My dear sir, those early New Englanders were in trade schools from the time they began to crawl on the floor among their mothers’ looms and spinning-wheels. There was hardly a home in early New England that didn’t give a large number of technical courses in which men and women were always teaching by doing, and the boys and girls were always learning by imitating.
The facts about this are so simple and so familiar that we don’t stop to think of their meaning. When in the spring the wood-ashes from the winter fires were poured into the lye-barrel, and water was poured in with them, and the lye began to trickle out from the bottom of the barrel, and the winter’s savings of grease were brought out, and the grease and the lye were boiled together in the big kettle, and mother had finished making the family’s supply of soap for another year, the children had taken not only a little lesson in industriousness, by helping to make the soap, but a little lesson in industry, too, by observing the technique and organization of the soap business from start to finish. A boy from that family, even if he never learned to read or write, might some day have some IDEAS about soap.
The curriculum of an old New England home, so far as presided over by the wife, may be incompletely suggested as follows:
(N. B. The reader will note the inappropriateness of congratulating the daughters of that home on their not wanting a job. They had it.)
VEGETABLES DEPARTMENT.
1. A course in Gardening.
“In March and in April, from morning to night, In sowing and setting good housewives delight.”
2. A course in Medicinal Herbs. Borage, fennel, wild tansy, wormwood, etc. Methods of distillation. Aqua composita, barberry conserve, electuaries, salves, and ointments. A most important course for every housewife.
“A speedy and a sovereign remedy,
The bitter wormwood, sage and
marigold.”–FLETCHER: “The Faithful Shepherdess.”
3. A course in Pickling. In this course pretty nearly everything will be pickled, down to nasturtium-buds and radish-pods.
PACKING-HOUSE DEPARTMENT.
1. A course in Salting Meat in the “powdering” tub.
2. A course in Smoking Hams and Bacons.
3. A course in Pickling Pig’s feet and Ears.
4. A course in Headcheese and Sausages.
LIQUOR DEPARTMENT.
1. A course in Beer. The making of wort out of barley. The making of harm out of hops. The fermenting of the two together in barrels.
(This course is not so much given now in New England, but it is an immemorial heritage of the female sex. Gervayse Markham, in his standard book, “Instructions to a Good Housewife,” says about beer: “It is the work and care of woman, for it is a house-work. The man ought only to bring in the grain.”)
2. A course in Light Drinks, such as Elderberry Wine.
CREAMERY DEPARTMENT.
1. A course in Making Butter.
2. A course in Making Cheese, Curdling, breaking curds in basket, shaping in cheese press, turning and rubbing cheese on cheese ladder.
CLEANING DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Soapmaking.
2. A course in Making Brooms out of Guinea-wheat Straw.
3. A course in Starch making.
4. A course in Cleaning.
(This last course is very simple. Having manufactured the things to wash and sweep with, the mere washing and sweeping won’t take long.)
FRUIT DEPARTMENT.
1. A course in Preserving–everything that can’t be pickled.
BREAKFAST FOOD DEPARTMENT.
1. A course in Mush and forty kinds of Bread–Rhineinjun (sometimes called Rye and Indian), bun, bannock, jannock, rusk, etc., etc.
LIGHTING DEPARTMENT.
1. A course in Dips. The melting of tallow or bayberries. The twisting of wicks. The attaching of wicks to rods. The dipping of them into the melted mass in the kettle. Patience in keeping on dipping them.
(Pupils taking this course are required to report each morning at five o’clock.)
2. A course in Wax Candles. The use of molds.
These departments might give a girl a pretty fair education of the hand and a pretty fair acquaintance with the technique and organization of the working world; but we haven’t yet mentioned the biggest and hardest department of all.
Before mentioning it, we call attention to a picture reproduced in this article from a book published in the year 1493. The book was a French translation of Boccaccio’s collection of stories called “Noble Women.” The picture shows a woolen mill being operated in the grounds of a palace by a queen and her ladies-in-waiting. It summons back the days when even the daughters of kings and nobles could not help acquiring a knowledge of the working world, because they were in it. One of the ladies in-waiting is straightening out the tangled strands of wool with carding-combs. The other has taken the combed and straightened strands and is spinning them into yarn. The queen, being the boss, has the best job. She is weaving the yarn into cloth on a loom.
The daughters of the Emperor Charlemagne, who was a very rich man, learned how to card and spin and weave. Noble women had to boss all that kind of thing on their estates. They lived in the very midst of Industry, of Business.
So it was with those early New England women. And therefore, whether well-to-do or indigent, they passed on to their sons as well as to their daughters a steady daily lesson in the world’s work. The most intelligent mother in the United States to-day, let her be kindergartner and psychologist and child-study-specialist as much as she pleases, cannot give her children that broad early view of the organization of life. The only place where her children can get it now is in the school.
On the first of January of this year Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, superintendent of schools in Chicago, took algebra out of the eighth grade of the elementary schools, and, in its place, inserted a course on Chicago. Large parts of what was once the Home are now spread out through the Community. The new course will teach the life of the community, its activities and opportunities, civic, aesthetic, industrial. Such a course is nothing but Home Training for the enlarged Home.
But we must go back for a moment to that biggest and hardest department of all in the old homes of New England.
“Deceit, weeping, spinning, God hath give To women kindly that they may live,”
said Chaucer in a teasing mood.
But spinning was a very small part of the Department of Textiles. We forbear to dilate on the courses of instruction which that department offered. We confine ourselves to observing that:
First. In the Sub-Department of Flax, after heckling that flax with combs of increasing degrees of fineness till the fibers lay pretty straight; after spinning it into yarn on her spinning-wheel; after reeling the yarn off into skeins; after “bucking” the skeins in hot lye through many changes of water; and after using shuttle and loom to weave the stuff into cloth, the home woman of those days had to accomplish some twenty subsequent processes of bucking, rinsing, possing, drying, and bleaching before the cloth was ready for use.
Second. In the Sub-Department of Wool, in addition to being carders, spinners, and weavers, women were dyers, handling all the color resources of the times, boiling poke-berries in alum to get a crimson, using sassafras for a yellow or an orange, and producing a black by boiling the fabric with field-sorrel and then boiling it again with logwood and copperas.
We pass over, as trivial, the making of flax and wool stuffs into articles of actual use. We say nothing about the transformation of cloth into clothes, table-covers, napkins; nothing about the weaving of yarn on little lap looms into the narrow fabrics for hair-laces, glove-ties, belts, garters, and hat-bands; nothing about the incessant knitting of yarn into mittens and stockings; nothing about a host of other details. They were for idle moments.
Sweet domestic days, when girls stayed at home and helped their mothers and let father support the family!
It seems as if even Rip Van Winkle, in his most shiftless mood, ought to have been able to support a large number of daughters under such conditions.
Does it astonish you that they matured young? There, all about them, from babyhood, were the basic processes by which the world was sheltered, clothed, and fed. Those processes were numerous but simple. Boys and girls observed them, absorbed them, through eyes, through finger-tips, all through those early years when eyes and finger-tips are the nourishing points of the intellect.
John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, was married at seventeen. His parents were not only willing, but aiding and abetting. They considered him a man.
Mercy Otis, in Revolutionary days, in Massachusetts, the wife of the patriot, James Warren, and Abigail Smith, the wife of the future president, John Adams, both married before twenty. A study of their lives will show that at that age they were mature.
To-day, in Boston, a woman of twenty is considered so immature that many of the hospitals will not admit her even to her preliminary training for the trade of nurse till she has added at least three years more to her mental development.
Who has thus prolonged infancy; who has thus postponed maturity? No individual.
Science has done part of it.
By the invention of power-driven machines and by the distribution of the compact industries of the home through the scattered, innumerable business enterprises of the community, Science has given us, in place of a simple and near world, a complicated and distant one. It takes us longer to learn it.
Simultaneously, by research and also by the use of the printing-press, the locomotive, and the telegraph wire (which speed up the production as well as the dissemination of knowledge), Science has brought forth, in every field of human interest and of human value, a mass of facts and of principles so enormous and so important that the labors of our predecessors on this planet overwhelm us, and we grow to our full physical development long before we have caught up, in any degree, with the previous experience of the race. And till we have done that, to some degree, we are not mature.
With this postponement of personal maturity, there is an even greater postponement of what might be called “technical” maturity. The real mastery of a real technique takes longer and longer. The teacher must not only go to college but must do graduate work. The young doctor, after he finishes college and medical school, is found as an interne in hospitals, as an assistant to specialists, as a traveler through European lecture-rooms. The young engineer, the young architect, the young specialist of every sort, finds his period of preparation steadily extending before him.
What is left undone by Science in keeping us immature is finally accomplished by System.
The world is getting organized. Except in some of the professions (and often even in them) we most of us start in on our life work at some small subdivided job in a large organization of people. The work of the organization is so systematized as to concentrate responsibility and remuneration toward the top. In time, from job to job, up an ascent which grows longer as the organization grows bigger, we achieve responsibility. Till we do, we discharge minor duties for minimum pay.
This is just as true of the boy from a “middle class” family as it is of the boy from a “working class” family. There follows, however, a most important difference between them. The “middle class” boy will have to work longer and go farther than the “working class” boy in order to rise to the financial standards of his class. In this respect the “working class” boy will be a man, ready for marriage, long before his “middle class” fellow-worker.
