The country boy; the story of his own early life

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THE COUNTRY BOY

The Story of His Own Early Life

BY

HOMER DAVENPORT

AUTHOR OF **MY QUEST OF THE ARAB HORSE '

EMBELLISHED WITH SIXTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS
MADE FROM HIS ORIGINAL DRAWINGS

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright^ 1910, By
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

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DEDICATED
TO THE SACRED
MEMORY OF MY

MOTHER

AND

TO MY DAUGHTER

GLORIA

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PREFACE

This book deals with just an ordinary boy,
brought up, however, among people and con-
ditions that were not ordinary. This little
town of Silverton and the neighborhood around
it were made up of men and women who had
left the best sections of the Eastern States
to go West that they might avoid the Rail-
roads and conditions that followed them.
Strange as it may seem one of the early settlers
of Silverton had moved from Connecticut to
Illinois to get away from the railroad, and
later from Illinois to Oregon, and finally died
in Silverton without ever having seen a rail-
road train. Such a statement might mislead
some people into thinking that the man was a

5

6 PREFACE

crank, but that was not the case. On the con-
trary he was a man of distinctive type, of much
nobility of purpose, that had just happened
in his early youth to imagine that he would
not like railroading. And the people that
followed his example were people of good
blood and in some instances of high education
and all in all they made up a fine average com-
munity. More than likely many small towns
in New England two hundred years ago were
like Silverton was twenty years ago, but a town
like Silverton was then would be hard to locate
nowadays, and the Silverton of to-day is in
few respects like the fine old dignified town of
even 1885. They were the pioneers and the
first generation. To-day it's different. The
old Silverton was given a certain dignity by a
very large and remarkably shaped old oak tree
that stood in the center of the Main Street;
how old it was no one knew but it had been
the shade for the Molalla and Santiam Indians
for unknown generations and was more than
likely in the direct route of these Indians who
went to and fro from the Council of the Great
Multnomah Tribe on the Columbia River
prior to the falling of "the bridge of the Gods."

PREFACE

The old oak, as everybody called it, was a
stately giant, and the early settlers of Silver-
ton looked a fitting people to group them-
selves under it and around it, and, as I have
said, it was the superb character of both men
and women that made Silverton, the old town,
so distinctly different.

The tree and town were nearly all destroyed
once by fire. A merchant named Alex Ross
let a lighted candle brush against his beard
and from his whiskers the blaze leaped madly
into the lace curtains of his store window and
one of the handsomest city blocks was soon
burnt to the ground. The town then got a
hook and ladder company, and a fire brigade
was organized with a tower and a fire bell on
top of it. Years passed and passed and the fire-
men grew older and less attentive at the annual
fire drill. The fire department consisted of a
hose, hook and ladder wagon with some fine
axes with gilding on the blades, some long
leather buckets, a long hose, and some fire hel-
mets. Some ten years after the first fire an-
other broke out, in the old brick store ; possibly
from a cigar stub as a man was seen smoking
one that day in the store. At any rate the old

8 PREFACE

store was first to burn. The department was
hard to arouse as the fire started at 2 a. m. or
thereabouts. Dr. Davis was awakened by the
glare of hght. He thought he had overslept
and that it was sun-up. Fully awake he ran
to ring the fire bell, but little by little the
farmers had cut off the rope to tie their teams
till it was out of the doctor's reach. He threw
rocks at the bell but was nervous and excited
and only hit it once, so resorted to yelling
"Fire!" on the principal streets until his voice
gave out. Silverton was noted as a place to
get sleep and rest in and the doctor was winded
and hoarse before he awoke many of the old
settlers. They found the hose gone, some one
had borrowed it to irrigate his garden; the
leather buckets were all gone. We had had
one in our parlor for years with moss and
"everlasting flowers" in it as an ornament, and
the only things they found to fight the flames
with were three of the company's fire helmets,
and these came in handy to keep off the heat,
as a whole row of wooden buildings were on
fire, to say nothing of 50,000 cedar shingles,
and it was nearly noon before the fire burned
itself out when it came to the sparse settlement.

PREFACE

But the backbone of the town was there yet and
the pioneers were not all gone. They would go
on determined not to be stopped by a fire. In
fact bluffs seldom got away with much there,
and I can cite one instance that was truly Sil-
verton in every sense. A "Campbellite" minis-
ter by the name of Clark Braden came there
to conduct a revival meeting. He was a man
of quite some force and reputation, and a big
quiet audience greeted liim at his first hearing.
He got on all right until near the close when he
issued a sweeping challenge to any infidels or
free thinkers to debate with him in Silverton.
His utterances had hardly cleared his beard
when ten men at least were on their feet asking
him if he would debate with Robert G. Inger-
soll. The preacher said "yes with him or any
of his disciples." The meeting broke up with
much excitement and promise, and within a few
hours quite a long telegram, the longest ever
sent out of Silverton was on its way East to
Col. Ingersoll, and before long a brief one
returned saying that jVIr. B. F. Underwood
was on a train for Silverton as a representative
of Col. Ingersoll to debate for ten days with
Rev. Clark Braden. They were to speak every

10 PREFACE

evening, each man having one hour's time.
That was typical of the early founders of Sil-
verton. No admission was charged, and the
occasion was carried on with much dignity
until the last evening's debate when somebody
started something, and when it was over
several of the best families in town were on
terms unbecoming to neighbors; but even this
only lasted a few months and all the differ-
ences of a stormy night had passed. The
manhood and womanhood that had brought
them together during the hardships and trials
of a pioneer life, in the covered-wagon days,
had brought about a brotherhood that was
after all too strong a bond to be broken by
even religious whims and differences, and they
were soon back together as one big family. All
men and women who in their higher spiritual
selves were even more religious in the truer
form than the minister that had started the
trouble, they were genuinely under the atmos-
phere and living in it that the old blind Arab
poet described in his verse written during
the eleventh century and saying, "when
young, my friends I would defame, if our
religious faiths were not the same, but now

PREFACE 11

my soul has traveled high and low, now all
save love to me is but a name," I only cite
this incident as it was so typical of the place
and went to show that the older pioneers of
Silverton could start on short notice without
even a rehearsal. But, oh, how I loved, and
still love Silverton.

I could never expect to find another such
community. Where else could one find a firm
like Coohdge and McClaine, starting in part-
nership without a bookkeeper. They never
even kept a pencil account of things. When
Jake McClaine saw his partner with a new pair
of pants on, whether he, McClaine, needed any
or not, he took from the store a pair just to
balance the books, and that was their method.
They played fair with each other, starting with
some calves they bought in the fall of the year,
and from that deal this firm grew and grew
until now, incorporated into a stock company,
it is one of the biggest on the Pacific Coast;
and when "call money" rents for big premiums
in New York City, money that started in Sil-
verton with these pioneer bankers comes in
large quantities to Wall Street to reap the
benefit of the quick loan system. But the

12 PREFACE

Silvertonites of old, Coolidges, McClaines,
Davis's, Browns, DeGuires, McGuires, Smiths,
Tuggles, Blackerbys, Hibbards, Riches, Wol-
fards, Skaifes, Drakes, Ramsbys, Huttons,
Thurmans and Simerals are getting thinned
out, and in their places new faces from the
middle west and south are coming. The first
generation were not the stuff of their parents ;
conditions had changed, some of the younger
men wxre bigger business men than their
fathers yet they lacked a lot of a certain kind
of character that made the fathers more in-
teresting than any of their sons. The railroad
and interurban trolleys change the conditions
of things greatly, and Silverton has been no
exception to this rule. The departure and
arrival of the old Salem stage used to be an
event, more than the trains coming and going
to-day, but to me Silverton will always remain
the same with no other memory second. I
remember well my first impression of Silver-
ton. I had come to town with my father and
grandmother Davenport. It must have been
when I was between four and fixe years old.
We were stopping at the Coolidges', father
had gone on beyond Silverton to survey for

PREFACE 13

Scott Hobart, and in the evening of a great
day, as grandmother and "Aunt Frank"
Coohdge sat rocking and visiting on the
back porch, I got their permission to go on to
the sidewalk some distance from their big
house. I remember I was all dressed up with
new little boots that had copper toes. I fol-
lowed the sidewalk to the old covered bridge
and finally ventured through it, and there saw
a great city for once without grandmother
holding me. I was in a trance of delight
w^atching it, when a big handsome man, named
Marshall Dudley, came up to me and in a bass
voice, said: "Are you so and so." I said,
*'yes." "What then are you doing in Silver-
ton alone? You get back to Aunt Frank
Coolidge's as hard as you can run." I did
and found to my horror that I had bumped
a copper toe off one of my new boots some-
where enroute.

From that moment Silverton has always
been to me the greatest city in the world. I
saw in it that evening a dignity, possibly
radiating from the giant oak tree, that no other
place ever could have. Its people were so
kind, its stores filled with such good things.

14 PREFACE

and the scenery back of it so beautiful. And
the roar of the water falling over the JNlill
Dam gave it a thrill never to be forgotten
by me. For years it held me in that trance.
It inspired me to draw pictures, and day after
day, month after month I used to draw its
people on the smooth surface of the pine
boxes that brought dry goods to the town,
and, strangely, many of them I mounted on
fiery Arabian steeds, and the strangest part of
Silverton is that it never releases me a day
from its hold. A day never passes that I don't
hurry over its streets and see its last remaining
pioneers, and in my vision replace those that
have gone. I yet hear the roar of Silver
Creek as it pours like a sheet of silver over the
Mill Dam below the "old red shop"; then
again I see it each day as the years go by as I
first remember seeing it the evening I lost the
copper toe from the new boot. I have thought
of it while seated in the ruins of the Coloseum
at Rome, thought of it in London and Paris
and Constantinople, thought of it while rest-
ing in the death-like silence of the shadow of
the Sphinx, and told of it near the Euphrates
River in Arabia, while among the wild tribes

PREFACE 15

of Anezeh. Even left its paper, "The Silver-
ton Appeal," among that tribe.

I have told people of this little town's beau-
ties till the}^ have yawned and finally left in
disgust, yet it holds me with a something that
I cannot describe. Strangely I find that I
have forgotten all the many rainy days, the
boyhood fights and the neighbor quarrels.
They with the petty pains and pangs of life
have been forgotten, and while I know that
some of my expressions of love for this little
tow^n have been misunderstood by the new^r
and younger generation, yet I am certain that
the pioneers, the men and women that belong
to the old oak tree, have all seen in every word
I have ever written or line I have ever drawn
pertaining to Silverton and the farmers around
it, nothing but love. All the attention I have
drawn to it in the past and any I may in the
future was, will be, to benefit Silverton. My
only regret is that we couldn't have remained
always the same as we were before the big oak
tree was chopped down, as that tree seemed to
fit into our landscape better than open or
paved streets do. The tree seemed to be a
center of dignity around which w^e could build.

16 PREFACE

a tree with stories beyond the first white man
it ever saw; and many a day when I have
watched the leading citizens playing marbles
in its extensive shadow, I have thought : How
many are the interesting stories you could tell,
of ages passed when you saw the beautiful
deer and other wild game gather at your base,
of the great pride you must have felt when
the old cock grouse hooted from your moss
covered limbs in the early breaking of spring
and of the interesting councils of war which
painted Indians in ancient days convened un-
der your spreading old limbs. Who knows
but what the great Snohomish, the chief and
orator of the Santiams, made your shade a
stopping place going up the Columbia to the
great council ? At last you saw the first white
man and his ox team approach, and later
make treaty and trade and war with the In-
dians ; and at the very last, you find you have
been chosen as the center around which men
and women of the finest type build a beauti-
ful little city that for a time nestled under
your very branches for protection. You
grew and spread and at last as a mother that
had walked the floor nights with her babe.

PREFACE 17

cared for it in storms, furnished a cool shade
for it in summer, were now in the way. Your
hmbs had tried to chmb into the upper window
of one of your children's stores. That was
enough, a new element had come to town on
a railroad, to make Silverton like other towns,
so the giant tree heard its fate from a jury
that were strangers. The tree might have
called for help, but its real friends, the old
pioneers, were away. Some of them each pass-
ing year had been driven by it, across the old
covered bridge never to return, and others were
out of town on their adjoining farms. The
giant oak, the tree that had the beautiful stories
to tell, was voted "guilty" and was slain. That
evening as its huge branches were divided
among the town's people, a small party of
big men gathered at the stump of the tree.
They were mad men and sad men as they real-
ized that Silverton had to change, that a newer
element with higher collars and smaller hats
was in command. INIany of their best and
bra\^st citizens had already gone beyond the
call of human voice, others w^ould soon follow,
and the tree, being one of them, had, also,
made obeisance to the demand of society.

18 PREFACE

fashion and wealth. From that day the dig-
nity of Silverton began to wane. Thus I
shall not wonder after I write of and draw
the beauties of dear old Silverton, as I have
done in this book, if by some I am misunder-
stood; but I shall never desert Silverton; it is
my home and always will be. To me the old
oak tree always stands and under it the men
play marbles. The pioneers and their families
that made it so full of character are still in
their prime of life, the first beautiful girl I
ever saw is still there just as beautiful as
ever, and in the streets I yet hear the latest
marches by the old Silverton band, the stores
are still aglow with rich beauties. That's why
I love it so dearly and that's why it's yet home
to me.

Homer Davenport.

New York, June 17, 1910.

THE DIARY
OF A COUNTRY BOY

CHAPTER I

It was getting late one evening on the farm
in the Waldo Hills, Oregon ; we were all sitting
around the fireplace ; it was fall, and while not
cold, it was very damp. Father had been to
town that day and he was discussing with my
stepmother and my grandmother the advis-
ability of going to Silverton to live. He said
that every time he went to town lately Tom
Welsh wanted him to move down and take
charge of the Grange store.

It was a great evening, if it was rainy. I
got out of Grandmother's lap and turned to the
hired man and said, "Just think of it, we are
going to Silverton maybe, to live right in the
heart of the town." Finally I had to go to
bed, though I wasn't a bit sleepy and I don't
remember of sleeping a wink that night, but at

19

20

THE COUNTRY BOY

the first excuse of daylight, I was up and off
to the neighbors and relatives to tell them the
news. It had stopped raining, and was as
clear and beautiful as could be. I stood up on

a rail fence and looked all over the country for
miles around as far as the eye could reach, over
the landscape I knew so well ; in fact, the only
one I knew. I could hear the bell on the
engine at Salem twelve miles away, so clear
was the atmosphere. Although early in the

THE COUXTllY BOY 21

morning, my chapped feet didn't hurt me as
usual, so from one uncle's house I went to an-
other and around until I had told all my cousins
that we were going to Silverton to live, that
I was sorry, I hated to leave them, but the de-
mand was great. The city was calling for us
and we would perhaps have to go.

At Grandmother Geer's I found Grand-
mother Daven]3ort, who had beat me over.
She was old, but as spry as a sixteen-year-old
girl. As the two grandmothers stood side by
side on the porch as I approached, I thought
of what two perfect women they were. The
earth's surface could have been combed and
two finer types of womanhood could not have
been found. As I had no mother, these two
old ladies had reared me, and in a way they
seemed more like mothers than grandmothers.

Up to this time the feeling of delight had
made it possible for my bare feet just to touch
the high places, but here at Grandmother
Geer's things took on a serious aspect. I
yelled to them, "Halloa," as I was opening the
old gate that led past the big yellow rose bush,
and all they did was to let their heads lop over
on the one shoulder and smile. When I came

22

THE COUNTRY BOl

closer and drew a long breath. Grandmother
Geer said, " Homer, you and Grandma aren't
going to leave me, are you?" All I did was
to nod and ask her if she had any cookies, when

Grandmother Davenport broke down and com-
menced to sob. Finally we all sat down, I with
the cookies and the rest with long faces.
Granny Geer said, "Well, Grandpa will get
rid of all the chickens if you're going, we won't

THE COUNTRY BOY

23

have any one to hunt eggs, and no one to go
with me to dig dandeKon greens ; and we won't
see any boy riding the old red bull to the State
Fair again, will we, Grandma?" Then they
both broke down and cried. "But I'll come
up and gather the eggs for you, it's only five
miles," and I told her maybe we wouldn't go
until spring anyway, and things had become so
sad by this time that I thought I had better
go on to the next neighbor's; so I left them
with their heads on each other's shoulders, say-
ing something in low tones.

In a few days father returned again from
Silverton and said he had promised that he

would take the Grange
store in the spring. It
seemed as though
winter would never
pass; it actually lasted
years. We talked of
nothing else during the
evenings, and I
thought of nothing
else, dreamed of noth-
ing else during the nights. Finally as spring
opened we thought of Old John, a big, fat.

24 THE COUNTRY, BOY

round bay horse with knowing brown eyes. In
fact, he was one of the family ; all of us except
my own mother and father had learned to ride
and drive with Old John, as had all the neigh-
bors' children. It wouldn't do to take him to
Silverton, as he was afraid of covered bridges
and bass drums, and they had one of each in
that place.

Father didn't want to leave the farm he had
chosen, of all the wilds of Oregon, in 1851.
But my stepmother knew it was the only
thing to do especially for my art education,
which had already begun. I heard Father and
jNIother in arguments, and heard Father say
that the city was no place to teach art ; that art
was most in evidence in the country, especially
such a country, but w^omen always win, so
later in the spring my father sold the most
beautiful farm I ever saw that we could move
to Silverton, a town of three hundred inhabi-
tants; that I might live in the Latin Quarter
of that village, and inhale any artistic atmos-
phere that was going to waste.

Old John was left at Grandma Geer's with
their Old Charley, a horse nearly as old but not
half as smart. When the folks moved to

THE COUNTRY BOY

Silverton they left me in the hills, after all, till
my school was over, and I stayed with Grand-
mother and Old John, who didn't understand
it.

I rode him to Silverton a Sunday or two, but
we both felt strange. In the pasture we were
at home, but the noise of Silverton and strange
horses and boys and girls didn't make us feel
just right. I knew Alvin JNIcClaine, and one
or two others, and everybody knew Old John,
and most of them were glad we were coming.
Alvin told me what we would do when I came
to town, but Old John had to be left.

He had grown up in our family, Father
got him when he was an orphan colt, and my
own mother made a pet out of him. He was
smart. He used to get into the milk -house
and drink up all the milk. When he had done
that, you could always find him in canyon pas-
ture. It was the farthest away from the house.
He could open any gate that farmers made,
and they made the best ; he could even open the
doors to the house.

