The Jimmyjohn Boss, and Other Stories by Owen Wister (the best novels to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Owen Wister
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Cutler sat smiling as the ambulance swung along. “I told you I belonged in this here affair,” he said. And when they reached the fort he was saying it still, occasionally.
Captain Brent considered it neatly done. “But that boy put the finishing touches,” he said. “Let's have him in.”
The boy was had in, and ate a dinner with the officers in glum embarrassment, smoking a cigar after it without joy. Toussaint was given into the doctor's hands, and his wounds carefully dressed.
“This will probably cost an Indian outbreak,” said Captain Brent, looking down at the plain. Blanketed riders galloped over it, and yelling filled the air. But Toussaint was not destined to cause this further harm. An unexpected influence intervened.
All afternoon the cries and galloping went on, and next morning (worse sign) there seemed to be no Indians in the world. The horizon was empty, the air was silent, the smoking tepees were vanished from the cottonwoods, and where those in the plain had been lay the lodge-poles, and the fires were circles of white, cold ashes. By noon an interpreter came from Red Cloud. Red Cloud would like to have Toussaint. If the white man was not willing, it should be war.
Captain Brent told the story of Loomis and Kelley. “Say to Red Cloud,” he ended, “that when a white man does such things among us, he is killed. Ask Red Cloud if Toussaint should live. If he thinks yes, let him come and take Toussaint.”
The next day with ceremony and feathers of state, Red Cloud came, bringing his interpreter, and after listening until every word had been told him again, requested to see the half-breed. He was taken to the hospital. A sentry stood on post outside the tent, and inside lay Toussaint, with whom Cutler and the ambulance-boy were playing whiskey-poker. While the patient was waiting to be hanged, he might as well enjoy himself within reason. Such was Cutler's frontier philosophy. We should always do what we can for the sick. At sight of Red Cloud looming in the doorway, gorgeous and grim as Fate, the game was suspended. The Indian took no notice of the white men, and walked to the bed. Toussaint clutched at his relation's fringe, but Red Cloud looked at him. Then the mongrel strain of blood told, and the half-breed poured out a chattering appeal, while Red Cloud by the bedside waited till it had spent itself. Then he grunted, and left the room. He had not spoken, and his crest of long feathers as it turned the corner was the last vision of him that the card-players had.
Red Cloud came back to the officers, and in their presence formally spoke to his interpreter, who delivered the message: “Red Cloud says Toussaint heap no good. No Injun, anyhow. He not want him. White man hunt pretty hard for him. Can keep him.”
Thus was Toussaint twice sentenced. He improved under treatment, played many games of whiskey-poker, and was conveyed to Cheyenne and hanged.
These things happened in the early seventies; but there are Sioux still living who remember the two lieutenants, and how they pulled the half-breed out of White River by his false hair. It makes them laugh to this day. Almost any Indian is full of talk when he chooses, and when he gets hold of a joke he never lets go.
Sharon's Choice
Under Providence, a man may achieve the making of many things—ships, books, fortunes, himself even, quite often enough to encourage others; but let him beware of creating a town. Towns mostly happen. No real-estate operator decided that Rome should be. Sharon was an intended town; a one man's piece of deliberate manufacture; his whim, his pet, his monument, his device for immortally continuing above ground. He planned its avenues, gave it his middle name, fed it with his railroad. But he had reckoned without the inhabitants (to say nothing of nature), and one day they displeased him. Whenever you wish, you can see Sharon and what it has come to as I saw it when, as a visitor without local prejudices, they asked me to serve with the telegraph-operator and the ticket-agent and the hotel-manager on the literary committee of judges at the school festival. There would be a stage, and flags, and elocution, and parents assembled, and afterwards ice-cream with strawberries from El Paso.
“Have you ever awarded prizes for school speaking?” inquired the telegraph-operator, Stuart.
“Yes,” I told him. “At Concord in New Hampshire.”
“Ever have a chat afterwards with a mother whose girl did not get the prize?”
“It was boys,” I replied. “And parents had no say in it.”
“It's boys and girls in Sharon,” said he. “Parents have no say in it here, either. But that don't seem to occur to them at the moment. We'll all stick together, of course.”
“I think I had best resign.” said I. “You would find me no hand at pacifying a mother.”
“There are fathers also,” said Stuart. “But individual parents are small trouble compared with a big split in public opinion. We've missed that so far, though.”
“Then why have judges? Why not a popular vote?” I inquired.
“Don't go back on us,” said Stuart. “We are so few here. And you know education can't be democratic or where will good taste find itself? Eastman knows that much, at least.” And Stuart explained that Eastman was the head of the school and chairman of our committee. “He is from Massachusetts, and his taste is good, but he is total abstinence. Won't allow any literature with the least smell of a drink in it, not even in the singing-class. Would not have 'Here's a health to King Charles' inside the door. Narrowing, that; as many of the finest classics speak of wine freely. Eastman is useful, but a crank. Now take 'Lochinvar.' We are to have it on strawberry night; but say! Eastman kicked about it. Told the kid to speak something else. Kid came to me, and I—”
A smile lurked for one instant in the corner of Stuart's eye, and disappeared again. Then he drew his arm through mine as we walked.
“You have never seen anything in your days like Sharon,” said he. “You could not sit down by yourself and make such a thing up. Shakespeare might have, but he would have strained himself doing it. Well, Eastman says 'Lochinvar' will go in my expurgated version. Too bad Sir Walter cannot know. Ever read his Familiar Letters, Great grief! but he was a good man. Eastman stuck about that mention of wine. Remember? 'So now am I come with this lost love of mine To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.' 'Well,' thought I, 'Eastman would agree to water. Water and daughter would go, but is frequently used, and spoils the meter.' So I fiddled with my pencil down in the telegraph office, and I fixed the thing up. How's this? 'So now am I come with this beautiful maid
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