It is among “middle class” boys, then, that the period of infancy is most prolonged. They get a good deal of schooling. The stores of human knowledge are put in their hands, to some extent, and, to some extent, they catch up with the experience of the race. This takes a longer and longer effort, particularly if real mastery of any real technique is attempted. Then, on going to work, they find that System, supplementing Science, has perfected such an organization of the world of work that they must stay for quite a while in the ranks of the organization. They will not soon be earning what is regarded among their friends as a marrying income. In money, as well as in mind, they approach marriage with increasing tardiness. Their prolonged infancy is financial, as well as mental.
They say that college girls marry late. It is true enough. But it isn’t properly stated.
The girls in the kind of family which college girls come from marry late.
It can be definitively established by statistics here considerately omitted that the age of marriage of college girls is no later than the age of marriage of their non-college sisters and acquaintances.
College is not a cause. It is a symptom.
Out of the prolongation of infancy in the “middle class” has come the conquest by women of the intellectual freedom of the world.
It was by no vagary of chance that the demand of women for the higher education came simultaneously with the change from the old industrial home to the new, more purely domestic home. (It may be a higher, nobler type of home. We are not here discussing that point.)
As the home ceased to provide its daughters with adequate education and with adequate employment, what was their situation? In the “working class” it was simply this: That they went into factories and that their sweethearts married them somewhat later than had previously been the case, because their share as wives in the support of the family was increasingly smaller. But the “working class” man soon reaches his maximum earning capacity in his craft and stays there. His financial infancy is short, compared with that of the “middle class” man. He therefore marries younger.
In the “middle class,” however, Science and System began to lengthen the mental and financial infancy of the men to such an extent that the “old maid” of twenty-three became common. What were the girls in the “middle class” to do while the boys were growing up to be men, in mind and in money?
The father of Frederick the Great used to go about his realm with a stick, and when he saw a woman in the street he would shake the stick at her and say “Go back into the house. An honest woman keeps indoors.”
Probably quite sensible. When she went indoors, she went in to a job. The “middle class” daughter of to-day, if her mother is living and housekeeping, goes indoors into a vacuum.
Out of that vacuum came the explosion which created the first woman’s colleges.
There was plenty of sentiment in the explosion. That was the splendid, blinding part of it. That was the part of it which even to-day makes us veil our eves before the nobility of such women as Emma Willard and Mary Lyon. They made Troy Female Seminary in the twenties and Mount Holyoke in the thirties in the image of the aspirations, as well as in the image of the needs, of the women of the times.
But the needs were there, the need to be something, the need to do something, self-respecting, self supporting. The existence of these needs was clearly revealed in the fact that from the early women’s colleges and from the early coeducational universities there at once issued a large supply of teachers.
This goes back to the fountainhead of the higher education of women in this country. Emma Willard, even before she founded Troy Female Seminary, back in the days when she was running her school in Middlebury, Connecticut, was training young women to TEACH, and was acquiring her claim (which she herself subsequently urged) to being regarded as the organizer of the first normal school in the United States.
From that time to this most college women have taught school before getting married. The higher education of women has been, in economic effect, a trade school for training women for the trade of teacher.
But isn’t it the purpose of the colleges to avoid training their pupils for specific occupations? Isn’t it their purpose to give their pupils discipline and culture, pure and broad, unaffected by commercial intention? Isn’t that what colleges are, and ought to be, for?
On the shore of this vast and violent controversy we discreetly pause and stealthily sidle off, taking note of just three reefs of solid fact which unsubmergably jut out above the surface of the raging waters.
First. The colleges instruct their pupils in the subjects which those pupils subsequently teach.
Second. The pupils specialize in the subjects which they are going to teach.
Third. The colleges, besides providing the future teachers with subjects, almost always offer to provide them with instruction in the principles of education, and frequently offer to provide them with instruction in the very technique of classroom work.
Our verdict, therefore, which we hope will be satisfactory to counsel on both sides, is that the college is by no means a trade school, but that if the woman who is going to earn her living will choose the one trade of teaching, she can almost always get a pretty fair trade training by going to college.
We are more interested in observing that the amount of trade training which a teacher is expected to take is increasing year by year. In teaching, as in other trades, the period and scope of preliminary preparation continue to expand.
In the last calendar of Bryn Mawr College, the Department of Education, in announcing its courses, makes the following common-sense remarks:
“It is the purpose of the department to offer to students intending to become teachers an opportunity to obtain a technical preparation for their profession. Hitherto practical training has been thought necessary for teachers of primary schools only, but similar training is very desirable for teachers in high schools and colleges also. Indeed, it is already becoming increasingly difficult for college graduates without practical and theoretical pedagogical knowledge to secure good positions. In addition to the lectures open to undergraduates, courses will be organized for graduate students only, conducted with special reference to preparation for the headship and superintendence of schools.”
But the teaching trade is getting choked. There is too much supply. Girls are going to college in hordes. Graduating from college, looking for work, there is usually just one kind of work toward which they are mentally alert. Their college experience has seldom roused their minds toward any other kind of work. They start to teach. They drug the market. And so the teaching trade, the great occupation of unmarried “middle class” women, ceases to be able to provide those women, as a class, with an adequate field of employment.
It is a turning point in the economic history of the class.
At the 1909 annual convention of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, in Cincinnati, Miss Susan Kingsbury (acting for a committee of which Mrs. Richards, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Miss Breckenridge, of the University of Chicago, were members) read a real essay on “The Economic Efficiency of College Women.”
This essay was not written till detailed reports on income and expenditure from 377 self-supporting college graduates had been got together.
Out of these 377 there were 317 who were teachers. There were 183 who had followed up their regular college course with from one to eight years of graduate study. The capital invested in education was from $2500 to $3500 and often amounted to $7000 because of advanced work and travel. After all this preparation, the average income achieved may be sufficiently disclosed in the one fact that, among those graduates who had been at work for from six to eight years, more than seventy per cent. were still earning less than $1100.
After drawing a complete statistical picture of the case, Miss Kingsbury concluded with certain questions and recommendations, here condensed, which show the new economic needs of “middle class” women knocking at the door of present “middle class” education:
“Should not the over-supply of teachers be reduced by directing many of our graduates into other pursuits than teaching? This will place upon the college, just where the responsibility is due, the obligation of discovering what those opportunities are and what preparation should be given.
“This organization should endeavor to arouse in our colleges a sense of responsibility for knowing the facts with regard to their graduates, both social and economic, and should also endeavor to influence our colleges through appointment secretaries, to direct women, according to fitness, into other lines than teaching.
“Should not courses be added to the college curriculum to give women the fundamental principles in other professions, or lines of industry or commerce, than teaching?
“May not required courses be added to the college curriculum to inculcate business power and sense in all women?”
This philosophy seems to aim at making the modern school as informative about modern industry as the primitive home was about primitive industry. It seems to be the same educational philosophy which produced the course on Chicago in the Chicago elementary schools, which produced the Manhattan Trade School in New York, which produced the School of Salesmanship at the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union in Boston.
At that Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, at 264 Boylston Street, you may see the evolution toward the age of trained women proceeding at all levels of educational equipment.
There, before you, at one level, are the Trade School Shops–a shop in hand-work and a shop in millinery. The pupils are graduates of the Boston Trade School for Girls. They have had one year of training. They are now taking another.
Florence Marshall made the Boston Trade School, with a committee of women to help her. It has now been taken over by the public authorities and merged into the public-school system. What looked like a private fad has become a public function. The training of women for self-support has been recognized as a duty of the state.
The Trade School Shops at the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union were started for the express purpose of supplementing the work of the Boston Trade School for Girls. One year was not enough.
In the Trade School the prospective milliner had spent four months on plain sewing, four months on summer hats, four months on winter hats. She had also taken short courses in Personal Hygiene, Business Forms, Spelling, Business English, Color Design, Textiles, Industrial Conditions. These latter courses were not, strictly speaking, “technical.” They were “vocational.” They were in the “middle ground” between general and technical training. They went beyond the general training of the elementary schools and furnished the girl with the background of her future vocation. But she often needed a little more of the foreground, a little more of actual trade technique.
Thus does her education divide itself up into periods:–general, vocational, technical.
The Trade School Shops are designed to give the girl her final technical finish. They are really more like a factory than like a school. Although the object of them is to convey a broad instruction, the pupil gets wages, the stuff she makes is sold, and the organization is that of a commercial establishment.
So, at the end of two years from the time she left the elementary school, the young milliner is ready to go out into the world organization. She is better fitted for her world than many a college girl is for hers.
On a different level of educational equipment from the Trade School Shops stands the School of Salesmanship. It gets many high school girls and even, occasionally, a girl who has been to college.
Finally, there is the Appointment Bureau, for college girls in particular.
This Appointment Bureau is the most extraordinary employment agency ever organized. Its object is not merely to introduce existing clients to existing jobs (which is the proper normal object of employment agencies), but to make forays into the wild region of “occupations other than teaching,” and find jobs, and then find girls to fit those jobs. In other words, it is a kind of “Company of Adventurers Trading into Hudson’s Bay” for the purpose of exploring, surveying, developing, and settling the region of “occupations other than teaching” on behalf of college women.
It is managed by Miss Laura Drake Gill, President of the National Association of Collegiate Alumnae and former Dean of Barnard College. She is assisted by an Advisory Council of representatives of near-by colleges–Radcliffe, Wellesley, Simmons, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Brown.
