Image provided by: Klamath County Museums; Klamath Falls, OR
About Klamath republican. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1896-1914 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 2, 1913)
8 _ _ “ _ _ CALIFORNIA FARMER SECTION _ _ _ __ _ ___ ___________ ~ ____~ __ _ _ _- — •'THE MIDLANDERS” ----------------------- By Charles Tenney Jackson,:.. ::.. :.:. ,1 (('»■IlMU^d From l^«< XX cr-k > phis among tho that ty-boat folk. Then a government dredge lowed them up river, the Illa woman cooking for the crew. The men used to watch a child who, from her house l>oat dock, would put a bit of tinsel or a flower In her hiilr and stare down In the water to admire the picture, or would smooth her gipsy dress over her hips, unnotlc- ins her audience If they hailed her she pretended i.ot to hear them. They wculd not believe she was but thlreen, so tropically prim*! was her woman hood. so tantullxlngly wise her reserve. So. up the great river of her dreams they went for months and months. Then, one night on the Mineeota shore, the dredge burned, und t’nete Michigan cut the house-boat loose. It bumped on down the river again to come aim lessly adrift in a pocket of the Iowa hills. There It stuck, and all the dreamy summer the weeds and sands thickened about until It could drift no more. And one day the exile* climbed a noar-by hill to look down on a town burled In September maples; a decent church spire here and there, the clock tower of the court-house In the square, ant’ farmer folk driving homeward. on this prosy common day of the northern midlands. Aurelio, with the good-humored curiosity of a savage, looked down for her first glimpse of an ordered life. Out of the sweet and heavy richness of the corn bloom and the sugar trees, from u white house, half-hidden, came a piano's note«, the first she had ever heard. She clapped her little brown hands. "Done come! Michigan, I reckon we found some of them states and coun tries with the music names We-all come to the land o'Joy!” "The land o' Joy!" he cried. slxlning- eyed. "That's where you'll had us to!” He motioned to tne Indian woman. Well take this yere little girl and drift 'way off yander to all the places she ain't ever seen. First. we'll pole the ole john-boat down to Grand Isle so she'll see the ocean. Then we'll drift off Atchafiilaya way a’ 1 she'll see the big woods. Then we'll drift on north and west and every way. and she'll see all the states and countties! What names Is them I done told you. Aurelie —-the music names?" “Callforny,” she said simply. “And next one?” “Arixony.” "And Montany, and Iowuy >tnd Ten nessee and Ohio! All them we ll see and more! Lead us to the land o’ Joy!" And all her strange after-life of laughter and of tears the little girl re membered the old soldier waving his hand to the undiscovered countries. And always she knew he was at heart tho poet, the advenlurerer. the lover, whatever else he might be; nothing could change that. So the next day they piled old traps and boxes and blankets and hound pups and the five wooden logs of Cap tain Tinkletoee as keepsakes. Into the John-boat and set off to find the land of joy with music names. South and east "hrough brilliant wilderneswes. poling (hrough Illy jams, sailing swamp lakes, paddling salt marshes. Shrimp camps, oyster platforms. terrapin hunters of Grand Isle they wandered and worked, and Aurelie came to know other children of all hues and races, and at the Island balls learned to dance with orange blossoms In her CHAPTER II hair. The murmur of the sea was In When I Was a Kid. her ears, the moonlight on the oaks In In September, looking from the her eyes, and with the droning Creole violins she awakened to calctv. losing court-house Square of Home, one «<•<■« the droll seriousness of a savage. Also, the ripening corn like a bronze shield for the first time, she had her face on the hilis which close every street washed cleanly—by the storekeeper’s end beyond the arching sugar trees. wife who kr.ew then she 'vos not of the The bottoms, too. are choked by the lust undecipherable Chino-Spanish-Killpino of the corn, and the church spires and breed of the shrimp platform villages. the ragged sycamores along the road But when the balls were over, a shifty- sides rise out of this opulent sea from footed and suspicious savage woman the rive to the bluffs as If drowning took Aurelie ard led her