see my good part of the day. Had a letter from Clear husband. Hope Mr. Bells will come soon Water, Nothing said about dangers and the so I can hear from him. like. Concert in the evening, All of us Thursday, 20. Mr. Rogers left for Mr. prayed. I succeeded better, I think, than I Spalding’s. In the afternoon letter from do sometimes. Mr. S. informing that they were in trouble. Wednesday, 26. Maternal Association, Dick & Conner so alarmed they can neither Reading, four prayers, singing original lines. eat nor sleep. He does not dare part with Thursday, 27. Rain last night and this Compa.36 (Rest o f word missing.) I hope morning. Mended a pair o f gloves. that it will please god to turn the hearts of Friday, 28. Pleasant. Mr. S. is thrashing the Savages, and stay them from violence, wheat with his Indians. and not suffer our hopes of success as mis­ Saturday Sept. 29. Wrote letter to Mrs. sionaries to be blasted. Chester and Aunt Moody. * * * We were Friday, Sept 21. Sewed in the A. M. hoping to hear from our husbands by this washed in the P. M. Hope when I get to time. Mrs. E.[ells] manifests much solicitude our Station, I shall make a manage to do about hers; and I would like at least to hear my washing in the morning, and a few other from mine. things I will try to have different from what Sunday, Sept. 30. Waiilatpu. Mrs. Whit­ I find them here. man’s babe sick, exercises in consequence Saturday 22. Mrs. W[hitman], E[ells] & rather deranged. Was much interested in myself went to visit the Indian lodges. Found hearing an Indian go over the story of the some eating, some lying down, some dressing Prodigal Son. His gestures were so expres­ skins, &c. And some were packing up to move. sive. No sermon in Bnglish; Mr. S[mith] They, most of them, seemed busy, especially taught the Indians as well as he could. the women. If they only could have toler­ Monday, October 1. Wrote in the morn­ able opportunities, I see not why they could ing to Miss Harriet Johnson. Did not fill not soon rise to a rank among civilized be­ my sheet for want of time, tho’ I might ings. have had time as well as n ot; for Mrs. Sunday, 25, Waiilatpu. At morning wor­ W[hitman] kept the Indian waiting for her ship, a family prayer meeting. Worship letters two hours. with the Indians. Mrs. W.[hitman] read from Tuesday 2. In the morning wrote to Mr. Mr. Spaulding’s book; prayer in Bnglish, sing­ Pumbrun, and Dr. Whitman. Washed some ing in Nez P. In the P. M. sermon by Mr. S. and that is about aU that I have done today [mith] They faith have saved thee. Pret­ that counts. This evening weekly concert; ty good for him. Toward evening a mar­ made a prayer. Wish I knew whether my riage Mrs. W. (&) Creekey interpreted for husband likes to have me pray before folks Mr. Smith. I have read considerable today; or not. When he comes home I will ask but every little while I would my mind on him. Fear when he comes home he will my husband. It seems a long time already be disappointed that I am no better pro­

In his cares. He is an excellent man, and we feel as if th e J ^ d h a d sent him here. t of Mrs. Whitman—Sept. 15, 1838—Oregon Pioneer Transaction*—1887-1892 rage i l l .) 296 The Frontier

ficient in the language. Hope I shall soon Wednesday, 10. Have sorted out the more be able to give more attention to it. important words of one third of the dic­ Wednesday, 3.87 Wrote to Mary Blodget. tionary. Maternal Asso. in the P. M. In Ironed; & made some black lines for Mrs. the evening plenty sing with the Indians, a E. Mrs. W. and myself. hymn prepared by Mr. Smith. Thursday, Oct. 4. Wrote to Eliza Rich­ Thursday, 11. Sent o ff more letters for ardson and Josiah Pierce.38 Helped hull the States. Worked about the house most some corn. Mrs. Eells is in a great worry of the day, hulling corn, taking care of because she expects to be obliged to winter Alice,88 washing, ironing, picking husks. Got here; and Mrs. Smith is worried for fear quite tired. In the evening finished my dic­ her husband will not get along so well (if) tionary. Sat up till near 11. Thinking it Messrs Walker and Eells are here. All goes might rain, brought in the clothes. well enough with me. Am glad I am not Friday, 12, Waiilatpu. Rained consider­ one of the worrying sort. I know I do not ably last night. Mr. W. & Mrs. S. were seem to be doing much; but I do as much much concerned about their clothes; glad as I can, and what is the use of being this morning to find them safe and dry. troubled and impatient. I have finished all Saturday, Oct. 13. Stewed pumpkin, baked my letters, and wish husband could read pie. Mrs. Whitman was quite out with Mr. them before I send them off. Smith because he was not willing to let Friday, 5. Waiilatpu. Sewed some, read her have Jack to help her. Husband and Mr. some, Had letters from Clear Water, Campo Eells came about noon. Was glad enough came. Female prayer meeting. once more to see my husband; and he seemed Saturday, October 6. Reading, sewing; glad to see me. I suppose he really was; commenced making my dictionary. Mr. S. for he has no faculty for making believe. requested Compo to say something to the Could not sleep all night for joy. Indians. * * * Sunday, 14. Meeting out doors; large as­ Sunday, October 7. One service in English, sembly. Husband preached in the house in two in N[ez Perces]. Mrs. W.