Up to the time of my mother's death, in
1870, he belonged exclusively to her, and she
had taught him to return from Salem alone, a

26

THE COUNTRY BOY

distance of twelve miles, with the buggy, and
never was the vehicle injured. They used to
take his bridle off and tie a card, explaining,
on the back band of his harness, so that if he
met strangers they wouldn't stop him, and

those who knew him only spoke to him and
smiled as he passed. Sometimes if he struck
a good patch of clover in the fence corner, he
would be a little late whinnying at the gate;
but he never failed. Once on his return he
made the philosopher of the place think, as
he came home with pond lilies in the floor of
the buggy. There were no ponds or streams
in the Waldo Hills containing pond lilies, nor
were there any in Salem, and it required deep
thought.

He had gotten home so late that the only

THE COUNTRY BOY 2

evidence they had were the Hlies and scum
from some pond, but the next morning they
found he had been in mud up to his barrel;
then they solved the problem. They had sent
him away from Salem without water; the
horse, knowing of Lake Labish on the lower
road, eight miles out of his way, went there;
its banks are steep and the bottom is very
muddy, so the weight of the buggy on the
slippery banks pushed him in when he went
to drink. So he swam in a half circle to get
back out, the
floor of the
buggy picking
up the pond
lilies on the
swim.

He was a
smart old fel-
low; in fact, he
and Father
were the thinkers of the place; it was on
him I learned a lot, and between him and
the ground I learned a lot more. I remember
one awfully dark night I grew more than at-
tached to him; it was my duty to get up the

28 THE COUNTRY BOY

sheeji, and that particular day I had been
playing so hard I forgot them. I was asleep,
when they woke me to find out if I was sleep-
ing, and then they asked if I had washed my
feet; I was certain I had, but on bringing a

candle it proved that I was mistaken as to the
date. While I was sitting with just the ends
of my toes in a basin of cold well water, try-
ing to get up courage enough to shove in the
whole foot, Father happened to think of the
sheep and he called out, "Are the sheep up?'*

THE COUNTRY BOY 29

I had forgotten them. It was dark and I
heard an owl screech up in the orchard. Shed-
ding tears didn't save me, I w^as ordered to
the barn to get Old John. I had both hands
clenched tight in his mane. I knew he was
tracking the sheep. Presently from out the
dark ahead I could hear the bell; then I knew
that they would start straight for the barn,
which they did. Once back in the stall I
hugged Old John, the tears on my cheeks had
dried with fright, and after a footbath I was
in bed, safe from an awful, dark night, a
coj^ote, and some barn and timber owds.

But Old John and I had some pleasant
times; our associations were not all ghastly.
In the summer we used to buck straAV from
the threshing machine; when there were pic-
nics I used to braid his mane and tail the day
before. Then when I rode to the picnic with
his kinky mane, both of us used to enjoy it,
and he especially seemed to know how pretty
he looked. But some way he was always so
glad to get home; he didn't seem like another
horse, he just seemed like one of the family,
and the only time it took a man to handle him
was when we went to the State Fair at Salem.

30

THE COUNTRY BOY

When we got within half a mile of the fair
grounds, where he could hear the boom of the
bass drum in the distance, he turned into a wild
horse; his ears were ever in motion then and

2 /^/.T^

his hazel eyes had the sparkle of an Arab's.
He would try to cramp the buggy and get
home, and at the State Fair it was always best
to lead him, as he pranced all the time. But

THE COUNTRY BOY 31

he was not mean ; he didn't hke state fairs, that
was all. He and I stayed at Grandma's until
just before I left to go to Silverton. Old John
had been turned out on what we called "The
Snake Hill Pasture," and there he and Old
Charley were spending their last days. He
was past twenty, as sound as a dollar, his only
fault being that he was a little too fat and lazy.
Grandfather had been over to the pasture to
put out some squirrel poison ; it was on Sunday,
the last Sunday. I was to go to Silverton that
afternoon. At the dinner table Grandfather
spoke of the queer actions of Old John; said
that he acted strange, that he first noticed him
whinnying long and loud; then he would stop
and listen, first with one ear forward, then with
the other. His eye had a sparkle that it never
had, except at a state fair, and he seemed
nervous. "He came to me and nosed at all
my pockets, to see if I had salt for him; then
he would try to play ; colthood seemed to return
to him, but in the midst of his play he would
stop and call; he would even try to look at the
sun, and when I came to the bars to come
away," said Grandfather, "he came along and
didn't want to be left. When I looked back

32

THE COUNTRY BOY

from the crest
of the hill, I
could see him
driving the stock
gently from one
shade to an-
other." Grand-
mother, who had
been quiet all
this time, said,
"I can tell you
what's the mat-
ter with Old
John ; he wants
to see Homer
before he leaves
this afternoon
for Silverton. I
shouldn't wonder but that's it, so you must go
over before you start and say good-bye to your
old pardner," said Grandma, as she passed the
pumpkin pie. "I expect when I see you get
into the buggy, I'll feel as bad as old John,
and may act just as strange."

I went over alone after dinner to say good-
bye to my old friend and tried to cheer him up.

THE COUNTRY BOY 33

I pulled some volunteer oats and took them to
give him, also some burnt cookies Grandmother
gave me, as he always liked something sweet.
It was as perfect a day as you ever saw, the
sky was very high and blue and there was just
enough breeze blowing to move the leaves on
the trees. As I came to the pasture I was
slightly disappointed that Old John wasn't at
the bars to meet me. I could see, however, all
the stock up under a large spreading oak that
stood on top of the small rise we called "Snake
Hill." A lark was singing on top of a tree —
singing as if the yellow spot on his throat
would burst. I didn't see Old John, but saw
Old Charley, the yellow horse, standing with
his head down. Cattle stood close and more
than a hundred sheep stood silently by. Some
small lambs were playing on a log near, just
as small children might play at a funeral.
As I came closer, I saw in the shade of a
mighty oak. Old John lying dead. It seemed
to be, and undoubtedly was, understood by
everybody but the young lambs that there was
a funeral in progress. The yellow horse stood
partly over him with his nose resting on the
dead horse's shoulder. His big brown eyes

34

THE COUNTRY BOY

were open but were not focused on any one
particular thing. They were blank and ex-
pressionless, but his body was still warm. I
sat against the big round back that had

carried me after the sheep so many dark nights
and I thought of the picnics we had gone to,
and I fondled the mane I used to braid for the
gala occasions. I could see the faint scars of
the collar and tuers tliat had been left when

THE COUNTBV BOY 35

years ago, he had helped father clear up the
landscape of a pioneer farm. I saw him as my
own mother's pet that grew to be the mis-
chievous rogue that got into the pantry and ate
up all the pies and drank the milk, and then
hid in the back pasture. I saw him in the days
my sister Orla rode him to the Fourth of July
celebration, where the bass drum and the plug
uglies made him prance for miles, and I
thought of him as the friend, even the philoso-
pher, the teacher of children, and everything
that a perfect horse could be. And it seemed a
fitting occasion, if he had to die, to die on such
a perfect day, the very kind of a day he used
to enjoy most.

I was some time getting away from the
scene and when I got to the house and ex-
plained the delay, it affected them all, even to
the hired man, who didn't like Old John be-
cause he got lazy in his old age.

But in the afternoon, we hitched up to go to
town where I was to stay. I didn't have any
baggage, only a rooster that I had for a pet.
Grandmother had been snuffing a lot, since she
heard of Old John's death. She said that
when I went away to Silver ton, she might not

36

THE COUNTRYi BOY.

see me again, but she went puttering around
from one room to another, fixing up something
in a bundle. Finally she came to say good-

bye and brought a pumpkin pie, a pair of
heavy wool socks, and a handkerchief, which I
needed right then. When we drove out past

THE COUNTRY BOY 37

the barn where the big Balm of Gilead tree
stood, that had been my mother's riding" whip
once w hen she rode on Old John, she broke off
a branch for me to smell of the swxet fragrant
leaves, on the way to Silverton. Grandfather
and I ate the pie, w^e were afraid it w^ould get
shaken up and dusty. When we got to town
and saw all the folks we made them all sad by
telling them of Old John.

We all went down to the store, and it seemed
fine to stand behind the counter and play clerk,
but as evening came on and Grandfather went
home, it didn't seem so good. I didn't see any
boys; everything w^as strange, but our own
folks; but it was great to know w^e w^ere there
and w^e lived there, and to see the farmers' boys
come in, and know you were one of the town
boys. It seemed like a year to the next w^eek ;
when I saw Grandfather in town I ran to him
and he said, "Your grandma said I should
bring you home with me, she wanted you to
hunt the eggs for her." I told him to ask
Father. So when he got ready to go in the
evening, he drove around in the buckboard
while I held the horse. I saw them talking
in the back part of the store, and heard them

38

THE COUNTRY EOT

say something about its only having been a
week; then they laughed; Grandpa came out
and said, "Yes?'

We drove through the big covered bridge

toward the Waldo Hills, five miles. On the
way we planned to fool Grandma; I was to
get out at the barn and slip along the picket
fence, and hide in the yellow rosebush near the
gateposts, and I did. So when Grandma came
out to open the gate she said to Grandpa, "I

THE COUNTRY BOY

39

thought I told you to bring Homer back with
you." As Grandfather drove through, he
said, "Yes, but since he went to town last week
he is changed, he ain't the same fellow that
used to hunt eggs for you; in fact, he didn't
want to come; he's got in with the boys there,

and he's forgotten us; in fact, I hardly knew
him." By this time Grandpa had begun to
unhitch the horse and he had overdone it;
Grandmother had put her apron over her eyes
and her shoulders began to shake, when I dove
out of the rosebushes, so it scared the horse,
that I forgot wasn't in on the job, and instead

40 THE COUNTRY BOY

of it being a great joke, like Grandfather and
myself thought it would be, instead we all
broke down and cried. Afterward I went all
over the place before dark, gathered all the
eggs and found three new nests, and that night
we popped corn and ate apples, and I told
them all about Silverton and how strange a
j)lace it was. In a few days I went back to
town. Then I got better acquainted.

I was big enough to help clerk in the store,
but wasn't what you would call a safe clerk. I
used to clerk while Father went to dinner.
Mrs. Francis, a woman just out of Silverton,
used to be a regular customer of ours ; she came
one day and I sold her a yard of gartering;
after that, for a long time she didn't trade with
us. Father met her on the street one day and
asked her why and she told him. She took
from her satchel a small piece of gartering, ex-
pecting to meet him she was prepared to ex-
plain. She said, "There's what your son sold
me for a yard." Father, a thoughtful person,
took the gartering, which didn't measure more
than ten inches. The two went to the store and
found it measured just a yard, if you stretched
it to its limit. JNIrs. Francis was given some

THE COUNTRY BOY.

41

ro;?tr

new gartering
and some candy
to take home
to the children,
and was soon
back on the
books again.

Silverton is
located on Sil-
ver Creek, fif-
teen miles east
of Salem. The
stream runs
through the
middle of the
town and is
crossed by o n e
of those home-
like old covered
bridges that bear all the latest posters, social,
theatrical and agricultural, including the lost,
strayed or stolen. There was every class of
people in Silverton but negroes; there were
Chinamen, and Indians lived there in small
numbers; but, for some strange reason, no
coons. The founders of Silverton were all

42 THE COUNTRY BOY

old pioneers that came mostly in 1851, and
most of them came from Ohio and Illinois.

No city, no matter what size, could have the
glare and good times that the people of Silver-
ton enjoyed. But the main population were
highly educated people, and very prosperous,
as they are to this day. The population still
varies, owing to what's coming off in town.

They had formed a brass band, but it hadn't
done very well. They had home talent shows
and debating societies, and several lodges and
a few saloons, but, above all, Silverton had
among its population lots of great characters;
men of great learning and wide experience,
who spent most of their time plajdng marbles,
and month after month I kept from hard work
under the pretext that I was studying the
character of the people of a town of three hun-
dred.

My father was, and is now at eighty-three, a
man of the highest form of education, a philos-
opher, a musician, a teacher, and above every-
thing, a man. Considering that we had
sacrificed country life for the city, he wanted
to take advantage of the few advantages the
city afforded that the farm didn't; so I started

THE COUNTRY BOY

taking music lessons of "Aunty" McMillan.

She wasn't my aunt — no relation — but she was

vxry stout and

chunk y, and # ^^f

wore curls with

a high polish on

them, and most

always you call

that kind

"Aunty." She

had gotten so

stout she could

n't play the

difficult pieces

any more, those

you reach one

hand across the

other to play.

She just taught

and told how

she used to play.

We paid her in

fresh milk for ^'^ ^ e

the lessons she

gave me, so that if I failed as a Paderewski,

Father wouldn't be out ready money.

44 THE COUNTRY. BOY^

The method she taught was like all really
great inventions — it was simple ; and I have to
smile now when I think that no one thought of
it before. It was better perhaps for a transient
teacher to teach than one regular in the city —
in fact, it took a brave person to buy property
and settle down on such a method. The first
day I came with a quart of warm milk; that
is, I started with a quart of milk, but the side-
walks were very poor in Silverton then. I
reached her home and prepared for the lesson.
She gave me a sort of a lecture first on music,
said that it had come to stay, that it would soon
be counted as a part of every first-class educa-
tion, and that it got easier as one progressed.
Then she produced a large music book with
the notes all numbered. The keys of her organ
w^ere numbered, and then with an indelible
pencil she numbered my finger nails, and I took
the stool; and while she counted time with a
short smooth pointer — "One, Two, Three,
Four," I began to get in touch wdth the various
numbers ; and as I w^as fairly good in numbers
up to seven, I progressed so rapidly that after
the second lesson she gave me a chance on a re-
duced course in classical music, which was to

THE COUNTRY BOY

45

come later on. If you got a certain number
of these chances it reduced the price half.
As we paid in milk it meant for the big set of
lessons I would only bring one-half as much as
I should have had to do had we bought them.

Father had sold
out the store on ac-
count of my clerk-
ing and w^as survey-
ing a good deal, and
working with deeds
and legal papers
some. He asked
me how I got on at
the music and I
simply smiled and
showed him the
tickets, "Reward of
JNIerit" printed on
them, and he was
really too proud to
enter into a conver-
s a t i o n. A f e w
days later I saw him talking with "Aunty"
JVIcMillan, and I could see she was prais-
ing me, as Father was having trouble with

46

THE COUNTRY BOY

his eyes. He never could bear to hear good
said about his children, he was so tender

hearted; and I guess the people knew it, be-
cause they never told him much. Other people
in Silverton thought I Avas nothing, because I

THE COUNTRY BOY 47

drew pictures and took music lessons, while
the other boys worked, and because Father was
so well educated and I was foot in the class and
still taller than the rest in the same class; but
they never took into account that regardless
of height wx were of the same age. Finally
"Aunty" McjMillan got up a musical concert
by her pupils, the proceeds to go to buy a new
organ for the church. She played the old
organ in the church ; she could do that, as it was
slow time and plain music. I was to play first
in the big musical. I came first on the program,
and there's where the error of her life w^as
made, as in coming to the Town Hall after
milking the cows I got the numbers that she
had put on my nails late in the afternoon wet,
and they had blurred and slipped, and I didn't
notice it until she led me out and seated me;
then she backed into the wings and spoke in
low tone, "Watch your nails carefully." It
was the first public appearance I ever made.
Naturally, a fellow gets a little rattled, and
when I looked at my hands, the numbers were
most all gone. She yelled, "Look at your
nails," so I finally said, "INIy numbers have
slipped," and the audience in general, and my

48 THE COUNTRY, BOY

father in particular, wanted to know what the
nails had to do with it; in fact, he suggested
that I quit looking at my hands and look at
the book; so when she explained her new
Eastern method, they broke up the meeting,
and "Aunty" MclVIillan left town on the early
stage and hasn't been a resident of Silverton
since. It was some time before the town got
over the musical shock it gave them.

CHAPTER II

The old brass band hadn't done well and the
organization of a new band was talked of
around the post-office. The old instruments
were brass and had the old-fashioned rotary
valves, and the strings kept breaking. The
town thought we should have a new band,
nickel-plated instruments with the late piston
valves. As it would advertise the town, and so
long as the band didn't play would give it an
up-to-date appearance, the wealthier citizens
contributed, but notwithstanding my exhibi-
tion and failure at the McMillan musical
demonstration, they let me in, and I played
the snare drum, because it was the easiest to
carry. Our instruments came, and the town
nearly went wild over them, and we began
practicing every night in the band hall. We
got thirty dollars to go and playj at ordinary
picnics, and you came and got us in a wagon
with flags on the side of the box. We played
along for a few months this way, and then we

49

50 THE COUNTRY BOY

thought of uniforms. We wanted something
that would distinguish us from the common
herd. As it was, unless you carried your horn
or drum all day at a picnic, they couldn't tell
us from the rest of the farmers, which reflected
on the city. So again we levied a tax on the
citizens, and some of them moved out of town
to escape it, but under the head of education
they contributed according to their means, as
their property that lay in town would be en-
hanced in value by the uniforms.

We began to receive large booklets of uni-
forms, shown on handsome young men with
pink cheeks. Ralph Geer was the only mem-
ber of our band who looked like the lithographs,
so after a long discussion we picked out the
ones that were on the fellow that looked like
Ralph, and ordered seventeen assorted uni-
forms, second-hand, from Lyon & Healy, of
Chicago. They were supposed to be all sizes
between such and such. The colored pictures
of them showed them to be a beautiful light
blue gray, with red stripes down the pants leg,
and the coat was a long cutaway, with three
rows of big brass buttons on the chest, and
large red epaulettes on the shoulders, and a lot

THE COUNTRY BOY 51

of red and gold braid on the coat tails and
collars. The caps were high and leaned for-
ward, with a short straight stiff brim and a red
plume went in the front and top of the cap.

.There wasn't much sleeping done after the
money order left town. The whole town sat
around the post-office stove and wondered
whether they would steal the money order or
not, but we kept it as much of a secret as pos-
sible the day the money left.

