I
How Trees Are Felled in China
A HALF-MILE north from Jo. Dunfer's, on the road from Hutton's to Mexican
Hill, the highway dips into a sunless ravine which opens out on either
hand
in a half-confidential manner,
as if it had a secret to impart at some more convenient season. I never
used to ride through it without looking first to the one side
and then to the other, to see if
the time had arrived for the revelation. If I saw nothing-and I never did
see anything-there was no feeling of disappointment, for I
knew the disclosure was merely
withheld temporarily for some good reason which I had no right to question.
That I should one day be taken into full confidence
I no more doubted than I doubted
the existence of Jo. Dunfer himself, through whose premises the ravine
ran.
It was said that Jo. had once undertaken to erect a cabin in some remote
part of it, but for some reason had abandoned the enterprise and constructed
his
present hermaphrodite habitation,
half residence and half groggery, at the roadside, upon an extreme corner
of his estate; as far away as possible, as if on purpose
to show how radically he had changed
his mind.
This Jo. Dunfer-or, as he was familiarly known in the neighbourhood, Whisky
Jo.-was a very important personage in those parts. He was apparently about
forty years of age, a long, shock-headed
fellow, with a corded face, a gnarled arm and a knotty hand like a bunch
of prison-keys. He was a hairy man, with a
stoop in his walk, like that of
one who is about to spring upon something and rend it.
Next to the peculiarity to which he owed his local appellation, Mr. Dunfer's
most obvious characteristic was a deep-seated antipathy to the Chinese.
I saw
him once in a towering rage because
one of his herdsmen had permitted a travel-heated Asian to slake his thirst
at the horse-trough in front of the saloon end of
Jo.'s establishment. I ventured
faintly to remonstrate with Jo. for his unchristian spirit, but he merely
explained that there was nothing about Chinamen in the New
Testament, and strode away to wreak
his displeasure upon his dog, which also, I suppose, the inspired scribes
had overlooked.
Some days afterward, finding him sitting alone in his bar-room, I cautiously
approached the subject, when, greatly to my relief, the habitual austerity
of his
expression visibly softened into
something that I took for condescension.
“You young Easterners,” he said, “are a mile-and-a-half too good for this
country, and you don't catch on to our play. People who don't know a Chileno
from a Kanaka can afford to hang
out liberal ideas about Chinese immigration, but a fellow that has to fight
for his bone with a lot of mongrel coolies hasn't any
time for foolishness.”
This long consumer, who had probably never done an honest day's work in
his life, sprung the lid of a Chinese tobacco-box and with thumb and forefinger
forked out a wad like a small haycock.
Holding this reinforcement within supporting distance he fired away with
renewed confidence.
“They're a flight of devouring locusts, and they're going for everything
green in this God blest land, if you want to know.”
Here he pushed his reserve into the breach and when his gabble-gear was
again disengaged resumed his uplifting discourse.
“I had one of them on this ranch five years ago, and I'll tell you about
it, so that you can see the nub of this whole question. I didn't pan out
particularly
well those days-drank more whisky
than was prescribed for me and didn't seem to care for my duty as a patriotic
American citizen; so I took that pagan in, as a
kind of cook. But when I got religion
over at the Hill and they talked of running me for the Legislature it was
given to me to see the light. But what was I to do?
If I gave him the go somebody else
would take him, and mightn't treat him white. What was I to do? What would
any good Christian do, especially one new to
the trade and full to the neck
with the brotherhood of Man and the fatherhood of God?”
Jo. paused for a reply, with an expression of unstable satisfaction, as
of one who has solved a problem by a distrusted method. Presently he rose
and
swallowed a glass of whisky from
a full bottle on the counter, then resumed his story.
“Besides, he didn't count for much-didn't know anything and gave himself
airs. They all do that. I said him nay, but he muled it through on that
line while
he lasted; but after turning the
other cheek seventy and seven times I doctored the dice so that he didn't
last for ever. And I'm almighty glad I had the sand to do
it.”
Jo.'s gladness, which somehow did not impress me, was duly and ostentatiously
celebrated at the bottle.
“About five years ago I started in to stick up a shack. That was before
this one was built, and I put it in another place. I set Ah Wee and a little
cuss named
Gopher to cutting the timber. Of
course I didn't expect Ah Wee to help much, for he had a face like a day
in June and big black eyes-I guess maybe they were the
damn'dest eyes in this neck o'
woods.”
While delivering this trenchant thrust at common sense Mr. Dunfer absently
regarded a knot-hole in the thin board partition separating the bar from
the
living-room, as if that were one
of the eyes whose size and colour had incapacitated his servant for good
service.