There is no more important work being done for women to-day.
In connection with it, the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union has just issued a handbook of three hundred pages, entitled “Vocations for the Trained Woman.” It is an immense map of the occupational world for “middle class” women, in which every bay and headland, every lake and hill, is drawn to scale, from Poultry Farming to Department Store Buying, from Lunch-Room Management to State Child-Saving.
The responses made to this movement by certain educational institutions (including particularly Simmons College) will be observed in a future article. Just one response, from an unexpected quarter, must be noticed here.
In a small Illinois city there is a woman’s college, founded as a Preparatory School in the forties and soon advanced to be a Seminary, which, with Anna P. Sill for its first head, Jane Addams for its best-known graduate, and Julia Gulliver for its present president, has come to be a college of standing and of leading. Only Troy Female Seminary and Mount Holyoke Seminary preceded it, in date of foundation, among the important women’s institutions.
Rockford College is ranked to-day, by the reports of the United States Commissioner of Education, in rank one–among the sixteen best women’s colleges in the United States. It hasn’t risen to that rank by any quick, money-spurred spurt. It brings with it out of its far past all the traditions of that early struggle for the higher education which, by friction, kindled among women so flaming an enthusiasm for pure knowledge. It remains “collegiate” in the old sense, quiet, cloistral, inhabiting old-fashioned brick buildings in an old-fashioned large yard, looking still like the Illinois of war times more than like the Illinois of the twentieth century, retaining all the home ideals of those times–a large interest in feminine accomplishments, a strict regard for manners, a belief in the value of charm.
But here, in this quiet, non-metropolitan college, so really “academic,” so really–in the oldest-fashioned ways–“cultural,” here is a two-year course in secretarial studies.
It is the first time (within our knowledge) that such a thing has happened in any of the old first-rank women’s colleges.
The course in secretarial studies at Rockford gives the pupil English, Accounts, Commerce, Commercial Law, and Economic History in her first year, and Political Science, English, and Economics in her second year. Shorthand and Typewriting are required in both years, and a few hours a week are reserved in each year for elective courses to be chosen by the pupil among offerings in French, German, Spanish, and History.
This is a notable concession not only to the increased need of “middle class” women for “occupations other than teaching” but also to the increased recognition of those other occupations as being worthy of “cultural” training.
We keep moving forward into an era of trained women as well as trained men. The extraordinary prolongation of mental and financial infancy in the “middle class,” bringing with it an extraordinary postponement of marriage, makes this training particularly necessary in the case of the women of that class. But the contraction of the home as a field of adequate employment for daughters exists everywhere, increasing the cost of living for the family and driving daughters to supplementing the family income.
What futility, as well as indignity, there is in the idea that the query of support for women gets its full answer in a husband!
In the United States, in the year 1900, among women twenty years of age and over, the married women numbered 13,400,000. The unmarried women and the widows together numbered 6,900,000. For every two women married there was one woman either single or widowed.
If education does not (1) give women a comprehension of the organization of the money-earning world, and (2) train them to one of the techniques which lead to self-support in that world, it is not education.
Just at this point, though, we encounter a curious conflict in women’s education. Just as we see their urgent need of a money-earning technique, we simultaneously hear, coming from a corner of the battlefield and swelling till it fills the air with a nation-wide battle-cry, the sentiment: “The Home is also a technique. All women must be trained to it.”
At Rockford College, illustrating this conflict, there exists, besides the course in Secretarial Studies, an equivalent course in Home Economics.
In one photograph in this article we show the tiny children of the Francis Parker School in Chicago taking their first lesson in the technique of the home. In another picture we show the post-graduate laboratory in the technique of the home at the University of Illinois. And the space between the kindergarten and the degree of Doctor of Philosophy threatens to get filled up almost everywhere with courses in cooking, sewing, chemistry of diet, composition of textiles, art of marketing, and other phases of home management.
The money-earning world, a technique! The home, a technique! The boy learns only one. Must the girl learn two, and be twice a specialist?
(In the September number Mr. Hard will discuss The Home Economics Movement.)
***************************************************************** VOL. XXIII September 1910 NO. 3
Law and Order
By O. HENRY
AUTHOR OF “THE FOUR MILLION,” “THE HEART OF THE WEST,” STRICTLY BUSINESS,” ETC.
I found myself in Texas a recently, revisiting old places and vistas. At a sheep-ranch where I had sojourned many years ago, I stopped for a week. And, as all visitors do, I heartily plunged into the business at hand, which happened to be that of dipping the sheep.
Now, this process is so different from ordinary human baptism that it deserves a word of itself. A vast iron cauldron with half the fires of Avernus beneath it is partly filled with water that soon boils furiously. Into that is cast concentrated lye, lime, and sulphur, which is allowed to stew and fume until the witches’ broth is strong enough to scorch the third arm of Palladino herself.
Then this concentrated brew is mixed in a long, deep vat with cubic gallons of hot water, and the sheep are caught by their hind legs and flung into the compound. After being thoroughly ducked by means of a forked pole in the hands of a gentleman detailed for that purpose, they are allowed to clamber up an incline into a corral and dry or die, as the state of their constitutions may decree. If you ever caught an able-bodied, two-year-old mutton by the hind legs and felt the 750 volts of kicking that he can send through your arm seventeen times before you can hurl him into the vat, you will, of course, hope that he may die instead of dry.
But this is merely to explain why Bud Oakley and I gladly stretched ourselves on the bank of the near-by charco after the dipping, glad for the welcome inanition and pure contact with the earth after our muscle-racking labors. The flock was a small one, and we finished at three in the afternoon; so Bud brought from the morral on his saddle horn, coffee and a coffeepot and a big hunk of bread and some side bacon. Mr. Mills, the ranch owner and my old friend, rode away to the ranch with his force of Mexican trabajadores.
While the bacon was frizzling nicely, there was the sound of horses’ hoofs behind us. Bud’s six-shooter lay in its scabbard ten feet away from his hand. He paid not the slightest heed to the approaching horseman. This attitude of a Texas ranchman was so different from the old-time custom that I marveled. Instinctively I turned to inspect the possible foe that menaced us in the rear. I saw a horseman dressed in black, who might have been a lawyer or a parson or an undertaker, trotting peaceably along the road by the arroyo.
Bud noticed my precautionary movement and smiled sarcastically and sorrowfully.
“You’ve been away too long,” said he. “You don’t need to look around any more when anybody gallops up behind you in this state, unless something hits you in the back; and even then it’s liable to be only a bunch of tracts or a petition to sign against the trusts. I never looked at that hombre that rode by; but I’ll bet a quart of sheep dip that he’s some double-dyed son of a popgun out rounding up prohibition votes.”
“Times have changed, Bud,” said I, oracularly. “Law and order is the rule now in the South and the Southwest.”
I caught a cold gleam from Bud’s pale blue eyes.
“Not that I—-” I began, hastily.
“Of course you don’t,” said Bud warmly. “You know better. You’ve lived here before. Law and order, you say? Twenty years ago we had ’em here. We only had two or three laws, such as against murder before witnesses, and being caught stealing horses, and voting the Republican ticket. But how is it now? All we get is orders; and the laws go out of the state. Them legislators set up there at Austin and don’t do nothing but make laws against kerosene oil and schoolbooks being brought into the state. I reckon they was afraid some man would go home some evening after work and light up and get an education and go to work and make laws to repeal aforesaid laws. Me, I’m for the old days when law and order meant what they said. A law was a law, and a order was a order.”
“But—-” I began.
“I was going on,” continued Bud, “while this coffee is boiling, to describe to you a case of genuine law and order that I knew of once in the times when cases was decided in the chambers of a six-shooter instead of a supreme court.
“You’ve heard of old Ben Kirkman, the cattle king? His ranch run from the Nueces to the Rio Grande. In them days, as you know, there was cattle barons and cattle kings. The difference was this: when a cattleman went to San Antone and bought beer for the newspaper reporters and only give them the number of cattle he actually owned, they wrote him up for a baron. When he bought ’em champagne wine and added in the amount of cattle he had stole, they called him a king.
“Luke Summers was one of his range bosses. And down to the king’s ranch comes one day a bunch of these Oriental people from New York or Kansas City or thereabouts. Luke was detailed with a squad to ride about with ’em, and see that the rattlesnakes got fair warning when they was coming, and drive the deer out of their way. Among the bunch was a black-eyed girl that wore a number two shoe. That’s all I noticed about her. But Luke must have seen more, for he married her one day before the caballard started back, and went over on Canada Verde and set up a ranch of his own. I’m skipping over the sentimental stuff on purpose, because I never saw or wanted to see any of it. And Luke takes me along with him because we was old friends and I handled cattle to suit him.
“I’m skipping over much what followed, because I never saw or wanted to see any of it–but three years afterward there was a boy kid stumbling and blubbering around the galleries and floors of Luke’s ranch. I never had no use for kids; but it seems they did. And I’m skipping over much what followed until one day out to the ranch drives in hacks and buckboards a lot of Mrs. Summers’s friends from the East–a sister or so and two or three men. One looked like an uncle to somebody; and one looked like nothing; and the other one had on corkscrew pants and spoke in a tone of voice. I never liked a man who spoke in a tone of voice.