[hitman] suc­ English. ceeded very well with the aid of Compo. Liked Monday 15. We were beginning to be Mr. S.fmith’s] discourse very much better anxious about Dr. W ; but before breakfast than any I have heard him preach before. he came. We were glad, glad, glad to see Have been searching my heart today to see him. A day of rejoicing all day. Husband how much sinfulness could be found there. writing to the secretaries. Detect so much in others, fear I do not see Wednesday, 16. Dr. W., Mr. Walker, & it quick in myself and husband as I do else­ Mr. Eells went to Walla Walla. Repaired where. Do not think I have so much o f the a dress for Mrs. Whitman. small kind, yet suspect the principal may Thursday, Oct. 18, 1838. Husbands re­ be the same deeply implanted in my heart, turned from W[alla Walla] in the evening; and secretly be working its mischief there. when they came, complained of the cold. O that in heart and life I were in more de­ Eat apples sent from Vancouver. gree conformed to that of the Savior! Friday, 19. Confusion all day, dividing Monday, 8. * * * Wrote to husband and books, goods &c. did some other things. Saturday, 20. Rain yesterday and today. Tuesday, 9. Hear our husbands are at Fear that the winter is about to set in. Mr. Spaldings. Weekly concert in the eve­ Sunday, 21. Mr. Eells preached, Text, ning. Godliness is profitable &c. An e**ract from one of Mrs. Whitman’s letters written this same day reads: “Messrs W. and E. have gone to explore, and letters from them recently received, say the Big- Heal’s land, the chief of the Flatheads, situated near Spokane Falls, is the place recommended by Mr. McDonald as the most favorable for a station—had not yet decided— intended to v isit other places. Their ladies will probably remain with u s during the winter, particularly Mrs. Walker. (Oregon Pioneer Transactions— 1887-1892 Page 119.) 38 The first her sister; the second, a friend. 3* Alice Clarissa Whitman (1837-39). She was drowned. For an affecting account of this 1892 Pa e ^ O f f 61*8 dated Sept* 30 and ° ct- 9* 1839— Oregon Pioneer Transactions— 1887- 297 The Frontier

Monday, 22 Choring all day. Hulling him. If he should be taken away, I should corn, made a little soap. Washed and ironed be so lonely and disconsolate, I could be a little. more contented to die and leave him, could Saturday, 27. For several days past have I know that he could obtain another better been cutting and fixing little things. Mrs. than myself. After experiencing so much Bells has helped me sew. Today baked pies of the goodness o f Ood, shall (I not leave) and hulled corn. Health good, weather fair. myself, my husband, my all In his hands. Dr. W’s house going up. Mr. Rogers here: Thus I will endeavor to do. May God still left yesterday, owning (?) discouraged. be merciful to us, and if consistant with his Sunday, O ct 28. Waiillatpu. Mr. Walker will spare us long to be a blessing to each preached in Bnglish, Dr. W.[hitman] instruct­ other May his blessing also rest upon the ed the Indians. There are many sources of hap­ little one which we fondly expect soon to piness with me. But I am ashamed and welcome as ours. Oh may it be dedicated to confounded when I reflect on the pride and God, and sanctified from its birth. self conceit of my heart; there is no coming Monday, 5. Husband returned from to the bottom of it go deep as I will, pride W.falla] W.[alla] just as we were dressing still lurks under pride. in the morning. Did not meet the Catholic Monday, Oct. 29. Washed; wrote a letter priests, the boats having met with a dis­ to mother. aster, and 12 or 13 persons drowned. Very Tuesday, 30. Cutting out small clothes, windy, unpleasant riding this morning. and repairing old ones. Stay in my room Mr. Walker has laid in bed most of the most of the time, though it is rather cold. day. Monthly concert In the evening. * * * Wednesday Oct. 31 to Friday Nov. 2. Busy Tuesday, 6. Slept little last night, mostly about sundry affairs; sit up late nights, and in consequence of something husband said sleep well. to me, Rather indisposed all day. Saturday, November 3. Last night Mr. Wednesday 7, Thursday, 8. Making small Pumbrun sent us a quarter of beef. He was affairs. Weather cold and freezing, so they expecting some Catholic priests to visit him, cannot use the wind mortar. and so he slew the old creameolored cow Friday, 9. So cold everything freezes. which was 23 years old. He also sent the Door latches stick to the fingers only a few tripe, so that I have had the job of cleaning feet from the fire. Washed, and wrote to it. Mr. P.[ambrun] also invited the old Mrs. Perkins. gentlemen here over to call over and make Saturday, 10. Filled my bed. Pleasant his guests a visit. They hardly knew what weather. to do about accepting it, but finally con­ Sunday, 11. Sacrament. Mr. Smith cluded it was best. Dr. W.[hitman], Mr. preached and officiated. Oh that I had a W.[alker] & Mr. Bells have gone; Mr. little chamber where I could secrete myself S[mith] declined saying that it looked and not see so many folks all the time. too much like countenancing Romanism. Monday, 12. Waiilatpu. Staid in Mrs. Hope our husbands will manage discretely. Whitman’s room and sewed all day. A little Sunday, 4. A long day to me. A day snow last night. seems a week as it were when my dear Tuesday, 13: At work about house most husband is absent. Worked too hard, took of the day. Mrs. W.