Marcus Doyen came straight from the heart of Maine to Wakarusa. His family consisted of himself and wife and an old mother who had made the journey with them. It did not take him long to provide comfortable habitations for himself and one horse and a cow, and he interested everyone by the ingenuity with which he constructed his buildings, so tight that even the Kansas wind could not blow through them, and as though he were calculating on the same kind of temperature during winter time that his home State produced.
He looked about him and got acquainted with his neighbors, and soon concluded that he should buy a hog to fatten up for the small amount of pork and lard that his family would need. Big Aaron Coberly sold him a fine, husky pig, and when he delivered him he found that the Yankee had made a good pen for him, not very big, but stout, and with a warm bed fixed in one corner that was well sheltered. A few days afterwards, one of the neighbors came by, and Doyen called him over to see his hog, and said:
"He's surely got the right name, because he eats more than the horse and cow both. By George, he is a perfect hog; and he hasn't any sense about his bed; has picked up every straw and carried it over to the other corner of his pen, and keeps it there. He's also making trouble by digging into the ground with his nose, and has one hole where he's dug so deep that he nearly stands on his head when he's working in it."
The neighbor advised him to cut the hog's nose in slashes or put rings in it, but told him that the more of a hog the hog made of himself, the better hog he would be. The Yankee scratched his head as he received this advice, and said nothing; but a few days afterwards the neighbor was going near his place and heard a terrible squealing, and went over and found the Yankee hanging onto the fence of the pig pen with a hoe in his hand, and he noticed that the hog's face was covered with blood where the Yankee had been trying to slash his nose with the hoe ground sharp as a razor. When the neighbor stopped to observe the proceedings, Doyen told him that this hog was the trial of his life; that he hated to cut his nose, but had finally concluded he must do so, and that he couldn't throw him down and handle him himself, so he had sharpened up his hoe and was trying to fix him so he couldn't dig in the ground. Resting on the hoe for a minute, the Yankee said:
"He's one of my troubles, sure enough; but we've had others. My wife's had an awful time trying to wash our clothes. The water will turn all sorts of colors and mix up like buttermilk every time she puts soap in it, and finally someone told her that she had to break the water. I've heard of breaking horses and colts and oxen, but I never heard of breaking water; but, by George, that's what we're having to do!"
As you drive from Topeka to the stone bridge, just before you enter the valley, you notice what may appear to be a road extending eastward between two fences set about thirty feet apart. The way is rough and stony, and full of weeds and brush, and if you ask whether it is a laid-out road, you will be informed that it is, and that years ago road viewers went over it and established it as one of the public roads of Shawnee County. If you ask whether it was ever traveled, the answer will be, "no." And if you ask why it was laid out, this will be the explanation:
William Cartmill, a tall, vigorous, turbulent Irishman, owned the land to the north. George Franks, a hard-working, sturdy, honest, conservative Englishman owned the land to the south. They never agreed about anything. Franks was a church man, and loved peace and quiet. Stern necessity had taught him the ways of a pioneer. He could build a good log house without a nail or any other article that would cost money, and with very few tools beside his ax and broadax. Cartmill paid no attention to the church, and was always in a row of some kind. He had a good heart, but he was naturally full of devilment, and he enjoyed making trouble for Franks. He soon learned that Franks was afraid of him, or at least he treated Franks as though he were. The fact was, that the Englishman did not fear him, but simply wanted to avoid trouble with him; but it was all the same to Cartmill, and gave him an excuse for making Franks all the trouble he could. He found Franks starting to build a fence one day along the line, and went out and ordered him off, and yelled after him as he went:
"You know bloody well that the line's four hundred yards further south, and if I catch yez here any more I'll cut your heart out and set it up on a sharp rock."
Of course, Franks was right about the line, but Cartmill quarreled with him until it became necessary to get a county surveyor to make a definite location and plant the corner-stone. Franks then built a fence just two feet south of the line, and as soon as he finished it Cartmill hitched onto it. This gave Cartmill the use of the fence and two feet of the Franks land. Of course, Franks didn't like this, and he tried to find some legal way to get rid of the annoyance without bringing a direct suit against Cartmill, and so he petitioned for a road to be laid out. The neighbors helped him with it, although they all knew that the road never would be traveled, and thus it was that years ago there was established a laid-out road along the brow of the Wakarusa hills, running over gullies and bluffs where no one would or could travel.