“I’m skipping over much what followed; but one afternoon when I rides up to the ranch house to get some orders about a drove of beeves that was to be shipped, I hears something like a popgun go off. I waits at the hitching rack, not wishing to intrude on private affairs. In a little while Luke comes out and gives some orders to some of his Mexican-hands, and they go and hitch up sundry and divers vehicles; and mighty soon out comes one of the sisters or so and some of the two or three men. But two of the two or three men carries between ’em the corkscrew man who spoke in a tone of voice, and lays him flat down in one of the wagons. And they all might have been seen wending their way away.
” `Bud,’ says Luke to me, `I want you to fix up a little and go up to San Antone with me.’
” `Let me get on my Mexican spurs,’ says I, `and I’m your company.’
“One of the sisters or so seems to have stayed at the ranch with Mrs. Summers and the kid. We rides to Encinal and catches the International, and hits San Antone in the morning. After breakfast Luke steers me straight to the office of a lawyer. They go in a room and talk and then come out.
” `Oh, there won’t be any trouble, Mr. Summers,’ says the lawyer. `I’ll acquaint Judge Simmons with the facts to-day; and the matter will be put through as promptly as possible. Law and order reigns in this state as swift and sure as any in the country.’
” `I’ll wait for the decree if it won’t take over half an hour,’ says Luke.
” `Tut, tut,’ says the lawyer man. `Law must take its course. Come back day after to-morrow at half-past nine.’
“At that time me and Luke shows up, and the lawyer hands him a folded document. And Luke writes him out a check.
“On the sidewalk Luke holds up the paper to me and puts a finger the size of a kitchen-door latch on it and says:
” `Decree of ab-so-lute divorce with cus-to-dy of the child.’
” `Skipping over much what has happened of which I know nothing,’ says I, `it looks to me like a split. Couldn’t the lawyer man have made it a strike for you?’
” `Bud,’ says he, in a pained style, `that child is the one thing I have to live for. SHE may go; but the boy is mine!–think of it–I have cus-to-dy of the child.’
” `All right,’ says I. `If it’s the law, let’s abide by it. But I think,’ says I, `that Judge Simmons might have used exemplary clemency, or whatever is the legal term, in our case.’
“You see, I wasn’t inveigled much into the desirableness of having infants around a ranch, except the kind that feed themselves and sell for so much on the hoof when they grow up. But Luke was struck with that sort of parental foolishness that I never could understand. All the way riding from the station back to the ranch, he kept pulling that decree out of his pocket and laying his finger on the back of it and reading off to me the sum and substance of it. `Cus-to-dy of the child, Bud,’ says he. `Don’t forget it–cus-to-dy of the child.’
“But when we hits the ranch we finds our decree of court obviated, nolle prossed, and remanded for trial. Mrs. Summers and the kid was gone. They tell us that an hour after me and Luke had started for San Antone she had a team hitched and lit out for the nearest station with her trunks and the youngster.
“Luke takes out his decree once more and reads off its emoluments.
” `It ain’t possible, Bud,’ says he, `for this to be. It’s contrary to law and order. It’s wrote as plain as day here–“Cus-to-dy of the child.” ‘
” `There is what you might call a human leaning,’ says I, `towards smashing ’em both–not to mention the child.’
” `Judge Simmons,’ goes on Luke, `is a incorporated officer of the law. She can’t take the boy away. He belongs to me by statutes passed and approved by the state of Texas.’
” `And he’s removed from the jurisdiction of mundane mandamuses,’ says I, `by the unearthly statutes of female partiality. Let us praise the Lord and be thankful for whatever small mercies—-‘ I begins; but I see Luke don’t listen to me. Tired as he was, he calls for a fresh horse and starts back again for the station.
“He come back two weeks afterwards, not saying much.
” `We can’t get the trail,’ says he; `but we’ve done all the telegraphing that the wires’ll stand, and we’ve got these city rangers they call detectives on the lookout. In the meantime, Bud,’ says he, `we’ll round up them cows on Brusby Creek, and wait for the law to take its course.’ And after that we never alluded to allusions, as you might say.
“Skipping over much what happened in the next twelve years, Luke was made sheriff of Mojada County. He made me his office deputy. Now, don’t get in your mind no wrong apparitions of a office deputy doing sums in a book or mashing letters in a cider press. In them days his job was to watch the back windows so nobody didn’t plug the sheriff in the rear while he was adding up mileage at his desk in front. And in them days I had qualifications for the job. And there was law and order in Mojada County, and schoolbooks, and all the whisky you wanted, and the government built its own battleships instead of collecting nickels from the schoolchildren to do it with. And, as I say, there was law and order instead of enactments and restrictions such as disfigure our umpire state to-day. We had our office at Bildad, the county seat, from which we emerged forth on necessary occasions to soothe whatever fracases and unrest that might occur in our jurisdiction.
“Skipping over much what happened while me and Luke was sheriff, I want to give you an idea of how the law was respected in them days. Luke was what you would call one of the most conscious men in the world. He never knew much book law, but he had the inner emoluments of justice and mercy inculcated into his system. If a respectable citizen shot a Mexican or held up a train and cleaned out the safe in the express car, and Luke ever got hold of him, he’d give the guilty party such a reprimand and a cussin’ out that he’d probable never do it again. But once let somebody steal a horse (unless it was a Spanish pony), or cut a wire fence, or otherwise impair the peace and indignity of Mojada County, Luke and me would be on ’em with habeas corpuses and smokeless powder and all the modern inventions of equity and etiquette.
“We certainly had our county on a basis of lawfulness. I’ve known persons of Eastern classification with little spotted caps and buttoned-up shoes to get off the train at Bildad and eat sandwiches at the railroad station without being shot at or even roped and drug about by the citizens of the town.
“Luke had his own ideas of legality and justice. He was kind of training me to succeed him when he went out of office. He was always looking ahead to the time when he’d quit sheriffing. What he wanted to do was to build a yellow house with lattice-work under the porch and have hens scratching in the yard. The one main thing in his mind seemed to be the yard.
” `Bud,’ he says to me, `by instinct and sentiment I’m a contractor. I want to be a contractor. That’s what I’ll be when I get out of office.’
” `What kind of a contractor?’ says I. `It sounds like a kind of a business to me. You ain’t going to haul cement or establish branches or work on a railroad, are you?’
” `You don’t understand,’ says Luke. `I’m tired of space and horizons and territory and distances and things like that. What I want is reasonable contraction. I want a yard with a fence around it that you can go out and set on after supper and listen to whip-poor-wills. I’m a fool about whip-poor-wills,’ says Luke.
“That’s the kind of a man he was. He was home-like, although he’d had bad luck in such investments. But he never talked about them times on the ranch. It seemed like he’d forgotten about it. I wondered how, with his ideas of yards and chickens and notions of lattice-work, he’d seemed to have got out of his mind that kid of his that had been taken away from him, unlawful, in spite of his decree of court. But he wasn’t a man you could ask about such things as he didn’t refer to in his own conversation.
“I reckon he’d put all his emotions and ideas into being sheriff. I’ve read in books about men that was disappointed in these poetic and fine-haired and high-collared affairs with ladies renouncing truck of that kind and wrapping themselves up into some occupation like painting pictures or herding sheep or science or teaching school–something to make ’em forget. Well, I guess that was the way with Luke. But, as he couldn’t paint pictures, he took it out in rounding up horse thieves and in making Mojada County a safe place to sleep in if you was well armed and not afraid of requisitions or tarantulas.
“One day there passes through Bildad a bunch of these money investors from the East, and they stopped off there, Bildad being the dinner station on the I. & G. N. They was just coming back from Mexico looking after mines and such. There was five of ’em–four solid parties, with gold watch chains, that would grade up over two hundred pounds on the hoof, and one kid about seventeen or eighteen.
“This youngster had on one of them cowboy suits such as tenderfoots bring West with ’em; and you could see he was aching to wing a couple of Indians or bag a grizzly or two with the little pearl-handled gun he had buckled around his waist.
“I walked down to the depot to keep an eye on the outfit and see that they didn’t locate any land or scare the cow ponies hitched in front of Murchison’s store or act otherwise unseemly. Luke was away after a gang of cattle thieves down on the Frio, and I always looked after the law and order when he wasn’t there.
“After dinner this boy comes out of the dining-room while the train was waiting, and prances up and down the platform ready to shoot all antelope, lions, or private citizens that might endeavor to molest or come too near him. He was a good-looking kid; only he was like all them tenderfoots–he didn’t know a law-and-order town when he saw it.
“By and by along comes Pedro Johnson, the proprietor of the Crystal Palace chili-con-carne stand in Bildad. Pedro was a man who liked to amuse himself; so he kind of herd-rides this youngster, laughing at him, tickled to death. I was too far away to hear, but the kid seems to mention some remarks to Pedro, and Pedro goes up and slaps him about nine feet away, and laughs harder than ever. And then the boy gets up quicker than he fell and jerks out his little pearl-handle, and–bing! bing! bing! Pedro gets it three times in special and treasured portions of his carcass. I saw the dust fly off his clothes every time the bullets hit. Sometimes them little thirty-twos cause worry at close range.
“The engine bell was ringing, and the train starting off slow. I goes up to the kid and places him under arrest, and takes away his gun. But the first thing I knew that caballard of capitalists makes a break for the train. One of ’em hesitates in front of me for a second, and kind of smiles and shoves his hand up against my chin, and I sort of laid down on the platform and took a nap. I never was afraid of guns; but I don’t want any person except a barber to take liberties like that with my face again. When I woke up, the whole outfit–train, boy, and all–was gone. I asked about Pedro, and they told me the doctor said he would recover provided his wounds didn’t turn out to be fatal.