There wasn't a man in town, or a drummer
that came to town that could figure accurately
how long we would have to wait. After the
order had been gone about a week, I hung out
at the depot and watched for the train that was
due at noon each day, but each day the express
messenger said he hadn't seen or heard any-
thing of them. Father finally came to me and
said that the whole town thought the reason I
hung around the depot was to get the first
dive into the uniforms when they came. Of
course he knew different. He knew it was be-
cause the musical strain ran so strong in our
family, but the town in general was about
ready to accuse me of crowding, so he said,
"You go now out in the hills and I'll let you

52 THE COUNTRY BOY

know when they come." I knew when I left
the depot that it was suicide, but there was
nothing else to do, so I went. A few days later
I saw a man driving fast over the country road
through the hills, and knew it wasn't the doc-
tor's rig — it must be the band uniforms had

^^^Z^^'^

come; so I left the gap in the fence I was
watching for a man and ran to town, and found
that they had been there two days ; father had
been out of town surveying. When the people
saw me they left their stores and houses and
went with me to the depot. I asked them if

THE COUNTRY^ BOY

53

they looked like the pictures, and they said,
"Just exactly, onlj- finer." I was astonished to
hear that the others had all taken theirs and left
only one for me to choose from. I had never

seen uniforms, only in catalogues, and once at a
circus, and never had had any on except I wore
once Father's Good Templar Lodge regalia
for a few minutes. They had come in a big
box, and this one suit and cap was all that was

54 THE COUNTRY BOY

left in the box. I took it out and held it up
against me, and the crowd laughed, while I
saw nothing to laugh at. I could see that the
man who cut it didn't especially have me in
mind, so to pacify the mob I stepped into the
trousers, and I think I took one or two more
steps before either pants leg moved. This
suit they had left for me was cut to fit a man
five feet six, that weighed tw^o hundred pounds
at least, and who didn't carry much of his
weight in broad shoulders. I stood six feet
one, and w^eighed one hundred and thirty-five.
I put on the coat, and John Wolfard yelled
from the crowd and asked if the epaulettes
didn't go on my shoulders. I told him on horn
players they did, but on drummers they always
folded just across his bosom. The coat tails
struck the calves of my legs. Fortunately
there was a big fold at the bottom of the
trousers, and much gray cloth that could be
taken out of the back of the coat, and with
these remedies it got to fit pretty well. All of
the pants had to be made over anyway, as they
were not spring bottom, which was all the rage
then, so we had them cut that way. Of course,
our popularity grew quickly with these clothes,

THE COUNTRY BOl

55

and half of the
young fellows
in the band got
married that
winter, while the
gilt braid was
yet new, and be-
fore the moth
holes that were
in most of them
got together.
Our prices
jumped from
thirty up to
fifty, and you
still came and
got us, and
brought as many
of us away from
the celebration as you could find.

There was but one Democrat in Silverton,
and he was one in every sense of the word. He
hadn't said much for years — just paid his bets
regularly every four years without much back
talk — but that fall when Grover Cleveland
was elected for the first time Jake IMcClaine's

56

THE COUNTRY BOY

voice lasted about half an hour. Then he wrote
what he wanted to tell you on a slate. He
wrote to the leader that he wanted to defray all
of the expenses of the entire band to Portland
the next Saturday night, where they were go-
ing to give

Cleveland a
b i oj Demo-
c r a t i c rally,
and have elec-
t r i e lights.
Of course, we
accepted, as
Jake M c-
C 1 a i n e had

and

^r^^' y ments
uniforms than any other man in town.

We had to leave Silverton at three o'clock
Saturday morning, and go in a "dead-ax"
wagon twelve miles to Gervais, so as to catch
the morning train on the main line of the
Southern Pacific. I rode directly over the
hind axle and lost the only gold filling I ever

THE COUNTRY BOY 57

had up to that time. We got there at daylight
and had breakfast that had been specially pre-
pared for us, for which Uncle Jake paid. He
wasn't an uncle, but like ''Aunty" JNIcMillan,
was fat, so everybody called him in Silverton,
"Uncle Jake." We took the Albany local, and
by eight o'clock were in Portland, forty-seven
miles from Silverton. It was the first time I
was ever there without some one holding me
by the wrist, and it seemed great. The uni-
forms kind of made us brave, and Uncle Jake
marched ahead and we plaj^ed as we marched
up the main street, which was First Street.
On the bass drum was printed in red letters,
"Silverton Trombone Band," and people
would yell "Hurrah for Silverton!" w^hile
Uncle Jake would answer them by yelling
"Hurrah for Cleveland!" Uncle Jake fre-
quently sold cattle to the butchers there, so be-
fore we knew it w^e had stopped in front of
a butcher shop, and were plajang while he was
in the back end of the shop selling cattle.
From one butcher shop to another we went,
playing all the time, and many of us marching
in new shoes on the first cobblestones we had
ever seen. Finally in the afternoon w^e bought

58

THE COUNTRY BOY

a box of apples for lunch. The day was
dark and cloudy. In front of one shop Uncle
Jake brought a butcher, who he said had
bought more cattle than any of the rest, and

he wanted us to play for this man, number
eighteen in the new book. Eighteen in the
new book was the one piece of classical music
which we bought when we got the uniforms.
The only difference that it bore to the other
quicksteps was that it didn't go quite so fast,
and about the middle of the piece it had six-
teen bars rest for everybody but the barytone
player, and from long and careful training
we had reached a stage where we could

THE COUNTRY BOY 59

play up to within a few feet of this sixteen
bars' rest and ahnost all of us stop simultane-
ously, at which point the barytone player
would run a little scale that was called a
cadenza, and we w^ould all watch the leader's
head and when he nodded we would join in
and fmish out the piece. It was a pretty
thing, and we told Uncle Jake we were hold-
ing it for the reviewing stand, where we
wanted Cleveland to hear it; so he said all
right, he would have the butcher there to hear
it also. After marching all afternoon and
having our photos taken, the big parade
started at eight o'clock.

After marching in the parade until nearly
midnight it came our turn to stop and play be-
fore the reviewing stand. Most of us were
so sleepy we could hardly keep our eyes open,
and the horn blowers w^ere a sorry lot. Be-
tween their new shoes and their lips, they were
about done up. Their upper lips hung out far
and were purple. They looked like they had
all got into a bee's nest and had been stung on
the lips. The leader cautioned each member
that the supreme moment of our lives was upon
us; that all the other bands were present, and

60

THE COUNTRY BOY

that he thought Cleveland himself was. He
said, "Whatever you do, don't play when you
get the sixteen bars of rest; and you, there,
with the snare drum, don't roll out into that

open space as you have always done before."
It was an awful moment. Uncle Jake w^as
still to be heard bragging to everybody what a
piece it was. Finally, with the greatest

THE COUNTRY BOY 61

difficulty, the piece was started. I thought
I had a pioneer idea that they didn't need
me, and for fear of being accused of breaking
down the piece in case they made a fizzle of it,
I would quit as soon as we got started — and
did. I just made motions without hitting the
drum; but it wasn't a new thought, as nearly
every other member had done the same thing,
so when we approached the sixteen bars' rest
the only one player was the leader himself, and
he had the tremolo stop out. He stopped just
as a large skyrocket went up. We hadn't been
used to fireworks— that is, big ones — and the
only barytone solo anybody heard was the bary-
tone player yelling to the man next to him,
"Look, quick, Tom, at that skyrocket."
Uncle Jake directed the butchers he had
brought down to hear number eighteen, to the
fireworks, and we never resumed the piece, and
never saw each other until we met the next day
on the train bound for home. Aside from that
one piece the trip was a great musical triumph,
and Uncle Jake was the hero.

A few more years passed studying character,
when I joined the Good Templars Lodge.
Father wanted to retire from it, and I was to

62

THE COUNTRY BOY

take his place. I knew them all on the street,
but when my name was voted on and accepted,
and the Saturday night I was to take the
oath came, it was different. I went all

dressed up and was quartered in the
outer waiting room. I had heard so much
about riding goats, and even Father wouldn't
tell me what they did to you there. He didn't
even go the night I joined. All he would say

THE COUNTRY BOY 63

was that he didn't want to see it. The out-
side guard brought me a red and gold regaha
and said, "Put it on around your neck."
Then I waited some minutes and heard singing
in the big lodge room. It was upstairs over
the town hall, and no one was every allowed
to peep in unless he was a member. Finally
I heard raps like a hammer, and people walk-
ing. The outside guard, who was one of
Uncle Jake McClaine's hired men, came, and
I asked him if there was anything to be afraid
of. He said he couldn't tell me; that it was
against the rules. I noticed he had cloves on
his breath. He said, "Get ready ; they may call
for us any minute." I asked him if I had
mussed my hair when I put my regalia on, and
he said I had, slightly, and he fixed it, and he
gave me some perfume to put on my handker-
chief and my coat lapel. Presently a rap
came at the door, and a small peep hole opened,
and a voice came in bass, "Who's there?" The
hired man said something and again the voice
at the peep hole said, "Admit him." We were
then in another small hall and the guard noticed
that every now and then, unless I held my
mouth shut, my back teeth chattered. I

64 THE COUNTRY BOY

wasn't cold, quite, but that feeling that, thank
heavens, you only have once in a lifetime, was
with me. In another moment another queer
rap, and a female voice asked, "Who's there?"
Uncle Jake's hired man took me by the arm,
and said in a strong, bold voice, "A brother
wants to enter." The truth was the brother
didn't. He was all in, and about out. I
heard the female voice say, or rather sing it,
that there was a brother outside knocking for
admission. Then a great rustling of feet was
heard when the lady at the wicket said, "Bring
thy brother in." I was past recognizing any-
body by this time, although the woman at the
door turned out to be our hired girl, but I
couldn't recognize her then. They all rose and
sang, while I marched to the other end of the
great hall and knelt before a throne; and a
man with more cloves on his breath and a more
elaborate regalia, read something about rum
being a serpent, and strong drink was raging.
Another rap or two with the mallet, and then
we took another circle while they sang, and then
we stopped in front of a lesser important booth,
and there had more reading, and another odor
of cloves. But all this time my neck would

THE COUNTRY BOY

iSo

pop at any attempt to get easy and relax to
anything like a natural pose. Finally I was
escorted to a table and sworn, while the mob
kept singing. They produced a book; I

signed and paid two dollars. Then they es-
corted me to a seat, and a recess was declared
to congratulate the brother. Even then I
made an attempt to walk across the floor, and

66 THE COUNTRY BOY

wouldn't have made it without assistance.
There we were all chums, but, with the re-
galia, so changed.

After that about all we did was to buy-
candy hearts at the post-office that had read-
ing printed on them: "I love you," or "Will
you be true?" Sometimes the printing would
be too strong for a Good Templar lodge, but
if it was we could always sell the one heart
for what the whole sack cost. I was later dis-
charged from this high body for sleeping on a
billiard table in Portland, to the disgrace of our
whole family, and especially, my father.

Easter Sunday to the country boy is about
the biggest thing on the boards. Easter
itself is a tame day compared with what those
of the weeks previous have been. In the far
West — and I suppose it's the same all over
the country — boys hide their eggs and the lid
is temporarily off — that is, you can steal an-
other boy's eggs during the period previous
to Easter without its being a crime punish-
able by parents or law. In fact, you can steal
anybody's eggs during the fortnight previous
to Easter Sunday, and lucky are those homes
where there are enough eggs for breakfast

THE COUNTRY BOY 67

till after the big feast, composed chiefly of
eggs, roasted, boiled and parched by the open
fire on Easter day.

Sometimes, if a boy makes a bad throw Eas-
ter, then nothing but broken eggs follow in
the free fight. But among the quieter boys
the worst effect is acute indigestion from a
mixture of over-done goose, guinea, turkey
and hen eggs.

The last big Easter campaign I took part
in was in Silverton, and all of us boys in the
neighborhood were jealous of Joe Welch be-
cause we had a hunch that Joe had the great-
est number of eggs. He was the shrewdest
of us all, and what was more to the purpose,
he was close-mouthed, and there was noth-
ing in his silent laugh at the post-office corner
of evenings to tip us off as to just where his
eggs were hidden. He had made several big
steals from other boys, and it was surmised
that it was he who had acquired Warren
Libby's collection of turkey eggs.

Late one afternoon, when I had been kept
in our house longer than usual by a lesson in
arithmetic by my father, and just as I was
starting downtown, I went to take a last

68 THE COUNTRY BOY

glance at the place where my eggs were hidden
in a hole under the barn, when, lo and behold,
there was Joe Welch crawling out from under
our barn with my eggs in a sack. Before
he saw me I darted back into the house and
watched him from the attic window. He
looked all around, and then ran out of the
barnyard, across the street to his own home
and crawled under the house from the back.
He was gone for fifteen minutes, and when
he came out he brushed his clothes, looked all
around, and seeing no one, went downtown,
whistling a new tune our brass band had just
received from the East. I saw that the day
was all mine — I was born under a lucky star
— so I ran and got a sack, for I smelled big
business. Sack in hand, I crawled under Dr.
Welch's house, and away up in the darkest
corner, next to the chimney, were the eggs
with my own initials on them. There was a
big heap altogether, and it seemed as if every
egg that any goose, turkey, hen or guinea
had laid in the neighborhood of Silverton for
the last year was there. I wiped my eyes at
first, then my heart began to beat so loudly
that I was afraid ^Irs. Welch, Joe's mother.

THE COUNTRY BOY 69

would discover nie, for I could hear her walk-
ing around in the house plainly. I got all
the sack w^ould hold comfortably, also filled
my hat, and then made a trip to our calf pas-
ture, w^here I hid them in a fence corner.

I had to make another journey to get them
all, for there were goose eggs, turkey eggs
and guinea eggs, besides all shades of hen
eggs, including some yellow cochin eggs I
knew Joe had stolen from another boy.
When I reached the fence corner with the last
load I got a shock. The fence creaked, and
I thought I had been discovered. But it w^as
a false alarm, and I was about as proud as
a pirate could be when I realized that no one
would ever look in such an out-of-the-way
place for the eggs.

That night when I went to the post-office
Joe Welch had a twinkle in his eye that no
one understood but me, and I let on that I
was just as certain as he as to who had the
most eggs. But when I saw him the next day
he was more thoughtful — he had a far-aw^ay
look on his face, and I — well, I guess I looked
a trifle happier than he did.

I guess it was when I was about seventeen

70

THE COUNTRY BOY

I raised a jDup. I liked him more than I did
some people and he preferred me to some dogs,
so it would seem natural that we were much
alike in general character.

I loved him then and I love his memory

now. H e died
i n my lap i n
Portland, Ore.,
when he was
about six years
old. Some one
had poisoned
him. Every
time I go to
Portland there
is no place I
look on with
more deep r e-
gret than the
spot near the railroad yards where he lies
buried.

I owned this dog's mother and he and I be-
came pals. He was more than a dog. He
had almost human intelligence, but passed in
a crowd for a dog. In that way he fooled

THE COUNTRY BOY 71

fleas, as they stayed on him in preference to
me.

I named him DufF when he was a few weeks
old, and when I was at the Lewis and Clark
exposition in Portland a long time afterwards
many were the people that came, not to see my
exhibit of birds and horses, but to talk about
DufF. These people had been impressed years
before by this rather ordinary looking bull
terrier. Like a good many very worthy dogs,
he would have been a joke at the New York
Dog show.

He was anything the crowd he was with
wanted him to be. His early character in Sil-
verton represented the local color of the town.
As a result he w^as more or less a clown. He
and I went about without much purpose, and
where there was the least resistance — not
meaning that we tried any of the doorknobs.
But we sort of loitered around at our leisure,
and in that way got to know each other very
well, and incidentally a lot of other people.

One Sunday w^e went to Wilhoit Springs,
a mountain resort, where many prominent peo-
ple came from Portland to spend a week or

72 THE COUNTRY BOY,

so. The proprietor was a cross, surly man,
and his guests were pining for something in-
tellectual. They soon found DufF. They
marveled at his tricks and his keen mind.
They said they washed he was the proprietor
of the soda springs.

It was here that DufF introduced me into
the first real artistic atmosphere I had expe-
rienced. The man that admired my dog chum
most was a lithographer named WalHng. I
drew pictures for him on bark and chips while
Duff was resting. Mr. Walling told me that
both of us ought to come to Portland, where
he was sure our talents would make a hit.

We finally did go to Portland after several
years, and Duff's friends received us warmly.
I had expected to make my fortune and to
support DufF royally. But my drawing was
not appreciated in Portland as it was in Sil-
verton.

The first money I ever acquired from art
was brought in bj^ DufF. I got him a posi-
tion at the Standard theatre, where he joined
the song and dance team of Hickey and Clif-
ford. They paid me $1.50 per week for the

THE COUNTRY BOY

stunts DufF did every evening during their
few months' engagement.

One rehearsal was all the dog needed. I
doubt if any chorus girl's vanity ever took her
to the theatre with more regularity than this
dog's pride in his act took him. His part was,
at a given signal, to run on the stage and grab
Hickey by a prepared pad concealed under the
actor's coat tails. Then DuiF was swung
around and around hanging by his teeth.

I sat in a front seat every night and ap-
plauded. Sometimes DufF w^ould come to the
footlights and peek over at me and w^ag his
tail. He turned a few hand springs and
jumped rope and never objected as to who
came on first. This made him the most popu-
lar actor with the stage director.

In Silverton, before we went to Portland,
Duff did more tricks than I could tell you of
in a day's talk. He carried in stove wood; he
rode up on the hay fork holding to a sack; he
sat on the cowcatcher of the locomotive ; he was
the retriever, the bird dog, the shepherd, the
clown. He could catch a coin or a baseball
that was laid on the top of his nose. He would

74 THE COUNTRY, BOY

turn a back somersault just for the asking.
iWhat is more, he understood any plain
language, the kind we used in Silverton.

When I was an engine wiper he was the
watchdog of all the company's property.
Thus, when Receiver Scott, of the O. R. Co.,
doubted the dog's ability to watch the engine
all night as he slept on the cab seat — where
I ought to have been, but was accustomed to
stay away from my post and sleep in my bed
— DufF attacked the inquisitive receiver who
had sneaked up in the dark, and treed him on
an old-fashioned pump in the yard of a nearby
hotel.

A lady once, when I was boasting of Duff's
wonderful intelligence, said:

"Do you mean to tell me that I can't hide
your knife where he can't find it?"

"Yes," I said; "it would be impossible."

I told DufF to go in the next room till we
hid the knife. She put it up on the top shelf
of the sideboard, behind the only real cut glass
there was in Silverton.

DufF came in and began to snifF with his
head up. Before either of us had time to stop
him he mounted the sideboard, knocking down

THE COUNTRY BOY 75

all the glass and breaking it and brought us
the knife.

An actor finally offered me $100 for Duff.
JNIy father came to Portland to see me about
accepting the offer. We talked it over one day
on the Stark street ferry. Duff was with us
and we thought he knew what we were talking
about. He looked as sad as father, and I felt
I couldn't bear to sell him, though I couldn't
imagine anything that one hundred dollars
wouldn't buy.

Father said life was made up of such sor-
rows and disappointments; that while nothing
could be finer than to spend a lifetime with a
dog of such wonderful intelligence and sym-
pathy, still a hundred dollars at compound
interest at 10 per cent, for twenty years would
buy so-and-so and so-and-so, and that in the
professional life Duff was leading he might
be stolen.