Cartmill used the lane for a calf pasture in the summer and a place to shoot rabbits in the winter, and always claimed that he had the best of the row.
To this day the lane is a rendezvous for rabbit and quail, and as the country boys tramp through it they thank all the lucky stars for the row between the English and the Irish.
The Berry Creek Methodist church was a religious institution. It didn't pretend to have any other purpose nor function than to promote the getting of religion. There was no attempt to provide amusements or recreation, nor to make the church organization a club or a cult of any kind or character. The preachers and the members simply preached the old-time religion and insisted that every human being must get religion or go to hell. They were not so particular as to whether you joined the church, although it was usually urged that persons having got religion would do so. However, as a protection to the church and to prevent cluttering up their records, it was always provided that no matter how earnestly one professed religion, he must remain on probation for six months before being taken into the church. Experience showed that this was a wise provision, since many who professed religion did not remain steadfast long enough to become members of the church, and therefore the church officials were not compelled to carry them upon their books (if they kept books) as members, nor to indulge in the humiliating process of putting them out of the church because they had become backsliders.
It must be recorded that its ministers did not temporize with sin in any form, and that drinking, card-playing, dancing and other indulgences of worldly men and women were not classified as one being more sinful than the other, but all were condemned; and the person seeking religion was urged to put the devil behind him, which meant that he must abandon all self-indulgence and worldly pleasure and dedicate his life to service and sacrifice for good. Their ministers were sometimes embarrassed when called to preach the funeral of some person who had died in sin according to the doctrines of the church; but they were usually more or less resourceful at such times, and without giving way one jot or one tittle, and without indulging in elasticity of faith, they would manage to give comfort to bereaved friends and relatives, at the same time warning all of the uncertainty of life and the necessity of preparation for death.
The principal activity of the church consisted in holding a revival meeting once a year in the Berry Creek school-house, and during the winter of which this is written the meeting commenced early. Crops had ripened early in the fall, so that the corn was practically all shucked and in the crib by Thanksgiving time; potatoes and other vegetables had been gathered and cared for, and apples stored away in cellars or sealed up in great holes made in the ground. The meeting started off well. For some reason a good attendance was present the first night, and the preacher clustered his sermon and exhortation around the inquiry, "Where will you spend eternity?" It is not an exaggeration to say that during the next day hundreds of people, either directly or by grapevine-method, told others of the eloquence of the minister and of his earnestness, and of the fact that there seemed to be in the atmosphere of the meeting the presence of the Holy Spirit that stirred them all in a wonderful way.
The weather was pleasant and the attendance at the meetings increased, as night after night the revival spirit animated those in attendance. After some days of good weather a rainy period set in, and this continued more than two weeks; but this did not halt the attendance nor dampen the fire that had been kindled at the meetings. Early in the evening the roads and trails would be full of persons afoot, on horseback, or in wagons, all happy and more or less noisy, making their way through the mud to the little school-house. The building would be crowded, and the windows thrown up so that persons standing on the outside under the eaves could hear and see all that was going on, and occasionally take part in the songs or exclamations which made up more or less of the service.
John MacDonald was trying to teach school during the daytime in the building, but he was having a hard time of it. He was his own janitor, and when he would come to build a fire in the morning and find two or three inches of mud on the floor, and all of his kindling and ready fuel burned up, he would sometimes be exasperated. In fact, one evening at the meeting, among those who stood outside, it was reported that MacDonald had complained to the board, and a new convert expressed the sentiment of those present when he said:
"Hell, John's all right; but he's a damn Presbyterian, and can't be expected to know much about getting religion."
Someone rebuked the speaker for using profanity, since he was one of the converts; and modifying his language, he said:
"I'm durned if it ain't purty hard to quit swearing, but I'm doing the best I can, and I think if this meeting runs on another week I'll be all right."
The meetings continued, and finally the rainy weather suddenly terminated, and the temperature went down lower and lower, until by Christmas time the thermometer showed zero weather, and day after day it was cold enough that sun-dogs followed the sun all day long.
