CHAPTER VIII.—THAT STOLEN ACE OF HEARTS.
When I, at the unripe age of seventeen, left my father’s poor cottage-house on Tom’s Run and threw myself into life’s struggle, I sought Pittsburg as a nearest promising arena of effort. I had a small place at a smaller wage as a sort of office boy and porter for a down-town establishment devoted to a commerce of iron; but as I came early to cut my connection with that hard emporium we will not dwell thereon.
I have already told you how by nature I was a gambler. I had inborn hankerings after games of chance, and it was scant time, indeed, before I found myself on terms of more or less near acquaintance with every card sharper of the city. And I became under their improper tutelage an expert cheat myself. At short cards and such devices as faro and roulette, I soon knew each devious turn and was in excellent qualification to pillage my way to eminence if not to riches among the nimble-fingered nobility of the green tables into whose midst I had coaxed or crowded my way. Vast was my ambition to soar as a blackleg, and no student at his honest books burned with more fire to succeed. I became initiate into such mysteries as the “bug,” the “punch,” the “hold-out”; I could deal “double” or “from the bottom;” was a past master of those dubious faro inventions, the “snake,” the “end squeeze,” and the “balance top;” could “put back” with a clean deftness that might deceive even my masters in evil doing, and with an eye like a hawk read a deck of marked cards with the same easy certainty that I read the alphabet. It was a common compliment to my guilty merit that no better craftsman at crooked play ever walked in Diamond Alley.
No, as I’ve heretofore explained, there dawned a day when I gave up card gambling and played no more. It is now twenty years since I wagered so much as a two-bit piece in any game other than the Wall Street game of stocks. And yet it was no moral arousal that drew me from roulette, from farobank and from draw poker. I merely awoke to the truth that the greatest simpleton of cards is the professional gambler himself; and with that I turned my back on the whole scurvy business and quit the dens for the exchange. And with no purpose to preach, I say openly and with a fullest freedom that the game of stock speculation is as replete of traps and pitfalls, and of as false and blackleg character as any worst game of iniquitous faro that is dealt with trimmed and sanded deck from a dishonest box. As an arena of morals the stock exchange presents no conscious improvement beyond what is offered by the veriest dead-fall ever made elate with those two rings at the bell which tell the waiting inmates that some “steerer” is on the threshold with rustic victim to be fleeced. I once read that the homestead of Captain Kidd, the pirate, stood two centuries ago on that plot of ground now covered by the New York Stock Exchange; and I confess to a smile when I reflected how the spirit of immortal rapine would seem to hover over the place. The exchange is a fit successor to the habitat of that wild freebooter who died and dried in execution dock when long ago the Stuart Anne was queen.
During those earlier months in Pittsburg, I was not permitted by my father—who had much control of me, even unto the day of his death—to altogether abandon Tom’s Run, and the good, grimy miner folk, its inhabitants. My week’s holiday began with each Saturday’s noon; from that hour until Monday morning I was free; and thus, obeying my father’s behests, Saturday evening and Sunday, I was bound to pass beneath my parents’ roof.
It was during one of these visits home when I first cheated at cards—memorable event!—and it was on another that my roguery was discovered and my father struck that blow.
As already stated, my father was of Welsh extraction. It was no less the fact, however, that his original stock was Irish; his grandfather—I believe it to have been that venerable and I trust respected gentleman—coming to Wales from somewhere on the banks of the Blackwater. And my father, excellent man! had vast pride in his Irish lineage and grew never so angry, particularly if a bit heated of his Saturday evening cups, as when one spoke of him as offshoot of the rocky land of leeks and saintly David.
“What!” he would cry; “because I was born in Wales, do you take me for an onion-eating Welshman? Man, I’m Irish and don’t make that mistake again!”
The vigor wherewith his mine-hardened fist smote the table as conclusion to this, carried such weight of emphasis that no man was ever found to fall a second time into the error.
For myself, the question whether my ancestors were Welsh or Irish held little interest. I was looking forward not backward, and a hot avarice to hunt dollars drove from my bosom the last trace of concern touching a genealogy. I would sooner have one year’s run of uninterrupted luck at a gambling table than to know myself a direct descendant of the Plantagenets. Not so my dear old father; to the hour when death closed his eyes—already sightless for ten years—burned out with a blast, they were—he ceased not to regale me with tales of that noble line of dauntless Irish from whom we drew our blood. For the ten years following the destruction of his eyes by powder, I saw much of my father, for I established him at a little country tavern near enough to the ocean to hear the surf and smell the salt breath of it, and two or three times a week I made shift to get down where he was. And whether my stay was for an hour or for a night—as on Sunday this latter came often to be the chance—he made his pedigree, or what he dreamed was such, the proud burden of his conversation.
Brian Boru, I remember, was an original wellhead of our family. My father was tireless in his settings forth of this hero king of Munster; nor did he fail at the close of his story to curse the assassin who struck down Boru at Clontarf. Sometimes to tease him, I’d argue what must have been the weak and primitive inconsequence of the royal Boru. I’d suggest that by the sheer narrowness and savagery of the hour wherein that monarch lived, he could have been nothing more royal than the mere king of a kale patch, and probably wore less of authority with still less of revenue and reverence than belong commonly with any district leader of Tammany Hall.
At these base doubtings my parent’s wrath would mount. He would wax vivid with a picture of the majesty and grandeur of the great Boru; and of the halls wherein he fed and housed a thousand knights compared with whom in riches, magnificence, and chivalrous feats those warriors who came about King Arthur’s round table showed paltry, mean and low. To crown narration he would ascribe to Boru credit as a world’s first law giver and hail him author of the “Code Brian.”