[hitman] rather indis­ cold or something, so that I have not felt posed. Mr. Walker’s favorite mule kicked very well today. Have felt to irresolute him. to read much, so have thought and prayed Wednesday, 14. Dr. W.[hitman] sick with the more. This evening I have been looking toothache. Mrs. W[hitman] nurses him. Mr. over my old journals, and weeping over Bells mule throws him and lamed him, Marta sick; her husband I found by her bed weep­ fond recollections. Love my dear husband so much that al­ ing. Maternal Meeting postponed. The hills most the only fear is that he does not love all around covered with snow. as much. I find It hard to be reconciled Friday, 16. Worked about the house all to the thought of ever being separated from day. Got very tired. Mrs. W[hitman] appears 298 The Frontier to feel cross at every body. Was so tired I most of the time. Husband at work on thought I would not work so again; but harnesses. Sits up with me till 12 o’clock, this evening tried to sew a little. Got so much to the annoyance of Mr. Eells. tired that I could do but little. Talked with Friday, November 30. Dr. W.[hitman] Mrs. Whitman; she seems to worry about quite out of patience with Mr. Smith. Mrs. (something) : went out and blustered around, W[hitman] washing; think she has less help and succeeded in melting over her tallow. from the other ladies than she ought. Saturday, 17. Notwithstanding my resolu­ Saturday, December, 1. 1838. Waiilatpu. tion not to work so hard, I commenced in Rose as soon as I could see to dress by the morning and continued till night with­ daylight, having rested well. Mr. E.[ells] very out even stopping to warm my feet, which careful to have me understand that he was were rather cold. * * * much disturbed by my late hours. Have Sunday, 18. Did not rest comfortably last worked very hard all day. Health good. night, being so much fatigued and wor­ Sunday, 2nd. Mr. Smith preached. Have ried. * * * Mr. Eells preached. assisted Margaret in doing the house work. Monday, 19. “Tuesday, 20. Not as well Have been reading the Memoirs of Martha as I have been. Am obliged to let the work Reed.40 about the house go without doing it. Monday, 3. Monthly Concert in the eve­ Wednesday, 21. Maternal meeting. Fear ning, after which Dr. his wife, Mr. E & I shall be sick before a room is ready for wife, husband and self sit up till midnight me. Messrs. Walker and Eells very much talking about Mr. S &c. Mrs. W gets to engaged in making harness and whips. Mr. feeling very bad, goes to bed crying. W[alker] has not bathed for some weeks. Tuesday, 4. Mr. S. moves into the new Maria not about yet. The weather is not as house. Mr. W puts up a partition. I work cold as it has been for some time. Eat now­ about the house some and make a cap. Mrs. adays plenty of boiled wheat, potatoes, horse W in a sad mood all day. did not present meat and salmon. No bread for a week past. herself at the breakfast table, went out Thursday, 22. Mrs. Whitman making doors down by the river to cry. soap. Somewhat rainy. Wednesday, 5. Moved into my new room. Friday, 23, Mrs. W.[hitman] washing. Think to find it very comfortable. A kind Cross time of it. Had to work about house Providence seems to provide for me all I more than I meant to because no one else need. offered to do it. Thursday, 6. Mr. Walker went to W. W. Sunday, 25. Rather indisposed yesterday I was busy all day regulating my room. and today. Mr. Walker preached. Weather My bed spread. Had my room washed. After damp and foggy. Monday, 26. Quite better. Washed a which I went out several times, brought in little; Sewed a little, Jack washed the floor fuel, and built a fire to dry it. Put up my curtains in the evening, and after 9 Tonight rainy. Has been dark and foggy o’clock made two table cloths. Retired about for some days. Tuesday, 27. Washed with Mrs. S.[mithl 12.41 A very pleasant day. Friday, December 7, Waiilatpu. Awoke Wednesday, 28. Casting candle wicks. My about five o’clock, (gave birth to a son)42 turn to lead the Maternal Association. Saturday, 8. Quite comfortable. Mrs. W. Weather foggy. dresses the babe. Thursday, 29. Mrs. Whitman dipping can­ Sunday, 9. Took medicine, Mr. Eells dles. Ironed sundry things. On my feet preached: Mr. Walker remained with me. *° Memories of Martha Reed—Unidentified—Possibly a Journal of another missionary; everyone made diaries then. *' "Allowance should be made for Mrs. Walker’s condition in judging of what she writes about others. Furthermore, no one who has not been through it can form any idea of the effect of such isolation on the minds and temper of the best of people. It is a test, not so muoh of the goodness of their hearts, as of their natural ability to endure the unnatural conditions under which they are obliged to live.” (A note by W. S. Lewis.) a This is the Cyrus Walker through whose help Mr. Lewis was able to make his transcription. The Frontier 299