“Now you Eastern galoots won't believe anything against the yellow devils,”
he suddenly flamed out with an appearance of earnestness not altogether
convincing, “but I tell you that
Chink was the perversest scoundrel outside San Francisco. The miserable
pig-tail Mongolian went to hewing away at the saplings
all round the stems, like a worm
o' the dust gnawing a radish. I pointed out his error as patiently as I
knew how, and showed him how to cut them on two sides,
so as to make them fall right;
but no sooner would I turn my back on him, like this”-and he turned it
on me, amplifying the illustration by taking some more
liquor-“than he was at it again.
It was just this way: while I looked at him so”-regarding me rather unsteadily
and with evident complexity of vision-“ he was all
right; but when I looked away,
so”-taking a long pull at the bottle-“he defied me. Then I'd gaze at him
reproachfully, so, and butter wouldn't have melted in his
mouth.”
Doubtless Mr. Dunfer honestly intended the look that he fixed upon me to
be merely reproachful, but it was singularly fit to arouse the gravest
apprehension in any unarmed person
incurring it; and as I had lost all interest in his pointless and interminable
narrative, I rose to go. Before I had fairly risen, he
had again turned to the counter,
and with a barely audible “so,” had emptied the bottle at a gulp.
Heavens! what a yell! It was like a Titan in his last, strong agony. Jo.
staggered back after emitting it, as a cannon recoils from its own thunder,
and then
dropped into his chair, as if he
had been “knocked in the head” like a beef-his eyes drawn sidewise toward
the wall, with a stare of terror. Looking in the same
direction, I saw that the knothole
in the wall had indeed become a human eye- a full, black eye, that glared
into my own with an entire lack of expression more
awful than the most devilish glitter.
I think I must have covered my face with my hands to shut out the horrible
illusion, if such it was, and Jo.'s little white
man-of-all-work coming into the
room broke the spell, and I walked out of the house with a sort of dazed
fear that delirium tremens might be infectious. My
horse was hitched at the watering-trough,
and untying him I mounted and gave him his head, too much troubled in mind
to note whither he took me.
I did not know what to think of all this, and like everyone who does not
know what to think I thought a great deal, and to little purpose. The only
reflection that seemed at all satisfactory
was, that on the morrow I should be some miles away, with a strong probability
of never returning.
A sudden coolness brought me out of my abstraction, and looking up I found
myself entering the deep shadows of the ravine. The day was stifling; and
this
transition from the pitiless, visible
heat of the parched fields to the cool gloom, heavy with pungency of cedars
and vocal with twittering of the birds that had
been driven to its leafy asylum,
was exquisitely refreshing. I looked for my mystery, as usual, but not
finding the ravine in a communicative mood, dismounted,
led my sweating animal into the
undergrowth, tied him securely to a tree and sat down upon a rock to meditate.
I began bravely by analysing my pet superstition about the place. Having
resolved it into its constituent elements I arranged them in convenient
troops and
squadrons, and collecting all the
forces of my logic bore down upon them from impregnable premises with the
thunder of irresistible conclusions and a great
noise of chariots and general intellectual
shouting. Then, when my big mental guns had overturned all opposition,
and were growling almost inaudibly away on
the horizon of pure speculation,
the routed enemy straggled in upon their rear, massed silently into a solid
phalanx, and captured me, bag and baggage. An
indefinable dread came upon me.
I rose to shake it off, and began threading the narrow dell by an old,
grass-grown cow-path that seemed to flow along the
bottom, as a substitute for the
brook that Nature had neglected to provide.
The trees among which the path straggled were ordinary, well-behaved plants,
a trifle perverted as to trunk and eccentric as to bough, but with nothing
unearthly in their general aspect.
A few loose boulders, which had detached themselves from the sides of the
depression to set up an independent existence at the
bottom, had dammed up the pathway,
here and there, but their stony repose had nothing in it of the stillness
of death. There was a kind of death-chamber hush in
the valley, it is true, and a mysterious
whisper above: the wind was just fingering the tops of the trees-that was
all.
I had not thought of connecting Jo. Dunfer's drunken narrative with what
I now sought, and only when I came into a clear space and stumbled over
the
level trunks of some small trees
did I have the revelation. This was the site of the abandoned “shack.”
The discovery was verified by noting that some of the
rotting stumps were hacked all
round, in a most unwoodmanlike way, while others were cut straight across,
and the butt ends of the corresponding trunks had
the blunt wedge-form given by the
axe of a master.
The opening among the trees was not more than thirty paces across. At one
side was a little knoll- a natural hillock, bare of shrubbery but covered
with
wild grass, and on this, standing
out of the grass, the headstone of a grave!
I do not remember that I felt anything like surprise at this discovery.
I viewed that lonely grave with something of the feeling that Columbus
must have had
when he saw the hills and headlands
of the new world. Before approaching it I leisurely completed my survey
of the surroundings. I was even guilty of the
affectation of winding my watch
at that unusual hour, and with needless care and deliberation. Then I approached
my mystery.