“When Luke got back three days later, and I told him about it, he was mad all over.
” `Why’n’t you telegraph to San Antone,’ he asks, `and have the bunch arrested there?’
” `Oh, well,’ says I, `I always did admire telegraphy; but astronomy was what I had took up just then.’ That capitalist sure knew how to gesticulate with his hands.
“Luke got madder and madder. He investigates and finds in the depot a card one of the men had dropped that gives the address of some hombre called Scudder in New York City.
” `Bud,’ says Luke, `I’m going after that bunch. I’m going there and get the man or boy, as you say he was, and bring him back. I’m sheriff of Mojada County, and I shall keep law and order in its precincts while I’m able to draw a gun. And I want you to go with me. No Eastern Yankee can shoot up a respectable and well-known citizen of Bildad, ‘specially with a thirty-two calibre, and escape the law. Pedro Johnson,’ says Luke, `is one of our most prominent citizens and business men. I’ll appoint Sam Bell acting sheriff with penitentiary powers while I’m away, and you and me will take the 6.45 northbound to-morrow evening and follow up this trail.’
” `I’m your company,’ says I. `I never see this New York, but I’d like to. But, Luke,’ says I, `don’t you have to have a dispensation or a habeas corpus or something from the state, when you reach out that far for rich men and malefactors?’
” `Did I have a requisition,’ says Luke, `when I went over into the Brazos bottoms and brought back Bill Grimes and two more for holding up the International? Did me and you have a search warrant or a posse comitatus when we rounded up them six Mexican cow thieves down in Hidalgo? It’s my business to keep order in Mojada County. ‘
” `And it’s my business as office deputy,’ says I, `to see that business is carried on according to law. Between us both we ought to keep things pretty well cleaned up.’
“So, the next day, Luke packs a blanket and some collars and his mileage book in a haversack, and him and me hits the breeze for New York. It was a powerful long ride. The seats in the cars was too short for six-footers like us to sleep comfortable on; and the conductor had to keep us from getting off at every town that had five-story houses in it. But we got there finally; and we seemed to see right away that he was right about it.
” `Luke,’ says I, `as office deputy and from a law standpoint, it don’t look to me like this place is properly and legally in the jurisdiction of Mojada County, Texas.’
” `From the standpoint of order,’ says he, `it’s amenable to answer for its sins to the properly appointed authorities from Bildad to Jerusalem.’
” `Amen,’ says I. `But let’s turn our trick sudden, and ride. I don’t like the looks of this place.’
” `Think of Pedro Johnson,’ says Luke, `a friend of mine and yours shot down by one of these gilded abolitionists at his very door!’
” `It was at the door of the freight depot,’ says I. `But the law will not be balked at a quibble like that.’
“We put up at one of them big hotels on Broadway. The next morning I goes down about two miles of stairsteps to the bottom and hunts for Luke. It ain’t no use. It looks like San Jacinto day in San Antone. There’s a thousand folks milling around in a kind of a roofed-over plaza with marble pavements and trees growing right out of ’em, and I see no more chance of finding Luke than if we was hunting each other in the big pear flat down below Old Fort Ewell. But soon Luke and me runs together in one of the turns of them marble alleys.
” `It ain’t no use, Bud,’ says he. `I can’t find no place to eat at. I’ve been looking for restaurant signs and smelling for ham all over the camp. But I’m used to going hungry when I have to. Now,’ says he, `I’m going out and get a hack and ride down to the address on this Scudder card. You stay here and try to hustle some grub. But I doubt if you’ll find it. I wish we’d brought along some cornmeal and bacon and beans. I’ll be back when I see this Scudder, if the trail ain’t wiped out.’
“So I starts foraging for breakfast. For the honor of old Mojada County I didn’t want to seem green to them abolitionists, so every time I turned a corner in them marble halls I went up to the first desk or counter I see and looks around for grub. If I didn’t see what I wanted I asked for something else. In about half an hour I had a dozen cigars, five story magazines, and seven or eight rail-road time-tables in my pockets, and never a smell of coffee or bacon to point out the trail.
“Once a lady sitting at a table and playing a game kind of like pushpin told me to go into a closet that she called Number 3. I went in and shut the door, and the blamed thing lit itself up. I set down on a stool before a shelf and waited. Thinks I, `This is a private dining-room.’ But no waiter never came. When I got to sweating good and hard, I goes out again.
” `Did you get what you wanted?’ says she.
” `No, ma’am,’ says I. `Not a bite.’
” `Then there’s no charge,’ says she.
” `Thanky, ma’am,’ says I, and I takes up the trail again.
“By and by I thinks I’ll shed etiquette; and I picks up one of them boys with blue clothes and yellow buttons in front, and he leads me to what he calls the caffay breakfast room. And the first thing I lays my eyes on when I go in is that boy that had shot Pedro Johnson. He was setting all alone at a little table, hitting a egg with a spoon like he was afraid he’d break it.
“I takes the chair across the table from him; and he looks insulted and makes a move like he was going to get up.
” `Keep still, son,’ says I. `You’re apprehended, arrested, and in charge of the Texas authorities. Go on and hammer that egg some more if it’s the inside of it you want. Now, what did you shoot Mr. Johnson, of Bildad, for?’
” `And may I ask who you are?’ says he.
” `You may,’ says I. `Go ahead’.
” `I suppose you’re on,’ says this kid, without batting his eyes. `But what are you eating? Here, waiter!’ he calls out, raising his finger. `Take this gentleman’s order.’
” `A beefsteak,’ says I, `and some fried eggs and a can of peaches and a quart of coffee will about suffice.’
“We talk a while about the sundries of life and then he says:
” `What are you going to do about that shooting? I had a right to shoot that man,’ says he. `He called me names that I couldn’t overlook, and then he struck me. He carried a gun, too. What else could I do?’
” `We’ll have to take you back to Texas,’ says I.
” `I’d like to go back,’ says the boy, with a kind of a grin–`if it wasn’t on an occasion of this kind. It’s the life I like. I’ve always wanted to ride and shoot and live in the open air ever since I can remember.’
” `Who was this gang of stout parties you took this trip with?’ I asks.
” `My stepfather,’ says he, `and some business partners of his in some Mexican mining and land schemes.’
” `I saw you shoot Pedro Johnson,’ says I, `and I took that little popgun away from you that you did it with. And when I did so I noticed three or four little scars in a row over your right eyebrow. You’ve been in rookus before, haven’t you?’
” `I’ve had these scars ever since I can remember,’ says he. `I don’t know how they came there.’
” `Was you ever in Texas before?’ says I.
” `Not that I remember of,’ says he. `But I thought I had when we struck the prairie country. But I guess I hadn’t.’
” `Have you got a mother?’ I asks.
” `She died five years ago,’ says he.
“Skipping over the most of what followed–when Luke came back I turned the kid over to him. He had seen Scudder and told him what he wanted; and it seems that Scudder got active with one of these telephones as soon as he left. For in about an hour afterwards there comes to our hotel some of these city rangers in everyday clothes that they call detectives, and marches the whole outfit of us to what they call a magistrate’s court. They accuse Luke of attempted kidnapping, and ask him what he has to say.
” `This snipe,’ says Luke to the judge, `shot and willfully punctured with malice and forethought one of the most respected and prominent citizens of the town of Bildad, Texas, Your Honor. And in so doing laid himself liable to the penitence of law and order. And I hereby make claim and demand restitution of the State of New York City for the said alleged criminal; and I know he done it.’
” `Have you the usual and necessary requisition papers from the governor of your state?’ asks the judge.
” `My usual papers,’ says Luke, `was taken away from me at the hotel by these gentlemen who represent law and order in your city. They was two Colt’s .45’s that I’ve packed for nine years; and if I don’t get ’em back, there’ll be more trouble. You can ask anybody in Mojada County about Luke Summers. I don’t usually need any other kind of papers for what I do.’
“I see the judge looks mad, so I steps up and says:
” `Your Honor, the aforesaid defendant, Mr. Luke Summers, sheriff of Mojada County, Texas, is as fine a man as ever threw a rope or upheld the statutes and codicils of the greatest state in the Union. But he—-‘
“The judge hits his table with a wooden hammer and asks who I am.
” `Bud Oakley,’ says I. `Office deputy of the sheriff’s office of Mojada County, Texas. Representing,’ says I, `the Law. Luke Summers,’ I goes on, `represents Order. And if Your Honor will give me about ten minutes in private talk, I’ll explain the whole thing to you, and show you the equitable and legal requisition papers which I carry in my pocket.’
“The judge kind of half smiles and says he will talk with me in his private room. In there I put the whole thing up to him in such language as I had, and when we goes outside, he announces the verdict that the young man is delivered into the hands of the Texas authorities; and calls the next case.
“Skipping over much of what happened on the way back, I’ll tell you how the thing wound up in Bildad.
“When we got the prisoner in the sheriff’s office, I says to Luke:
” `You remember that kid of yours–that two-year-old that they stole away from you when the bust-up come?’
“Luke looks black and angry. He’d never let anybody talk to him about that business, and he never mentioned it himself.