“Shure!” he would say; “he called his scholars and his penmen about him and he made them write down as the wor-rds fell from th’ mouth av him th’ whole of th’ Code Brian; an’ this in tur-rn was a model of th’ Code Napoleon that makes th’ law av Fr-rance to-day.”
It was in vain I pointed out that Napoleon’s Code found its roots and as well, its models, in the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian—I had learned so much Latin from Father Glennon—and that nowhere in the English law was the Code Brian, as he called it, so much as adverted to.
“An’ that’s th’ Sassenach jealousy av thim!” he would say. “An’ who was this Justinian? Who, indade, but a thievin’ Roman imp’ror who shtole his laws from King Boru just as th’ Dagoes now are shtealin’ th’ jobs at th’ mines from th’ Irish an’ Welsh lads to whom they belong av r-rights.”
After this I said no more; I did not explain that Justinian and his Pandects and the others of his grand body of civil law were in existence five centuries before the martyred Boru was born. That discovery would have served no purpose beyond my parent’s exasperation and earned for myself as well as the world’s historians naught save a cataract of hard words.
You marvel, perhaps, why I dwell with such length on the memory of my father—a poor, blind, ignorant miner of coal! I loved the old man; and to this day when my hair, too, is gray and when I may win my wealth and count my wealth and keep my wealth with any of the land, I recall him as the only man for whom I ever felt either love or confidence or real respect.
Yes; I heard much of the blood of the truculent yet wise Boru; also of younger ancestors who fought for the Stuarts against Cromwell, against Monmouth, against William; and later in both the “Fifteen” and in the “Forty-five.” Peculiarly was I made to know of my mother’s close connection by blood with the house of that brave Sarsfield “who,” as my father explained, “fairly withstud th’ Dootchman at th’ Boyne; an’ later made him quit befure th’ walls av Limerick.” There was one tradition of the renowned Sarsfield which the old gentleman was peculiarly prone to relate, and on the head of him who distrusted the legend there was sure to fall a storm. That particular tale concerned the Irish soldier and the sword of Wallace wight.
“Thish William Wallace,” my father was wont to say as he approached the myth, “was a joint (giant), no less. He was nine fut ’leven inches tall an’ his soord was eight fut foore inches long. It’s in Stirlin’ Cashtle now, an’ there niver was but one man besides Wallace who cud handle it. Th’ Black Douglas an’ all av thim Scotchmen thried it an’ failed. Whin, one day, along comes Gin’ral Patrick Sarsfield—a little bit av a felly, only five fut siven inches tall—an’ he tuk that soord av William Wallace in one hand an’, me son, he made it whishtle.”
But I must press to my first crime of cards or your patience will desert. During those summer months on Tom’s Run when the mines were open and my father and his mates of the pick and blast were earning their narrow pay, it was the habit of himself and four or five other gentlemen of coal to gather in the Toni’s Run Arms when Saturday evening came on, and relax into that amusement dear to Ireland as “forty-five.” Usually they played for a dime a corner; on occasional rich evenings the stakes mounted dizzily to two-bits, though this last was not often.
Now I was preyed on by a desire to make one at this Saturday contention, but my father would never consent.
“Jack,” he’d say; “you’d only lose your money. Shure! you’re nawthin’ but a boy an’ not fit to pla-ay cards with th’ loikes av grown-up men.”
But I persisted; I argued—to myself, you may be certain—while I might be no match for these old professors of forty-five who played the game with never a mistake, if I, like them, played honestly, that the cunning work I meditated could not fail to bring me in the wealth.
At last one of the others came to my rescue.
“Let him pla-ay, Mishter Roche,” he said. “Let’s win his money fr-rom him an’ it’ll be a lesson. He’ll not lose much befure he’ll be gla-ad to quit.”
“All right, thin,” replied my father; “you can pla-ay, Jack, till you lose fifty cints; an’ that’ll do ye. Moind now! whin you lose fifty cints you shtop.” And so I was made one of the circle.
As I foresaw, I did not lose the four-bits which my indulgent parent had marked as the limits of farthest sacrifice to my ambitious innocence. Already I had brought back to Tom’s Run a curious trick or two from Pittsburg. It soon came to be my “deal,” and the moment I got the cards in my hands I abstracted the ace of hearts—a most doughty creature in this game of forty-five!—and dropped it in my lap, covering the fact from vulgar eyes with a fold of my handkerchief. That was all the chicane I practiced; I kept myself in constant possession of the ace of hearts and played it at a crisis; and at once the wagered dimes of the others began to travel into my illicit pockets where they made a merry jingle, I warrant you!
The honest Irish from whom I was filching these small tributes never once bethought that I might play them sharp; they attributed my gains to luck and loud was exclamation over my good fortune. Time and again, for I was not their equal as a mere player, I’d board the wrong card. When I’d make such a mistake, one of them would cry: “D’ye moind that now! D’ye moind how ba-ad he plays!”
“An’ yet,” another would add, “an’ yet he rakes th’ money!”
Altogether I regarded my entrance into this ten-cent game of forty-five a most felicitous affair. I won at every sitting; getting up on some occasions with as much as eight dollars of profit for my evening’s work. In those days I went willingly to Tom’s Run, quitting Pittsburg without a sigh; and such was my ardor to fleece these coaldigging comrades of my father—and for that matter, my father, also; for like your true gambler, I played no favorites and was as warm to gather in the dimes of my parent as any—that I was usually found waiting about the forty-five table when, following supper, they appeared. And it all went favorably with me for perhaps a dozen sittings; my aggregate gains must have reached the mighty sum of sixty dollars. Of a merry verity! silver was at high tide in my hands!