Monday 10. Up for the first time. Mrs. taken cold ; experience soreness in all my Smith took my washing. bowels. Am relieved by sweating. Take mor­ Tuesday, 11. Nipples very sore. Worry phine and calomel. Go to bed, sleep sound. with my babe, get all tired out. Wednesday, 19. Margaret continues to Wednesday, 12. Mrs. E taking care of draw my breast. Extracts curd and salt me. Very nervous. Milk gets caked in my milk. breast, have it steamed and drawed alter­ Thursday, 20. One breast quite comfort­ nately till it seems better, then cover it able ; the other sore as ever. with sticking plaster. Go to bed; husband Friday, 21. Eat and drink all I can, and sleeps, but I get very little. keep nursing my babe in order to make milk. Thursday, 13. Little Cyrus, for so we Mrs. Whitman plenty jaw at me. Right call our little son, having slept all day was breast very painful. very troublesome all night, so that his father Saturday, 22. Slept pretty well last night; got very little rest. Mrs. Eells is my nurse quite comfortable except my sore nipple. by day, and Mr. Walker by night. Margaret Wish much to write a great deal in my draws my breasts for me, else I know not journal, but suppose it is not prudent at what I should do. present. Have abundant cause for grati­ Friday, 14. Nipples very sore. Think I tude, not withstanding I suffer much pain have a rather tedious time of it. Gain very and anguish. little strength on account of suffering so Sunday, 23. My very kind husband spent much with my breasts. Hope they are be­ the whole day with me. What could I do ginning to heal a little. Have just brought were it not for my husband. my journal up to present time, which was Monday, 24. Was restless and uncomfort­ a week behind. able the first part of the night. This morn­ Saturday, 15. Rather smarter today than ing quite discouraged; fear I shall not be yesterday. Eat some broth, beef and pota­ able to nurse with more than one breast. toes. Nipples sore as ever. Babe nurses Tuesday, 25. More comfortable, partly be­ all I have, and has to go a begging. Thought cause my boy is unable any longer to draw a week ago I should be out of the house by my breast which is nearly dry. The other this time. Have great cause for thankful­ about as it has been for some time, as pain­ ness that I am as well as I am. ful as I can bear without ado. Sunday, 16. Gaining in health and strength. Wednesday, 26. Letter from Mr. Spauld­ Breasts some better. Mr. W. preaches. Stays ing ; more peaceable than some former ones. in my room most of the time, converses with Dr. Whitman half resolved to go to Clear me a good deal; enjoy his society very much. Water, partly on Eliza’s48 account, who, he Think he never seemed kinder. Have com­ is apprehensive, has the dropsy in her head. menced reading today for the first time since Thursday, 27. Am up and stirring about my confinement. my room again today. Hope I shall not take Monday, 17. Felt quite out of sorts this cold again. My left breast quite sore: Feel morning because they did not bring me plenty much concerned lest I lose that also. to eat, was very faint for want of food. At Friday, 28. Looked for the first time sinee breakfast took hold of horse flesh with a my confinement beyond the confines of my pretty good appetite. Thro the day I have little apartment. Husband and Dr. W[hitman] been pretty well supplied. Tonight felt I are gone to the mountains. Tavier is sleeping had been ungrateful to murmur. Sat up on the floor. Babe rests well. I have worked and tended my babe about half the day. hard ail day. Was pretty tired when I came Took a nap. This eve made a cap for my to bed, but am getting rested. babe. The first time I have sewed any. Fear Saturday, 29. Try very hard to invent have worked too hard. artificial nipples. Do not succeed. Feel Tuesday, 18. Waiilatpu. Very sick all day. very much unreconciled to the idea of being Steaming, fuss over breast all day. Have unable to nurse my babe. •» Eliza was the maiden name of Mrs. H. H. Spaulding. This may have been the daughter, Eliza, who was born November 16, 1887. 300 The Frontier

Sunday, 30. Took supper with the family. has been a year o f mercies. A year ago Find my health in a good measure restored. tonight I sat with my sisters by the fire Babe in good health, no appearance of sore side of my father, and watched the old year mouth. Nurse him mostly with a bottle. (go out) Now I find myself on the other Feel more reconciled than I did yesterday. side of the continent a wife and a mother. Though the dispensations o f Providence often Surely this is a changing world. With no appear dark, yet they are In the end for the one has Ood dealt in more mercy than with best. How do I know but the want of means me. O ! may I be quickened to a sense of to nurse my babe may be the greatest of my duty to God and man, to myself, my blessings? husband and my child. Affliction drops a tear at the thought of friends and home I What else I want or think I do, have le ft; but it is not a tear of regret. ’Tis better still to want. I rejoice to find myself where I am with a Monday December, 21, 1838. Waiilatpu. prospect of entering ere long on the labors Oregon Territory. Have obtained a mare’s I have so long sought. Farewell departing tit. Hope to succeed in using it. I have year; I number thee among my happiest now reached the close of another year. It Thanks to God for all his goodness.