I was about to agree. All this time Duff
had stood between us, his eyes on the floor. I
spoke to him and he raised his head slowly and
looked at father full in the eye.

In that look he saved us. Father turned to
me and said:

T6 THE COUXTFY BOY

*' Homer, I guess we can't sell him."

At that DufF leaped high in the air, bumped
father's hat off his head, caught it in the air
and ran frisking about the boat with it.

No, he couldn't be sold ; there was something
in DufF that showed in his eyes and prohibited
a price.

The Silverton Appeal w^as the one newspaper
in Silverton. It w^as a weekly, that the editor
told me might some time be changed to a daily,
if the town ever responded to its encourage-
ment ; but the town didn't respond, so that the
Silverton Appeal is still a w^eekly. For a time
it got to look like it w^ould be a monthly. The
editor always set type and smoked long
stem pipes ; with big shears he culled from every
other paper. Lots of times he took cord wood
for subscriptions, and, after that system had
been inaugurated for a few years, he ran a
wood yard in connection with the Silverton
AjJj^eal,

The Appeal was unique in its way; there
was an individuality about the paper that one
would know it was published in Silverton and
nowhere else. The editor was about as smaii;
as any man in town, but once in a while he

THE COUNTRY BOY 77

got things into the paper that they didn't see
till they were printed. I noticed an advertise-
ment once for a lost horse that read as fol-
lows : "Found, a bay horse fifteen and a half
hands high, left hind foot white, small star in
the forehead ; any one describing the property,
and paying for this advertisement, can have
the same by calling at my farm."

There was one strong opposition to the Sil-
verton Appeal^ and it was a hard competitor.
It was the old covered bridge that crossed Sil-
ver Creek, on Main Street. Sometimes the
old bridge had more news on it than the
Appeal; people got so they posted some of the
town scandals, and it always had more local
news than the home paper. H. G. Guild, who
was the best editor the Silverton Appeal ever
had, was shrewd enough Saturday nights,
before the Appeal appeared on the streets, to
go out and quietly tear down some of the big
headlines that the bridge had and the Appeal
didn't, and in that way the Appeal finally got
ahead.

The job work in connection with the Silver-
ton Appeal was advertised all over the bridge,
and throughout the Appeal the job work was as

78 THE COUNTRY BOY

queer as the editorial page. One advertise-
ment announced a sale of Ai Coolidge, the
banker. It appears that Uncle Ai had got
overstocked with old harrows and a mixture
of livestock, and was going to sell them at
auction. The advertisement listed among the
enumerated stock "one two-year-old yearhng
bull."

Of course, it wasn't the intention of the
Silverton Appeal to compete with any other
paper, and, as the editor started the wood yard
for subscriptions, after that had run a couple
of years it was frequently remarked that he
had got to be a better judge of cord wood than
he was of news. But the people of Silverton
appreciated the Silverton Appeal; they many
times remarked that they liked it lots better
than the Portland Oregonian, as it always had
more home news in it.

I used to drift around into the shoe shop.
Simeral was a ball player, so he used to sit in
his shop and talk over the errors of the latest
games. If you have ever sat in a shoemaker's
chair, you are bound to admit that it is the
most comfortable seat you ever fell into. I
used to sit there and whittle leather and talk

THE COUNTRY BOY

79

with the shoemaker; I must have whittled
leather scraps for two or three years without
missing much time. Finally one day by mis-
take I cut into an upper that was to be made

into a shoe and it nearly broke up the shop ; I
couldn't pay for it, and we didn't want to ask
Father to settle, so I joined the firm to get out
of it.

80 THE COUNTRY BOY

My only duty then in town was to get up
our cows that we let run in the streets nights,
hoping they w ould find some neighbor's gar-
den gate open. I used to get them up and
milk them, but going into this firm as a shoe-
maker was such a big surprise.

I told all the young men around town and
some of the old ones that thought I drew too
many pictures; in fact, I told a few girls
that thought because I did not have pocket
change enough to take them to dances, that
I wasn't much. I went home early, didn't tell
Father, because he didn't want me to work;
just wanted me to study faces and draw.

I didn't sleep much ; turned and tossed until
four o'clock, then got up and went to Simeral's
shop. I thought of the cows, but didn't get
them up; in fact, didn't have time and didn't
think it would look dignified. Simeral came
about nine, and let me in, and before he had
the key out of the door I was into a roll of
red morocco, starting on some boots that would
have sold even before they had been finished.
He came to me and said, "Homer, there ain't
a boot in this shop I would trust you with now,
but I saw a feller the other day with two and

THE COUXTRY BOY 81

^^ hen he brings them in they're yours. In the
meantime, I have twenty cords of wood up in
the alley next to my house. If you will go
up and saw that twice in two and toss it up
into the woodshed, by the time that's done
there'll be some boots in."

Of course I saw the peculiar part of learn-
ing the shoemaking trade, but I had told so
many people that I had to go. I had been
sawing wood about half an hour, just long
enough to be thoroughly disgusted with any
branch of the shoemaking trade, w^hen I heard
a familiar cow bell, looked around, and saw my
old father come driving our cows past this veiy
woodpile. There w^as no way to escape, as
they were too close. I thought of many w^ays
of eluding discovery; perhaps the safest of the
many w^ould be to bend over and saw w^ood,
knowing that as he had never seen me in that
position, he would likely pass on by.

But the older and shrewder of the three cows
recognized me and stopped, perhaps because
she saw so much of her milk on my boots. I
didn't look up, but kept on sawdng, pulled the
hat down tighter and felt strange. I also felt
Father's hand on my shoulders and dreaded

82 THE COUNTRY BOY

for once to tell him the truth, as it sometimes
hurts. He said, "Homer, will you please tell
me what has happened? Have you had any
trouble at home? Speak up plainly." *'No,"
I said, '^nothing wrong there." "Then tell
me what this strange departure means. I got
up early, called you, and you were not in your
room. Tell me just the plain truth."

*'Well, I'm here learning the shoemaker's
trade of Frank Simeral, and I started in to
saw." "You're what?" said Father. "I'm
learning the shoemaker's trade." He made
me repeat it till it sounded ghastly, then taking
me by one hand he squeezed it gently and
affectionately when he said, "Homer, look me
square in the eye." I thought on that particu-
lar occasion just a stab over the shoulder would
do, but he said, "No, right in the eye. You
know, don't you, that I sold the most beautiful
farm you or any one else ever saw, mainly that
you might live here in Silverton so that if by
any chance you didn't turn out to be a cartoon-
ist, you couldn't say that I hadn't done all
that was in my power to do for your art educa-
tion. You know that, don't you?" "Yes," I
said. "Then do you think you are playing me

THE COUNTRY BOY 83

fair? Mind you, I am delighted to see you
learn this trade, but don't you think you ought
to have had the manhood to come home and
learn it of me? I've got twice as much wood
as this to saw."

CHAPTER III

Although Silverton was situated in a great
Imnting country and had lots of good shots,
I never took much to hunting, perhaps because

I was a poor wing shot and deer were too
pretty to kill; but I had heard of the great
flocks of geese and ducks out on the coast of

84

THE COUNTRY BOY

85

A^estucca, so I went over to have a great hunt,
and the first day I was there I actually found
a band of geese big enough so that when I
shot into the entire bunch one on the outskirts
fell. When this small goose hit the sand, he
raised to his feet and ran, me after him, and
after quite a run
I overtook h i m
and found only
one wing broken.
I always had
wanted to own
live wild birds
and things, so I
saw my chance.
I carried him to
the cabin care-
fully and cut up
a cigar box lid
into splints and set his wing and I w^as over-
joyed to see an expression in his cute little
black eyes that he sort o' knew I w^as trying
to cure him instead o' kill him. He got rap-
idly better and I started for Silverton with
him and there astonished our family by the
kindly way this Hutchins goose let me doctor

86 THE COUNTRY BOY

his wing. Father helped me doctor him some
and finally when we took the splints off his
wing, his affection showed more than ever,
and to tell the truth he and I grew to be the
nearest and dearest friends possible, not be-
ing of the same species. He used to follow
me all over the place, and once when I was
sitting down by him in the barnyard he brought
me some straws, evidently wanting me to build
a nest. He was a great talker and an alarm-
ist ; he would come to me after I had been away
downtown and try his best to tell me what had
been going on in the barnyard while I had been
awav.

In fact, he was my real chum. When I
came into the barnyard mornings when the
frost was on the ground, he would greet me
all smiles, as much as a goose could smile, then
he would step up on one of my boots, which
was quite an eff*ort, and hold his other foot
up in his feathers to warm it, and if I started
to move he would chatter and cackle that pecu-
liar note of the Hutchins geese, as much as to
say, "Hold on, don't move, I'll tell you another
story." Meanwhile he would warm his other
foot.

THE COUNTRY BOY

87

Mi^'^S'''

When I went
for a walk in the
back pasture, he
would walk with
me at m y side,
just as a dog
would do.
There he spied a
slight knoll and
he went and

stood on it erect, as much as to say, "I'll
watch out for hunters while you eat grass in
peace and comfort." When I had finished
my pretext at eating grass I went and stood
on the knoll, and as long as I stood there
he fed with perfect confidence that I was
watching out for his welfare, but when I

walked away he
ran to me chat-
tering something
good naturedly,
perhaps telhng
me that he had
not finished.
We really had
great times t o-

88

THE COUNTRY BOY

gether, but finally spring was approaching and
I had noticed how he could fly around the
barnyard. Father came to me one day and
warned me that if I wanted to keep that goose
I had better clip his wrings, but he said, "I
hope you won't. You say that you love ani-
mals; now show it by letting this goose alone,
then when his kind come by in a few weeks
going north for the breeding season, he will
join them and be happier than he is here."

I replied that *'of course an outsider might
think he would leave, but in reality he
would not. The goose and I have talked it
over and he don't care for anj^thing better than
I am, so he ain't goin' away."

"Well," said father, "when I see you two
together I think as
much, but when you
go downtown loitering
around with people
that aren't half as
smart a s this goose,
it's then that he misses
you, and it's on that
account that I wish
would leave h i s

you

THE COUNTRY, BOY 89

wings the way they are now. But because
after he is gone you will feel bad and mope
around for a few days, I thought I would tell
you now that when spring comes he will leave
you, notwithstanding the bond of friendship,
so if you want him kept here (which I hope
you don't) you had better cut the feathers on
one wing."

I didn't want to mutilate his feathers so I
left them on. A few weeks later coming from
one of those important trips downtown, they
told me at the house that my pet had gone. I
said, "I guess not." I didn't want to let on that
I w^as alarmed, but when they were not looking
I made some big strides for the barnyard, and
it was actually as still as death. I Avhistled but
no sound, save an echo, came in return.

I noticed the leaves hung silent on our trees,
though the neighbors' trees were in action. I
went back of the barn and called, but the call
was wasted on a few old hens that "didn't
belong." I tried to ginger up some life into
the landscape by throwing a few old potatoes
at things, but the brakes were set in general
on everything and I went into the house and
found all the family sitting in front of an

90 THE COUNTRY BOY

empty fireplace with long faces. Xo one spoke
and the only noise was the clock, which ticked
louder than ever. It was about dark when
father arose and said it was for the best, that
"here in Silverton there were no opportunities
for him, in fact no pond for him to swim in
even, and when you were away downtown, no
one that he apparently loved, and if you will
think of it a moment, it w^ould have been cruel
for you, a lover of animals, to have kept him
here all of his life." But there were no
answers, just long breaths now and then, until
it was time to light a candle. Then the world
took on a brighter aspect.

In a few days I recovered with the rest and
the long, beautiful spring came. No rain to
speak of, and it was fine. I never saw so many
picnics and never went with so many pretty
girls, and ball games ran all through the sum-
mer and the j oiliest threshing crews you ever
heard of. Fall came and I was hauling wood
into the barnyard one day when I heard wild
geese; lots of them had been passing over for
a week past, on their w^ay south for the winter,
but presently, just over the cone of the barn,
came some large bird. I thought at first it

THE COUNTRY^ BOY 91

was a condor; he lit in the barnyard and I was
astonished that it was a wild goose. Our
rooster hit him and he rose and circled and
again lit twenty feet from me. I yelled for
the neighbor who kept guns and one ran
over, resting his gun on the fence and shot him,
while I held fast to the team. It was great to
think of killing game right in your own barn-
yard. I ran to pick him up, when father who
was in the orchard yelled at me not to touch
him. I said, "We have killed a goose in the
barnyard, a wild goose." "No," said he,
"don't handle him; I want to feel of your head
first to see if you have any bump of memory."
Father said, "Do you see that band of geese fly-
ing in a circle next to the hill? You used to
tell me you could understand this little goose's
language and could talk some of it. If you
remember any of it now, go out there as near
as they will let you approach them and tell
them they need not wait for their friend ; he is
never coming back."

By this time I had realized all. I could
recognize his every feature, even to the little
black, glossy, soft eyes, which were now half
open. Father asked if I saw what had hap-

92

THE COUNTRY BOY

pened, and said, "I'll tell you, as I believe you
are too dumb to comprehend. Your friend
that used to be has brought that band of geese
five hundred or a thousand miles out of their

beaten course that he might bring them here
to show them where a lover of birds and things
treated him so well. They likely objected, but
he persuaded and finally they have obeyed, and

THE COUNTRY BOY 03

he left them there at a safe distance and came
to see you, and so perhaps renew his love, and
there he lies ; and if you never commit another
murder I hope this one will punish you to your
grave. Some murders can be explained to the
dead one's relatives, but you can never explain
this one and I want to show you his right wing.
I think it was that one that we used to treat."

I didn't want to see his wing, but father was
determined, and as he lifted the feathers at the
middle joint, we saw a scar, a knot in the bone
where it had healed.

Everybody is a criminal more or less, and
some of the crimes are done by stupid people.
Thus I console myself in a way over the death
of the Hutchins goose, that perhaps I am a
murderer through stupidity and not by pre-
meditation.

John Wolf ard, who kept and still keeps the
big store in Silverton, had an old hairless ter-
rier dog. I can't remember when he wasn't
"Old Bob." He wasn't like other dogs much,
perhaps on account of being hairless. The rest
of the dogs hardly recognized him as even a dis-
tant relative, but he was. Xo telling what
breed he was and I never remember hearing

94

THE COUNTRY BOY

where he came from, but that doesn't matter;
he was a terror after cats, and some time dur-
ing his Hfe he evidently overtook one that left
his or her mark on one of his eyeballs ; though
it must have been when Bob was young, as in

later life he
^" only waddled

after them and
never got near
enough to make
a cat more than
spit ; but the
cat evidence on his eyeball was plain to be
seen. That was perhaps why he was always
trying to wipe out the old grudge. As he got
very old, he got to be a painful sight to every-
body but himself. He had curvature of the
spine, so that his hindquarters got to a place
about the same time as his forefeet did, and that
impediment, with the full scratched eye that
wouldn't close, made Bob an unpleasant sight,
and even the Wolf ard family that was large cut
him socially, as did most all others. He was
short tailed and so fat that it made him pant
with his tongue out to wag his tail, but some-

THE COUNTRY BOY 95

how or other he always wagged at me, not-
withstanding the effort.

It was winter and raining hard one night
about eight-thirty, when I was in Wolfard's
store. John Wolfard was huddhng around
the store dreading to make the dash for home.
We were talking about the opportunities of
Silverton in general, when he said, "The trouble
ain't with Silverton ; it's with you boys. There
ain't any of you got any enterprise. For
instance, there is old Bob. I don't want to kill
him and still he ought to be put out of his
misery, and I have offered any of you boys
time and again all the crackers and sardines you
can eat if Bob disappears. All I want to know
is that he is gone and gone for good, and I
don't want to hear the particulars."

I looked down by my chair, and there he sat
oily and fat, as sleek as a seal. I looked over
behind the counter where they kept the sardines
and they looked pretty good. I got up and
sorter stretched, when John Wolfard, lighting
a new cigar, said, "It's enterprise that you boys
lack, the town's all right."

I went into the back part of the store where

96 THE COUNTRY BOY

they kept the bacon and a certain portion of the
eggs that are brought to a general store, and
the cooking butter. Old Bob was peeking
around the chair leg when I said "Rats," and
in a second he came grunting through the door,
trying as best he could, for a dog that had to
walk sideways, to be spry. I went to lift up
a big empty coffee sack and old Bob dove into
it hunting some rats that weren't there. I
thought at the time it w^as his last rat hunt, but
it wasn't. I pulled up my sack and Bob
grunted louder as he rolled to the bottom of it.
I turned up my coat collar and outside I found
a brick they used to block the warehouse door
open with. I put that in with him gently and
tied the sack and walked across the wet side-
walks to the big bridge. Silver Creek was
about as high as it ever got; saw logs were
running thick and few animals besides ducks
or beavers could have swam it. I felt uneasy,
still I felt that it was enterprise, and that while
Bob didn't know it, I was doing him and the
town a favor. So I stood on the first approach
of the bridge and swung the heavy sack over
the perpendicular bank, next which the main
current of the stream ran. I thought I heard

THE COUNTRY BOY 97

above the roar of the mountain torrent a grunt,
then a sickening kind of a splash, and it was
just after the splash that I felt dreadful and
blamed John Wolfard. The dark night then
frightened me and I ran into the warm store,
and as I approached the stove I said to the
proprietor who was there alone, "Open some
sardines and dig out some crackers and put in
a few sweet ones for such a job as this."

"Now, remember," said Wolfard, "I don't
want to know what's happened." He opened
some old sardines. I never have seen the same
pictures on cans since, and he brought cheese
as well as crackers, and while I ate we listened
to the pattering rain. A stranger or two from
the streets came and all commented on the high
way I was living. John was smoking extra
heavy and the whole back part of the store was
so thick with smoke that you had to shove it
away to get room to breathe. I had been eat-
ing about fifteen minutes w^hen I heard a lick-
ing sound on the floor by my chair. Looking
down I saw old Bob there licking himself dry.
We all saw it at the same time, and the first
thought that struck me was to quicken the pace
of eating so fast that w^hen John wanted an

98

THE COUNTRY BOY

explanation I was choked on a big square sweet
cracker. There was but one solution and that
was that he hit the bottom of the creek so hard
that he busted the sack and that by some miracle

he w^as washed on the bank at a point where
he could get out, and all this done before he
strangled, as old Bob couldn't have swam out
of Silver Creek during the low water of sum-
mer, let alone the high water of winter. I

THE COUNTRY BOY

99

didn't have money to pay for what I had eaten
and the friendly way Bob stuck so close to me I
did not want to show any more enterprise, so I
had to work the next day in J. Wolfard Co.'s
shingle shed piling shingles to pay for a meal

that wasn't on the regular bill of fare. Old Bob
strangely spent the w^hole day with me, spryer
than he had been for years, and after that night
he seemed to pin his faith to me and whenever
I was downtown he was always w^ith me when
I sat down. He always got right in front of

100 THE COUNTRY BOY

me when he wasn't in my lap and looked
intently into my face as much as to say:
".When all others fail me, I can always count
on you." JMile after mile he followed me over
the poor board sidewalk until one day he just
died of old age. But as John Wolfard said,
''Homer, as you wasn't around, he died lean-
ing towards a cat."