off to their In the perfume of the tassels. These ragged tent. Always through the blur w . st bluffs alone seem to evade the of queer faces—black, brown, yellow, conquest; one sees a road winding up w hite—Aurelie remembered the watch a red gap among groves of oak, hick ful love in the eyes of the basket- ory, walnut; with the crimson sumac maker and of uncle Michigan. Always and alders showing a lighter soil, the for these were what she knew of love! upland croppings of shale, clay and From the Gulf-coast Islands they stony ridges. Here one has glimpses went west and north, and In the y> v« of clover and oat stubble, rounded the eftild became a girl, slender, lithe, stacks, barns, windmills, white farm swift—keen of eye on a deer trail, trap homes and wire femes about shaded ping the mink ard raccoors, following piutur'S. But bejond, the triumphant tho wild bees' flight, weaving baskets sea of the corn stretches north and with strong brown fingers to lure th« west across the Iowa Midlands, for shrimp from under the lilies, balancing th« r* Is no trace of the virgin soil, the herself to shoot in a ticklish "running chart •--rass as the Indians rode It when pirougue" that would steal through the tho settlers of th«' forties came. It U a land fat to bursting with num swamps where a heavier hunter dared rot follow. Thus she grew, with never berless rich and complacent little cit a qualm for the blood of the hunted ies. The county annals show you that nor a doubt of the Maker's Intent. Hut the people never have hungered, fought at twelve the was a woman, blithe and nor suffered. From the first every man unthinking and kind-hearted, without had his bag of silver under the punch eon floor of his «(.bin and went forth fear, without guile. to buy the acres ns the Macs and Foxes Perhaps! At any rate, one day. censured by th" moved away. Tho s«!«oiid year they Indian womtin, she stole from ramp, ate theii own corn with »he venison swam Grand River with her gaudy and prairie chicken; their schools and little gown tucked In a knot on her churches were built before tho oak In head, dressed In the vzoods and ap their own cabin hom<s was dry; and peared at a Cajun ball with a wild the first grand Jury of this Iowa county hyacinth In her hair. She danced and sat in the untrodden grass of what is laughed and bewildered the woods now Rome's main street and Indicted a men. pretendlrg to know no English territorial commissioner for malfeas It was significant; the first when the Yankees addressed her. and ance. no French when spoken to in that Miilland«*rs were Insurgents of con tongues. But standing In the heated science and tot hunger-rebellious, for “ballroom”, she sang a barbaric song never had they felt want or known the Indian woman had taught her. sacrifice. Tho Indians called It "The Ijind of posed with an odd theatric fancy, and Beautiful Rivers", end few towns there then ran away leaving them gaping. When she swam to the John boat at are which have not a stream loitering dawn and put her hand upon Michi near over clear pebbly bars and along gan's as ho flshed, he started, tried to blue-stom margins where tho wild grapes and crabapples lure the children swear helplessly and stopped, autumn long. Through Roms, th«»re- laughed. "Damme! How we gol.T to do If you fore, flows Hlnslnawa Creek sleeping the summer in leaf-lined, sweet-smell act that-a-way?” "Whlch-a-wr-y?” And she drew tip ing pools along the shady streets where her naked little body, poised on the the boys fish for shiners with their boat, pressed her hands over her hats; and where, in October, the water swelling breasts and stared to the having dried, the oak and maple leaves north. "Michigan, when air wo goln’ drift deep so that, by Hallowe’en all to see all the states and lands with tho tie town Is filled with the pungent stnell of the smoke. music names you tell of?” Rome Is In a continual grandmother "Aurelie, you air gettln’ to be such a big girl and such a pretty girl as I ly quarrel with Hlnslnawa Creek; dunno if we ought to let you see all never has it been able to reason so briety Into the laughing Jade which them countries." "Then I'll run off and see 'em my tumbles its June freshets down from tho bluffs, fills every hollow of the self!" But at last they came out on the wandering streets and vacant lots, mighty river that Michigan had not plays mischief with fences and