BO O K SHELF

Comment by the Editor. whether this region is not “old enough to have acquired cultural Identity.” A reader Desert Poems. Ada Hastings Hedges. Met­ o f the Anthology misses a dominant cultural ropolitan Press (Portland, Oregon). 1930. note, and Is not quite convinced of the pres­ $1.25. ence of the “cosmopolitan” expression. Mr. Anthology of Southern California Verse. Palmerston, however, writes an interesting Sponsored by The Verse Writers Club of introduction. Southern California. Primavera Press (Los Several Frontier contributors have verse Angeles). 1930. $2.00. in this collection, notably Arthur Truman In quiet verse of great beauty, mostly in Merrill. Two or three nationally known the sonnet form. Miss Hedges brings to ex­ names appear. One wishes that more of the pression her love and fear and understanding writers came to grips with life more con- of the desert. Obviously she has not rushed sumingly. Miss Probst’s not quite success­ her verse into print, but has allowed her ful “The Steeps of Dawn” and Mr. Merrill’s poetic conceptions and her command of ex­ successful “Homesteader” are interesting be­ pression to mature, with the result that her cause they do make the attempt. Young small volume of poems is a genuine literary poets seem inevitably drawn to thin themes possession of which the Northwest can be and conscious expression. It takes time to proud. There Is hardly a poem but has its learn that poetry is not words rimed and beautiful phrase or conception or flash of rhythmed, but thought and feeling in the revealing insight. Throughout there is even­ heart of man. Two sonnets by LeRoy Mac­ ness of execution indicative of careful and Leod, “ Shadows” by Colin Palmerston, and loving artistry. The title of the volume sug­ “ Dawn Poem,” aside from the two poems al­ gests the narrowed theme; the prevailing ready mentioned, deserve special notice. It form indicates the narrowed field of technic. is good to have anthologies. Out of abun­ These are self-imposed restrictions. Within dance of effort come the few living beauties. them material is finely molded. The Metro­ The New Regionalism in American Litera­ politan Press is to be congratulated upon ture. Carey McWilliams. University of publishing in one month two such volumes as Washington Chapbooks. 1930. 65c. this one and Howard Coming’s The Moun­ Professor Botkin in Folk-Say for 1929 tain in the Sky. provided the basis for Mr. McWilliams’s dis­ The Anthology of Southern California cussion of The New Regionalism. In the Verse indicates much poetic activity around second annual edition he provides another Los Angeles. The editors in the introduction introductory essay in part meeting some of point out the lack of a local note, asserting Mr. McWilliams’s strictures, though written that it will take some years for it to develop, before his pamphlet. Mr. Botkin seems, since “adopted voices have come from every however, to have merged, in his thinking, community of the world.” One wonders folklore and regionalism even more complete- S wing along\

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301 ly, almost to the point of abandonment of the latter term. He does think more in terms of the present in this essay than in the earlier one. On the whole, he places provo­ THE cative queries before workers in both Ameri­ can folklore and American regionalism. WESTERN MONTANA Some critics, notably Mr. John T. Frederick, editor of The Midland, regard the regional NATIONAL BANK movement as in a late stage; critics living farther west than Chicago regard the move­ ment as in its highly productive stage; and MISSOULA, MONTANA some even farther west feel that, for their Affiliated with the First Bank region at least, it is decidedly “on the grow.” Some of Mr. Botkin’s queries will be an­ Stock Corporation swered, they feel, out of experience yet to come. And the present writer for one be­ lieves that regionalism has yet to establish Total Resources Over its full force as a power in American litera­ ture. Readers interested should read Section Five Million VII carefully. Meanwhile, such volumes as Folk-Say, rich with tales, traditions of the people, poems of DIRECTORS local nature, fragments of essays on folk backgrounds, and book reviews, are valuable F. T. Sterling editions for scholars and creative workers W. L. Murphy alike. The material is classified under seven C. F. Kelley headings: The Wind Rides By, Old Timers, H. O. BeU One Foot in the Road, Many Voices, To-My- J. W. Sterling Rang-Tang-a-Whaddle-Linky-Dey, Wide Riv­ L. O. Evans er, Folk Backgrounds; and there is a section Newell Gough headed Bibliographical, divided into sections on The Quest of the Folk Tale and the Folk Song, and The Southwest in Literature. The book has the collaboration of many reliable and tested writers. It is also a beautifully printed volume. Mr. McWilliams has massed considerable evidence of a new regionalism, yet one feels that the essay would have done better to scan regionalism in America as a whole, at John R. Daily, Inc. least since, let us say, 1910. The only netc- ness one feels in present writing is latemess. 