Silverton was a queer place socially; while
the townspeople were all of one set and there
was little of any class hatred, the rich seldom
ever lined up against the poor. Still if a very
beautiful girl came to town all of us boys sort
of took it for granted that she would turn
us down if we did attempt to take her any
place, so no one ever gave her the opportunity.
We admired her and talked of her at the
swimming holes and in fact everywhere we
met, but no one ever had the nerve to approach
her with a proposal of a "Let's go to the dance,
or the party or the entertainment." We
started to several times, but every time we got
close enough to smell the beautiful odor of per-
fumery our nerve always went back on us, and
as a result she wasn't kept out nights much.
For a long time the girls in town had been

THE COUNTRY BOY 101

about the same in looks varying according to
who had the colds.

One day a beauty came to town to live with
some relatives of hers and she pined some time
before she was taken out. I had been out with
a threshing crew and wt moved on Saturday
to a field near Silverton. The grain wasn't
quite ripe enough, so we laid oif until JNIonday,
— an awful thing to do in that country, giving
us all a chance to go into town and get shaved
up and a clean shirt. When I got to town
there was a lot of talk on the streets of a dance
to be given that night at Egan's Hop House
out in the Waldo Hills. After my shave and
hair cut it seemed a shame to waste it; that I'd
better go to the dance. i\Iy financial condition
wasn't what you'd call verv steadv. It rose and
fell so that I couldn't hardly count on one girl
regularly. But I started in where the most
affection lay and met a rather sad refusal.
She said she w^ould rather have gone with me,
but I hadn't asked her since early spring, so she
was engaged to go with Harvey Allen, the
leader of the Trombone Band. I went down
the line and got eleven "mittens," as we called
them. Then I even asked one young girl that

102

THE COUNTRY BOY

had never been to a dance alone, and her mother
refused, although the girl was willing, so I
called it off and went up home and helped
around the barn. I waved my hat to the girls
I had asked as they drove by in livery rigs with

other fellows, and
after they had all

gotten out of town
I went down to the
post-office to get
the Silverton Ap-
peal, when who
should I meet but
the belle of the vil-

la

w e all

ge, as
called her among
ourselves. She
smiled and I
smiled, and she
asked why I
wasn't at the
dance. *' W h a t
dance?" said I.
"At Egan's Hop
H o u s e," she re-
plied. "Everybody

THE COUNTRY BOY 103

in town has gone but us." When she said the
word "us" I saw a new world. The old post-
office seemed like the Congressional Library,
the plain glass jars full of striped stick candy
began to look like Tiffany's window; the to-
bacco smoke from the post-office had the
odor of beautiful roses, and I started to
speak but my jaws set. She said several
things that I didn't comprehend, and when
I came to I heard her say, "Somehow no
one asks me to go to places and I should like
to go so well." I steadied myself by taking
hold of the fence, as we had started to walk up
the street, and I said that I was afraid there
was no more livery rigs, and she said, with the
sweetest voice you ever heard, a voice that is
still r-inging, "Can't you get your father's old
horse and buggy?" "Oh," I said, "yes, but
that ain't good enough." "Good enough," she
said, "I thought it was too good and that's why
you never asked me to go in it." It was now
dark and we were nearly opposite our house.
Old Don, the horse, was in the calf pasture
and the old-fashioned high buggy stood under
the wagon shed where it was sometimes for
months without being used. So we agreed to

104 THE COUNTRY BOY

slip out to the dance and surprise them. I
told her I didn't care much for such things
owing to the crowd that went, but that now
I could see a dance as I never had before. So
I helped Nettie into the buggy just where it
stood and she sat there thinking, perhaps, while
I went to get the horse. And you bet I wasn't
gone long, and the way we saluted each other
when I returned with the horse showed that wx
had already begun to get chummy, and how
much better it sounded than to be distant.
I backed the horse into the shafts and har-
nessed and hitched him right where he stood,
but I got half of his harness backwards. I
couldn't think of anything pertaining to
harness, so when I got into the buggy I drove
out through the barnyard as quiet as possible
and feeling about as good as a young man
ever feels. I was afraid to breathe for fear
my arm would touch hers. I wanted to get
to the dance as quickly as possible before any-
body left so that the advertisement I would get
from being seen with this beautiful girl would
be as big as possible. I didn't have time to get
any candy hearts, or in fact anything, and the
perfume she had on seemed a fit emblem to

THE COUNTRY BOY 105

celebrate the occasion. We talked about the
weather first, and then how backward Silverton
was, and by that time we were out of town and
I let the horse trot. Presently we ran over
some rough spot and the old sorrel horse

snorted and tried to run away. It was new
actions for him, so I got out and tried to find
what was the matter. The harness was all
right but his eyes were blazing with fire that
I could even see in the night. We wondered
why he snorted and I got back into the vehicle

106 THE COUNTRY BOY

and we again started on a trot. Finally as we
struck another rock, the horse bolted and
between his snorts we thought we heard a flut-
tering. I finally got him stopped and I put my
arm around Nettie before I thought to see if
her cloak w^as in the wheel, but it wasn't.
Again I WTnt over the harness and felt to see
if the crooper was all right. We couldn't
account for it; the only evidence we had was
that the horse never started until we ran over
a rock or some rough object. So w^e started
again and a few yards when we struck a chuck
hole away went the horse and I hung onto the
lines ; then we discovered what we had done and
it was amusing, as chickens always had queered
me. Father had compelled me some weeks
before to clip my game chickens' wings so they
couldn't roost on the back of the buggy seat.
In my joy at leaving the barn I had forgotten
that my chickens did roost on the hind axle of
the buggy, and as we drove out we took the
hen roost also, so that naturally when we went
over a rock or rough place wdth the hind
wheel, w^e dislodged all or most of the chickens
and they would catch by their necks and flutter
back on the axle ; thus they frightened the horse

THE COUNTllY BOY 107

that never even shied hefore at anything; so
when I said to the handsomest girl in Silver-
ton, "It's chickens roosting on the hind axle,"
she exclaimed, "jVo wonder; I never saw you
before to-night without a chicken, and there
they are really here with us now." I thought
we had lost some, as there were some missing.
I didn't know what to do as the dance would
soon be over. We couldn't leave them beside
the road for fear of skunks or minks. She
thought we ought to leave the chickens, but I
didn't, as one of our best old hens was in the
party and it seemed a crime to expose them to
next to certain death. If it had been day-
light and I could have seen the beautiful girl
perhaps I would have done differently, but we
turned around and started back home slowly,
as the tired hens breathed heavily on the back
axle. We were still sitting as far apart as
the buggy seat would let us; had no outward
signs of getting closer, in fact we were getting
farther apart. She thought young men
shouldn't think so much of chickens, while I
thought thev were next to human. We
planned another ride without chickens, but it
was the passing of my short reign and I didn't

108 THE COUNTRY BOY

know it until it was too late. That oppor-
tunity that the late John J. Ingalls wrote of
was there, but not to wait ; and when it went it
came no more. We got home, but I had hurt
her feelings for chickens, and we parted with-
out much friction. I stayed up until the other
folks got home from the dance. They were
all more or less happy, especially those on the
back seats. I told them I had been riding
around all night with the belle of Silverton,
but all they did was to laugh and especially the
girls that had given me the mitten.

CHAPTER IV

I WAS in Portland some time later — was
there for quite a while, watching the sights of a
growing town. One day a fellow with overalls
and a bucket of paste asked me if I wanted to
work for a ticket. I said, "Yes," quick. He
said, "All right, carry this bucket while I bill
the town for Clara Morris and I will give you
two tickets for the show." I asked him what it
was and he said "Camille." It would be two
weeks before the show got there, so I took the
tickets after a hard, sticky day's work and went
back to Silverton. I exhibited the tickets in the
post-office showcase. They were the first Port-
land theatre tickets ever seen there. I asked a
few people what "Camille" was like, but
nobody seemed to know. Finally one of my
sisters that was going on the other ticket said
she knew it was a comic oj^era and we went to
see Clara JNIorris in "Camille" without a hand-
kerchief and as a result we both had bad colds
into the next month. Country people never

109

110

THE COUNTRY BOY

use handkerchiefs for but one purpose and that
is a cold, and as we were free from colds at
that time we didn't think of taking any. Oh, I

have seen some people use them to dust their
hats after the hippodrome races after a circus,
but it is seldom they are carried unless they

THE COUXTEY BOY 111

are really needed. So sister and I went with-
out any. We had good seats, tlie third row in
the balcony. We said to each otlier when we
got there — it w^as a matinee — that we bet
it was a good show for every seat was taken.
It started off kinder quiet for an opera and
without music, which we thought was strange,
but about the middle of the first act the«main
lady fell head over heels in love with a fine, big,
strapping fellow and it was fine to watch.
Presently some old man showed up, the father
of the young man, and it appears that Clara
JNIorris had been in love before somewhere and
that seemed to spoil the game. About this
time we got to snuffling some and finally Adda
broke down and cried aloud, and as she came
by me I broke down too. I know it must have
been bad for other people near us, for some of
them got out and left, but we wept right on
just the same, and it is awkward crying in the
theatre without a handkerchief. I tried to
check it between the first and second acts while
the orchestra was playing and I told sister that
I thought the old man with white hair would
finally let them marry ; but she sobbed and said
in a loud voice she didn't believe he would, as he

112

THE COUNTRY BOY

looked determined. It was awful; our tears
were all over us, in fact our feet were getting
damp from them. We broke heavier in each
act, till the father of the fine looking man she

wanted to marr}^ asked her, if she really loved
his son, to prove it by promising never to see
him again, and at that Adda collapsed com-
pletely and neither of us could make a sound.
I turned one of my coat pockets wrong side

THE COUNTRY BOY 113

out and tried to use it, when Clara JNlorris died
just as the curtain went down, but we had
caught colds from our feet wet from our own
tears. Adda's waist, which was green surah
silk of the country pattern, looked like isin-
glass in a new stove. After ^ve left the
theatre we met a friend a few blocks away
who asked what had happened to us and Adda
broke down and began to sob. The friend
thought at first that I had beaten her, till I told
him we had been to see Clara JNIorris play
"Camille." We got home the next day, look-
ing and feeling bad. The folks asked us
how it was and we told them it was fine, but
it wasn't a comic opera.

The Narrow Gauge Railroad finally came
to Silverton and then the town took a boom
toward the depot. I got a job as engine
wiper and owing to father's prominence got
promoted to fireman on the oldest engine on
the road. The other engine w^as new and shiny
and could run faster, and on that engine my
father's pioneer friend's son was the engineer
and his fireman was a halfbreed Indian. I
worked hard for some months and dreamed
nights of this halfbreed's bringing me orders

114 THE COUNTRY BOY

telling me to take his fine engine with John
Palmer, but month after month it only proved
to be a dream. As it was I had given up
hope of ever getting away from this rusty
old freight engine. But one day at East-
Side Junction, a small passing station, one
of the happiest days of my life overtook
me. Our old train was the first in and we
were on the siding. I was watching this fine
new Baldwin engine as she came rolling along
through Howell's Prairie. She ghstened in
the sun like a new plug hat. When she
stopped I noticed Frank, the halfbreed, shake
hands with John Palmer, the engineer, and
before I could make out \yhat was the matter
Frank was walking over to our engine with
some clothes under his arm and a piece of
yellow tissue paper in his other hand. He
was sullen and looked as though he were
more than half Indian. He handed me the
slip of paper and said gruffl^% "Well, you
wanted that engine for a long time, go and
take it." I read the paper which was brief,
but right to the point; it simply said, "Daven-
port, fire for Palmer on No. 8." I went over
and as I got close to the fine new locomotive

THE COUNTRY BOY 115

it looked even finer than it had in my dreams.
Mr. Pahner didn't let on that he was glad until
we got out of sight of the Indian, then we had
a great reunion. This new engine only
burned about half as much wood as the other
old freight engine, so there wasn't much to do
but sit up in the seat and ring the bell at road
crossings and look at streaks of the finest
country in the whole world and watch the
grouse and china pheasants fly off of the
track. We got along fine and I kept No. 8
looking as good as the Indian had her. Our
only trouble was that so many boys knew me
in Silverton, that every time we went up the
mill switch after a box car of flour, as this was
a mixed train, these chums of mine used to
climb into the cab. Now there is a certain
dignity that engineers and even firemen have
that is spoiled if everybody comes piling into
the cab, especially if women come with small
brats, which they sometimes did. This worried
Mr. Palmer a lot and made me fairly ashamed.
The worst one to climb in was a friend of
mine named Jap Libby. We were about the
same age, only he had the most nerve, and the
mill switch was so rough we couldn't run fast

116 THE COUNTRY BOY

enough on it to keep the farmers from stepping
on. Jap Libby not only got on, but then com-
plained about the way we ran the engine.
He asked JNIr. Palmer why he didn't pull her
wide open and let her tear down through the
town, at which JNIr. Palmer would frown. We
always hated to see Jap come worse than any-
one else, as he knew the rules were to keep
out of the cab. Still he didn't mind them;
so Mr. Palmer and I had smiles for one whole
trip when we heard one day that Jap Libby
had left town for good to go over to Tacoma
to work with some Chinamen on a tunnel. A
few days later we heard they had an accident
and many Chinamen were killed and Jap
Libby was hurt. This accident was plainly
the fault of the company and they were
anxious to settle. Jap was foxy and when
they came to the hospital he told them he had
no desire to break the company, that he was a
railroad fireman and if they gave him a good
job when he got well he would call it square;
so they signed papers to that effect. He was
out in about a week and was firing on an extra
freight run. The engineer told him to drop
the damper soon after he reported the first

THE COUNTBY BOT

117

morning, and Jap looked up about the steam
gauge until the engineer showed him where
and after a brief discussion betw^een the two,
Jap confessed that he had never fired before.
But the engineer liked his nerve so he kept him.

He fired about six WTeks and was given an
extra engine to run. So heavy was the wheat
crop in the uj^per country that within a year
Jap was running a yard engine in a Tacoma
yard ; a most important position. They had a
yard speed limit in Tacoma when Jap hit
town, but none afterward. He switched

118 THE COUNTRY BOY

cars at forty miles an hour and never broke a
draw head, though he did break a few Hnks.
There was nothing for the other four engines
to do, so they laid them off and the news went
all over the country. The officials of the
road came and saw from the high bluffs the
work of this phenomenon below. The yard
master complained and the officials said he
hadn't hurt anything. "Keep out of the way
and let him run. He is doing the work of
four engines and crews." It was true he used
up a car load of sand each day on the track
as he approached cars, but cars were never
kicked as he was kicking them. Combination-
fly switches had never been invented in other
yards that he w^as using. The oldest and
toughest freight brakeman jumped out of his
cab every day though he never cracked a
bumper. In fact, children could have coupled
them for him. He made combination switches
that curled some people's hair, but his stayed
straight. Papers wrote editorials about him
and cheap actors made puns on him at the
vaudeville shows. When Mr. Palmer heard
of Jap's poi^ularity he said, "Just wait and
give him time." When my vacation came I

THE COUNTRY BOY 119

went to Tacoma just to see his work and
though he didn't know where the steam got
into the cyHnders or where it got out, he
certainly put up the hottest game in the rail-
road way anyone ever saw. His duty in the
morning was to follow the overland up,
through the long yard to the upper depot and
if the traffic was not heavy there he would hitch
on to the rear coach and haul her hack, but the
last time Jap hitched on there wasn't anything
to come back. One foggy morning he
thought the passenger had time to get up so
he was just chj^ping along about "forty-five
per," laughing with his brakeman and his fire-
man, watching the thick fog part and go on
either side of his engine, when all at once he
saw the rear of a Pullman. The train had
stopped for something and the flagman
hadn't gone back. It didn't give Jap as
long as he would like to haye had to make up
his mind. He shut off, reversed and pulled
her wide open and then jumped out the win-
dow. They were on a high trestle at the time.
The engine went through two cars before it
thought of starting back, then it pulled out
sticking to the track. It fairly howled as it

120 THE COUNTRY BOY

tore down through the Tacoma yards with its
broken whistle and smokestack. They had
changed some switches behind them and one
was on a track that had a fine line of observa-
tion coaches that were waiting for the summer
trade. It didn't do much to them; there
wasn't enough left of them to tell w^hether they
were made at Dover, N. J., or Pullman, 111.
From there she went across the turn table into
the roundhouse and out through the brick
walls into the Puget Sound where she cooled
down, and they are still figuring on the cost
of the trip. As for Jap himself, on the fall
he got mixed badly and lost an arm and a leg
by compound fractures. His men escaped
with less injury but it didn't stop him; he got
a tricycle that he lives on, and in Tacoma you
will see the sign — it's popular with the rail-
road men — it reads, "Jap Libby, Railroad
Cigar Store."

