| “I panned him out over and over ag’in,
But found nary sign of color,”
Said Argonaut Sam one evening, when,
As sitting atop of a box, to some men
He was spinning a yarn of the gold-trail.
And then,
With arms set akimbo, he straightened his back
And said: “’Twuz one night in the fifties I know;
Ther’ kem up the trail frum the gulch jist below
A youngish-like feller; but steppin’ so slow
I heartily pitied him even before
I saw his pale brow and heerd the sharp hack
Of his troublesome cough, and plain enough lack
Of more’n enough power to bring to my door
That tremblin’ young body.
160
“He hed a small pack––
A blanket an’ buckskin––but that wa’nt no lack
In them days when notions an’ fashions wuz slack;
When all a man needed, besides pick an’ pan,
Wuz a wallet o’ leather to tie up his dust––’R
a place to git grub-staked (that means to git trust
Till he found a good prospeck); an’ then he’d put in
His very best licks; fur in them days ’twuz sin
Fer a man strong o’ body, o’ wind an’ o’ limb
T’ hang erround loafin’ all day, ’twuz too thin.
“Well, this puny feller hed grin’-stunlike grit,
But wuz clean tuckered out when my cabin he hit;
’N fell down a-faintin’ jist inside my door––
His eyes set ’n’ glassy––he seemed done fer, shore.
So I straightened him out, couldn’t do nothin’ more 161
Than to put back his hair an’ t’ dampen his brow,
An’ to feel fer his pulse––joy! I found it––slow
An’ flickery though, stoppin’ and startin’, an’ now
Gone ag’in; then it revived, but so faint, don’t you know,
That minute by minute I couldn’t hev said
Whether the feller wuz livin’ or dead.
“All night I watched by him; an’ ’long a-to’rds light
I seed that a change hed come: so, honor bright!
I made up my mind that I’d save that young life
If it took me all summer. I’d fight
With grim death to a finish fer him.
“An’ so I begun.
I quit workin’ my claim
Where I’d git on an average (’pon my good name)
An ounce or more daily of number one gold.
An’ in them days we thought nothin’, you see,
Of layin’ by stuff fer a rainy day; we 162
Hed plenty; the diggins wuz rich, an’ wuz thick
Scattered over the kentry. Most every crick
Hed plenty o’ gold in nuggets or dust––
An’ the man who wuz stingy hed ort to be cussed.
So I shouldered my task.
“It wuz wonderful how
The new life appeared to come back to my boy;
(Fer that’s what I called him––‘my boy’) an’ the joy
O’ perviden fer suthin’ besides my lone self
Made me happy. Y’ see, th’ experunce wuz new;
Fer I’d lived all alone ever since forty-two,
When, back in Ohio, I’d buried my wife
An’ baby. Since then I’d looked on my life
As a weary, onfriendly, detestable load.
So that’s why I lived all alone, don’t you see?
I didn’t love nothin’ and nothin’ loved me.
“But now of young Josh––his name wuz Josh Clark––
He’d come frum ol’ York State––could sing like a lark–– 163
Wuz finely brung up, an’ that mother o’ his,
A sister he tol’ me, an’ a girl he called Liz.
’D a give the hull earth if they only could know
If he wuz alive; but so hard-hearted, he
Would never be grateful to them nur to me.
Though I had no claim on him, yet it would seem
After all I hed done fer him, shorely some gleam
O’ thankfulness somewhere might some time be seen.
’Sides spendin’ my all I hed broken down too,
Wuz a shattered ol’ man, though but then fifty-two;
Fer I’d give up my health an’ my strength to pull through
My boy––fer I loved him, if ever men do.
But, no; it appeared that he hedn’t no heart.
Not once did he thank me, and never asked why
I nussed him to life, ’stid o’ lettin’ him die.
164
“His wants wuz demands, his wishes commands,
An’ once in the dusk, as we set on the sands
Of a stream that run by, he reached with his hands
So quick an’ so blamed unexpected, you see,
Grabbed me by the hair an’ out with a knife,
An’ demanded my gold. I thought fer my life
He wuz jokin’; but no, when I seed that fierce look
Of murder an’ pillage, I knowed what I’d done;
I’d thawed out a viper upon my hearth-stun
An’ now wuz becomin’ its prey.
“But, I’d none:
I’d spent all the surplus I hed to save him.
I’d missed all the summer an’ fall to nuss him
Who now like a tiger wuz takin’ my life.
‘Hol’ on, my dear Josh! Hol’ on, my dear boy!’
No further I got, fer his hands clutched my throat––
I squirmed myself loose, but grapplin’ my coat 165
He throwed me ag’in, now a madman, indeed.
His dirk-knife wuz raised. I said, ‘Do yer best.
I’ve give you now all that I ever possessed
But life. Take it now if you like!’ An’ he struck.
“How long I laid there in the dark, I don’t know;
But when I kem to I wuz layin’ in bed,
An’ the people wuz talkin’ so easy an’ low,
An’ I knowed by the bandages too on my head
That I hed been nigh to the gates o’ the dead.
“An’ ‘Where wuz Josh Clark?’ did you say? I don’t know.
He never wuz seen in the diggins below,
Ner heerd of in them parts ag’in, fer I know
He’d a-swung to the limb that come fust in the way;
Fer the boys in them days hed little to say,
But wuz mighty in doin’. So he got away. 166
“So it seems that some people is jist so depraved
There ain’t a thing in ’em that ort to be saved.
’Twuz jist so with Josh, who I loved as a son;
He lived fer hisself an’ fer hisself alone.
’N’ ’at’s why I remarked at the fust of this yarn,
The thing ’at it’s cost me so dearly to larn––‘I panned him out over an’ over ag’in,
But found nary sign of a color.’” |