walks seen since he left his leg at Vicksburg; ard gons its way to the Mississippi and ar other year found them at Mem across the bottoms, leaving Its mir- r«>re<l pools to taunt the ancient dame of a town with its wilfulnrss. Yet Rome so loves the wanton that when Earlville wanted to divert Its waters In the uplands to run a factory for that aggressive metropolis of the county, the protest that went up «•«hoed for years In local politics. Ezirlvilllana called It "Hui ('reek", or "Skunk Creek”, but what could ore exp«*'t of Earlville? In Rome wh«'n a tree Interferes with a sidewalk th« wiilk Is not built; In Earlville th«* tree Is cut down and the cement laid. That is why Earlville has the rullroal, the furniture factory and the Elks’ Club, while Horn« has only Ila memories. Its rusty fences and Its twat families.' And the county court house The court-house <>fi!< rs und the beat families ware ix tradition us venerably intertwined as the Ivy and bricks of the walla. Rome knew Ila position. It would have sat with dignity on Its hills only Hkunk Creek I beg pardon, bln- slnawa!—kept pushing It off. Yet nona tn Rome more than mildly censured Hlnslnawa. Not aven Wiley T. Curran of the Rome News, who was always bolherlt g the town board about street improvetmnlA 11« ought to have known better. Every one having county buelneai had to come to Rome If one didn't like the streets one could go to- Earlville Wiley T. Curran used to retort that a good mat y had. Rome contained not rearly so many people ns It did « hen the war closed. Earlville, th«wi, was ni< rely one of Thaddeus Tauer's cow pastures Earlville welcomed any one who would "hustle" u the Boosters' Club put. Rome did not care to have people about whose families nothing was known. Every one there had llvetl In Rome since I (CO at least Even the obnoxious Mr. Curran's progenitors, and some of the old families tolerated the News solely because Bat Curran founded It before the court-hour« was built. But those families were few. for I'at Curran had been one of the fight ing abolitionists, and southern Iowa was noticeably In the stream of the Kentucky and Virginia migrations during the ■■•< esslon prelude. To this day these lo'V«-r counties are known as "The Reserve", and have ever stood aloof from the rampant republl anlsm of ths militant North and West. In Rome still exists dim traditions of Tul ly's raid and the copperhewdlstn that was smothered In the triumph of the Nrthern arma It lends a political om- servatlsm and a "best family" air to society, and accounts for the tumble down fences, unpaved streets and Ar cadian corner lots. It also furnished Curran, of the News, with editorials. But no one who was any one minded Curran. In Rome everybody who was anybody had money. In these rich and mature days, having the static order of the East ar.d a stationary population, more than a generation of young men had gone off from the priceless corn lands of th« county to the ch«np«ir acres of the Canadas, or the Irrigated valleys of California and New Mexico or to the cities. Retired farmers mov ing Into town for tho schools and froe- dom from stock-f~dlng, did not com- pet sate for tho drain of younger blood. Curran Lamented this. But Curran himself had gone off to swing the circle of the West for a decade and come back a beggar to take up the News on his father’s drath. And now the Newt could cackle as it pleased about pro- gresstveneas and k<-eplng the young men In the county for th«lr frosh spirit and lustier ideals, No <> ii <- mind ed -none of the boat people. Anybody who was anybody wouldn't think of moving away. Except Mr. Curran. He wondered why he had come back Hr-ntlment brought him as It had sent him forth, as It directed most of his ntfalrs. Hon- tlrnerit, this September afternoon, kept him sitting on n bale of stock paper In front of the News office wutclilnr «.ho town kids bat flics on the vaz nnt lot next to him. It wits press day, the week's Issue wax run off and Aleck and Jim Mims, the tramp printer, wore wrapping tho mall list to take to the postofllce In the wheelban ow. Mr. Curran ought to have been busy, but he smoked and watched tho town kids. In that earn« lot he batted flies with the some fence for a back-stop, yelled tho same derision at tho pitcher, broke tho same y Inflows and flea down tho same alley when old Marshal Toe camo doddering from tho court-house on