Letters from an Oregon Ranch/Chapter 17
XVII
A busy time indeed we hill-dwellers have been having for the past six weeks! Such hurrying to and fro, such rushing in and out, such fetching and carrying, such toiling and moiling, as if the prosperity of the nation depended upon our individual activity,—surely I never saw the like of it before.
What is it all about? Why, we’ve been a-harvest-ing, and a-gathering in the sheaves, and a-threshing of ’em; and I’ve been a-standing over that fiery dragon of a kitchen, canning fruit, making a bewildering confusion of jams, jellies, marmalades, and preserves, with sweet-pickling and sour-pickling and chili-saucing, and all the other evils flesh is heir to thrown in as a side issue; and I haven’t had time to take a deep, full breath since the middle of August.
However, it was not of these things that I intended to write to-day; rather, of certain good fortune that has just come to me,—and on wash-day, too, when I never look for anything but sodden, suds-soaked misery.
Let me tell you, first, that this being forced to do one’s own laundry-work is the worst feature of ranch life. The shadow of the coming event actually darkens my Sundays, and by Monday morning I have generally reached the depths of gloom.
In this mood I remarked at breakfast, rather savagely: “I wish to goodness some Croesus would scatter some of his superfluous millions among poor and needy ranch-folk! What’s the sense of giving organs and libraries to people who don’t want them, and of endowing universities that get mad about it and are ashamed of their origin?”
Thomas, recognizing the Monday morning madness, showed no surprise at this outburst, but placidly inquired: “Have you a specially crying need of wealth this morning? What do you want to buy?”
“Nothing,—I want to build. If my esteemed friend Mr. Carnegie would favor me with, well, say this coffee-pot full of twenty-dollar gold-pieces, I’d proceed at once to erect a steam laundry, out of sight and sound of this house, away back in the canyon, in its darkest, deepest depths; and I’d have a Chinaman to operate it, and Mr. Mantalini himself to preside over the mangle, and a big bandanna-browed lady of African descent to hand out the soiled linen to that Mongolian; and I’d have nothing at all to do with this unpleasant business until the clothes were returned, smooth and immaculate, in beautiful Indian baskets, each separate package wrapped in white tissue paper, ribbon-bound, with sprays of sword-fern, wild lavender, and mountain laurel tucked in. That’s what I’d do if I had the necessary wealth!”
“Great Scott! but you are soaring this morning, Katharine! Methinks e’en now I behold the opium-tinged gentleman from Hong Kong, in flowing Oriental robes, entering my suite of apartments, bearing an Injin tray of manzanita, upon which lie in state my dark blue overalls and my blue jumper, with one lone red bandanna glowing upon its pulseless breast, and these all swathed about with tissue paper and baby-ribbon, a cute little wisp of golden-rod tucked in the left hip pocket of my blue-jeans. Bon ami! How absurd!”
“Bon ami!—I don’t know what it means, and I doubt if you do.”
“I don’t, Katharine, but we’ve got to work up in the languages a little if we are going to have a houseful of foreign-born menials; they will be likely to act sort of uppish at times, then I’ll roar at ’em in French, and I fancy it will be pretty scary.”
“It certainly will be awesome,—your kind of French. But do listen to that clock striking seven!”
“Tempus fugit,—to continue my classic form of speech; and as your thought-waves are not likely to reach the shekel-dispenser of Skibo in time to bring returns before next week, shall I rise and fill the wash-boiler as of yore?”
“You may, if you please,—as Chang Wang’s barque seems to be detained by head winds.”
While we were engaged in the task of gathering together the depressing laundry outfit, my assistant earnestly assured me that he “really would take a hand to-day,”—as it was probably the last time the work would be done at the house,—only that he was just compelled to put new sills under the cattle-barn, as it was liable to tumble down any minute.
As the structure referred to has stood for about a quarter of a century, it seemed possible the crash might not have come to-day,—and I believe I hinted as much, as I went about radiating sweetness and light.
Not long after this there might have been seen upon the back porch of the Ranch of the Pointed Firs a woman’s waving shadow, bowing and bending low above a wash-tub, the shadow muttering,—
“For men must work, and women must weep,
And there’s little to earn, and many to keep.”
After an hour or more of hard work, I observed Thomas coming up from the ruins of Palmyra, and hoping to awaken a spark of compassion in his adamantine bosom, I put on my most fagged expression, rubbing so fast and with such force that every loose thing on the porch was jingling when he reached it.
But, alas for my misplaced hopes! he passed me with a cheerful, “Lay on, Macduff!”
Then “the breaking waves dashed high,” and the white foam flew, but the Madonna of the tubs spake no word.
He came for some tool, as nearly as I could judge without looking at him,—which I disdained to do. When starting back, he halted to say: “A mighty tough time I’m having with that old shack. Casualties up to the present hour, one mashed thumb, two blood-blisters on left hand, three fir splinters in right.” Then he waited a little for some expression of sympathy; but nothing was heard on the porch but the hurrying hand of the wash-lady.