” `Toe the mark,’ says I. `Do you remember when he was toddling around on the porch and fell down on a pair of Mexican spurs and cut four little holes over his right eye? Look at the prisoner,’ says I, `look at his nose and the shape of his head and–why, you old fool, don’t you know your own son?–I knew him,’ says I, `when he perforated Mr. Johnson at the depot.’
“Luke comes over to me shaking all over. I never saw him lose his nerve before.
” `Bud,’ says he, `I’ve never had that boy out of my mind one day or one night since he was took away. But I never let on. But can we hold him?–Can we make him stay?–I’ll make the best man of him that ever put his foot in a stirrup. Wait a minute,’ says he, all excited and out of his mind–`I’ve got something here in my desk–I reckon it’ll hold legal yet–I’ve looked at it a thousand times–“Cus-to-dy of the child,” says Luke–“Cus-to-dy of the child.” We can hold him on that, can’t we? Le’me see if I can find that decree.’
“Luke begins to tear his desk to pieces.
” `Hold on,’ says I. `You are Order and I’m Law. You needn’t look for that paper, Luke. It ain’t a decree any more. It’s requisition papers. It’s on file in that Magistrate’s office in New York. I took it along when we went, because I was office deputy and knew the law.’
” `I’ve got him back,’ says Luke. `He’s mine again. I never thought—-‘
” `Wait a minute,’ says I. `We’ve got to have law and order. You and me have got to preserve ’em both in Mojada County according to our oath and conscience. The kid shot Pedro Johnson, one of Bildad’s most prominent and—-“
” `Oh, hell!’ says Luke. `That don’t amount to anything. That fellow was half Mexican, anyhow.’ “
—-IN A FAR TOWNSHIP
By SARAH N. CLEGHORN
His roundabout of bottle-green,
And pantaloons of fine nankeen
Were Sunday best; the month was May, And this from school a holiday;
But he had none with whom to play,
And wandered wistful,up and down,
All in a strange old Garden,
And in a strange old Town.
An ancient chaise, a Dobbin gray
Had brought him here to spend the day. Now his old aunt and uncle drowse;
No chick nor child is in the house– No cat, no dog, no bird, or mouse;
No fairy picture-book to spell,
No music-box of wonder,
Nor magic whispering-shell.
Unending is this afternoon,
And strange this landscape as the moon, With home a thousand miles away–
The pasture where his brothers play With whoop and shout, in Indian fray;
The porch where, even at this hour, His mother prunes the vine and flower,
And hums the nursery melody,
“I saw a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea.”
***************************************************************** VOL. XXIII September 1910 NO. 3
Lassoing Wild Animals In Africa
By GUY H. SCULL
Field Manager of the Buffalo Jones African Expedition
Editor’s Note: The wild animals of Africa have been hunted with firearms for many a year, and photographed by more than one marksman of the lens. But here is the truly unique expedition into the jungle. The idea that any one should seriously contemplate a journey to Africa for the purpose of lassoing such creatures as sportsmen either shoot or photograph at the longest range possible, seems quite absurd. But an American frontiersman has done it, with American cowboys, cow-ponies, and hunting-dogs, and with wonderful moving pictures to prove it. It is a fine evidence of the sporting qualities of both parties to the undertaking that Colonel C. J. Jones, a Western plainsman, could so completely interest Mr. Charles S. Bird, an Eastern manufacturer, in the fantastic plan as to command his backing. And if there is such a thing as the glow of adventure by proxy, it must have been felt in the Nassau Street law office, where the Buffalo Jones African Expedition had its headquarters, when the cablegram from Nairobi announced that lion and rhino had been lassoed, and that the moving pictures were a complete success.
IT was a special train–loaded to capacity with horses and dogs, camp baggage, moving-picture cameras, cowboys, photographers, and porters; and when it pulled out of the Nairobi station on the way to the “up country” of British East Africa, the period of preparation passed away and the time of action began. As the faces of the people on the platform glided by the window of the slowly moving carriage, there was good will written on all of them; but also unbelief. There was no doubt as to what they thought of Buffalo Jones’s expedition that was setting out to rope and tie and photograph the wild animals of the East African Veldt.
“How are you going to hold a rhino that weighs two tons and a half?”
“What are you going to do when the lion charges?”
Such were the questions asked us by the hunters of the country. They further took pains to explain that a rhino charges like a flash, and that a lion can catch a horse within a hundred yards.
These items of information, however, were well known to Buffalo Jones before the expedition was organized in New York, and his preparations to meet the difficulties had been made accordingly.
Colonel C. J. Jones is tall and spare, with a strong, rugged face and keen blue eyes. During his sixty-five years of life, he has roped and tied, often single-handed, every kind of wild animal of consequence to be found in our western country, and his experience with these has led him to believe implicitly that man is the master of all wild beasts.
He has climbed trees after mountain lions, and with a lasso over a branch has hauled grizzlies up into the air by one hind leg. And once he set out alone to journey over a country that no white man had ever traveled before, to reach the land of the musk-ox on the border of the Arctic Circle. The story is told of how he met a trapper on the way, and how these two, in the face of the hostility of all the Indian tribes, the wolves, and the cold of the northern winter, eventually came to the musk-ox and captured five calves. Then, deserted by their Indian guide, they started to return with their prizes, got lost in the wilderness, and fought the wolves till their cartridges ran out. And when at last they reached safety and fell asleep, exhausted, the Indians, obeying the laws of their religion, stole upon them in the night and killed the calves.
But the success he had achieved with the mountain lions of the Southwest, the musk-ox of the North, and the grizzly bears of the Rockies was not enough. For twenty years it had been the one ambition of his life to take an outfit to British East Africa to try his hand with the more ferocious big game of that country. But in his Western experience Colonel Jones had learned something else besides the mastery of man over beast. Precisely how an American cowboy was going to hold a rhinoceros that weighed two tons and a half was purely a matter of speculation. Yet of one thing the Colonel was certain–the experiment would result in a moving picture that would be well worth the taking. For this reason, what afterward came to be known as the “picture department” was added to the make-up of the expedition.
The preparations extended over a considerable length of time, and were carried on in various places. Unquestionably, the most important part of the outfit was the horses. It was absolutely essential that they should be Western cow-ponies, fast, well trained, and reliable in every way. The Colonel, who best of all could foresee the nature of the work they would have to do, selected them himself, ten in all, from the ranches of New Mexico, and shipped them to New York. The American dogs to be used for trailing were likewise chosen by the Colonel. Some of them belonged to him personally, and had been thoroughly tried out. The rest had reputations of their own. Of the two cowboys who were to act as his assistants, Marshall Loveless had worked with the Colonel before and knew his methods, and Ambrose Means came highly recommended for skill and daring from one of the largest ranch owners in the West.
When, at the last moment, the writer of these articles was introduced to the expedition in the capacity of acting field manager, the preparations were well under way. The horses and dogs had been already shipped, en route to Africa, in charge of the cowboys, and the date of our sailing for London had been fixed for the following day.
The meeting was held at a luncheon in the Railroad Club, in New York. There were present Colonel Jones, Mr. F. W. Bird, son of Charles S. Bird[1] who financed the expedition, Mr. W. G. Sewall, of the Boma Trading Company, of Nairobi, and myself. After certain matters of business had been disposed of, the talk at the luncheon table drifted to the probabilities and possibilities of success; to lions, rhinos, elands, and cheetahs; to cowboys, horses, and dogs. But the Colonel would hear of no possibilities, or even probabilities, of failure. He was peculiarly insistent upon this point. And when the hour of the business man’s lunch time came to an end, and the room began to empty, Mr. Sewall said to me across the corner of the table:
“Of course, every one in Nairobi will think all of you either fakers or crazy. I know you’re no fakers. I don’t know whether you’re crazy or not. But there is one thing in your favor: The Colonel’s unshaken belief that the thing can be done will probably pull it through.”
[1] EAST WALPOLE, MASS.,
July 8, 1910.
Mr. GUY H. SCULL.
MY DEAR SCULL
It has been asked by some what the object of the Buffalo Jones African Expedition was. I will tell you.
You know my friend, Colonel C. J. Jones, broke his rifle a generation or so ago and vowed he would never again kill game save for food or in self-defense. Since taking that oath he has subdued and captured all kinds of wild animals in North America, including the musk-ox, buffalo, grizzly bear, and cougar.
I discovered that it was his dream to go to East Africa to prove that with American cowboys, horses, and dogs he could lasso and capture the savage animals of that country as readily as he has the wild animals of our country. As a sporting proposition, it seemed to me unique and fascinating, and so, as a small tribute to Colonel Jones, I volunteered to finance the expedition.
I somewhat doubt whether there is another man in the world who has the courage, skill, and determination to do what he has done in the animal kingdom, and he well deserves to be called “The Preserver of the American Bison.”
I want to acknowledge our indebtedness to Mr. Arthur A. Fowler of New York for his assistance in helping us outfit the expedition in London and Nairobi, and to you and the others who have helped to make the expedition a success. Very truly,
CHARLES S. BIRD.
On our arrival in London about the middle of January of this year, the work of preparation was continued at once. Outside of the minor details of the outfit, such as personal equipment, saddlery, medicines, bandages, and so forth, the first matter to receive attention was the organization of the picture department. Mr. Cherry Kearton was sought to take charge of this branch of the expedition. Kearton–a powerfully built Yorkshireman–is an experienced cinematograph photographer and a naturalist of no small reputation. He had taken moving pictures in Africa before, and so he knew the climatic conditions there–the heat radiation and the different intensities of light. He also knew the animals the Colonel was going to rope. But besides being a cinematograph expert and a naturalist, he was also a sportsman.