As the weather grew colder the meetings grew warmer. Practically everyone for miles around attended, and the most of them got religion. It was no unusual thing for awkward country lads who had never made a public address, to stand up and in eloquent though trembling voice profess their change of heart and their desire to do right, and without embarrassment exhort their friends to join them. Modest women who scorned unseemly conduct or notoriety would go up and down the little room urging those whom they knew to take advantage of the promises of God; and if they did at times shout and cry out, or jump up and down, or throw themselves upon the floor or the bench used for an altar, it was all because of the exaltation of the hour and a part of their good intent and good purpose. A dance in the neighborhood was simply out of the question, and it would have been hard to find a playing-card left unburned; and in their efforts to put away worldly things, many tobacco-soaked men gave up the use of the weed. One night a convert told of his experience in this behalf, and said he had had some awful dreams, and one was that he was sitting on a hill north of the Wakarusa Valley, and that there was a terrible drouth, on account of which the river was dry, and that the devil came to him with a plug of tobacco that reached from him clear over to Carbondale, and that in his weakness he had chewed, and spit in the river, and that he had chewed the entire plug and had spit in the river until it run off as though there had been a terrible rain.
The meeting kept going, and finally Dr. Taylor, who had been counted as an unbeliever, came and got religion and helped in the exhortations. One night in urging the benefits of religion upon an audience, he pointed to George Franks, and said:
"Look, what the religion of Christ has done for Brother Franks. He was a wife-beater and a drunkard----"
Just there Brother Franks interrupted him, and half arising from his seat, he said:
"Brother, not a wife-beater."
The Doctor corrected himself and went on with his illustration, which was just as good without the charge which was denied.
John MacDonald, notwithstanding the incident hereinbefore related, became an attendant at the meeting, and more than once, in his conservative and humorous way, took part and showed his full appreciation of the spirit of reform and revival that pervaded the neighborhood, and his full sympathy with every honest effort to do good and make men lead better lives. And so they came from up and down the valley and everywhere, the rich and the poor, the good and the bad, the conservative and the excitable, and all were melted together in religious effort. It is true that there was sometimes confusion because different persons would insist upon singing their favorite hymn at the same time; but it did not seem out of the way when Mrs. Hughes, in recollection of earlier days in Wales, would sing, "I've Reached the Land of Corn and Wine;" and an old Scotchman would start up "I'm Far Frae My Hame, and I'm Weary Aften Whiles;" and another would sing "How Firm a Foundation Ye Saints of the Lord;" and another, "Shall We Gather at the River;" and all liable to be interrupted by a grand old chap who would yell, rather than sing, "It's the Old Time Religion and It's Good Enough for Me."
It is not passing strange that many of the youngsters who attended the meeting simply considered the services as entertainment, although in later life in thinking it over they were able to understand that when men and women make up their minds to abandon selfish purposes and do right at all times and in all places they naturally become possessed of the spirit of happiness, of exaltation and praise that easily accounted for the wonderful services held during such a revival.
One day little Tommy Cartmill went to the teacher and said:
"I have lost my revolver somewhere about the school grounds, and if you are at church tonight I wish you would announce it so that if anyone finds it they will return it to me."
MacDonald was amazed that a little chap of thirteen years would be carrying a revolver, and after telling him what he thought about such practice, he said that he would undertake to find the lost weapon by making the announcement requested. That night the teacher made the announcement which he had promised, and this reminded those present that the old man Cart mill had not attended the meeting and was still out in the cold world of sin; and immediately many voices plead with the Lord that Cartmill might see the error of his ways, and that the Spirit might come down upon him, and that he might be saved. Whether because of the power of prayer or of the fact that his name had been mentioned at the meeting, it soon came about that Cartmill attended the services. He was a tall, strong, lanky Irishman, with a bushy head that looked as though it never had been combed, and his quarrels with Franks and other neighbors had made him more or less of a terror. He was entirely too large to use the ordinary school pupil's seat, and he therefore stood up near the door. He gave no indication of his attitude toward the meeting except to make a few scornful remarks now and then on the outside, but about the third night in the midst of a glorious period of exhortation and song he came bolting up the aisle like a mad buffalo; but as he turned around it was seen that tears streamed down his face, and commencing in a broken way, he implored the forgiveness of all whom he had wronged, and begged the prayers and help of all that he might get religion and be saved. Many crowded around him as he talked, and prayed for him, when he finally threw himself over the altar. George Franks and others whom he had terrorized put their arms around him and held to him and prayed for him as though he were the most precious mortal on earth. Finally he announced that the light had come to him, and he stood up to testify. Among other things he confessed that he had wronged Brother Franks, and he said:
"I have done more than any of yez know. I stole his plow, a new one, that he left in the field; and I didn't stale it to kape it, but I stole it because of the divil that was in me; and I threw it in the Wakarusa in the dape hole by the big sycamore tree."