One evening as the half dozen devoted to the science of forty-five drew up to the table—myself a stripling boy, the others bearded miner men—my father complained of an ache in his head or an ache in his stomach or some malady equally cogent, and said he would not play.
“I’ll have me poipe an’ me mug av beer,” he said, “an’ resht mesilf a bit. It’s loike I’ll feel betther afther a whoile an’ then I’ll take a haand.”
Play began, while my suffering father with his aches, his tobacco and his beer, sat nursing himself at a near-by table. I lost no time in acquiring my magic ace of hearts and at once the stream of usual fortune set in to flow my way.
Ten years, yes, one year later, my suspicions touching my father’s illness and his reasons for this unprecedented respite from the cares of forty-five would have stood more on tiptoe. As it was, however, it never assailed me as a thought that I had become the subject of ancestral doubts. I cheated on and on, and made hay while the sun shone with never a cloud in the sky.
It was not noticed by me, but following a halfhour’s play and while I was shuffling the cards for a deal, my parent stole noiselessly behind my chair. He reached under my arm and lifted the corner of the concealing handkerchief which filled my lap. Horrors! there lay the tell-tale ace of hearts!
Even then I realized nothing and knew not that my villainy was made bare. This news, however, was not long in its arrival.
“Niver did I r-raise a boy to be a r-robber!” roared my father.
Coincident with this remark, the paternal hand—not the lightest nor least formidable on Tom’s Run—dealt me a buffet on the head that lifted me from my sinful chair and hurled me across the room and against the wall full fifteen feet away. My teeth clattered, my wits reeled, while my ill-gotten silver danced blithely to metallic music of its own.
“Niver did I r-raise a boy to be a r-robber!” again shouted my father. Then seizing me by the collar, he lifted me to my feet. “Put all your money on the ta-able!” he cried; “put ivry groat av it!”
There was no escape; I was powerless in the talons of an inexorable fate. My pockets yielded a harvest of hardby seventy-five dollars—something more than the total of my winnings—and this was placed in the center of the table which had so lately witnessed my skill. An even distribution was then made by my father among the victims, each getting his share of the recovered treasure; my father keeping none for himself though urged by the others to that end.
“No,” said my father; “I’ll touch niver a penny av it. You take th’ money; I’ll make shift that the dishgrace of bein’ fa-ather to a rapparee shall do for me share!”
With that, he withdrew from the scene of my downfall, carrying me fast in his clutch; and later—bathed in tears of pain and shame—I was dragged into the presence of my mother and Father Glennon by the ignominious ear.
It did not cure me of cards, however; I ran the whole gamut of gambling and won dangerous prominence as a sharper of elevation and rank. To-morrow evening, should you care to listen, I may unfold concerning other of my adventures; I may even relate—as a tale most to my diplomatic glory, perhaps—how I brought Casino Joe to endow me with that great secret, richer, in truth! than the mines of Peru! of “How to Tell the Last Four.”
“Speakin’ of gamblin’,” observed the Old Cattleman when the Red Nosed Gentleman had come to a full stop, “I’ll bet a bloo stack that as we-alls sets yere talkin’, the games is goin’ brisk an’ hot in Wolfville. Thar won’t be no three foot of snow to put a damper on trade an’ hobble a gent’s energies in Arizona.” This last with a flush of pride.
“Does everybody gamble in the West?” asked the Sour Gentleman.
“Every sport who’s got the dinero does,” responded the Old Cattleman. “White folks, Injuns an’ Mexicans is right now at roulette an’ faro bank an’ monte as though they ain’t got a minute to live. I hates to concede ’em so much darin’, but the Mexicans, speshul, is zealous for specyoolations. Which they’d shore wager their immortal souls on the turn of a kyard, only a Greaser’s soul don’t own no market valyoo.”
“If you will,” said the Jolly Doctor, “you might tell us something of Mexicans and their ways, their labors and relaxations—their loves and their hates. I’d be pleased to hear of those interesting people from one who knows them so thoroughly.”
“Which I shore knows ’em,” returned the Old Cattleman, “an’ as I concedes how each gent present oughter b’ar his share of the entertainment, I’ll tell you of Chiquita of Chaparita.”
CHAPTER IX.—CHIQUITA OF CHAPARITA.
Which I doubts some if I’m a proper party to be a historian of Mexicans. Nacherally I abhors ’em; an’ when a gent abhors anything, that is a Caucasian gent, you-all can gamble the limit he won’t do it jestice. His prejudices is bound to hit the surface like one of these yere rock ledges in the mountains. Be white folks ag’in Mexicans? Gents, the paleface is ag’in everybody but himse’f; ag’in Mexicans, niggers, Injuns, Chinks—he’s ag’in ’em all; the paleface is overbearin’ an’ insolent, an’ because he’s the gamest fighter he allows he’s app’inted of Providence to prance ‘round, tyrannizin’ an’ makin’ trouble for everybody whose color don’t match his own. Shore, I’m as bad as others; only I ain’t so bigoted I don’t savey the fact.
Doc Peets is the one white gent I encounters who’s willin’ to mete out to Mexicans a squar’ deal from a squar’ deck. I allers reckons these yere equities on Peets’ part arises a heap from his bein’ a scientist. You take a scientist like Peets an’ the science in him sort o’ submerges an’ drowns out what you-all might term the racial notions native to the hooman soil. They comes to concloosions dispassionate, that a-way, scientists does; an’ Mexicans an’ Injuns reaps a milder racket at their hands. With sech folks as Old Man Enright an’ me, who’s more indoorated an’ acts on that arrogance which belongs with white folks at birth, inferior races don’t stand no dazzlin’ show.