When Kearton learned of the nature of the undertaking, he was skeptical. He had no more than a slight acquaintance with the Colonel then, and only a vague, hearsay knowledge of what the American Cowboy could do. Evidently his mind was divided by the dictates of common sense and the sporting instinct. On many occasions during this time, he questioned the feasibility of the experiment in the light of what he knew of the African beasts. The agreement, in documentary form, was spread out on the table in the Boma Trading Company’s London office when he finally wanted to know how in Heaven’s name we thought this thing could be done.
“We’ll do it,” the Colonel said quietly. That was all.
“Well, there’s a picture in it, anyway,” said Kearton, and signed the papers.
With his assistant, David Gobbet, two cinematograph machines and tripods, hand cameras and developing apparatus, he set sail immediately for Africa, leaving an order for thirty thousand feet of film to be divided between two manufacturers and to be forwarded as soon as possible.
In the meantime, Colonel Jones was hard at work collecting a rather unusual assortment of articles. The experience of a life-time enabled him to foresee what kind of materials were absolutely necessary, and what kind might prove useful on the present expedition. Naturally, the articles required were not usually in stock, but the London shopkeeper is proverbially obliging and imperturbable.
One rainy morning the Colonel walked into a hardware store and asked to see some handcuffs. A pair was shown him.
“Not large enough,” said the Colonel.
“How large would you want them, sir?”
“Twice that size.”
“May I ask for what purpose you require them, sir?”
“For lions,” said the Colonel.
“Precisely, handcuffs for lions; yes, you need large ones. I am afraid I have none in stock just now, but I can have them made for you within a few days.”
It was the same with almost everything the Colonel wanted to purchase; everything had to be made especially for him after his own description–handcuffs, collars and belts, chains, branding irons, a block and fall, muzzles of different sizes, corkscrew picket-pins for holding the turn of a rope, and a nondescript article shaped like a huge pair of tongs, for which I feel sure there is no name in any trade, but which looked to be a handy implement for clamping the jaws of a beast. To have these things made according to specifications took time and an endless amount of running about. Besides, there was the more ordinary part of the equipment to procure: English dogs, both foxhounds and terriers, horse-blankets, extra ropes, horseshoes, and so on. When the last of the expedition sailed from Southampton, there were forty-eight pieces of baggage on the list.
This last contingent reached Nairobi at noon on March 3, and for the first time then all the members of the expedition met together. Loveless proved to be a man a little below the medium height; he held himself very erect, walked with quick, energetic steps, and wore a blond mustache. He made polite inquiries as to our voyage out, commented on the hot weather, and fully explained the condition of the horses and dogs. Means was taller. He carried his head slightly forward and wore his black hair brushed low down over his forehead. He stood slumped on one hip, so that one shoulder also was lower than the other.
“Please’ to meet you,” he said.
On our arrival at Nairobi the first matter to be decided was the district to be worked. The choice lay between the Sotik and the Kapeti Plains. According to the usual batch of contradictory stories in such cases, the game was said to be equally plentiful, or equally scarce, in both districts. Both had been shot over considerably of late, and, anyhow, no one could really tell us where the most game was to be found; because, as one informant explained, the game everywhere shifted so frequently and so fast. But the Sotik and the country approaching it–the Kedong and Rift Valleys, and the Mau–were reported to be more or less free from ticks, and, as the health of the horses was of the gravest importance to us, we determined to work this district first.
The Colonel and his two cowboys, Loveless and Means, were ready to start at once. Eight out of the ten horses were in fine condition. With but one exception, the dogs had come through safely, though all were suffering somewhat from distemper. It was concluded, however, that they would recover just as rapidly in the open country as they would in Nairobi.
Kearton and Gobbet were ready. Kearton had built a dark room in Nairobi, because his earlier experience had taught him that the pictures could not be developed with any degree of satisfaction in the field. His four special porters to carry the cameras and tripods–porters he had trained on previous safaris–were only waiting for the word to move. Mr. Ray Ulyate, the white hunter to the expedition, had already gone to Kijabe to prepare his ox-wagons against our coming, and the Boma Trading Company had engaged a special train to leave Nairobi on the fifth.
On the morning of that day we held the customary procession of an outgoing safari down the main street of Nairobi to the waiting train. The Colonel rode first, with the assorted pack of dogs at his horse’s heels. Then came the cowboys with the led horses; then the picture department; then the long single line of black porters, bringing up the rear. Above the loads on the porters’ heads two flags flashed their colors in the sunlight–the stars and stripes, and the house flag of the company, with the white buffalo skull against the red background, and underneath the motto, Sapiens qui Vigilat.
The night had already fallen black and cold when the special train crested the top of the divide and coasted down grade into Kijabe. The most imposing structure in the place is the railroad station, with its red wooden building propped up on piles, its tin guest-house alongside, and the neat gravel platform growing a clump of trees. The rest of Kijabe is composed of four other houses, the goods-shed, an open-faced Indian booth, the post-office, and the water-tank. Ulvate met us with a lantern, for the station lights are dim, and we detrained in the face of the high wind that always blows there from sunset to dawn, and picketed the horses among the trees of the station platform. Because a large part of the revenue of the country is derived from the visiting hunters, a safari is accorded privileges out of the ordinary. So, as a matter of course, we took possession of the station and camped in the tin guest-house for the night.
The morning came clear and hot and still. The railroad at Kijabe runs along the face of the hills, so that the land drops down abruptly to the plains below, and you can look away for miles over the Kedong and Rift valleys, with the two sentinel extinct volcanoes rising black against the heat-blurred sky;
The floors of the valleys are laid with volcanic ash. But on first appearances the land looks much the same as the regulation veldt or certain parts of our own Western plains. It is only by the fineness of the dust that hangs about the horses’ feet, and the peculiar quality of the thirst that dries in the throat, that you know this is no ordinary soil.
The sun was high in the heavens before we finally started from Kijabe and descended the rough road to the level ground, with the brakes on the ox-wagons squealing harshly and the horses treading silently in the dust.
We had planned to camp at Sewell’s farm that night. It was only about four hours away, but a short trek the first day is always a good rule to follow. It gives every one a chance, so to speak, to shake down well into the saddle. We had gone but a short distance, however, when one thing became strikingly apparent: Gobbet did not know how to ride! He was mounted on a white African pony that we had found it necessary to add to our string. The pony was stolid, lazy, and easy-gaited, but Gobbet’s unfamiliar attitude toward his mount was unmistakable.
Now it is a delicate matter in any country to broach the question of a man’s horsemanship, but presently Gobbet introduced the subject of his own accord.
“Of course I can’t ride a horse,” he said. “Have never been on one before. When Mr. Kearton spoke to me about coming out here with him, he just asked me if I could ride, and I told him surely I could ride–but I didn’t tell him I meant a bicycle.”
After all, the matter was of no great importance. Gobbet was young and thin and active, with sharp black eyes, and the work that lay ahead of us would probably teach him to ride in short order–and it did.
We had little expectation of finding either a lion or a rhino on that first day’s trip. We were traveling on a regular road, making a kind of initial march. The fringe of scrub at the beginning of the valley had been left behind some three or four miles when Ulyate suddenly reined in his horse and pointed to three black dots on the veldt about half a mile away.
The black dots proved to he only wart-hogs, but we wanted them, and, so long as there was little chance of our finding any of the more important species of game, we took the opportunity that offered. The Colonel and the two cowboys tightened their cinches and then rode out to the westward to round up the beasts.
“Drive ’em back to us,” Kearton called after them, and Means waved his hand by way of answer.
Behind us, the line of porters was coming up along the road. They were straggling badly, broken up into little sections of threes and fours, so that the last of them were not yet in sight. Gobbet was sent back to hurry forward the four special porters with the cameras, and when these finally arrived upon the scene, their faces covered with dust and sweat, the horsemen had dwindled to dots only a little larger than the hogs themselves.
Kearton placed the cameras a few yards apart, and there we waited, watching the distant specks.
Two of the riders disappeared into a far patch of scrub. The third began swinging to the southward. His horse was galloping after something we could not see.
In the meantime the safari was coming up, and as each section arrived it was halted, and the porters put down their loads and sat on them. Some of them turned their backs upon the scene in total indifference as to what was coming next; others regarded the cameras with expressions of mild curiosity.
Little by little the third horseman had swung round so that he was headed due east, riding straight at us. Rapidly the speck grew larger, and the two other riders came out of the scrub and joined the chase.
Nearer and nearer they came, with the dust cloud swirling behind them. Gobbet began turning the handle of his camera, and the whir of the machine sounded loud in the stillness. One or two of the porters jumped to their feet and pointed. Kearton waited.
“I hope they won’t come straight into the lens,” he said. “If they do, it won’t make a good picture. They ought to come at an angle. So,” he explained, placing his hand obliquely to the line of focus. Then he bent over, laid his eye to the gun-sight of the machine, and likewise began turning.