This and many other confessions he made. The meeting held till far in the night, and after it had broken up one could hear people on their way home talking loud of what a glorious meeting it had been, and an occasional voice would praise the Lord for his power to forgive and wipe out sin. The next day some sturdy youngsters cut the ice in the deep hole, where it was more than a foot thick, and hooked and grappled around in the water until they found the lost plow, and they pulled it out and carried it home to Franks. So it was that the confession was verified, and a real loss restored and made good by the influence of religion.
It matters not whether the church books ever showed that Cartmill remained steadfast until he became a member, but it must be recorded that he did get religion, and that his religion changed, influenced and made better his life, and that from that time forward no man in the whole community was less to be feared or was more helpful or considerate in his dealings or contact with his neighbors.
A few of the neighbors held a meeting to arrange for a Fourth of July picnic that was to be held in the grove near the big spring that breaks through the rocky banks of the Wakarusa one and a half miles below the stone bridge, and they had quite a dispute over whether they would invite John Martin or Joseph G. Waters to make the speech. An old mossback Democrat insisted that they have Martin. He said that Martin was a real Jeffersonian Democrat, and knew more about what the Fourth of July was made for than anybody else. A couple of younger men in the crowd insisted on having Joe Waters. They said that Joe was a Republican sure enough, but not Republican enough to hurt, and that he made a stem-windin' good speech. After considerable wrangle it was decided to invite Joe, and he consented to make the talk.
On the morning of the Fourth, along all the trails and roads people traveled, finding their way to the grove; and just about noon Captain Waters arrived with a livery team and buggy, with a negro boy driving; and he drove smashing and stomping in a reckless manner all around among the trees, almost running over some of the dinner baskets that were set about on the ground. The Captain took charge from the time he arrived. Everything that was done, he had to tell how to do it. One old woman had built a little fire between a couple of rocks to make some coffee, and he went up to her and told her that it was just as fair to drink coffee on the Fourth of July as on Christmas, and that he knew more about making coffee than the man who invented it. And in spite of her protests he made the coffee, and, of course, was welcome to help drink it.
After dinner, they backed a wagon up to an open place on the ground where some seats had been arranged, and Joe jumped in, and then reached for and pulled at the old man Kosier, who climbed up and called the crowd to order, made a few remarks on his own account, and then introduced and started off the Captain.
Joe stretched up his arms and called loudly for everyone to draw near. He said that he proposed to ask some questions and find out some things before he decided whether he would make a speech to such a crowd. "First," he said, "I want to know why you call that man Big Aaron Coberly, and that one Little Aaron;" and as he spoke he pointed to Aaron, Senior, who weighed one hundred and forty pounds, and then to Aaron, Junior, who weighed two hundred and forty. An old lady's voice, cracked, but earnest, piped up:
"Big Aaron used to be the biggest — he was grown up when little Aaron was a baby."
"Fair enough," said Joe; and everybody laughed.
"Another thing," said Joe, "I want to know whether you people are up on figures or whether you are a bunch of joshers. I heard Dick Disney ask Coker what he would take for his lower eighty, and Coker said he would take sixteen hundred dollars for it. Dick said he'd be damned if he'd give it — he would give twenty dollars per acre and no more. Coker told him to go to hell; and just then Wash Berry, Bill Cartmill and a half a dozen others crowded around and told them they ought to compromise. This talk was pulled off within ten feet of me," said Joe in a loud voice, "and I want to know if you think you can play horse with me, or is it possible you're all crazy in your arithmetic?"
A youngster yelled, "It's you 'at's crazy," and ran off through the woods.
After several further inquiries of this character the Captain said he was satisfied, and would go on with his talk.