Advancing by easy stages to the colored clothes, I found among them a pair of overalls,—new ones, as stiff as buckram. In one pocket I discovered about half a pound of nails of various sizes, a coil of wire, a short piece of rope, and a leather shoestring; in another some plump grains of vetch and some large speckled beans, doubtless carried about to awaken envy in the hearts of neighboring farmers. The usual supply of oats and chaff was then shaken out, and the lightened garments were plunged in the tub, where, becoming inflated with hot air, they refused to down at my bidding,—just fell upon their knees, looking so like their owner that I felt as if I were drowning him. Unmoved, I was jabbing them viciously with a stick, when a strange voice said, “Good-morning, ma’am!” I jumped, dropped the stick, and the blue-jeans bobbed up like a jack-in-the-box. Near me stood a perfect giant of a man with a flour-sack on his shoulder, really the tallest man ever seen outside of a canvas.
“Are you Mrs. Graham?”
I thought of saying, “No; I’m Bridget McCarty; Mrs. Graham is at the sea-shore.” But before I could speak, the giant continued, “I’ve got some mail here for you,” as he began untying the flour-sack, the only form of mailbag used in the hills.
Now we had had no mail for over two weeks; and as I watched that towering angel in corduroy throwing out letters, magazines, papers, and packages, I could have fallen upon his neck in gratitude—if a convenient step-ladder had been near me.
A pitcher of milk with a gingerbread accompaniment was offered, and graciously accepted by the giant. Declining a chair, he rested on the edge of a table, the Madonna on the wash-bench, as we held a porch conversazione. I learned that he was living quite alone on a timber claim, “about four mile back in the mountains, mighty nigh the summit, and just about at the end of things.”
“Ever feel lonely up there?” I ventured to inquire.
“Not a bit of it! I’ve lived in the woods since I was knee-high; I go to town about once in three months, and then I’m lonesome, uneasy as a fish out of water, just homesick for the big trees.”
I recognized a kindred spirit. He then told me of his work,—of making rails and posts, of splitting shingles and clapboards, of cooking, and of baking “sour-dough biscuit.” I wondered what they were.
“And do you have to do this?” I asked, with a wave of my hand toward the tubs.
“Yes, about once a month.”
“Don’t you just hate it?”
“You bet I do!” (Another link forged in friendship’s chain.) “But I make short work of it, slap ’em through in a hurry and throw ’em on the bushes to dry; and I never wash them things,”—pointing to the suds-soaked effigy of Thomas, now slowly sinking into the waters of oblivion. “You see mine get just plastered with pitch; water wouldn’t even wet ’em. I wear ’em till things get to stickin’ to me, then burn ’em.”
I fancied him in his strange suit of armor, stalking about in the gloom of the forest, with feathers, ferns, shavings, pine needles, and cones sticking to him, giving him the look of some gigantic woodland satyr.
But the best of friends must part; his cart was soon climbing the long hills, and I gathering up the mail with the joy of Silas Marner gloating over the pot of gold hidden beneath his loom. I had resolved to keep it all intact until my work was done, and then enjoy it with a clear conscience; and I might have done so but for a mysterious package, very heavy and oblong, not unlike a gold brick, too tempting to be resisted. Eager fingers hurriedly removed the heavy outer wrapper, then a lighter one, then one of tissue paper, and there appeared the most beautiful book,—fine paper, exquisite type, wide margins, and choice illustrations.
Thinking gratefully and lovingly of the generous giver of my precious book, and quite ashamed of the rebellious mood of the morning, I went back to my work with a light and happy heart. Something pleasant had happened to relieve the monotony of toil and change the current of my thought. Work was easy now, and soon those clothes were fluttering white upon the hillside. They were not slighted in the least, either; for I’ve learned of Emerson, corroborated by experience, that to feel “relieved and gay, one’s work must be well done, otherwise it shall give one no peace; is a deliverance which does not deliver.”
Dinner over, the work “done up,” and every trace of the late unpleasantness removed, Bridget McCarty vanished from mortal view; Mrs. Graham emerged from seclusion, freshly if not modishly gowned, seated herself in a favorite rocker by a favorite window, drew another chair near upon which was piled that blessed mail, then glanced at the clock. It was three P. M.,—two whole hours before time to begin supper.
During those two hours I was about as near perfect content and happiness as I ever expect to be this side the gates of pearl. Absorbed in the delightful contents of six plump letters, the fascinations of a new book, and a multitude of papers and magazines, I was startled when the clock with cruel distinctness struck five. The sound fell upon my ear like the death-knell of Duncan.
Now, if you think my pleasure in these things exaggerated, go and live for a year or two in the isolation of the woods, far away from public libraries and bookstores; then let a surprise and pleasure like mine come into your life, and see if your head also would not be turned just a little.