The grave-a rather short one-was in somewhat better repair than was consistent
with its obvious age and isolation, and my eyes, I dare say, widened a
trifle
at a clump of unmistakable garden
flowers showing evidence of recent watering. The stone had clearly enough
done duty once as a doorstep. In its front was
carved, or rather dug, an inscription.
It read thus:
AH WEE-CHINAMAN.
Age unknown. Worked for Jo. Dunfer.
This monument is erected by him to keep the Chink's memory green. Likewise
as a warning to Celestials not to take on airs. Devil take 'em! She Was
a
Good Egg.
I cannot adequately relate my astonishment at this uncommon inscription!
The meagre but sufficient identification of the deceased; the impudent
candour
of confession; the brutal anathema;
the ludicrous change of sex and sentiment-all marked this record as the
work of one who must have been at least as much
demented as bereaved. I felt that
any further disclosure would be a paltry anti-climax, and with an unconscious
regard for dramatic effect turned squarely about
and walked away. Nor did I return
to that part of the county for four years.
II
Who Drives Sane Oxen Should Himself be Sane
“Gee-up, there, old Fuddy-Duddy!”
This unique adjuration came from the lips of a queer little man perched
upon a wagonful of firewood, behind a brace of oxen that were hauling it
easily
along with a simulation of mighty
effort which had evidently not imposed on their lord and master. As that
gentleman happened at the moment to be staring me
squarely in the face as I stood
by the roadside it was not altogether clear whether he was addressing me
or his beasts; nor could I say if they were named Fuddy
and Duddy and were both subjects
of the imperative mood “to gee-up.” Anyhow the command produced no effect
on us, and the queer little man removed his
eyes from mine long enough to spear
Fuddy and Duddy alternately with a long pole, remarking, quietly but with
feeling: “Dern your skin,” as if they enjoyed that
integument in common. Observing
that my request for a ride took no attention, and finding myself falling
slowly astern, I placed one foot upon the inner
circumference of a hind wheel and
was slowly elevated to the level of the hub, whence I boarded the concern,
sans ceremonie, and scrambling forward seated
myself beside the driver-who took
no notice of me until he had administered another indiscriminate castigation
to his cattle, accompanied with the advice to
“buckle down, you derned Incapable!”
Then, the master of the outfit (or rather the former master, for I could
not suppress a whimsical feeling that the entire
establishment was my lawful prize)
trained his big, black eyes upon me with an expression strangely, and somewhat
unpleasantly, familiar, laid down his rod-
which neither blossomed nor turned
into a serpent, as I half expected-folded his arms, and gravely demanded,
“W'at did you do to W'isky?”
My natural reply would have been that I drank it, but there was something
about the query that suggested a hidden significance, and something about
the
man that did not invite a shallow
jest. And so, having no other answer ready, I merely held my tongue, but
felt as if I were resting under an imputation of guilt,
and that my silence was being construed
into a confession.
Just then a cold shadow fell upon my cheek, and caused me to look up. We
were descending into my ravine! I cannot describe the sensation that came
upon me: I had not seen it since
it unbosomed itself four years before, and now I felt like one to whom
a friend has made some sorrowing confession of crime
long past, and who has basely deserted
him in consequence. The old memories of Jo. Dunfer, his fragmentary revelation,
and the unsatisfying explanatory note by
the headstone, came back with singular
distinctness. I wondered what had become of Jo., and-I turned sharply round
and asked my prisoner. He was intently
watching his cattle, and without
withdrawing his eyes replied:
“Gee-up, old Terrapin! He lies aside of Ah Wee up the gulch. Like to see
it? They always come back to the spot-I've been expectin' you. H-woa!”
At the enunciation of the aspirate, Fuddy-Duddy, the incapable terrapin,
came to a dead halt, and before the vowel had died away up the ravine had
folded
up all his eight legs and lain
down in the dusty road, regardless of the effect upon his derned skin.
The queer little man slid off his seat to the ground and started
up the dell without deigning to
look back to see if I was following. But I was.
It was about the same season of the year, and at near the same hour of
the day, of my last visit. The jays clamoured loudly, and the trees whispered
darkly,
as before; and I somehow traced
in the two sounds a fanciful analogy to the open boastfulness of Mr. Jo.