It was a great day for Joe, and the people too; and there are some of them now who remember different portions of his speech, and especially one part that was more or less prophetic of the destiny of our country and of the fact that our soldiers might have to serve across the seas. This part was as follows:
"If I see the flag in unending line flung high up the city's wall, shining and shimmering all day long, it is my flag, bless God! If far out on the bleak desert, parched, barren and desolate, I see it fluff and flutter about the white adobe walls of the fort, it is my flag. If far at sea beneath the unclouded sky, the sun silvering the endless billows, it rises out of the eternal depths in its rippling folds, my blood may chill, my eyes may fill, my heart may still, for it is my flag that crests the ocean. If in a strange and alien land, alone, solitary and homesick, the pomp of royalty on every hand, suddenly there should burst in view, way up the shaded avenue, the glory, red and white and blue, oh, for the Kaiser and his crown, on me and mine to then look down, I'd lift my head and proudly say, 'That is my flag you see today, and isn't it a dandy, eh?' And I would tell his ermined queen, of all the heavens and earth between, it is the grandest thing that flies, o'er land or sea, beneath the skies! And as the years may go, as falls the snow, as flowers may blow, come weal or woe, that banner is my flag, I know."
At the close of the day, the chairman of the committee was heard to remark:
"Well, considerin' as how Joe wouldn't take any pay, and insisted on paying for the livery horses himself, and then bought out the stand of all the candy and cigars and give it all away among the crowd — I guess we got our money's worth."
One morning in early June a ten-year-old lad, having been given a half-holiday, dug a fine mess of luscious worms, put them in a tin can with plenty of good dirt, and started off up Berry Creek to fish for bullheads and sunfish. He went through the papaw patch and cut a nice long pole, and took time to fix his line on it in good shape, and to see that his cork, sinker, and hook were all right. He then went on through the woods, crossed the big ravines, and climbed around the rocky cliffs, making his way to the spot designated among the boys as the "bullhead hole." This was and is the best place on earth to fish for bullheads, and the boy knew it, and it was there he wanted to commence the day's sport. Finally he climbed over the last ledge, forced his way through the brush and came in sight of his favorite place, and, to his astonishment, he found an aged, peculiar looking man sitting under the old sycamore tree in the very spot where he had planned to be. He walked slowly up to a place as near the old man as good manners would permit, unwound his line and put on a good lively worm and commenced.
The old man paid no attention to him whatever, and, on watching him closely, the boy noticed that he was fishing for minnows with a pin-hook fastened to a thread, and this tied to a crooked stick. He put the minnows he caught into a tin bucket which was sitting at his feet, partially full of water. As soon as the boy noticed what he was doing, he set his pole and went up to him and offered to take off his shirt and help him seine for minnows with it. The old man looked up and said:
"Boy, I wouldn't fish with minnows caught with the best seine on earth. Your shirt wouldn't be much account as a seine; and anyway, they're never big enough. I am on my way to Wakarusa, and I want some good, strong, live minnows. A man who fishes with seined minnows is no account. More than that, you have no business to get your shirt wet. You tend to your fishin' and I'll tend to mine. Andrew Jackson said he knew a man who got rich tending to his own business."
This was a good deal of a bluff for the boy, and he proceeded as had been suggested, and "tended to his own business." It was a good morning for bullheads, and he soon got their range and commenced catching them. In fact, they were biting so well that he didn't stop to string any of those he caught, but threw them back on the bank; and just to see to it that the stranger did not forget he was there, he usually threw them toward the foot of the sycamore tree.
After a while the old man took his thread off the crooked stick and wound it up, poured most of the water off his minnows, and then filled the bucket again with fresh water, splashing it in with his hand so that it would be as full of oxygen as possible; and then he took out an old pipe and filled it, and as he commenced to smoke he looked around at the ground, spotted with wriggling bullheads and sunfish, and for the boy, who had experienced a lull in his activities long enough to allow him to commence to pick up and string the fish he had caught.
The boy looked at him, and he brightened up and said:
"Kid, you're having a good time, and I don't blame you. I am going down to Wakarusa to fish for big fish, but, after all, you've got more sense than I. The bullhead is the safest and surest fish for meat, and he's not bad sport either, because he usually bites like he meant business, although he may be a little slow. The bullhead is a good deal like the rabbit in one way — he's sure food. There's more rabbit meat on foot in Kansas than there is beef or pork, and it's all good. The buffalo was all right in his time, but even he didn't come up to the rabbit. The bullhead reminds me of the rabbit, and the rabbit reminds me of the bullhead."