A long spell passed and we didn't do much
in Silverton outside of enjoying each other and
discussing neighbors. The town got to mak-
ing improvements after months of public
speaking and debates. We finally got a city
water works, and it seemed we used to use the

THE COUNTRY BOY 121

hose nearly all the time. I washed the streets
from morning till it was too dark to see the
stream. We caused a few runaways, but that
had to be expected; we couldn't stay old-
fashioned just to suit the farmers with shy
teams. Silverton had most everything from
a Good Templar's lodge to a bank. The
bankers in Silverton were rather unusual as
they didn't look like the bankers at Salem.
And the fact of Jake JNIcClaine in that bank-
ing firm made the name of Coolidge & JNIc-
Claine, Bankers, the greatest banking institu-
tion in the world by a big wide margin; that
is, if you count all the deeds that bankers do,
both in and out of the bank. The}^ were poor
yomig men when they stopped their covered
wagons on the banks of a stream called Silver
Creek, and began to look around for better
country. They made a few short rides around
the valley and mountains, but they came back
and finally settled and called the settlement
Silverton, and finally people stopped there
and took corner lots without crowding. These
men were great w^orkers and knew the art of
saving. They bought the first crop of calves
in their neighborhood and kept them until

122

THE COUNTRY BOY

they grew up, and then sold them for big
prices. They got hold of a set of burrs and
started a grist mill. They opened a store,

they looked at busmess opportunities from the
same focus and in a few years they had
actually loaned money. There were many

THE COUNTRY BOY 123

strange parts of their partnership but the
strangest part was that the men were so
different, yet they got on so well. They
were as different, as night and day. Ai
Coolidge was the elder and likely the greater
money-maker of the two, but he didn't get as
much out of life as his partner though he had
lived many years longer. Ai Coolidge never
made any bad bargains, never took much
counterfeit money or never took many chances.
Never even gave himself many vacations,
other than now and then a camping trip or
a horseback ride into the mountains to salt
the cattle. On those trips he ^\4iittled at a
piece of jerked venison and enjoyed life as
much as it was ever intended he should. His
perfect wife was happiness enough for a man
to enjoy and likely in her company he found
full value, but his sympathies were never
played on like those of Jake [McClaine. The
two partners must have ridden horseback half
of their lives, though it wasn't a range
country. They figured interest on horseback,
though they never kept a book of the firm's
business, which was rather unique; but they
soon began to acquire farms, as they loaned

124

THE COUNTRY BOY

money from ten per cent u^^ and they enjoyed
giving the closest attention to those farms. I
used to ride with them on a pony and some-
times behind one or the other on the same

horse, and I have seen them ride for hours
without saying a word to each other. They
each had a dog and each found fault with the
other's dog. Jake McClaine had a keen sense
of humor and he continuall}' exercised it on

THE COUNTRY BOY 125

his more thoughtful partner. One day when
we were at the Spooner place, Jake kept
yelling at Ai's dog. Every moment or two
Jake would yell in a clear voice, that echoed
in Drift Creek Canon, "Here, come back!"
then turning to his partner, he'd say, "Ai, why
don't you make that dog come back?" Ai
rode along, never paying the slightest atten-
tion. Strangety enough, each dog would
obey his master, but wouldn't pa}^ any atten-
tion to the orders of the other. Finally Ai's
dog chased a steer for ten minutes and Jake
cursed and called, but the dog kept on.
Finally IMcClaine turned to Ai, demanded
that he make his dog mind; whereupon, with
a twinkle in his eye, Coolidge said, "I'll give
him to you, you make him mind." Coolidge's
dog had been caught in a steel trap when he
was a small pup and had one toe missing on a
forefoot. The dog w^ould travel all day on
three legs and did, all the balance of his life,
except when he saw a squirrel, then he seemed
to forget all about his once sore foot and ran
like any other dog, and this was an opportunity
for Jake JMcClaine, as he would argue with
his silent partner for fifteen minutes at a time

126 THE COUNTRY BOY

why Coolidge didn't make his dog walk on
four legs, instead of three, whether there
were any squirrels in sight or not. But I
think Coolidge rather enjoyed Uncle Jake as
a clown, as he rode miles without ever making
a reply to any of his talk. Jake McClaine
had a bay mare and she and his shepherd dog
Prince were steady companions during that
middle portion of life and early latter portion
that is so important to all mankind. Jake
McClaine made the best chief marshal at the
Fourth of July parade of anybody around ; in
fact, you put a red or blue sash around him
and he looked like a Greek god. His beard
hung in ringlets like ancient Homer's; his
clothes were worn with the most artistic
careless swing imaginable, but there was some-
thing more to Jake McClaine than artistically
hung clothes, something more than any other
banker in the world. True, he would take
advantage of you in money matters the same
as other bankers; he would squeeze money till
it got slick and shiny and to avoid argument
I can say that he had perhaps all the small
business ways of great financiers; but there
was another side to him, another Jake ]\Ic-

THE COUNTRY^ BOY

127

Claine, who lived
in the same house
with the banker,
and with that
Jake McClaine
there were no
partners, and no-
body ever asked
to be his partner.
Few, if any, were
capable. I never
saw a funeral
pass through Sil-
verton that Jake
McClaine didn't
ride his bay mare
at the head of the
procession, and I heard of one passing through
town where he rode at the head that I was
unfortunate enough not to see. They were
the only times he ever grew very serious;
no one ever died in the vicinity but what
Jake IMcClaine was there when they needed
help. If they were poor or ™h or just
well to do, he took complete charge; made
the arrangements for the funeral and rode

128 THE COUNTRY BOY

ahead and let down the gaps in the rail
fences and whether the funeral was over a
fellow pioneer or someone's hired man, with
bare head, with his white curly hair and beard,
he looked as fine a type of just plain man as
you ever saw. I never saw him look worried
only once at the graveyard, and that was the
first year the band tried to play at Decoration
Day exercises. The graveyard hadn't been
running long and there was only one soldier
buried there, but the G. A. R. wanted to re-
member him, so the band and Uncle Jake went
there with the big parade just as if the grave-
yard was full of soldiers. Jake rode the bay
mare ahead of the procession as usual. Part
of the band lived in the country and didn't
get into town to practice as much as they
should. We had just got some new music
and among it was a funeral dirge, the first
ever brought out there. It was No. 21 in the
new book. The country members were late
getting in and the big rush and the few stiff
beards at the barber shop put them still later
getting to the band hall, where the procession
was to form and march to the church. They

THE COUNTRY BOY 129

came finally, out of breath, and we were half
an hour late, so we went to the church on
double quick march, backed up to the church
solemnly and started for the graveyard down
below town. No. 21 in the old book happened
to be our favorite quickstep, so when the
leader yelled No. 21, the town members turned
to the dirge and the countries turned to the
quickstep. We had been playing about half
a mile when I noticed there was something
wrong; we didn't just seem to swing right.
It was hard for some of the old soldiers to
keep step. At the graveyard there was a big
crowd waiting and me playing the snare
drum, which was muffled in black. I could
look around, and I saw by the expression of
Jake McClaine's face that there was something
wrong. We were game, though, and played
right up until we surrounded the grave, and
stopped. There were two bass players, one
from town and one from the hills, and they
made a peculiar contrast. Nobody mentioned
it, but the joke w^as out and an old soldier with
a wooden leg said to Jake, "No wonder I
couldn't keep step, when I used to in the army

130 THE COUNTRY BOY

without any trouble." Jake McClaine said to
him in a low voice, "Keep step ! I nearly fell
off my mare."

The average winter weather of Oregon is
very rainy, while as a rule the cold is not the
most severe by any means. But the worst
night I ever saw, I saw in Silverton. Father
and I were sitting by the fire listening to a
tearing and howling storm one night about
nine o'clock. We were feeling comfortable
as we knew all of our stock, which wasn't large,
were in under comfortable sheds. We were
getting ready for bed, and wondering whether
the storm would tear the chimney off the house
or not, when I heard a slam of our barn door.
I knew if father heard it he would make me
go out and fasten it, notwithstanding the
storm, which had me completely cowed, but
father wasn't afraid of the dark howling
nights and I knew it, so about every time I
thought the door would slam, and I had it
pretty well timed, I would clear up my throat
and was stalling it off in fine shape, till father
engaged me in a conversation by asking me
what was the matter with my throat anyway,
and when I went to tell him the door slammed.

THE COUNTRY BOY 131

and sure enough he heard it. His eyes
sparkled as he straightened up in his chair
alert. "There, Homer, that's the barn door,
and as awful as this storm is, we must get out
to the barn and tie it shut, or this wind will
tear it off its hinges in less than an hour.
And what's more, such a storm as this
might tear the roof off the barn, if it gets
under it. It's the worst storm I have ever
seen in Oregon." There was nothing to
do but put on all the rubber clothes we
could find, tie them, and take a lantern and
start for the barn, some fifty yards from the
house.

We held on to each other for protection, the
light going out with almost the first awful
crash of the storm. We hung on to each other
for dear life, and bunted against a turkey and
some chickens. They had been blown out of
the trees where they were roosting, and w^ere
groping about on the ground. We reached
the barn, got inside and stood for a moment
almost exhausted, and drenched to the skin.

We noticed that there wasn't a light streak
anywhere in the sky. We relit the lantern,
for it w as as black as pitch, and the roar of the

132 THE COUNTRY BOY

storm as it tore past was something awful to
hear. It had that effect that night air and
rain sometimes have of making the brave fear.
It was just the night that would cause the
bravest of men to shudder and quiver like a
leaf. We got hold of the slamming upstairs
barn door, and held it fast as it slammed shut
with the noise of a cannon. After tying it
safely, we delayed before starting back to the
house. We wished our bed and dry clothes
WTre there in the barn so that we could stay all
night. We looked at the cows and horses, all
showing fear, as they listened to the storm.
We were so cold we had to start.

We couldn't make a mad dash, because in
the fury of the storm and the absolute black-
ness of the night, we couldn't keep our bear-
ings and were liable to hit a tree. Father
suggested that we go back through the barn-
yard to the street, then hold to the fence along
the sidewalk to the house, which we did.
Through some miracle the lantern stayed lit.
We had just reached the sidewalk and were
feeling our way toward the house, when a dog
came into the dim glow of the lantern and
shook himself. It was old Prince, Jake JNIc-

THE COUNTRY BOY

133

Claine's dog. ^'That's strange," said father,
*'as he is never away from Jake."

Just at that moment through a lull of the
noise of the dreadful niffht, Jake McClaine

134 THE COUNTRY BOY

yelled at us. We couldn't see him although
he was as near as he could ride the bay mare,
owing to the four-foot walk. We yelled,
"Where have you been?" He said in return
he had been to Salem to see Bush (the banker
there). "Drove out," said he; "got back at
dark, was wet through anyway and my hired
man said that over town they believed the
Hults up near Cedar Camp were all down
with diphtheria. And I got to thinking maybe
they needed help, so I had the mare saddled
and I am going up."

"Jake," my father called, "are you crazy?
Have you lost your wits entirely? Don't you
know that when you get into the live timber
in the mountains you will be struck every
twenty feet by flying limbs?"

''Well," he said, "I have thought of that,
but there is no way to get around that belt of
live timber, and I thought as I couldn't see at
all, I might take a chance and dodge the best
I can, so I'll be off."

''Jake, hold on." But no answer came
from the black night but the howling storm.
We even waited a moment till the sheets of
water seemed to shift till we could call again,

THE COUNTRY BOY

135

but no answer, and we got into the house.
Father held me by the w^et hand, and looked
me in the eyes with the expression of a wild

^AJ;^'.

man for fully a minute. We didn't speak;
then he said, "Homer, I wonder if you realize
what a night this is, and what a man such a

136 THE COUNTRY BOY

man is." We got off our wet rubbers and
coats and bundles and sat at the warm oak
fire till nearly two o'clock, talking of Jake
McClaine. We thought of him in this way:
he with Ai Coolidge, have the best houses in
all Silverton, the finest, softest beds, with the
biggest and best pillows ; he has the best things
to eat; the warmest fireplace: he doesn't need
to work, yet he would leave all that to go
twenty miles into the mountains through an
eighth-mile strip of big timber, off into the
dead timber, to investigate into the health of
just a family of poor mountain people that
didn't know enough to move to the valley,
just because the man wanted to live like the
trapper and hunter that he was. It was a trip
that all the mone}^ in the world couldn't have
hired me to make.

But this wasn't all that gave us food for talk;
as father says: "It was this same Jake Mc-
Claine, this man with unkempt hair and beard,
with one pant leg in his boot and the other out,
that came when my family was down to death's
level with smallpox, when we lived in the hills ;
when neighbors, yes, even relatives, had fled
and left me alone; when no one came near to

THE COUNTRY BOY 137

help me, then this man that we yelled to in the
storm, came unsolicited and came every day
and stood to the windward side of the house
and asked after my needs. But," said father
again, "I would have done that for him, al-
though smallpox in those days w^as looked upon
as death itself. But I w^ouldn't go with Jake
to-night if he gave me all of his money.
Common sense wouldn't permit me to go into
those mountains to-night. It's only a few
hours till morning, then I'd go, but not to-
night, no siree! I owe too much to my own
family."

We really hated to go to bed, it was such a
pleasure to have such a strong character so
forcibly impressed upon our minds. INIorning
came, the poor landscape looked bewildered;
it had been through an awful night. The
trees were resting, they hadn't had much sleep
and they looked tired and worn out. The
streams were out of their banks, and we heard
of some bridges that w^ere gone, down on the
prairie.

We were afraid we would hear that Jake's
body had been found. We went over to see
his wife to see if his horse had come home, and

138 THE COUNTRY BOY

his family were naturally as much worried
as we, though no news had come from him.
That afternoon Jake came from the moun-
tains; he had reached there just at daybreak,
he said. No one was stirring around the log
cabin; said he called but no one came. He
finally went in and found them all sick and
in bed. Hult asked him to see about the chil-
dren over a few beds away from his. He
said, "I ain't got them to answer since yester-
day some time. And they ain't none of them
taken their medicine lately."

Jake w^as looking them over w^hen he slowly
took his hat off. He found that out of the
large family, four of the children were dead,
so he came to town after coffins and medicine,
and was soon on the way back with the doctor.
Then next day he came as a funeral all by
himself; he had hitched his mare in with Hult's
mule, and as he passed through town with four
small coffins in the vehicle on his way to the
graveyard, most everybody joined him and
w^ent with him. Those were the times when
Jake McClaine didn't have a partner, no
matter how many firms he was in.

CHAPTER V

Some time after I quit railroading, I was
working in a field, through which the railroad
track ran on father's farm just below Silver-
ton. I was plowing this piece for the first
time. Father came down and looked on while
I plowed a couple of rounds; he said to see
me plow put him in mind of an old sow that
they used to own in Ohio. I asked him why
I reminded him of a pig, especially at plow-
ing; he said the similarity was this, that a sow
could root up a field as well as I could plow it.

Each day when the train came through, my
friend Palmer, the engineer, would throw me
the daily Oregoman, which he had finished
reading.

After receiving this paper, the work w^ould
be lighter during the balance of the day and it
eventually prolonged the plowing until spring
came, and about the only crop we had was old
papers. While reading through one of the
papers I noticed a paragraph saying that a car

139

140 THE COUNTRY BOY

would leave Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday
night of the following week — this was Fri-
day— for Xew Orleans, with a select aggrega-
tion of sporting men from Portland to the
Dempsey-Fitzsimmons championship fight. I
read the statement many times, and felt more
enthusiastic after each reading; so I went to
the barn with the team, told father it was too
dr}^ to plow, and took the next train for Port-
land.

When I got to Portland, I went to the pub-
lisher of the Siniday Mercury, as it was the
only sporting paper there; told him I was an
artist and wanted to go to the big fight at
Xew Orleans and do him a series of pictures.
He asked me how much I would charge him,
and I told him all I wanted was my transpor-
tation for the round trip. Ben Walton was
an enter23rising man, and strange as it may
seem, agreed without ever asking to see any of
my art work, and that fact alone made it pos-
sible for me to go. When I found I was really
going, I wTote to my relatives and friends at
Silverton of the great trip I was going to
take, and in a couj)le of days my grandmother
sent me by express a basket of roast chickens.

THE COUNTRY BOY 141

a half-dozen pies and cakes, some hard-boiled
eggs, and an assortment of pickles, as a light
lunch to eat on the train.

I was not certain just where jS'ew Orleans
was and as the day approached when I should
leave, I became very nervous, owing to the
fact that I didn't have a dollar to start on the
trip with. I hinted so strongly though, the
day I left, that the publisher of the Mei^cury,
determined to make the exj)eriment a success,
gave me ten dollars. He had had a banner
painted that I was to present to Dempsey as
he came from the ring victorious. In getting
the transportation, he was unable to get it fur-
ther than Fort Worth, Texas, and return;
but the railroad official, who was T. W. Lee,
afterward general passenger agent of the
Lackawanna Railroad, told me the railroad
company would have the balance of the trans-
portation for me when I reached Fort Worth,
Texas, which they didn't. Wednesday night
the train started over the Union Pacific Rail-
road, and the carload of sports advertised in
advance, had dwindled down to one, myself,
and such a tame looking sport that the com-
pany decided they hadn't better send a special

142 THE COUNTRY BOY

car, so I sat up in the smoker and tried to look
wise.

At Denver we had coupled on our train a
carload of real live sports, most of them being
from San Francisco. I remember finishing
the lunch the day we left Denver, and when
we got into New Mexico we struck a blizzard,
and the block system stopped us for three days,
two days of which we had no food. And I
might say at this point that real sports are not
good humored when a train is up to its sides
in snow, especially when the buffet is empty.
My memory was that I had hurried over the
lunch I had brought from Oregon, so I looked
through the train and found it in the smoking
car under the seat. I invited the man with
the biggest diamonds to have a bite with me,
and as we struck the carcasses of the chickens
and got them warmed up again, we went over
them and over them with much care and com-
fort.

Finally a snow plow came to us and we pro-
ceeded slowly, arriving at Fort Worth, Texas,
Tuesday evening, and the fight was set for
the next night, and as the regular train would
not get there in time, the car of sports paid

THE COUNTRY BOY 143

out $22 each, making up $500 for a special.
Mr. Frank Maskey, the candy man of San
Francisco, he of the large diamond, who had
appreciated my invitation to lunch after a fast
of two days, paid for me, and we sped on at
the rate of a mile a minute and reached New
Orleans in time.

I put up with the rest of them at the St.
Charles Hotel, and at night went to the fight
with a letter for admission from the editor of
the Mercury.

I can describe the fight briefly by saying
that owing to Fitzsimmon's roughness and
general coarse bringing up, I never had an
occasion to even unwrap the banner that cost
$150. So the next day I traded it off to a
colored boy for an alligator, thinking at the
time I would exhibit the alligator at the small
towns on the road the following season.
'Twas the first one I had ever seen and I
thought they were worth a great deal of money
until next dav the chambermaid in the St.
Charles Hotel told me they cost thirty cents.

The next evening in the hotel lobby, Billy
Vice of San Francisco came up to me and
said, "Here is your $22; I got the railroad

144 THE COUNTRY BOY

company to refund the money, as we paid
them for the special and it was their fault
the blizzard struck us " ; and besides it wouldn't
be fair, as he says he told them most of us
were newspaper men. It was like another
blizzard striking me, as I was in the act of
asking Vice for a quarter to get something
to eat, but $22 put me on Canal Street
right, mingling with the sports from every
town in the Union. I hadn't gone far when
I heard the cluck of a chicken. I turned
quickly and saw a nigger with two sacks, one
in each hand. I overtook him and asked him
if they were game chickens ; he said they were.
I then made known to him that I was the
greatest game chicken fancier that ever set
a hen, and it w^as my intention to purchase
a choice lot before returning to Oregon, which
was to be in two or three days. He took me
to his home, where I examined several. I
asked him his price and it appears he saw me
counting my money, as he told me that being
I was a visitor to New Orleans, I could have
the tw^o roosters for $22. After a sigh, I
accepted. I took one under each arm and pro-
ceeded to the St. Charles.