Mexicans, as a herd, is stunted an’ ondeveloped both mental an’ physical. They bears the same compar’son to white folks that these yere little broncos does to the big hosses of the States. In intellects, Mexicans is about ’leven hands high. To go into one of their jimcrow plazas is like retreatin’ back’ard three hundred years. Their idees of agriculture is plenty primitive. An’ their minds is that bogged down in ignorance you-all can’t teach ’em nothin’. They clings to their worm-eaten customs like a miser to his money. Their plow is a wedge of wood; they hooks on about three yoke of bulls—measley, locoed critters—an’ with four or five Greasers to screech an’ herd an’ chunk up the anamiles they goes stampedin’ back’ard an’ for’ard on their sandy river-bottom fields—the same bein’ about as big as a saddle blanket—an’ they calls that plowin’. They sows the grain as they plows, sort o’ scratches it in; an’ when it comes up they don’t cut it none same as we-all harvests a crop. No; they ain’t capable of sech wisdom. They pulls it up by the roots an’ ties it in bundles. Then they sweeps off a clean spot of earth like the floor of one of these yere brickyards an’ covers it with the grain same as if it’s a big mat. Thar’s a corral constructed ‘round it of posts an’ lariats; an’ next, on top of the mat of grain, they drives in the loose burros, cattle, goats, an’ all things else that’s got a hoof; an’ tharupon they jams this menagerie about ontil the grain is trodden out. That’s what a Greaser regyards as threshin’ grain, so you can estimate how ediotic he is. When it’s trompled sufficient, he packs off the stalks an’ straw to make mats an’ thatches for the ’dobies; while he scrapes up the dust an’ wheat into a blanket an’ climbs onto the roof of his casa an’ pours it down slow onto the ground, an’ all so it gives the wind a openin’ to get action an’ blow away the chaff an’ dust.
But what’s the use of dilatin’ on savageries like that? I could push for’ard an’ relate how they makes flour with a stone rollin’-pin in a stone trough; how they grinds coffee by wroppin’ it in a gunny sack an’ beatin’ it with a rock; but where’s the good? It would only go lowerin’ your estimates of hooman nature to no end.
Whatever be their amoosements? Everything on earth amooses ’em. They has so many holidays, Mexicans does, they ain’t hardly left no time for work. They’re pirootin’ about constant, grinnin’ an’ chatterin’ like a outfit of bloo-jays.
No; they ain’t singers none. Takin’ feet an’ fingers, that a-way, a Mexican is moosical. They emerges a heap strong at dancin’, an’ when it conies to a fandango, hens on hot griddles is examples of listless abstraction to ’em. With sech weepons, too, as guitars an’ fiddles an’ a gourd half-full of gravel to shake an’ beat out the time, they can make the scenery ring. Thar they stops, however; a Greaser’s moosic never mounts higher than the hands. At singin’, crows an’ guinea chickens lays over ’em like a spade flush over nines-up.
Most likely if I reelates to you-all the story of a day among the Mexicans you comes to a cl’arer glimpse of their loves an’ hates an’ wars an’ merry-makin’s. Mexicans, like Injuns when a paleface is about, lapses into shyness an’ timidity same as one of these yere cottontail rabbits. But among themse’fs, when they feels onbuckled an’ at home, their play runs off plenty different. Tharfore a gent’s got to study Mexicans onder friendly auspices, an’ from the angle of their own home-life, if he’s out to rope onto concloosions concernin’ them that’ll stand the tests of trooth.
It’s one time when I’m camped in the Plaza Chaparita. It’s doorin’ the eepock when I freights from Vegas to the Canadian over the old Fort Bascom trail. One of the mules—the nigh swing mule, he is—quits on me, an’ I has to lay by ontil that mule recovers his sperits.
It’s a fieste or holiday at the Plaza Chaparita. The first local sport I connects with is the padre. He’s little, brown, an’ friendly; an’ has twinklin’ beady eyes like a rattlesnake; the big difference bein’ that the padre’s eyes is full of fun, whereas the optics of rattlesnakes is deevoid of humor utter. Shore; rattlesnakes wouldn’t know a joke from the ace of clubs.
The padre’s on his way to the ’dobe church; an’ what do you-all figger now that divine’s got onder his arm? Hymn books, says you? That’s where you’re barkin’ at a knot. The padre’s packin’ a game chicken—which the steel gaffs, drop-socket they be an’ of latest sort, is in his pocket—an’ as I goes squanderin’ along in his company, he informs me that followin’ the services thar’ll be a fight between his chicken an’ a rival brass-back belongin’ to a commoonicant named Romero. The padre desires my presence, an’ in a sperit of p’liteness I allows I’ll come idlein’ over onless otherwise engaged, the same bein’ onlikely.
Gents, you should have witnessed that battle! It’s shore lively carnage; yes, the padre’s bird wins an’ downs Romero’s entry the second buckle.
On the tail of the padre’s triumph, one of his parishioners gets locoed, shakes a chicken outen a bag an’ proclaims that he’ll fight him ag’in the world for two dollars a side. At that another enthoosiast gives notice that if the first parishioner will pinch down his bluff to one dollar—he says he don’t believe in losin’ an’ winnin’ fortunes on a chicken—he’ll prodooce a bird an’ go him once.