The thunder of the chase could be heard now, and we could see that it was Loveless leading, on his black, with Means and the Colonel close behind and the wart-hog some forty yards ahead. The beast was running strong. His huge snout was thrust forward, and his upturned tusks gleamed in the sunlight. But gradually the black horse gained on him, and Loveless loosened the rope from his saddle and began swinging the long noose round and round his head.
On came the wart-hog, straight for Kearton’s camera.
Kearton straightened up above the machine and waved his helmet frantically.
“Give over, give over!” he shouted.
“You’re driving him right into the picture. It’s no good. Give over!”
The chase never swerved an inch, and Kearton bent to his work again, cursing in well-selected periods.
The next moment the hog drove past him. At the same instant Loveless threw his rope and caught the beast by one hind leg. The black horse stopped, fore feet planted firmly, and the dust cloud swept across and hid the scene.
When the dust cleared away, the hog was lying across the road, blowing comfortably, with the rope leading from his hind leg to the horn of Loveless’ saddle. Loveless laughed.
“There’s the first one for you,” he said. “And my, can’t he run!”
Gobbet, however, was indignant. “It’s no use,” he complained. “To bring an object that way straight into the lens is against the first principles of cinematography. It’s no use, I tell you.”
Means sat half slumped in his saddle, with his reeking horse panting heavily.
“Well, well, well,” he finally drawled. “And didn’t Mr. Pig come a-bending across that prairie? He most certainly come a-bending.”
The porters gathered around and looked long at the beast; some of them spoke a few words in low tones, and the others nodded their heads and smiled.
Sometimes a wart-hog will act nasty, and his lower tusks are sharp as razors; but when this one was released he walked out of the circle of grinning natives, slowly, quietly, and apparently thoroughly disgusted.
At Sewell’s farm there is a pan of water made by a dam across an almost waterless brook, and alongside of this pan we pitched our camp. When the sun set, the high wind rose again, whirling up the dust in heavy clouds and sending the sparks from the fire scurrying over the ground. But the Kedong Valley wind is more or less a phenomenon of the country. You can count upon it absolutely for every one of its disagreeable qualities. I think the citizens of Africa are a little proud of it.
There was now a fair chance that on our way into the Rift Valley we should flush one or another of the larger animals. Preparations for such a contingency were accordingly made before starting from Sewell’s farm. Canteens and iron drums were filled with water, because the next camp would be a dry one. The cinematograph, cameras, and all the extra boxes were loaded with films the evening before, and the four special camera porters were given strict orders to keep well up with the advance of the safari. The lion-taming outfit–the tongs, muzzles, chains, and collars–was stowed on the first wagon, on top of the load, where it could be got at readily in case of need. The Colonel rode ahead, with the two cowboys close behind, all three ropers mounted on their best horses–the Colonel on “the paint,” Loveless on his black, and Means on the big-boned bay. Every member of the party was especially cautioned to keep a sharp lookout on both sides of the road.
Just as the day before, the morning came hot and still, and for hour after hour the straggling safari crawled slowly over the long waves of the undulating veldt. The road was a wagon track always vanishing in front toward the head of the valley. The land lay silent beneath the glaring sunlight.
We outspanned at noon for an hour. Over the country here grew small, scattered thorn trees, thick with thorns but with scarcely any leaves, so that the shade beneath them was thin and could shelter no more than one horse. The water in the canteens, cold at the start, had become warm now.
When we mounted again, the sweat had dried on the horses, and the boots felt stiff on our feet. The line of the road still stretched away its interminable length until it disappeared in the distance.
And then, as we crawled sleepily ahead over the rises, the Colonel was the first to notice the lion spoor in the dust.
With sudden animation the safari awoke from the lethargy of the hot, monotonous march. The spoor was judged to be at least four hours old, so there was no use putting the dogs on it. Then presently it disappeared. On the dead grass of the bordering veldt there was nothing to show which way the lion had gone. But there was a chance–a small one, yet still a chance–that the beast was lying up near by in the shade of a thorn tree. So all the horsemen spread out over the veldt to obtain a wider scope of vision, and for mile after mile the company moved forward, sweeping the immediate country.
Proceeding in this manner through the afternoon, we eventually crested a slightly higher rise and looked down into a shallow valley that was greener than the rest of the veldt. A few full-sized trees were growing in the bottom, and there were a number of outcroppings of rock. Large herds of antelope were grazing there.
The Colonel called a halt.
“There is no lion anywhere hereabouts,” he said, “because the game are grazing peacefully. But there is a bunch of eland yonder. We might as well round them up while the light lasts.”
The plan of operation was quickly made. The cameras were stationed about a mile to the southeast, partly concealed by the bole of a tree, and the bunch of eland were skillfully rounded up and a good specimen was singled out.
Everything was working to perfection. The three horsemen drove the eland toward the cameras–not directly at them, but a little to one side, at an angle, as Kearton wanted it done. At the proper moment Loveless roped the animal by the forelegs and neck, and threw it down. Loveless jumped from his horse and was running forward to tie the prize when something–the smell of the strange beast, perhaps–started the black horse bucking. With the rope made fast to the saddle and the eland acting as a pivot, the black went careering round and round. Both the Colonel and Means tried to rope him, and missed, and finally Loveless, on foot, caught him by the dangling reins.
Of course such a thing might have been readily foreseen, but somehow it came as a surprise and opened up grave possibilities. That night in camp at “Rugged Rocks” we were gathered about the cook s fire for the warmth it gave, when the Colonel spoke of the affair.
“Everything was going great till that horse started bucking,” the Colonel remarked. “We’ve got to teach our horses not to mind the smell of these strange animals out here. We’ve got to be able to depend absolutely on our horses. Of course that eland wasn’t dangerous. But when we tackle something else and a horse acts that way, it might be bad.”
But Gobbet said it was good action, anyway, and would look fine when thrown on the screen.
March 8 was a day of disappointments. Between sunrise and sunset we traveled fifteen miles to the Wangai River and hunted in turn a pair of lions, a cheetah, and a rhinoceros–and lost them all. Two circumstances were held accountable: one was the necessity of getting the horses to water, and the other was the fact that it was just a bad luck day all through.
We came upon the lions early in the morning, close to the base of the southern volcano. This particular pair of lions must have been shot over at one time or another, for they did not wait to satisfy any curiosity as to our intentions, but fled at once for the safety of the mountain. Although we gave chase immediately, their lead was so great and the distance to the mountains so short, that they were soon lost to us in the gullies and crevices of the foothills.
It was while we were trying to pick up the lost trail of the lions that we flushed a cheetah out of one of the dongas.[2] It broke away along the foothills, and finally stopped at bay in a district where the going was so bad for the horses that we had to give up the attempt.
[2] Donga.–a gully.
With the rhinoceros we had scarcely any chance whatsoever. The Colonel, who was scouting the country to the northward of the line of march, caught a glimpse of the beast in the adjacent valley. By the time he had come back to get us and we had ridden in pursuit, the rhino had disappeared.
We found his trail leading still farther to the northward, and dismounted and looked down at it in silence. No comments were made. No comments were necessary. Every one knew that for lack of water the horses were too done up to follow.
Means had dismounted a little to one side of the group, and for a while he stood there with his arms resting on his saddle, gazing back over the way we had come. Presently he remarked to the world at large: Excitement has certainly been runnin’ high all day. We mounted then; and, instead of hunting the rhino farther, we rode the jaded horses slowly into camp and put a proper finish to a bad luck day by holding a consultation.
The Wangai River is no river at all; merely a small spring in the shadow of the range that crosses the head of the valley. But the spring could supply sufficient water for all our needs. Also, the problem of transportation demanded that Ulyate should return to Kijabe and bring up another wagon with supplies before the journey over the Mau into the Sotik could be undertaken. Then, too, here in the Rift Valley we had seen both lion and rhino, and there was always the chance of finding them again. The consultation resulted in the decision to make a permanent camp here and hunt the neighboring country until Ulyate should return.
For the succeeding three days the Colonel laid out a plan of campaign; simple, but effective, and limited only by the necessity of keeping within reasonable distance of the water. The plan consisted of a series of drives; one in a northeasterly, one in an easterly, and one in a southeasterly direction. By this means we would cover in turn all the territory at the head of the valley.
The Colonel was anxious to try again for the rhino he had seen on the march the day before, and for this reason the drive to the northeast was inaugurated first. Every member of the expedition took part in these drives. The Colonel and the writer at one end, and the two cowboys at the other, occupied the extreme positions. Between the right and left wings stretched a long line of porters, under the command of two escaris, and with Kearton and Gobbet in the center with the cameras. The dogs on leash and the saises carrying water for the horses brought up the rear. When finally formed, the line of the drive extended approximately five miles, and the cameras and the dogs were so placed that they could be brought to either end of the line with the utmost despatch. Two shots fired in quick succession would be the signal to gather.
That first day’s drive brought little success. To begin with, we were late in starting, so that the sun had already risen before we moved out of camp; and besides, the porters were new at that kind of work and had to be halted and reformed many times before they understood what was wanted.
The land across which we were driving lay at the very edge of the valley, and was consequently somewhat broken into small hills and hollows. By the time we came to the old rhino trail, the day was well advanced. But no fresh tracks were to be found up and down the entire length of the hollow, nor was anything to be seen of the beast from the next hill to the northward, which we climbed to search the country ahead. There was only a large herd of hartebeests grazing on the plains below.
The Colonel retreated halfway down the hill and fired two shots from his revolver. Somewhere beyond our range of vision we heard