THE COUNTRY^ BOY 145

I had no place to put them, just had to
stand and hold them. As it was late at night
and I had my key in my pocket, I managed
to get to ni}^ room without being detected.
Once in my room, I was compelled to remain
in the dark, as to strike a light meant a cock
fight that would arouse everybody. So I set
one rooster on the back of a chair and the
other on the rack made to hold the towel, which
stood by the washbowl and pitcher, and with
as little noise as possible I went to bed.
Before I fell asleep I thought of the next
morning, which w^as fast approaching; I w^as
afraid they might crow. I had apparently
just closed my eyes when I was startled by
a loud clapping of wings, and a shrill crow
which seemed to echo in every room in the
hotel. At the same instant the one that had
been roosting on the chair back, flew full tilt
to the one that had challenged, and before I
could spring from the bed they were fighting
on top of the washstand.

It was just getting gray in the morning and
the room was barely light, but once together
the feathers flew, and before I could reacli
them they had knocked down the water pitcher.

146 THE COUNTRY BOY

I finally grabbed and held one rooster,
while the other one treed me on the bed.
I was in the most awful position a fellow could
be placed in in a strange hotel, with a Spanish
gamecock in my arm treed on top of the bed,
with the other rooster strutting around over
the broken pitcher, just dying to get a bill hold
of my bare shins. I pressed the button and
soon the bellboy came, but he couldn't get in
as I had left the key in the door on the inside.
I tried to explain my position over the tran-
som. After shivering about for an hour, I
thought of the only scheme of letting them
fight until I dressed. Then I took them to a
back street and there proceeded to hold them
until the afternoon, when hunger drove me
back to the hotel. The colored chambermaid
found a bucket and a tub and I put one under
each and never felt such relief in my life.

I was getting pretty hungry and I was com-
pletely broke save for twenty cents which I
invested where it would mean the most in
oyster soup. All at once it dawned upon me
that I was five hundred miles from where my
railroad transportation was available, and that
I had a hotel bill yet to pay, and like a fool

THE COUNTRY BOY 147

had paid out my last dollar for two of the
spunkiest gamecocks I ever saw. One of
them would keep a man busy, w^hile two kept
me up night and day, and threatened me with
insanity, or something worse. I happened to
recall that my friend the publisher, as the
train pulled out of Portland, had yelled to me
something like this : "If you get broke down
there, draw on me." So I went to a bank and
told the cashier I wanted to draw on Ben Wat-
son of Portland, Oregon, for $50. "Well,"
said the cashier, "where is your identification?"
"Who?" I said. "Where are your letters of
credit; wdio identifies you?" "Oh, no one; I
don't know anyone in New Orleans but Jack
Dempsey, and he is confined to his room." All
of my friends, the sports, had left for home
while I was walking the back streets with a
rooster under each arm.

"Well," said the cashier, "why don't you
draw on him for $500? It will be just as easy
as drawing on him for $50, if you don't know^
anyone here, and have no letters of credit, not
even a letter of introduction; I'd draw on him
for $5,000, if I could find a cashier that was
right. The best tiling you can do is to step out

148 THE COUNTRY BOY

of line and go outside and draw a big full
breath." I said, "What can I do, I am broke."
"Who are you and what do you do? You are
evidently not a banker." "No," I said, "I
am an artist sent here from Oregon. Came
to illustrate the Dempsey-Fitzsimmons fight,
and I want to get back home with my pictures.
The man in Portland told me if I got broke to
draAv on him, so that is why I have come to the
bank."

I then remembered I had a letter of recom-
mendation from Sylvester Pennoyer, at that
time governor of the State of Oregon, and
known to the world at large as Grover
Cleveland's particular friend. I let the cashier
look at the letter, which said that my father
was an honest man and a good and loyal
citizen, and that he hoped I would turn out as
well. The cashier said that if my father were
there he could get money on the letter, but he
seemed to take an interest in me and somehow
guessed that I hadn't traveled much. I told
him this was the first trip and the last I w^ould
ever take. He put on his hat and took me next
door to the managing editor of one of the lead-
ing local papers, who, he said, was a great

THE COUNTBY BOY 149

believer in Governor Pennoyer, and that was
my only chance for getting any money. I
showed the editor Governor Pennoyer's letter
and told him I was almost starving in a great
city like Xew^ Orleans. The editor looked
thoughtfully for a moment, more thoughtful
than editors generally look, then he handed me
a blank draft and asked me if I would fill it
out.

I took the pen, asked him the day of the
month and I think the year; he told me and
then there w^as a long pause. I had to tell
him that I couldn't fill it out. He laughed
and said, "Young man, you just saved your
bacon. If you had filled in that, I wouldn't
have paid a cent. But," he said, "I'll take a
chance for fifty." So the editor filled it out
and I signed it and he endorsed it, and the
bank cashier paid me $50.

I felt so thankful that I offered to give the
editor one of the roosters that I had at the St.
Charles, but he declined with thanks. I bade
him an affectionate good-bye and in five hours
was aboard the train for Portland, Oregon,
with an alligator, two gamecocks and sketches
of a championshij) fight, and in five days was

150 THE COUNTRY BOY

in Portland with the sketches and game
chickens, but no alhgator. The alhgator,
when we got to Denver, where it was twenty
below zero, refused to move even a toe, so
thinking him frozen stiff and dead, I tried to
bend him and he broke in two like a brittle
stick, and I threw the pieces out the window.
The truth is that had I put him in warm water,
in five minutes he would have been swimming,
but I wasn't as much on alligators as I was on
roosters.

I got home to Silverton and told my father
of the great things I had seen, the glorious
time I had had, but father seemed to be w^orried
about something that didn't please him; his
face bore an expression of disappointment.
I asked him what was the matter. He said he
was disappointed to see me come home with
only two roosters!

The roller-skate craze hit Silverton just as
the spring-bottom pants fad was leaving town.
It's funny how fashions vary. I remember
one spell in Silverton that w^e were having our
trousers cut with so much spring on the bottom
that only the end of our toes were exposed
and six months after that high tide of spring-

THE COUNTRY BOY

151

bottom pants we wore
trousers legs so tight
that it was difficult for
some of us to get our
feet through them, and
it was at the beginning
of the tight-pants craze
that a fellow with a
curled moustache and a
pocket knife with a
girl's picture in it and
fifty pairs of roller
skates came to Silverton.
He started a skating
rink in one of the big^
vacant halls on Main
Street, and the first week
there was standing room only. The second
week about half the skates were in the shops for
repairs and several of the town's best citizens
had hard work to straighten up. The proprie-
tor of the skating rink made a big hit socially.
He wore a new brand of perfumery and re-
fused to give the receipt, so there was no com-
peting with him along that line. The bottoms
of his trousers were not any bigger than the

1.52

THE COUNTRY BOY

tops of his shoes, so he had those of us who
wanted to follow fashion killed at that junc-
tion; but a few of us got busy with the local

tailor and we run him pretty close on tight
pants. Some of us had to grease our insteps
and heels to get into them; but the brand of
perfume he wore, aside of the bottle he had,
was evidently distinct and extinct, and owing
to that fact he was the envy of the town.

THE COUNTRY BOY

153

This skating rink had a queer effect on the
town in a general way ; it acted as a sort of a
leveler, an equalizer of station and fashion.
The well-to-do skated with the poor, the hand-
some with the homely, and the freckled with
the fair. It was one general mix-up in which
there were no favorites. The funniest part of
it was to stand across the street and listen on
Saturday afternoon. Above the noise of the
town was this general local roar of the skates,
and as if periods or punctuations, the building
shook with dull
thuds. Sometimes
they fell in clusters,
others, one at a
time ; but you didn't
have to w^ait long to
hear two or three
dull sounding
whacks that made
the windows rattle
on the upper story
of the building.

I took two or
three short dashes
at it morning and

154

THE COUNTRY BOY

evenings before I went to work, but they
proved unsatisfactory. So I decided to
w^ait until the next Saturday afternoon, when
there were going to be some prizes given. I
went early that afternoon, fairly groomed for

the occasion; I felt fit like a trained athlete.
I rented a pair of No. 10l/4s and went to work;
had been going about an hour, when the world
seemed pretty serious; in fact, I had fallen
so often that it had ceased to be a joke. My
hair was slightly mussed on the back of my
head and I had seen about half a dozen quick

THE COUNTRY BOY 155

flashes of fire, when I thought there must be
some easier method. I took a leave of absence
for half an hour and went over to Tuggle's
place (he was the biggest bellied man in
town) and borrowed a pair of his overalls.
]\Iy stepmother had sort of an economic
pillow, just one pillow that WTnt clear across
the bed, so in that way you saved one pillow
slip. With that pillow and JNIr. Tuggle's
breeches, I remember turning in the rink door
with a broad grin. I could see before I put
on the skates that I had the game beaten, and
it was going to be fun, too, as the biggest
crowd was there that had ever been in at-
tendance, and they were getting pretty reck-
less.

I lowered the pillow into the seat of the
overalls after I had put them on, and then
got a boy to hold the pillow up against my
back while I put my vest over it, and I dove
out into the thick of them. To my astonish-
ment and a little to my disgust, I didn't fall.
I leaned back and tried to fall once to see
how it w^ould be, and I really couldn't. I'd
been skating fifteen minutes w^hen I did fall,
but fell forward and slammed mv hands on

156

THE COUNTRY BOY

the floor. In a few minutes I fell again for-
ward and slammed my hands again. By this

time that too had ceased
to be a joke, as the
ends of my fingers were
throbbing as if they
had hearts in them, and
they were getting
heavy to lug around,
when an elderly lady,
who had had some trou-
bles of her own that
afternoon, skated up to
me and told me she
thought perhaps we
went at it too fast; so
we were leaning
against the wall talking
over the scientific
points of it, when I
gave the audience a
rare treat.

While leaning there

talking, all at once my

tosrether, started and

feet, that were close

rolled out toward the middle of the room. I

THE COUNTRY BOY

157

don't think I bent a linger, but I fell exactly
like a tree, and, lo and behold ! the pillow burst.
It must have been five minutes before they got
through laughing all over the house and the

r^^c

a ^

j^' '-•>

-^^

better skaters were having great fun swinging
through this "goose hair." In a few minutes
the feathers were so thick j^ou could hardly
see, and they followed in a boiling streak after
every skater. Finally the largest girl on the
floor, Lizzie INIescher, inhaled a feather, and

158 THE COUNTRY BOY

she began to cough so that the people living
in the outskirts of the city lifted up the win-
dows and listened. We all thought it was a
joke at first, until we saw she was black in the
face. The strongest men in the crowd were
beating her on the back and rather luckily for
her, though unluckily for me, she finally
coughed up the feather, which hit and broke
one of the biggest window panes in town, so
great was the velocity with which she let go of
it. She didn't skate that afternoon any more ;
she was big and stout when she got hold of the
feather, but after she had wrestled with it for
five seconds, it took a blacksmith on each side
of her to steady her while the}^ got her out of
the building. It was a good thing, in a way,
as it acted as a warning, so that those who
still skated kept one hand over their noses and
mouths; but the proprietor of the rink was
afraid they might break more window panes,
so he declared a recess of ten minutes while
they swej)t out the hall, and at this point came
another big laugh, as after three men had been
sweeping twenty minutes they hadn't got over
three feathers out into the street, while a
wagon load remained in the hall. Some fel-

THE COUNTRY BOY

159

low who had been used to sweeping out stores
yelled to sprinkle them, so they did; but they
only quelled the big feathers, which amounted
to about half of them, while the dangerous

kind were all up in the air and wouldn't come
down to be sprinkled, so they had to close the
rink for the afternoon — what had started as the
busiest afternoon of the season.

160 THE COUNTRY BOY

The proprietor of the rink tried to collect
damages from father, and I think there was a
compromise made. Bnt the skating rink had
one moral effect upon the peoj^le of Silverton
that it might never have had, as the town was
full of philosophers, mathematicians and
smart men, and none of them would have be-
lieved if they hadn't seen it, that just a little
wet feather could break a pane of glass.

The next Fourth of July Silverton w^as
down on the bulletin boards for a celebration,
and as in all small country towns on such
occasions, the village was keyed up to its
highest pitch. Long before noon our barn-
yard had commenced to fill with wagons and
hacks belonging to friends and relatives and
a few people we owed, and among the wagons
I recognized that of father's brother, Uncle
Ben, who lived up in the Waldo Hills. When
Uncle Ben came to town, he always put his
team in our barn and came into the house to
joke and talk business, and though he was full
brother to my father. Uncle never ate with us
for the simple reason that my father ate plain
food, while Uncle Ben didn't care to waste any
time with anything but fancy cooking. His

THE COUNTRY BOY 161

wife, Aunt Lou, was about the best cook in
all that part of the country, and I suppose
Uncle Ben had gotten used to eating her cook-
ing and couldn't stand for anybody else's; in
fact, it was Uncle Ben's pride and pleasure on
state occasions to invite any dignitaries of the
day to eat of Aunt Lou's lunch, and if they
knew Uncle Ben's family at all well, they al-
ways accepted, as the meal was one you would
seldom forget.

On this occasion Uncle Ben drove into the
barnyard, and from the wagon in the heat of
the sun he removed the gorgeous lunch that his
wife had been two weeks preparing and carried
it into our wagon shed. There it lay quietly
hid under the seat of our old buggy, which
stood there year after year, seldom being used
other than that the chickens roosted on the back
axle. I had been downtown early and had
hunted up my friend Bob Patton, the undis-
puted champion sprinter of the county. We
searched in vain for a foot race, but every
sprinter was shy, and I, as his manager, saw
that the day was going and we would get no
race, so I suggested that we take his saddle
horse and hitch to our old buggy and drive to

162

THE COUNTRY BOY

Marquam, a village of about forty inhabitants,
not counting the town cows, some eight miles
below town, where they were also having a
celebration. "All right," said Bob; so w^e
proceeded.

We left Silverton about eleven o'clock and
neglected to get anything to eat as our minds
were too much on business and on the way to
Marquam, I, as trainer and manager, sug-
gested that we should have had something to
eat but that now we had better postpone it

THE COUNTRY BOY 163

until after we had run the race, if we got any.
We arrived at JNIarquam, hitched our horse
among the trees, and circulated among the
farmers rather shyly, suggesting now and then
in mild tones, a foot race. All of the athletic
young men seemed to have heard of Patton
and were not willing to run. Finally we
found an old farmer who said he had never
been beaten, and he would not allow any city
chap to bluff him, so after half an hour's effort
on my part as manager, we made the match:
one hundred yards, judges on the start and
finish, start at the drop of the hat.

We placed all our money, after great
difficulty and then began preparations for the
race. The farmer was first to show at the
start; he had tied his suspenders around his
waist tightly, so that they gave him the appear-
ance of being gaunt. He had dampened his
long beard, that it might not catch too much
wdnd. He had removed his boots, and was
going to run in his sock feet; his pants legs
having been wound around his legs and
the socks pulled up over them, giving him
a very athletic appearance. Patton came a
minute later with his regulation suit on, spiked

164

THE COUNTRY BOY

shoes and even corks to hold in his hands. We
could have collected the money then and we
blamed ourselves afterward for not doing it,
as the farmer that was going to run and his

>^^ ^r'

~-Grm^..

backers all had stage fright, and they delayed
going to the post, tiying to get up some ex-
cuse to quit ; but we preferred to run it out in
true sportsmanlike manner.

THE COUNTRY BOY 165

After a couple of attempts, the hat fell and
they were off, and in half a minute I was
actually blushing. The old man had beaten
Bob fifteen feet, the judges at the finish said,
and when judges from the start came up, they
said the city chap had five feet the better in
the start. I thought they w^ould knock my
head and shoulders off, so great was their ex-
citement. Bob used as an excuse that a dog
had got in front of him, but that only added
to the humiliation, as the dog out-ran him
further than the farmer. We gave up the
stakes and made a bee-line for the buggy,
crestfallen and broke.

CHAPTER VI

The hunger that had been hidden by the
excitement of the race soon came to the surface
again, increased tenfold, and we were fairly
bent over with hunger and pain. Bob asked
me to go among my friends and hint that we
were broke and had had no dinner. I did,
but it seemed we had lost our friends with the
race.

I returned to the vehicle and told Bob we
had better drive to Silverton as fast as possible,
where we could get something to eat. We
hitched up and were j^reparing to start home
when, in the act of putting away the halter,
which the horse had worn coming down, but
w^hich I was now taking off and putting under
the seat, my hand ran against a cool surface
and glanced off.

I looked under the seat-curtain and saw a
sight that I didn't soon forget. It was an
enormous dishj^an of high polish, the contents

166

THE COUNTRY BOY 167

of which were concealed by a clean linen table-
cloth over the top. I lifted the cloth, and
could perceive that it was a most bountiful
dinner. I felt faint and weak and grabbed
the buggy wheel. Then I called Patton, and
w^hen he looked, his countenance changed from
that of the humiliated athlete to that of a
victor. We thought it belonged to someone
on the ground, so we lost no time in driving
away with it.

We drove for a mile and a half to where the
country road crossed, by way of an old, covered
bridge, a beautiful stream called Butte Creek.
We halted at the side of the stream, and there
spread out this royal lunch. 'Twas the most
luxurious affair I have ever seen. There was
fully enough for twenty people, — six roast
chickens, the most sumptuous pies and cakes
imaginable; biscuits buttered, some with
preserves between, others w^ith slices of
cheese and pickles, and there were several
loaves of salt rising bread. There were tarts
and cookies, sliced tongue, pickled pigs' feet,
radishes, and about ten dozen hard-boiled eggs.
We spread it all out on a grassy peninsula,
and proceeded to devour it until we fell into a

168

THE COUNTRY BOY

stupor. We ate until our hands and feet went
to sleep.

It was with the greatest difficulty that we
mastered sufficient energy to pack up the re-

maining carcasses and uncut pies and cakes
and the general debris that would follow such
a meeting.