The match is made, an’ while the chickens is facin’ each other a heap feverish an’ fretful, peckin’ an’ see-sawin’ for a openin’, the various Greasers who’s bet money on ’em lugs out their beads an’ begins to pray to beat four of a kind. Shore, they’re prayin’ that their partic’lar chicken ’ll win. Still, when I considers that about as many Greasers is throwin’ themse’fs at the throne of grace for one as for the other, if Providence is payin’ any attention to ’em—an’ I deems it doubtful—I estimates that them orisons is a stand-off.
As the birds goes to the center, one party sprinkles something on his chicken. At that the opposition grabs up his bird an’ appeals to the padre. He challenges the other’s bird because he says he’s been sprinkled with holy-water.
The padre inquires, an’ the holy-water sharp confesses his guilt. Also, he admits that he hides the gaffs onder the altar cloth doorin’ the recent services so they’ll acquire extra grace an’ power.
The padre turns severe at this an’ declar’s the fight off; an’ he forfeits the doctored chicken an’ the gaffs to himse’f a whole lot—he representin’ the church—to teach the holy-water sharp that yereafter he’s not to go seizin’ onfair advantages, an’ to lead a happier an’ a better life. That culprit don’t say a word but passes over his chicken an’ the steel regalia for its heels. You can bet that padre’s word is law in the Plaza Chaparita!
Followin’ this fiasco of the holy-water chicken the Mexicans disperses themse’fs to pulque an’ monte an’ the dance. The padre an’ me sa’nters about; me bein’ a Americano, an’ him what you might call professionally sedate, we-all don’t go buttin’ into the baile nor the pulque nor the gamblin’. The padre su’gests that we go a-weavin’ over to his own camp, which he refers to as Casa Dolores—though thar’s nothin’ dolorous about it, the same bein’ the home of mirth an’ hilarity, that a-way—an’ he allows he’s got some Valley Tan hived up that’ll make me forget my nationality if stoodiously adhered to. It’s needless to observe that I accompanies the beady-eyed padre without a struggle. An’ I admits, free an’ without limitation, that said Valley Tan merits the padre’s encomiums an’ fixes me in my fav’rite theery that no matter what happens, the best happens to the church.
As we crosses the little Plaza on our way to Casa Dolores we passes in front of the church. Thar on the grass lays the wooden image of the patron saint of the Plaza Chaparita. This figger is about four foot long, an’ thar’s a hossha’r lariat looped onto it where them Mexicans who gets malcontent with the saint ropes him off his perch from up in front of the church. They’ve been haulin’ the image about an’ beatin’ it with cactus sticks an’ all expressive of disdain.
I asks the padre why his congregation engages itse’f in studied contoomely towards the Plaza’s saint. He shrugs his shoulders, spreads his hands palm out, an’ says it’s because the Plaza’s sheep gets sick. I su’gests that him an’ me cut in an’ rescoo the saint; more partic’lar since the image is all alone, an’ the outfit that’s been beatin’ him up has abandoned said corrections to drink pulque an’ exercise their moccasins in the baile. But the padre shakes his head. He allows it’s a heap better to let the public fully vent its feelin’s. He explains that when the sheep gets well the congregation ’ll round-up the image, give him a reproachful talk an’ a fresh coat of paint, an’ put him back on his perch. The saint ’ll come winner on the deal all right, the padre says.
“Besides,” argues the padre, “it is onneces-sary for pore blinded mortals to come pawin’ about to protect a saint. These yere images,” he insists, “can look after themse’fs. They’ll find the way outen their troubles whenever they gets ready.”
At that we proceeds for’ard to Casa Dolores an’ the promised Valley Tan, an’ leaves the wooden saint to his meditations on the grass. After all, I agrees with the padre. It’s the saint’s business to ride herd on the interests of the Plaza Chaparita; an’ if he goes to sleep on the lookout’s stool an’ takes to neglectin’ sech plays as them sheep gettin’ sick, whatever is the Greasers goin’ to do? They’re shore bound to express their disapproval; an’ I reckons as good a scheme as any is to caper up, yank the careless image outen his niche with a lariat, an’ lam loose an’ cavil at him with a club.
This yere fieste at the Plaza Chaparita is a day an’ night of laughter, dance an’ mirth. But it ends bad. The padre an’ me is over to the dance-hall followin’ our investigations touchin’ the Valley Tan an’ the padre explains to me how he permits to his people a different behavior from what’s possible among Americanos.
“I studies for the church in Baltimore,” the padre says, “an’ thar the priest must keep a curb on his Americano parishioners. They are not like Mexicanos. They’re fierce an’ headlong an’ go too far. If you let them gamble, they gamble too much; if you let them drink, they drink too much. The evil of the Americano is that he overplays. It is not so with the Mexicano. If the Mexicano gambles, it is only a trifle an’ for pleasure; if he drinks, it is but enough to free a bird’s song in his heart. All my people drink an’ dance an’ gamble; but it’s only play, it is never earnest. See! in the whole Plaza Chaparita you find no drunkard, no pauper; no one is too bad or too good or too rich or too poor or too unhappy.”
Then the priest beams on me like he disposes of the question; an’ since I’ve jest been drinkin’ his Valley Tan I don’t enter no protests to what he states. From what ensoos, however, I should jedge the padre overlooks his game in one partic’lar.
As me an’ the padre sits gazin’ on at the dance, a senorita with a dark shawl over her head, drifts into the door like a shadow. She’s little; an’ by what I sees of her face, she’s pretty. As she crosses in front of the padre she stops an’ sort o’ drops down on one knee with her head bowed. The padre blesses her an’ calls her “Chiquita;” then she goes on. I don’t pay no onusual attention; though as me an’ the padre talks, I notes her where she stands with her shawl still over her head in a corner of the dance hall.