complaint of tho Widow Sieger. Mr. Curran could sentimentally forget that he was thirty-nine. A clamor of tho high-school football practice camo from behind the curtain of yellowing sugar trees on High zz street. Only the younger town kids still lingered at the summer diversion of fly-baiting, and 'or »very urchin who hung his bare legs over tho News walk III the tarweed, walling his turn, there were at Icost two dogs As Jim Mima mid, nl' the yelps and ky oodles In town were there. Mr. Curran sen timentally wished hr had a dog ho felt himself a man worthy a good dog. lie llsttMK'd to «leek slapping tho pset<> on th< wrappers and Watched tho k> «Midlts yawing around the kids* fort, scratching their spines In the larwood and grinning up with all the pleusoro of It. and he said suddenly aloud: "G«e. 1 wish I had a dog!" Thin somebody whom he bnd not noticed a big dusty man wearing a new ami absurdly small derby hat - stoppod with bls hand on the hllchlng- poet before the News and retorted: "< !• < I w Uh I had a dog I * The editor turned and then stood up and yelled And tho big dusty nuux took his hnnd and ho yelled. "Wil. v. old tel ' • "Rube, you old Indian*" Rul>e grinned all over .his swarthy face. “Old top. how are you?" "High. wl^<> and luuidsome1" "You don t look that last. Wiley. How's the old lady?" “Aunt Abby's fit os silk Come up to dinner." “I Infended to Iley, the kids still playing ball on the lot llko Ibex did when I was a kid'“ "Hcason closed. Rube’ Where .11-1 your bunch wind up?" "In the collar. I'm through with the game, Wiley. I can't throw to so-nnd no more. Mv arm's all In No more of this bush-league ball for me Car« uilcharl's still got that fob for me— Chambermaid to hts livery h*>r»«» '" Mr Curran laughed sorrowfully Ho did Rube Van llart lie rubbed his big red hands and then a telltale red nose and look'd down at the town kids who had assembled to gaxe In awe Ono raced off to the high s« bool prar tfi o to spread th» news ' HI. Itube Van Hart's got back I" Everybody knew Rube. poor old Rut»«' The whole natliwi know liul>o » while bock let's see? Was It with the Cube. 1001 or 02? Eh. ths bubble reputation! There were other mighty men now Rub« had gone Ixck to ths "bush”. "Next spring," went on the former leaguer, '1'11 slay and coa. h th«- hlgh- scho«il bunch, Wiley.” "No, you won't," smiled th« editor. "When you begin tn rend the Bunday sups, and sprit g training opens up down in Han Antonio you'll he missing some fine morning Gone to hslp break In tho Cub recruits, and then you'll play out the season with tho Cotton league or the Three-C." "No more. Here's my fit Ish. Wiley- right here where I learned th«- game next tho News lot Back In the old town w here you come hock. too. Wiley. Back where we was kids together." The editor looked wistfully across the court-house square. Tho big leag uer's glance followed. A b.ir of ths sunset lighted tho dingy old court - house. The windows were open. From the court room shove cam« the y< |< e of some lawyer droning his plea to a farmer Jury. In an office on the lower floor one couPI see a woman bant seri ously over a desk lltered with papers and reports. "The old red. west-side ». hool.’ murmured Rube. "And there's Janet Vance, and now she's county superin tendent, and I'm all In. and you're a fool editor. That girl got ahead of us all, Wiley, since we was kids together." Wiley sighed, lie pulled hts short brown beard, that Vandyke which, tn Home, lent him a foreign air and guvs him th«i reputation of being literary whatever that meant. Nol<ody, not • ven tho fool editor, knew tvactly. Yet nobody was afraid of Mr. Curran. Th« kids spoke of him as "Wiley"; sJI the old women <ame In to tel) him their n«"lghborhood troubles; and on High street the best families ignored hhn. even with their irritated feeling that on points of tho worldly manner he was Infinitely bolter versed than they, and that ho was laughing at lh< m. It was known that Mr. Curran had bwn to Europa It was rumored that he had been in jail. One can learn a deal In each. Mr. Curran, It seems, had learned to laugh. "Every time I come back to the old town," mused Rube, “I wonder why you didn’t marry Janet; Everybody thought you would " Ho ndded apolo getically: “Hhe thought you would,” Wiley shrug/ed. Old friends can say much and hurt Utile. "Why tho blazes," resumed Rube, "don't you marry her yet? You aia'