We drove into Silverton, taking our time.
As we approached town we met people coming

THE COUNTRY BOY 169

away that yelled and asked us how Ben's lunch
was. Some of the blood by that time had got
back to our brains, and we were able to under-
stand why the horse pulled so heavily on the
way to Marquam. When we got into town
we heard wild stories over the abduction of
Ben Davenport's lunch, and that Ben had been
on the warpath, and that it was a good thing
for us he had gone home, as he had invited the
orator of the day, the chief marshal, and a man
that was running for Congress, to dine with
him, and they had accepted.

All hands had proceeded to our barnyard,
where they expected to spread this great lunch
underneath a pear-tree in the back yard; but,
to their astonishment, they found the buggy
wherein he had carefully concealed his treasure
gone, no one knew where. Ben had gone to
my father and threatened to divide the family,
but father knew nothing of it. He thought
possibly I had discovered the lunch under the
buggy seat, and had taken that as an excuse
to leave the country, and in his own heart felt
much relieved; but Ben was furious. When
I met father he wanted me to explain at once,
and I did, as I have in this story, and I think

170

THE COUNTRY BOY

he believed me. But the less I can say about

Uncle Ben the better.

I might add, however,
that though he and Patton
live in the same neighbor-
hood, they have never been
seen sitting on the rail-
fence talking, as sometimes
neighbors do. The truth
is, they haven't spoken
since. The ablest debater
couldn't make Ben Daven-
port believe that we didn't
know the lunch was under
the buggy seat when w^e
drove out of town.

Uncle Ben was a genius
in a way ; he was what you
would call a success. If
he owned a good pocket-
knife with a good rivet
that he could snap the
blade back and forth from
his finger to his thumb,

then if he had an old knife that looked good

but wasn't, to trade on, then he was happy.

THE COUNTRY BOY 171

In some trade he once got a gib bay horse
with pecuharly heavy feet. He was about the
finest looking horse anybody ever saw. > He
was sixteen and a half hands high, and as well
made as they could be put up. But there was
one mistake about him, — he evidently wasn't
intended to work, and if you got him to move
after you put a collar on him, you would have
to haul him.

It was a lucky thing for Ben Davenport that
he got hold of the bay horse, as most all of the
property that he accumulated afterward was
directly or indirectly due to the big bay horse.
Everybody that came into that part of the
country owned him at least a day, and he put
several gypsy camps out of business. When-
ever a stranger came over the road. Uncle Ben
had occasion to go out with the big bay; and
unless the man knew the horse he couldn't re-
sist giving everything he had for him, and a
little to boot. After he was traded off, Uncle
alwavs came to the family with a smile and
said: "Well, I have done great business to-
day. I've got rid of old Broadfoot." All of
our family would plead with him to stay rid
of him. He'd promise never to get him back

172 THE COUXTBY BOY

again ; but inside of twenty-four hours, he came
with just as broad a smile and said, "Well,
I've got back the big bay." And it was
through that kind of operations, the rake-off,
as it were, that went to the kitty, that Uncle
Ben got a good financial start. He traded
and retraded the horse for years. Every time
he passed out he was called "Old Broadfoot,"
and every time he came back he was the "Big
Bay."

Silverton kept growing more and more, and
traveling men wdth bigger diamonds began to
come to town. I drew pictures for lots of the
drummers, and several of them told me they
sent to Paris every few months to buy the
goods they sold in Silverton. They said that
in Paris most everybody drew pictures, and
that some day they'd take me. I told father
about their promise to take me to Paris, but
he only smiled.

It seemed that I ought to be doing some-
thing. I was getting prett}^ big for my age,
and still there didn't seem to be anything that
I was just suited for. Finally, McjNIahan's
circus came, — a one-ring circus, — and they

THE COUNTRY BOY 173

needed a sort of a cheap clown, so I joined
them.

I heard from some of the neighbors that it
looked bad, owing to father's standing in the
State as a man, but I went ahead. I learned
to snig the clown's song wliile standing on a
barrel, with brass band accompaniment, and at
that I did fairly well, if the band played loud ;
but Joe IMcJNlahan, the manager of the circus,
thought I ought to do more, so I tried the
spring-board. They had led up an old ele-
phant and a horse with spots on him. All the
acrobats and tumblers ran down this steep in-
cline and hit the spring-board, and w ent up and
turned from one to three somersaults, going
over the elephant and horse, and lit on a big
straw tick on the other side. JNIy clown make-
up consisted of a heavy, ponderous stomach,
also made of straw^ I'd never jumped on a
spring-board, and no one explained to me the
angles at which it was best to hit. I took a
long run as I hit the spring-board. I evi-
dently^ hit it too high up, and instead of going
up over the elephant and horse, I cushioned
back up the spring-board, lit on the back of my

174

THE COUNTRY BOY

neck, and fell off among the brass band. It
made a tremendous hit with the audience, not-
withstanding that it nearly broke my neck.

They applauded and applauded until they saw
me being helped into the dressing room.
It made another clow^n jealous, as he didn't

THE COVNTllY BOY 175

do anything half as funny that evening*. It
was some days before I recovered; but in a
circus the}^ use you all the time. While I was
laid up with this stiff neck, I had to take care
of the children that belonged to a husband
and wife w^ho were trapeze performers, and
every time their act was called somebody had
to mind the baby.

But somehow a fellow soon tires of circus
life, and I came home and found that my
drawing had improved some, as I had made
lots of pictures in the circus. So, finally,
father thought I had better go to San Fran-
cisco, as he said that was the art center for all
the United States. So, the following winter,
after it had been raining about a w^eek, w^e
commenced to get ready for the San Fran-
cisco trip.

People had been coming to the house all
morning to say good-bye, and finally father
came up from dow^ntown carrying a valise.
It was really a beautiful valise. He explained
to me that it was better than these stiff dress-
suit cases, as in case it became necessary, I
could use it as a pillow. On one side of it
was a scene in a garden, and on the other side

1T6

THE COUNTRY BOY

it showed the coast range mountains with a
sunset. The handles were leather, but the rest

of it was made of fine, thick cloth that looked
like carpet.

It was nearly time for us to start when

THE COUNTRY BOY

177

father thought perhaps the twenty-dollar gold
piece I was taking with me had better not be
carried in my
pants pocket.
So, o w i n g to
certain differ-
ences between
San Francisco
and Silver-
ton, they
thought it best
to have me step
behind the door
and take off my
coat and vest
and shirt while
they put the
gold piece in a
patch on my
underclothes.
They sewed
it so that it
practically lay
on my right
shoulder-blade,
so that by mov-

178 THE COUNTRY BOY

ing my right arm I could tell whether my
bank account was all right or not.

Father was always careful at figures and
accurate in calculations, so he figured in giving
me the change I was to have in my pockets, a
day's allowance extra, in case of a washout, or
something, and finally we started for the train.
All along the streets were lined with people.
Silverton, as I was likely seeing it for the last
time, looked more beautiful than ever. The
rain had dwindled down to a fine mist that
didn't amount to anything. The people of
the town were all smiles. I guess they looked
better to me than I did to them. It was a
bashful trip for me, as I had left a few months
before to be the artist on the Oregonian at
Portland, and the whole town went into a half -
holiday, and the streets were decorated. I
even bid them good-bye for ever; but I was
fired, and came back before some of the flower
decorations had wilted. Thus it got to be a
joke, and naturally the people thought we were
foolish to let father spend so much money on
such an uncertain trail, and I couldn't blame
them.

But father, — God bless him, — he didn't com-

THE COUNTRY BOY

170

nient one way or the other. He just carried

the carpet-bag and kept a sad expression on his

face. But Silverton came out to a man. The

blacksmiths with their aprons on as they Hned

up in front of the

shop looked like

sculptors. The

clerks in the stores

looked as good as

the proprietors

themselves, and Ai

Coolidge and Jake

IMcClaine lo oked

like the coast range

mountains. Some

of them made

%

father's chin quiver a little when in their good
advice they yelled, as they shook hands:

"Well, Homer, be a good boy and stick to
it; don't ever come back!"

When we got through the heart of the town
into the residence jDortion between houses,
father looked me straight in the eyes and said :

"They meant well, but it sounded a little
hard for us, didn't it?"

And no answer was necessary.

180 THE COUNTRY BOY

At each gate we said good-bye to tlie women
of the family ; and some of the girls I had seen
traces of beauty in, now looked like goddesses
and queens. But their advice was all about the
same. The general tone was to stay away.
Finally, near the depot, one old woman varied
the advice by saying to me, as she shook hands :

"Homer, if you fail this time, come home
and give up this here making pictures, and
help your father work, as he's getting pretty
old!"

Father went with me to Woodburn, ten
miles below Silverton, where we were to catcli
the main line of the Southern Pacific. There
we spent the whole afternoon waiting for the
California overland that came about six in the
evening.

We spent the time talking of what I should
do when I got to San Francisco; of the great
sights I must naturally see, as it was evidently
to be different from Portland.

Finally we had only an hour more to wait
for the train, and I got to thinking of this —
that fabler had protected me from hard labor
all of my life, simply because it had been my
mother's wish that I should some day be a

THE COUNTRY BOY

181

cartoonist. That this same man who had tried
to educate me and who had wholly failed in

his attempt, still took it good-naturedly;
I thought of his kindness that, during sun-

182 THE COUNTRY BOY

shine and rain, sickness and good health, had
always been just the same, willing and obhg-
ing, working hour after hour that he might
enlighten me so that I could avoid some things
that he had learned through hard knocks. I
saw in him the finest type of the Western
pioneer who had educated himself by his own
efforts, who had come to Oregon in the early
days; who had grown up with the State; who
had been identified wdth its very earliest
politics; who had risen in the esteem of his
fellow-men to a high position; a man whose
honor had never been questioned; a philoso-
pher, a mathematician, a scientist, a poet, — in
fact, the highest form of a scholar. He had
been my champion against all comers who be-
lieved that I should have done manual labor,
while he was satisfied if I would only draw
pictures.

I was to leave this man perhaps forever, as
his features commenced to show the letting
down of the physical man that had made him
so alert in the years past.

Finally we looked do^\^l the track toward
Portland, and we could see the headlight on
the engine that was to take me away. We

THE COUNTRY BOY 183

had been holding hands for half an hour, and
we hadn't spoken a word. Finally, turning
to me, he said:

"Homer, I feel like the old farmer, and I
guess you do, who was on his death-bed,
when they sent for the minister. The old
farmer hadn't been a church member in his
day, hadn't given much thought to religion or
the hereafter. When the preacher asked him
as the family stood close around, if he wouldn't
like to make his peace with God, he said, 'No,
I don't see as there is any use, we ain't never
had any fuss.' "

So, as the grip of our hands grew stronger,
he said, "Homer, we've never had any fuss,
so we can part peacefully."

On the train my valise attracted attention,
and a crowd of drummers gathered around it.
They asked me where I was going, and I told
them to San Francisco. They asked me where
I got the valise and I told them, and I saw
a few of them take down the storekeeper's
name that sold it. Finally one of them said,
after I had told them my name: "Mr.
Davenport, I don't think you appreciate the
opening there is for you or anybody else in

184 THE COUNTRY BOY

San Francisco with that kind of a valise."
A few in the car laughed, but at that time I
didn't see the joke. Finally one of the drum-
mers said if I'd open and thej^ got a look in-
side of it, he could tell if it was a real one. He
said if the colors came clear through the cloth,
it's real; if they don't, it's just an imitation.
So I opened it and he put his head inside of it.
He said: "Yes, it is a real one; they come all
the way through."

I had never slept on a train, so, after I
watched them take down a few berths, I went
to bed just for the novelty of it, taking upper
eight. In the middle of the night, a drummer
who had got on the train after I had gone to
bed, and was going to get off before I would
be up in the morning, said that he would like
to see that valise, if it was not too much
trouble. So I dug it from under my pillow
and showed it to him with the greatest of
pride. I remember the drummer said he was
sorry he wasn't going to San Francisco with
me, but he said he wouldn't be there until the
next week. I told him I guessed I'd remem-
ber him and should like to see him.

The next day across the mountains there

THE COUNTRY BOY 185

were more drummers. Peanut butchers were
now^ selling oranges that had taken the place
of apples, and already you could notice quite
a California air. With the assurance of how
well they thought I'd do there and the sun-
shine that had taken the place of rain in
Oregon, I was being a better fellow than I
should, spending money more freely than I
really needed to.

There w^as a gaiety in the smoking-car that
I wasn't used to. The through passengers
were all thoroughly acquainted with one an-
other, and the second night I couldn't really
sleep in upper eight. So I was thinking how
great San Francisco would look, of what art-
ists I would see there, and whether the general
body of people on the streets would look so
different from what they did in Portland. I
got up before daylight, and, as the gray dawn
came, I could see great streaks of yellow
flowers out in the fields we were running
through. The atmosphere was different, and
I actually felt like an artist, if I could only
draw.

Finally the train ran on to a ponderous
ferry boat and was ferried across a river or

186 THE COUNTRY BOY

bay and the closer we got to San Francisco,
the faster the train ran; and as the conductor
came through and gave each of us a ferry-
ticket to cross the bay from Oakland to San
Francisco, I saw that I had spent the last cent
of change father gave me, — that I had made
it just a dead heat.

Aside from the twenty-dollar gold piece
in my undershirt, I was complete!}^ out.

I wanted to get to the Murphy Building,
in which building we had some friends living.
A drummer put me on a car as it stood on
the turn-table at the foot of Market Street.
As this car rolled off the turn-table, I saw what
a peculiar position I was in financially.
When the conductor came for the fare, I told
him that I had come from Oregon, that my
father thought he gave me enough change to
last until I got to San Francisco, but that he
hadn't. That on my back, sewed in my
underclothes, I had a twenty-dollar gold piece.
That if he would let me off at the JSIurphy
Building, I would get some change there, and
pay him when his car came back. But he said
gruffly: *'I haven't the slightest doubt, after
a look of your valise, that you have money

THE COUNTRY BOY 187

sewed all over your clothes, but the company
doesn't send us out with buttonhole shears,
so you will have to get out your money."

I told him he could feel of it on my back,
whereupon he did. Several passengers also
volunteered; but I had to get off the car and,
owing to the difference that San Francisco
bore to Silverton, I lost several hours it seemed,
hunting a suitable place that I might get to
this twenty.

Finally, after I got the twenty, I went back
and got on another car on the turn-table, and
had ridden to about the same spot, when the
conductor came through and I gave him my
money. He informed me that they didn't
make change for over five dollars. That I
would have to get off and have it changed.
It seemed that I never would get to the
Murphy Building. I had gotten to San
Francisco about eight o'clock in the morning,
and now it was past noon, and I hadn't got
away from the ferry. I lost more time trying
to get change. Finally a man suggested that
I buy a cigar. I foolishly told him I didn't
smoke, and he suggested that I had better
smoke, even to get my change.

188 THE COUNTRY BOY

Finally, with the change, I again proceeded
to a car. This time I got on a blue car, told
the conductor I wanted to get off at the
Murphy Building. The car rolled up JNIarket
Street with the beautiful gliding, soothing
noise. I don't think I have ever been so im-
pressed or bewildered as I was by that ride.
It seemed that I rode hours. Finally the car
sheered off to the left and came to Eucalyptus
Trees and then to Scant Settlement, and
finally to the end of the line. Everybody got
off but me, and the conductor said, "Oh, yes;
you wanted to get off, didn't you?"

I said: "Yes, at the Murphy Building."
He said: "Stay on until we go back."
They came in, the conductor and gripman,
and sat down and talked to me of where 1 had
come from. They said they were bound to
see a great deal of me, especially the gripman.
I asked them how long they thought it would
take a fellow to learn the city, and it seemed
like the truth when they told me some people
never learned it. Finally we started back
toward town. Strange and beautiful faces
got on the car, and finally I was lost again in
admiration of the heart of the citv, when

THE COUNTRY BOY 189

everybody seemed to jump from the car and
run for the ferryboat, and I noticed we were
back to the turn-table. The conductor came
through and said: "Oh, yes; you still want
to get off at the Murphy Building." I said:
"Yes, if I can get there before dark I'd like
to; but if I can't, transfer me to a sleeper."
He said: "All right now, set your valise up
in your lap so that when I see it I will know
you get off at the Murphy Building."

I saw him look in my direction once or twice,
and I held the valise up at him; but he shook
his head. Finally, just about dusk of what
had been the most strenuous day of all my
life, he put me off in front of the JNIurphy
Building, and I lost no time in hurrying in.

Once in the Murphy Building the elevator
man asked me first where I wanted to go, and
I told him to see some people named JNlr. and
Mrs. Cline who lived somewhere on the top
floor. So he took me up in the elevator, kind
of showing off, I guess, by the way he ran it,
as it didn't seem over a second till we were at
the top, the sixth floor; and for fear some ac-
cident might happen and I would get astray,
he led me to the Cline's very door.

190 THE COUNTRY BOY

Once inside, a few seconds after I had
rapped, it was all over. We were home, and
in their presence I felt safe. We visited for
two or three hours as hard as people ever visit.
Night had come but it didn't get dark. The
glare from the street below seemed to light us
up for miles. Finally, with their permission,
I went to the front window and, with my fore-
head plastered against the pane, until it had
stuck, I stood a good while looking down on
Market Street below. It didn't seem possible
that I would ever be able to walk down there
alone ; and, as I watched the traffic coming and
going and saw the first signs of the real out-
side world, I thought and longed for Silverton,
which seemed so far away.

THE END

THE COUNTRY BOY 191

WHEN DAVENPORT'S IN SILVERTON.

(by JAMES J. MONTAGUE.)

They're all awake in Silverton, although it's half past eight,
And gapes and yawns betray the fact that is mighty late;
The lamp is lit in Wolfard's store, and Simeral and all
The rest are tilted back in chairs, around the stove and wall.
Saliva hisses on the hearth, and through the open door
Come citizens and cats and dogs until they fill the store;
And on the street the whisper runs like magic up and down :
"Le's all go up to Wolfard's store, f'r Davenport's in town."

Without a word the old-time friends from almost everywhere
Come dropping in and occupy each cracker box and chair ;
And though the clock ticks on and on, until it's nearly ten,
They never stir, but hungrily live o'er the past again.
The time the dog — of worthless life — was chucked inside a

sack
And dropped by night in Silver Creek, and came serenely

back
The time the famous Trombone Band won Silverton renown,
Are all discussed, and all enjoyed, when Davenport's in town.

They do not care in Silverton much for the world outside,
They little know this loved friend is honored far and wide,
They do not know, nor do they care, what Eastern people

say,
They only know that Davenport has come to town to-day.
And sitting breathless 'round that stove they listen to him

tell
About the days before he bade old Silverton farewell.
To them it matters not at all, if fate may smile or frown
It's quite enough for Silverton that Davenport's in town.

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