Across from the little Chiquita is a young Greaser an’ his sweetheart. This girl is pretty, too; but her shawl ain’t over her head an’ she an’ her muchacho, from their smiles an’ love glances, is havin’ the happiest of nights.
“It looks like you’ll have a weddin’ on your hands,” I says to the padre, indicatin’ where the two is courtin’.
“Chiquita should not stay here,” says the padre talkin’ to himse’f. With that he organizes like he’s goin’ over to the little shawled senorita in the corner.
It strikes me that the padre’s remark is a heap irrelevant. But I soon sees that he onderstands the topics he tackles a mighty sight better than me. The padre’s hardly moved when it looks like the senorita Chiquita saveys he’s out to head her off. With that she crosses the dance-hall swift as a cat an’ flashes a knife into the heart of the laughing girl. The next moment the knife is planted in her own.
It’s the old story, so old an’ common thar’s not a new word to be said. Two dead girls; love the reason an’ the jealous knife the trail. Thar’s not a scream, not a word; that entire baile stands transfixed. As the padre raises the little Chi-quita’s head, I sees the tears swimmin’ in his eyes. It’s the one time I comes nearest thinkin’ well of a Mexican; that padre, at least, is toler’ble.
“That is a very sad finale—the death of the girls,” observed the Sour Gentleman, reaching for the Scotch whiskey as though for comfort’s sake. “And still, the glimpse you gave would move me to a pleasant estimate of Mexicans.”
“Why then,” returned the Old Cattleman, becoming also an applicant for Scotch, “considered as abstract prop’sitions, Mexicans aint so bad. Which they’re like Injuns; they improves a lot by distance. An’ they has their strong p’ints, too; gratitoode is one. You-all confer a favor on a Mexican, an’ he’ll hang on your trail a hundred years but what he’ll do you a favor in return. An’ he’ll jest about pay ten for one at that.
“Speakin’ of gratitoode, Sioux Sam yere tells a story to ’llustrate how good deeds is bound to meet their reward. It’s what the squaws tells the papooses to make ’em kind.” Then to Sioux Sam: “Give us the tale of Strongarm an’ the Big Medicine Elk. The talk is up to you.”
Sioux Sam was in no sort diffident, and readily told us the following:
CHAPTER X.—HOW STRONGARM WAS AN ELK.
Moh-Kwa was the wisest of all the beasts along the Upper Yellowstone; an’ yet Moh-Kwa could not catch a fish. This made Moh-Kwa have a bad heart, for next to honey he liked fish. What made it worse was that in Moh-Kwa’s cavern where he lived, there lay a deep pool which was the camp of many fish; an’ Moh-Kwa would sit an’ look at them an’ long for them, while the fish came close to the edge an’ laughed at Moh-Kwa, for they knew beneath their scales that he could not catch them; an’ the laughter of the fish made a noise like swift water running among rocks. Sometimes Moh-Kwa struck at a fish with his big paw, but the fish never failed to dive out of reach; an’ this made the other fish laugh at Moh-Kwa more than before. Once Moh-Kwa got so angry he plunged into the pool to hunt the fish; but it only made him seem foolish, for the fish swam about him in flashing circles, an’ dived under him an’ jumped over him, laughing all the time, making a play an’ a sport of Moh-Kwa. At last he gave up an’ swam ashore; an’ then he had to sit by his fire an’ comb his fur all day to dry himself so that he might feel like the same bear again.
One morning down by the Yellowstone, Moh-Kwa met Strongarm, the young Sioux, an’ Strongarm had a buffalo fish which he had speared in the river. An’ because Moh-Kwa looked at the fish hungrily an’ with water in his mouth, Strongarm gave him the buffalo fish. Also he asked Moh-Kwa why he did not catch fish since he liked them so well an’ the pool in his cavern was the camp of many fish. An’ Moh-Kwa said it was because the fish were cowards an’ would not stay an’ fight with him, but ran away.
“They are not so brave as the bees,” said Moh-Kwa, “for when I find a bee-tree, they make me fight for the honey. The bees have big hearts though little knives, but the fish have no hearts an’ run like water down hill if they but see Moh-Kwa’s shadow from his fire fall across the pool.”
Strongarm said he would catch the fish for Moh-Kwa; an’ with that he went to the Wise Bear’s house an’ with his spear took many fish, being plenty to feed Moh-Kwa two days. Moh-Kwa was very thankful, an’ because Strong-arm liked the Wise Bear, he came four times each moon an’ speared fish for Moh-Kwa who was never so well fed with fish before.
Strongarm was a mighty hunter among the Sioux an’ killed more elk than did the ten best hunters of his village. So many elk did Strong-arm slay that his squaw, the Blossom, made for their little son, Feather-foot, a buckskin coat on which was sewed the eye-teeth of elk, two for each elk, until there were so many eye-teeth on Feather-foot’s buckskin coat it was like counting the leaves on a cottonwood to find how many there were. An’ the Blossom was proud of Feather-foot’s coat, for none among the Sioux had so beautiful a garment an’ the eye-teeth of the elk told how big a hunter was Strongarm.
While the Sioux wondered an’ admired at the elk-tooth coat, it made the Big Medicine Elk, who was chief of the Elk people, hot an’ angry, an’ turned his heart black against Strongarm. The Big Medicine Elk said he would have revenge.