115-119 West Front St. It is regrettable, also, that the author based so much of his essay on Mr. Botkin’s Folk- PHONES: Say (1929) essay. His hits of criticism are Retail 2181-2182. Wholesale 3416 palpable, but not of great consequence. Mr. McWilliams penetrates into more significance and writes much more entertainingly at the Wholesale and Retail Dealers in end of his essay when “on his own.” He should not have trusted Mr. Botkin’s lists Fresh and Salt Meats, Fish, of names, either, as indicative of regional Poultry and Oysters writers. Even errors of initials and spell­ ing are copied. Still, the essay throws out into relief for notice and discussion a lit­ Packers of erary movement of importance, and one can only be grateful to Mr. McWilliams for un­ dertaking the task and presenting his thought Da-Co Hams so as to provoke discussion. The Navajo Indians. Mary and Dane Cool- BACON and LARD idge. Houghton Mifflin. 1930. $4.00. A more informative book or one that the “Montana Payroll Products” reader unlearned in Southwest Indian lore BRANCH: feels he can trust has not been written. To establish, the Mongolian origin of these In­ Model Market, 309 No. Higgins dians will require more evidence and more writing than this book contains. When, how­ Phone 2835 ever, the authors describe the daily lives, the beliefs, and the lore of the Navajos the reader feels on secure ground, and the book 302 assumes importance. Parts II and III, deal­ ing with Navajo Arts and Crafts, and Myth­ ology and Cferemony, which run through 150 pages, are most valuable and interesting. The PETERSON’S book has been finely printed and illustrated, and the inside of the cover carries a map of Navajo territory. PEROXIDE CREAM Black Cherries. Grace Stone Coates. Knopf. 1931. $2.50. Many years ago a French seamstress, Mile. will cure Audoux, wrote a book entitled Marie Claire, which, when translated into English, stirred Chapped, Rough Skin American critics into extravagant praise. There was a singular artistry exhibited in Over Night. the restraint with which the author wrote and the nicety with which details were chosen; but the penetration into the child’s 30c, 60c, $1.00, $1.50 jars mind was not complete and the attitude was a little too sentimental and somewhat doctrinal. Mrs. Coates has presented with finer language skill, with as significant choice of detail, without a trace of senti­ mentality, and with no sense of instruction or reverence for childhood, the genuine work­ Peterson Drug ing of a child mind. Emphasis should be laid on the fact that this child’s mind works; Company it struggles in an endeavor to understand those strange folk, grown-ups. The two A good place to trade worlds, therefore, of child and adult, get clearly presented, the former richly, with play of imagination, and the latter critically | MISSOULA MONTANA from the child’s viewpoint. One is somewhat reminded of Hergesheimer’s Presbyterian Child, but makes little comparison when he recalls that writer’s preciousness in the writ­ ing of that splendid portrayal. Mrs. Coates’s prose is natural and at the same time alive and brilliant with color and sheen. The sen­ timental reader will find a hardness in the ARCADE GROCERY attitude; but he will be one who never knows how objective, and therefore how hard, chil­ COMPANY dren’s views are. It will be a long time be­ fore a book about childhood will be written with comparable whimsy, imagination, under­ standing, honesty, brilliance. Mr. Knopf has Stores at given the book beautiful printing and bind­ ing. The Quest for Literature. Joseph T. Ship- 110 W. Main ley. R. H. Smith, Inc. 1931. $2.50. This book is “ largely a conspectus of what Phone 2137 men through the ages have thought about literature.” It presents; it doesn’t argue; 601 Woody (Farley Co.) neither does it come often to conclusions. Some such book has been needed for four Phone 2171 or five years, to orient the new theories and practices in art with the stream of theory and practices flowing down the centuries. The reader must keep his wits about him— as the author has kept his. Everything in Groceries Towards Standards. Norman Foerster. Farrar & Rinehart. 1930. $2.50. The Dilemma of the Liberated. Gorham Munson. Coward-McCann. 1930. $3.50. Fresh Fruits and Quite evidently each of these books was written to supply the obvious need for a Vegetables manual of information concerning the move­ ment known as The New Humanism. It is an ironical fact that the successive attempts of Mr. Foerster, the self elected call-boy of the present day humanists, to serve his ardently cherished cause reveal him as in­ creasingly ineffective. The single important chapter which his latest volume contains is Up Higgins Ave. reprinted from an earlier, and much abler, work. Humanism would languish if it had to depend for its appeal upon such exegesis two or three blocks as Mr. Foerster’s. Though Mr. Munson stands apart from the you’ll find inner circle of its adherents, he champions the humanist doctrine with skill and ardor. What is more important, he criticises it, also with