The old man stopped talking, and acted as though he were about to start off, when the boy asked him where he was going on the Wakarusa to fish, and he said:
"I don't know just where I'll wind up. I have fished in every hole in Wakarusa from way above the Wakarusa falls down stream nearly to Lawrence, and sometimes I go to one place and sometimes to another. I've fished for bullheads, too, and for sunfish, in every place that the water is deep enough from the place where Berry Creek starts, over in the coal banks by Carbondale, down to the Sac and Fox spring and all along Lynn Creek, especially in the part that's full of boulders and little round pebbles, with here and there a riffle made by a broken flat rock. And boy, I want to tell you something — some days you can catch fish like you've been catching 'em this morning, and some days you can't. I've seen days so dull that even the bite of a crawfish was welcome."
The old man started off, and then came back and took the boy by the shoulder and almost shook him as he said:
"Don't tell anyone that you saw me. It's nobody's business." And then he went away.
The boy was not at all afraid, although the man was a total stranger, and looked and acted very queer. The next day he told Joe Coberly about meeting him, and Joe said:
"That old cuss is not real. He's around here every once in a while, and always has been. Nobody knows where he lives nor where he comes from or goes to. He must have been in a good humor or you wouldn't have caught so many fish, because he can give you good luck or bad luck; and there's always something strange happenin' when you hear of him around. Last night something had one of my horses out and run him nearly to death; his mane was all tied in knots this morning, and he was wringin' wet with sweat when I went into the barn; and the barn doors were all fastened just as I had left them, too. You never can tell what's goin' to happen when that old devil's pretendin' to fish up and down the creek."
The boy told the story to a number of people, and soon found that practically all of the old-timers thought just the same as did Joe Coberly, and that they believed that there was something mysterious and unreal about the fisherman he met at the bullhead hole.
The boy treasured up what had been told him about the ghost fisherman, and although he had been taught at home that there were no ghosts, every story of that nature interested him. One night he was at the home of Uncle Bill Matney. It was about ten o'clock, and they were all seated around the big fire that was roaring in the fireplace. Uncle Bill was playing "Natchez Under the Hill" on the fiddle, when suddenly they heard a horse coming on a dead run over the rocky road that led toward the house. The fiddle stopped, and everybody listened, and Uncle Bill said:
"That must be Little Jim Lynn. Nobody else is damn fool enough to ride like that."
Pretty soon the horse stopped by the side of the house, and they could all hear the saddle hit the ground, and then the bridle, after which the horse trotted away and Little Jim stalked into the house. As he pulled off his gloves and threw them in a corner, Uncle Bill said:
"What the hell's the matter, Jim?"
And Jim said:
"O, nothing, only a damn ghost — saw him down on the bluff by Mark Young's corner."
Jim was white as death, and everybody listened, but he didn't say anything more until Uncle Bill said:
"War he beckonin', Jim?"
And Jim said:
"No, he warn't beckonin', but he was there just the same."
Uncle Bill tuned up his fiddle, and before he resumed playing, said:
"Well, if he warn't beckonin' it's all right."
Just at that point the boy broke in to inquire what difference it made whether the ghost was beckoning, and two or three explained to him that if a ghost beckoned to you that someone in your family would die within a year.
The boy was just skeptic enough to have plenty of fun listening to ghost stories by people who believed or half way believed them; and it became a habit of his to bring up the subject in talking with different people, and listen to their ghost stories if any might be provoked.