Thus it happened one day that when Strong-arm stepped from his lodge, he saw standing in front a great Elk who had antlers like the branches of a tree. An’ the great Elk stamped his foot an’ snorted at Strongarm. Then Strongarm took his bow an’ his lance an’ his knife an’ hunted the great Elk to kill him; but the great Elk ran always a little ahead just out of reach.
At last the great Elk ran into the Pouch canyon an’ then Strongarm took hope into his heart like a man takes air into his mouth, for the sides of the Pouch canyon were high an’ steep an’ it ended with a high wall, an’ nothing save a bird might get out again once it went in; for the Pouch canyon was a trap which the Great Spirit had set when the world was new.
Strongarm was happy in his breast as he followed the great Elk into the Pouch canyon for now he was sure. An’ he thought how the big eye-teeth of so great an Elk would look on the collar of Feather-foot’s buckskin coat.
When Strongarm came to the upper end of the Pouch canyon, there the great Elk stood waiting.
“Hold!” said the great Elk, when Strongarm put an arrow on his bowstring.
But Strongarm shot the arrow which bounded off the great Elk’s hide an’ made no wound. Then Strongarm ran against the great Elk with his lance, but the lance was broken as though the great Elk was a rock. Then Strongarm drew his knife, but when he went close to the great Elk, the beast threw him down with his antlers an’ put his forefoot on Strongarm an’ held him on the ground.
“Listen,” said the great Elk, an’ Strongarm listened because he couldn’t help it. “You have hunted my people far an’ near; an’ you can never get enough of their blood or their eye-teeth. I am the Big Medicine Elk an’ chief of the Elk people; an’ now for a vengeance against you, I shall change you from the hunter to the hunted, an’ you shall know how good it is to have fear an’ be an elk.”
As the great Elk said this, Strongarm felt his head turn heavy with antlers, while his nose grew long an’ his mouth wide, an’ hair grew out of his skin like grass in the moon of new grass, an’ his hands an’ feet split into hoofs; an’ then Strong-arm stood on his four new hoofs an’ saw by his picture in the stream that he was an elk. Also the elk-fear curled up in his heart to keep him ever in alarm; an’ he snuffed the air an’ walked about timidly where before he was Strongarm and feared nothing.
Strongarm crept home to his lodge, but the Blossom did not know her husband; an’ Feather-foot, his little son, shot arrows at him; an’ as he ran from them, the hunters of his village came forth an’ chased him until Strongarm ran into the darkness of the next night as it came trailing up from the East, an’ the darkness was kind an’ covered him like a blanket an’ Strongarm was hid by it an’ saved.
When Strongarm did not come with the next sun to spear fish for Moh-Kwa, the Wise Bear went to Strongarm’s lodge to seek him for he thought that he was sick. An’ Moh-Kwa asked the Blossom where was Strongarm? An’ the Blossom said she did not know; that Strongarm chased the great Elk into the Pouch canyon an’ never came out again; an’ now a big Doubt had spread its blankets in her heart an’ would not leave, but was making a long camp, saying she was a widow. Then the Blossom wept; but Moh-Kwa told her to wait an’ he would see, because he, Moh-Kwa, owed Strongarm for many fish an’ would now pay him.
Moh-Kwa went to the Big Medicine Elk.
“Where is the Strongarm?” said Moh-Kwa.
“He runs in the hills an’ is an elk,” said the Big Medicine Elk. “He killed my people for their teeth, an’ a great fright was on all my people because of the Strongarm. The mothers dare not go down to the river’s edge to drink, an’ their children had no time to grow fat for they were ever looking to meet the Strongarm. Now he is an elk an’ my people will have peace; the mothers will drink an’ their babies be fat an’ big, being no more chased by the Strongarm.”
Then Moh-Kwa thought an’ thought, an’ at last he said to the Big Medicine Elk:
“That is all proud talk. But I must have the Strongarm back, for he catches my fish.”
But the Big Medicine Elk said he would not give Moh-Kwa back the Strongarm.
“Why should I?” asked the Big Medicine Elk. “Did not I save you in the Yellowstone,” said Moh-Kwa, “when as you swam the river a drifting tree caught in your antlers an’ held down your head to drown you? An’ did you not bawl to me who searched for berries on the bank; an’ did I not swim to you an’ save you from the tree?” Still the Big Medicine Elk shook his antlers.
“What you say is of another day. You saved me an’ that is ended. I will not give you back the Strongarm for that. One does not drink the water that is gone by.”
Moh-Kwa then grew so angry his eyes burned red like fire, an’ he threatened to kill the Big-Medicine Elk. But the Big Medicine Elk laughed like the fish laughed, for he said he could not be killed by any who lived on the land.
“Then we will go to the water,” said Moh-Kwa; an’ with that he took the Big Medicine Elk in his great hairy arms an’ carried him kicking an’ struggling to the Yellowstone; for Moh-Kwa could hold the Big Medicine Elk though he could not hurt him.
When Moh-Kwa had carried the Big Medicine Elk to the river, he sat down on the bank an’ waited with the Big Medicine Elk in his arms until a tree came floating down. Then Moh-Kwa swam with the Big Medicine Elk to the tree an’ tangled the branches in the antlers of the Big Medicine Elk so that he was fast with his nose under the water an’ was sure to drown.
“Now you are as you were when I helped you,” said Moh-Kwa.
An’ the Catfish people in the river came with joy an’ bit the legs of the Big Medicine Elk, an’ said, “Thank you, Moh-Kwa; you do well to bring us food now an’ then since you eat so many fish.”