skill and ardor. As a result of this double service his readers are likely to find their interest in humanism agreeably stimulated. In any event they can hardly escape becoming enlightened about it. For Mr. Munson provides them not only with an adequate account of the history and re­ cent status of this the most vital of move­ ments in modern thought but with trust­ worthy guidance to the significant writings of its high-priests and interpreters as well. The standards toward which Mr. Foerster LUNCHES and his fellows would have mankind prog­ ress must, in Mr. Munson’s opinion, be ad­ vanced beyond the domain of humanism on COFFEE BEER into that of divinism. In other words the major defect of the humanistic program lies in its insufficient concern with religion. The dilemma of the liberated, which is to say of the humanists, is that sooner or later they are bound to be confronted with the reliza- tion that having attained a disciplined way of life they have nothing further to live for. Among the lesser defects of humanism Mr. Munson points out its attitude of disdain for psychology, which amounts to a stupid Dependable refusal to employ the one scientific tool available for carrying out its basic precept, “Know thyself.” Again, there is the incom­ Laundry Service plete understanding of economics and poli­ tics evinced on the part of its leaders, and the consequent lessening of the value of their comment on current social problems. Finally, the humanists’ insistence on the law of mea­ sure in all things precludes the possibility of their teachings ever making good the in­ hibiting lack of spiritual ecstasy in the con­ FLORENCE temporary state of mind. Portland, V. L. O. Chit tick LAUNDRY From Henry Harrison, New York. Selected Poems, by Benjamin Musser. Unity of effect is difficult in a book of se­ COMPANY lected poems. One does not feel here the individuality and sincerity of Bucolics and Caviar. The sonnet sequence, “The Ladder,” has beauty to recommend it but just fails to grip the reader because of uncertainty in the story that necessitates constant re­ viewing to determine who is who. One poem selected from Bucolics and Caviar is espe­ cially beautiful and appealing, “To His Chil­ DIAL 2302 dren.” But one is tempted to ask, “Why not call it just ‘Children’ ?” The Little Blue Flute, by Charles Beghtol. This is a Hopi love-story attractively and tinklingly told. One recalls Laughing Boy and its background of high mesas, mountain retreats, waterfalls, silver and turquoise belts, bracelets, rugs on the looms, sacred dances, charms, Christian aspirations, pagan DISTRIBUTORS prayers that seem just as honest, and par­ ental blundering that seems quite modern. Much of the story is in rhymed free verse, Shell 400 Gasoline some of it in un-rhymed. The meters may be Hopi, but the impression is strong of a Shell M otor Oils white girl rather than an Indian maiden tell­ ing the story. From The Claflin Printing Company, Lin­ Quaker State M otor Oil coln, Nebraska. The Out-of-Doors, by Willis Hudspeth. Auto Accessories Parts One’s first thought was, he must have found & a rhyming dictionary approved by Elinor Wylie. But it is more than that for one meets such amazing words in the middle of his lines too— drupes, gracile, crunk, lowth, strake, glyptic, hurst, sprangles, calidity!!! And his range of subjects is as broad as his vocabulary. He uses innumerable forms and his verse varies in quality from very good to very poor. Among his sonnets, “ Where Things Are Big” and “A Whiff of Tar,” are best. “Daguerreotypes” is probably the McKenzie-Wallace worst. Missoula Mary Brennan Clapp Service Co. COLONEL CROCKETT’S RIDE ON THE BACK OF A BUFFALO Continued from page 276 boys had found a huraah’s neest. I took up old Kill-devil, and out I went, and about a hundred yards from the camp there war an old buffalo bull with a hundred little screech­ ing imps about him, with their bows and arrows. They’d stuck so many arrows in Schramm-Hebard him that he looked as thorny as a honey locus or a porky-pine; but they hadn’t got deep enough to touch the rite spot. First Meat Co. the old Turk would go arter one full chizzle; but then another would stick an arro into his posterity, saving your presence, and Fresh and Smoked Meats, round he would turn and arter the little tor­ Poultry, Fish and Oysters ment like an ate-horse baggage waggin. I railly pitied the old cretur, and sez I, “It are railly a shame to let this uncircumsised Our Home Cured Ham, Bacon and Fillistin defy the army of Israel in this Fresh Rendered Lard are equal to ridiculous way. I’ll let him know there’s a the best on the market. warrant out arter him,” and I wur gwine to blaze away; but an old Injun kort me el­ 4* 4* bow, and axed me if it were the way in Kentuck to hinder the children from having a little dust of diversion that did no harm Our prices are right and to no one. service the best. “Truth are the truth,” sez I, “if an Injun do speak it, and my sarvis to you for the Phone 3191 417 N. Higgins compliment.” After a wile the old devil’s baby of a bull 305 laid down, for he’d lost a purty smart