One spring he heard a ghost story that clung to him, and as he grew older and older the ghost in the story seemed more real. It was during the spring roundup of cattle, and he and an old Westerner had been riding and working together for a number of days cutting out and separating cattle, and taking some to one range and some to another, when, after a long day's ride over the hills of Wabaunsee County, they found that they were not able to reach home, and made a camp at Wakarusa falls. They boiled some coffee and fried some salt meat, and this, together with some bread and some hard-boiled eggs, made a good supper. Afterwards they lay down with their saddles for pillows and commenced the usual process of talking one another to sleep. Looking up at the stars and out at their dying fire, the boy thought of the phantom fisherman and other ghosts, and asked the old ranger what he knew about such. The old fellow stretched out on the ground, and reaching over took hold of the boy, as he said:
"Kid, I guess I've seen as many ghosts as anybody, but there's one that I never forget, and it's always comin' back to me. Years ago, when I wasn't any older than you, way back in York State, I coaxed my father and mother ever so many times to let me come out West. We had some folks living out this way, and from the letters they wrote, I was crazy to come out here. They didn't want me to come, and said I ought to go to school, and tried to make me go to school; but I wouldn't do any good in school nor at anything else, and once or twice I run away from home, and they caught me and brought me back. One day my mother called me into the house, and I noticed that my father was sitting down at the table and that there was a chair near his where she had been sitting. She asked me to sit down, and she pulled up another chair, and then she said: ' Jack, we've been talking about you, and we know that you want to go out West, and that you want to go so bad that you're not doin' any good here. Your Paw and I have talked it over, and thought it over, and prayed over it, and we think that maybe it would be best for you to go, and we're goin' to give you what we can spare and let you strike out.' We hadn't had a letter from the folks in the West for a long time, but we hunted up the old address, and Mother tied up a big bundle of clothes for me, and they gave me a railroad ticket and nine dollars and fifty cents, which was all the money they had in the house. On the day I left I started for the station on foot, and looked back many times because Father and Mother both were hanging over the gate watching me go. I don't know how many times I looked back, Kid, but I do know that I looked back enough that the looks of them has been with me all these years; and lots and lots of times it seems to me that I can see the old man as he held up his hand and yelled 'Goodbye, boy, goodbye!' and Ma right by his side. It may be that there ain't any real ghosts for some people, but them old faces are real when they come back to me. It's more than thirty years, and ever so long I thought I'd go back and see them some day, and I used to write them that I would, but I never did; and they're both gone now. Their ghost is all I have, and I kind o' like it, and wouldn't trade it off for anything in the world."
As the story ended the stars gradually went out for the boy, and he thought no more of ghosts until morning. Since then, he has accumulated quite a number of ghosts of his own of the same kind and character as the ones that followed the old cattleman, all born of the grief of separation, and they are all real to him and have become part of his life.
On Christmas night the Indian camp was a noisy place. The fires were burning brightly in every tepee, and shouts and laughter told of the good time that was being had by everyone as a part of the celebration that the old French priest had taught them to have.
Outside the wind was blowing cold, with skiffs of snow. A strange boy wandered into the camp. He stopped at the tent of the chief and asked that he be admitted and given food and allowed to get warm. The chief drove him away. He went to the tent of Shining Star and tried to be admitted, but Shining Star grunted, and his boys drove him away with whips. He then went to many of the tents, including those of Eagle Eye and Black Feather, but none would receive him, and at one they set a dog upon him. His feet were bare, and tears were frozen on his cheeks. He was about to leave the camp, when he noticed a small tepee made of bearskin off by itself. He walked slowly to it, and quietly peeped in. Inside he saw the deformed Indian, who was known everywhere by the name of Broken Back. His squaw sat near him, preparing a scanty meal for them and their children. The children were playing on the ground, but were watching their mother closely, for they were hungry. The fire was low, and the boy started to turn away, and broke a twig that lay on the ground.
Broken Back ran out and stopped him as he was about to turn away.
"What do you want?" he said.
The boy commenced to cry.
"I am so cold and hungry," he said, "and I have been to all the tents, and they will not let me in."
Then Broken Back took him by the hand and led him into the tent, and they divided the food with him, and built up the fire until he became warm and happy. They urged him to stay all night and until the storm was over.
So he sat on the ground near the fire and talked and played with the children until it was time to go to sleep.
Then he stood up, and they all noticed that he was tall, and as they looked they saw that he was a man instead of a boy. His clothes were good, and over his shoulder hung a beautiful blanket, and over his head was a bonnet with feathers of strange birds upon it. As they looked, he reached out his hand and said:
"Broken Back, you have been good to a poor, cold and hungry boy. You and all of yours shall have plenty."
And Broken Back stood up; and he was deformed no more, but was large and strong and well, and his squaw stood by his side, and both were dressed in the best of Indian clothes. The children jumped about with joy, as they noticed that they were at once supplied with many things that they had always wanted.
"Broken Back," he said, "you shall be chief of your tribe. And all of your people shall love and respect and honor you. And your name shall be Broken Back no longer, but shall be Holy Mountain."
And as they talked, all of the Indians of the tribe came marching about his tent shouting in gladness, "Great is Holy Mountain, our chief, forever."
As they shouted, he disappeared, and they saw him no more.
The next day the good priest came to the camp, and they told him what had happened, and he said, "It was Jesus."