As Moh-Kwa turned to swim again to the bank, he said over his shoulder to the Big Medicine Elk:
“Now you may sing your death song, for Pauguk, the Death, is in the river with you an’ those are Pauguk’s catfish which gnaw your legs.”
At this the Big Medicine Elk said between his cries of grief an’ fear that if Moh-Kwa would save him out of the river, he would tell him how to have the Strongarm back. So Moh-Kwa went again an’ freed the Big Medicine Elk from the tree an’ carried him to the bank, while the Catfish people followed, angrily crying:
“Is this fair, Moh-Kwa? Do you give an’ then do you take away? Moh-Kwa! you are a Pawnee!”
When the Big Medicine Elk had got his breath an’ wiped the tears from his eyes, he told Moh-Kwa that the only way to bring the Strongarm back to be a hunter from being one of the hunted was for Feather-foot, his son, to cut his throat; an’ for the Blossom, his squaw, to burn his elk-body with cedar boughs.
“An’ why his son, the Feather-foot?” asked Moh-Kwa.
“Because the Feather-foot owes the Strongarm a life,” replied the Big Medicine Elk. “Is not Strongarm the Feather-foot’s father an’ does not the son owe the father his life?”
Moh-Kwa saw this was true talk, so he let the Big Medicine Elk go free.
“I will even promise that the Strongarm,” said Moh-Kwa, as the two parted, “when again he is a Sioux on two legs, shall never hunt the Elk people.”
But the Big Medicine Elk, who was licking his fetlocks where the Catfish people had hurt the skin, shook his antlers an’ replied:
“It is not needed. The Strongarm has been one of the Elk people an’ will feel he is their brother an’ will not hurt them.”
Moh-Kwa found it a hard task to capture Strongarm when now he was an elk with the elk-fear in his heart. For Strongarm had already learned the elk’s warning which is taught by all the Elk people, an’ which says:
Look up for danger and look down for gain;
Believe no wolf’s word, and avoid the plain.
Strongarm would look down for the grass with one eye, while he kept an eye up among the branches or along the sides of the canyon for fear of mountain lions. An’ he stuck close in among the hills, an’ would not go out on the plains where the wolves lived; an’ he wouldn’t talk with a wolf or listen to his words.
But Strongarm, while he ran an’ hid from Moh-Kwa and the others, was not afraid of the Blossom, who was his squaw, but would come to her gladly if he might find her alone among the trees.
“It is not the first time,” said the Wise Bear, “that the hunter has made his trap of love.”
With that he told the Blossom to go into the hills an’ call Strongarm to her with her love. Then she was to bind his feet so that he might not get away an’ run.
The Blossom called Strongarm an’ he came; but he was fearful an’ suspicious an’ his nose an’ his ears an’ his eyes kept guard until the Blossom put her hand on his neck; an’ then Strongarm’s great love for the Blossom smothered out his caution as one might smother a fire with a robe; an’ the Blossom tied all his feet with thongs an’ bound his eyes with her blanket so that Strongarm might not see an’ be afraid.
Then came Feather-foot, gladly, an’ cut Strong-arm’s throat with his knife; for Feather-foot did not know he killed his father—for that was a secret thing with Moh-Kwa an’ the Blossom—an’ thought only how he killed a great Elk.
When Strongarm was dead, Moh-Kwa toiled throughout the day carrying up the big cedar; an’ when a pile like a hill was made, Moh-Kwa put Strongarm’s elk-body on its top, an’ brought fire from his house in the rocks, an’ made a great burning.
In the morning, the Blossom who had stayed with Moh-Kwa through the night while the fire burned, said, “Now, although the big elk is gone into ashes, I do not yet see the Strongarm.” But Moh-Kwa said, “You will find him asleep in the lodge.” An’ that was a true word, for when Moh-Kwa an’ the Blossom went to the lodge, there they found Strongarm whole an’ good an’ as sound asleep as a tree at midnight.
Outside the lodge they met the little Feather-foot who cried, “Where is the big elk, Moh-Kwa, that I killed?” An’ the Blossom showed him his father, Strongarm, where he slept, an’ said, “There is your big elk, Feather-foot; an’ this will ever be your best hunting for it found you your father again.”
When Moh-Kwa saw that everything was settled an’ well, an’ that he would now have always his regular fish, he wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his paws which were all singed fur an’ ashes, an’ said, “I am the weariest bear along the whole length of the Yellowstone, for I carried some heavy trees an’ have worked hard. Now I will sleep an’ rest.”
An’ with that Moh-Kwa lay down an’ snored an’ slept four days; then he arose an’ eat up the countless fish which Strongarm had speared to be ready for him. This done, Moh-Kwa lighted his pipe of kinnikinick, an’ softly rubbing his stomach where the fish were, said: “Fish give Moh-Kwa a good heart.”
“Now that is what I call a pretty story,” said the Jolly Doctor.
“It is that,” observed the Red Nosed Gentleman, with emphasis. “And I’ve no doubt the Strongarm made it a point thereafter to be careful as to what game he hunted. But, leaving fable for fact, my friend,”—the Red Nosed Gentleman addressed now the Sour Gentleman—“would you not call it your turn to uplift the spirits of this company? We have just enough time and I just enough burgundy for one more story before we go to bed.”
“While our friend, the Sioux Gentleman,” responded the Sour Gentleman, “was unfolding his interesting fable, my thoughts—albeit I listened to him and lost never a word—were to the rear with the old days which came on the back of that catastrophe of tobacco. They come to me most clearly as I sit here smoking and listening, and with your permission I’ll relate the story of The Smuggled Silk.”