chance of blood, and what doz one o f the b’ys do, but gits astraddle on his back. The way he riz up warn’t slow, and off he sot as If the prairie were afire behind him. I ’ve a no­ tion the b’y never rode so sharp a rail be­ fore as that bull’s hump. The old Injun the b’y belonged to wur as white as a lump o f chalk for fear his b’y would be' killed, and he bangs away at the bull and hits him in the belly, for he wur afraid of breaking the by’s leg if he squinted at the heart. That maid the cretur as ugly as a copperhead in July, and he takes arter the old hero like a whole team of thunder­ bolts. “ Run! run, father I” screeches the young varmint to the old one, “or I ’ll be down on ye like a falling star,” and I begun to see TTO US printing is the old one was in danger pretty consid­ erably much. A more than just put­ So I sung out to the b’y to raze his leg, ting words into type. It cause it kivered the critter’s heart, and I wish I may be shot if he didn’t do it as cool is the creation o f a work as if I held the breech of the rifle at him o f art, be it a simple lit­ and not the muzzle, but that’s the nature of an Injun. Bang goes old Kill-devil and down tle announcement or an comes old bull-beef; but the b’y couldn’t walk elaborate booklet. Hence for a week, and he kyind of thort he’d never ride bairbacked on a buffalo agin, without we take all the pride o f he seed some special ’casion. an artist in his craft, in LONG HORNS each job ; and that is the Continued from page 288 secret of the superlative two months with these hard-riding plains­ men, who were all crack shots, carrying car­ quality o f Missoulian bine saddle-guns. A half-dozen half-breeds Publishing Company followed, and did the skinning. The hides brought on an average of $2.50 printing. apiece, and were sold to leather concerns in the East. They made harness, and vari­ ous other things of them. We broke camp on Milk River the last of November when the first cold winds came THE roaring out of the mountains. We began thinking of a warmer climate, so Tobe and MISSOULIAN I rolled our cotton, packed our provender on our pack horses, and trailed back to PUBLISHING COMPANY Texas. COMMERCIAL PRINTING DEPT. We had many tales to tell the cowmen about the new country up North, of our PHONE 2162 adventures, hardships and the long trip back home. Nelson Story was the first man to have nerve enough to brave the new country in a 306 large business way, trailing in the first bunch of Longhorn cattle from Texas to Montana. This was many years ago. The Indians, or those left of them, are on their respective reservations. The old cow trails are plowed under. The old Santa Fe trail is drifted full of sand; and the real cowboy, with his leather-tanned face, is a figure of the past There are a few of the old timers left; fewer still who can neither read nor write, as youth, in my younger days, meant action Authorized and education of a far different type from what is considered education today. These Underwood few who are left can tell stories of adven­ ture on the plains, rivaling even gangland and warfare of today. True stories of trail and forest, Mexican bandits, white renegades, Royal Typewriter urging on the depredations of the lawless element, the Texas Ranger, the Vigilantes DEALER later.

LITERARY NOTES Continued from Front Advertising Section Hannah Mitchel Danskin, Spokane, Wash., Office Supply Co. is devoting her time to a novel. H. L. Davis continues his many contribu­ tions to The American Mercury with “ A Pioneer Captain”—Applegate, who, when “the state cinched down on him . . . turned over, not only all his own property, but all his wife’s with it—every hoof, acre, nickle, and nail—and, totally destitute for the first NEW VICTOR time in his life, went out and hunted up a job, at past sixty years old, working for wages as a sheepherder on the Klamath RECORDS Falls range.” James Stevens’ “ Iron Man of the Saginaw” appears in the December is­ sue of The American Mercury. “Black Cherries,” a prose volume by Grace Every Friday Stone Coates, was issued by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in February. (See Bookshelf.) The story of the covered wagon has been at told many times. The life of the settlers after reaching their goal has recently been described in an unusual book, “On Puget Sound,” by Robert Wilkinshaw (Putnam’s Sons, New York). Mr. Wilkinshaw’s book went into a fourth edition during its first DICKINSON year. “Verse of the New West,” poems by Irene Welch Grissom, Idaho Falls, Idaho, will be issued early in the spring, finely illustrated, PIANO CO. by The Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho. Charles Oluf Olsen’s name was featured on the cover of December Poetry, a Magazine 218 Higgins Ave. of Verse, in connection with his three-page poem, “ Around the Ring.” Norman Macleod is on the staff of The Victor Dealers of Missoula New Masses, and is editing the American section of Front (Holland) and Morado (Italy). 307 FIREPROOF THE CAMPUS FILLING BUTTE, MONTANA STATION Rates, $1.50 up

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