Petticoat ambush Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Burke, John Patrick, 1928- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 27/09/2021 17:05:39 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/318953 PETTIGOAT AMBUSH By John Po Burke A Thesis Submitted to the.Faculty of the - ' B1PAETMENT OF BEAMA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of : 'm a s t e r o f a r t s In the'Graduate Gollege THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 6 3 SafEHBIE BY A1EH0R This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the.University library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Libraryc Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made© Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder® Copyright by John Burke 1963 • APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown belows John Ac Mills Associate Professor of Drama PREFACE "Foik comedy** would have caused resentmentg had the term ever been applied to the yarns I heard as a boy* For, both of the fron­ tiersmen who allowed me, in the interest of furthering my education, to be a part of their regular Sunday afternoon audience, thought of themselves, not as “folk, * 1 but as sophisticated men of the world* And indeed, they were well read in the classics, in national events, and in the sciences| they were in their element in the world of the farm and the woods, at ease in the world of business, conversant with the world of the arts, and most eminently successful in the world of the home and hearth, the barroom and banquet table» They would have quickly squashed any folklore enthusiast who approached them with such a patronizing term and would have maintained that the men on the fron­ tier were more knowledgeable, more cosmopolitan,sand even better educated than their grandchildrens' generation is* But if that folk­ lore enthusiast gave the frontiersman full credit, he would have been treated by these raconteurs to an abundance of memorabilia well spiced with joke and moral» I was between the ages of nine and twelve (they both died within one month of my twelfth birthday), when these two old gentle­ men undertook, over the protests of the ladies of our clan, to make a man of me. They first found me worthy on the day I attempted with more vigor than wisdom to defend Mmyn rose bush from the pruning shears iii of my maternals French backwoodsman Grandpere, while his crony3 my paternal, Irish, prairie-land farmer, teacher,, soldier, teamster, Chicago land-speculator Grandpa stood back and laughed0 I found my­ self admitted to their academy the following Sunday afternoono It was their habit in those years to lead an entourage of the men of the clan— most often my father, his three younger brothers, and myself— from saloon to saloon along the Vincennes trail just south of Chicagoo These rural saloons, a few of which still exist, were even then almost a hundred years old and had been established for the teamsters bring­ ing up merchandise in huge wagons much as the Santa Fe trail traders hado Grandpere would always start the storytelling first, sometimes even as we rolled along in the giant 1 9 3 ^ Buick but most frequently after the men had their first drink of Old Crow— taken neat with water on the sideo Once embarked, no one save Grandpa or Pa would think of inter­ rupting him; my three uncles, myself and half, or indeed, all the saloon1s clientele existed merely as an audience„ Grandpere put down his glass, one summer afternoon, and'commanded everyone's attention with the gutteral expletive, "Sacre bleuim All heads turned, following the nonagenarian’s concentrated gaae through the open door, to watch a beautiful woman walk toward us from across the street0 The lady was striking not only because of her perfect features and opulent figure but because she was at least six feet in height, proportionately broad in the shoulders, and well muscled= She passed out of sight and Grandpere growled his appreciationo iv ' "Les femmes! . Such were the womens of yesterday, gentlemens« ly own mothair, she too was thus. Beautiful and grande— big, no? She was not what you call ''built;'; she was ''forged.' She was of steel, that woman. She would ride to market carrying a full grown sow imda-i-r one arm and a full basket of eggs undair the other, and not drop that sow nor break one egg though she kicked her mule to a gallop all the way. She had twelve children without losing a day's work until I, her unlucky thirteenth son, same and ruined her. You ©an see, gentlemens, I am a big fellow, no? I some into these world like' a high timbair fire before a north wind and, poof, mamma, she hevair walk again. She call me her 'petit Samson.'1 She had my brothairs construct a wheel chair for use in the cabin, a special saddle for her mule 5 she purchase a twelve foot black snake whip, and with this in. hand she does not stop from to build her land and to command some small attention from her thirteen hard working boys." It was not until I very recently read that excellent book, Folk Laughter On The American Frontier, by Mody Boatright (Macmillan, lew York, 1949), that I realized that the image Grandpere drew of his mother was typical of those drawn in the oral and written folk liter­ ature to describe those "lackwood Belles" such as Sal Fink and Mrs ® Davy Crockett. However,-these traditional folk belles, according to Boatright, were always described as being not only huge and powerful, but tremendously ugly. Grandpere was too gallant to describe his mother in any unflattering terms: my great-grandmere lives in my memory as a woman whose beauty equalled that of my own mother, an extremely handsome woman. On the other hand, Boatright's chapter on frontier attitudes toward law and lawyers same as no surprise to me. Both grandfathers often expressed a contempt of jurisprudence similar to that reported by Boatright| moreover, they let it be known that they were not alone in this resentment in their own time 6 In fact, after Grandpere had elaborated on his point and had instructed and .amused his listeners for a quarter hour or more, Grandpa picked up his cue and told one of his favorite stories $ "Ah lads, 't was not only the ladies but life itself that was bigger in thim days® Speakin of fires and north winds and all, the grandest fire of them all was the great Chicago fire® When all was dome, there wasn't a bu'ldim stamdim fer miles around save my own mhither's barn. The workmen Game in to rebu'ld the town™there were thousands of them— -and Jim O'Leary put up fifty dollars and I used the barn to open what we knew was most needed, a saloon. We walled off a small part of it and mhither lived that side of the partition while we served beer and whiskey to the men on this side. Seme say, you know, that Jimmie O'Leary's mhither's cow started that fire. Not a bit of truth in that. It was a crock of poteen Jim had fermentin in the barn. It blew higher than Gilroy's kite and that's what knocked the lamp over, not the cow. Well, we was doin foine in the saloon business® Now the engineers and contractors and the workin lads swore like team­ sters. But mhither behind her partition, prayed for thim, and not bein in their sight,, she took no insult. All went well until the surveyors and politicians and lawyers got to hoidin forth in the she­ been. Then as- there was no courthouse, without a by yer leave, they vi began to hold court in that saloon— each trjin to steal the smallest parcel of hew surveyed land offa the other« To end the story, mhither had put up with the vile language, but she couldn’t sit down to a full day of lyin and cheatin* Along about two hours after this arrant law- sharpin began, she rose up and, takim her broom, she cleaned out that shebeen® Whiskey, drunks, lawyers, maps, books, the judge, and myself went out the windows and doors without preference or preferment® 11 And so they went on building in me an appreciation for those older days of simplicity and heroics and sowing the seeds of dis­ satisfaction for these days of civilization— of law and order® I con­ tinued to live in- their world, after they had gone on that grand voyage of which Srandpere had often spoken with indifference, through reading frontier fact and fiction for many years ® Young manhood found me still discontented and I set out to find their world in these times® Their training had left me a practical man, so I pursued my quest as an organization man, a young executive = As trouble-shooter for a large travel firm, sometimes escorting groups of dudes, sometimes checking tourist facilities, I travelled the Cordilleran geosyneline from the Athabaska range to Popoeatepet® I found no land of yesterday and finally resigned myself to life in these times.