Dunfer's mouth and the mysterious reticence of his
manner, and to the mingled hardihood
and tenderness of his sole literary production-the epitaph. All things
in the valley seemed unchanged, excepting the
cow-path, which was almost wholly
overgrown with weeds. When we came out into the “clearing,” however, there
was change enough. Among the stumps and
trunks of the fallen saplings,
those that had been hacked “China fashion” were no longer distinguishable
from those that were cut “'Melican way.” It was as if the
Old-World barbarism and the New-World
civilization had reconciled their differences by the arbitration of an
impartial decay-as is the way of civilizations. The
knoll was there, but the Hunnish
brambles had overrun and all but obliterated its effete grasses; and the
patrician garden-violet had capitulated to his plebeian
brother -perhaps had merely reverted
to his original type. Another grave-a long, robust mound-had been made
beside the first, which seemed to shrink from the
comparison; and in the shadow of
a new headstone the old one lay prostrate, with its marvellous inscription
illegible by accumulation of leaves and soil. In point
of literary merit the new was inferior
to the old-was even repulsive in its terse and savage jocularity:
JO. DUNFER. DONE FOR
I turned from it with indifference, and brushing away the leaves from the
tablet of the dead pagan restored to light the mocking words which, fresh
from
their long neglect, seemed to have
a certain pathos. My guide, too, appeared to take on an added seriousness
as he read it, and I fancied that I could detect
beneath his whimsical manner something
of manliness, almost of dignity. But while I looked at him his former aspect,
so subtly unhuman, so tantalizingly familiar,
crept back into his big eyes, repellent
and attractive. I resolved to make an end of the mystery if possible.
“My friend,” I said, pointing to the smaller grave, “did Jo. Dunfer murder
that Chinaman?”
He was leaning against a tree and looking across the open space into the
top of another, or into the blue sky beyond. He neither withdrew his eyes,
nor
altered his posture as he slowly
replied:
“No, sir; he justifiably homicided him.”
“Then he really did kill him.”
“Kill 'im? I should say he did, rather. Doesn't everybody know that? Didn't
he stan' up before the coroner's jury and confess it? And didn't they find
a
verdict of ‘Came to 'is death by
a wholesome Christian sentiment workin' in the Caucasian breast’? An' didn't
the church at the Hill turn W'isky down for it? And
didn't the sovereign people elect
him Justice of the Peace to get even on the gospellers? I don't know where
you were brought up.”
“But did Jo. do that because the Chinaman did not, or would not, learn
to cut down trees like a white man?”
“Sure!-it stan's so on the record, which makes it true an' legal. My knowin'
better doesn't make any difference with legal truth; it wasn't my funeral
and I
wasn't invited to deliver an oration.
But the fact is, W'isky was jealous o' me'-and the little wretch actually
swelled out like a turkeycock and made a pretence of
adjusting an imaginary neck-tie,
noting the effect in the palm of his hand, held up before him to represent
a mirror.
“Jealous of you!” I repeated with ill-mannered astonishment.
“That's what I said. Why not?-don't I look all right?”
He assumed a mocking attitude of studied grace, and twitched the wrinkles
out of his threadbare waistcoat. Then, suddenly dropping his voice to a
low
pitch of singular sweetness, he
continued:
“W'isky thought a lot o' that Chink; nobody but me knew how 'e doted on
'im. Couldn't bear 'im out of 'is sight, the derned protoplasm! And w'en
'e came
down to this clearin' one day an'
found 'im an' me neglectin' our work-'im asleep an' me grapplin' a tarantula
out of 'is sleeve-W'isky laid hold of my axe and let us
have it, good an' hard! I dodged
just then, for the spider bit me, but Ah Wee got it bad in the side an'
tumbled about like anything. W'isky was just weighin' me
out one w'en 'e saw the spider
fastened on my finger; then 'e knew 'e'd make a jackass of 'imself. 'E
threw away the axe and got down on 'is knees alongside of Ah
Wee, who gave a last little kick
and opened 'is eyes-'e had eyes like mine-an' puttin' up 'is hands drew
down W'isky's ugly head and held it there w'ile 'e stayed.
That wasn't long, for a tremblin'
ran through 'im and 'e gave a bit of a moan an' beat the game.”
During the progress of the story the narrator had become transfigured.
The comic, or rather, the sardonic element was all out of him, and as he
painted
that strange scene it was with
difficulty that I kept my composure. And this consummate actor had somehow
so managed me that the sympathy due to his
dramatis personae was given to
himself. I stepped forward to grasp his hand, when suddenly a broad grin
danced across his face and with a light, mocking laugh
he continued:
“W'en W'isky got 'is nut out o' that 'e was a sight to see! All 'is fine
clothes-'e dressed mighty blindin' those days-were spoiled everlastin'!
'Is hair was
tousled and 'is face-what I could
see of it-was whiter than the ace of lilies. 'E stared once at me, and
looked away as if I didn't count; an' then there were shootin'
pains chasin' one another from
my bitten finger into my head, and it was Gopher to the dark. That's why
I wasn't at the inquest.”
“But why did you hold your tongue afterward?” I asked.
“It's that kind of tongue,” he replied, and not another word would he say
about it.
“After that W'isky took to drinkin' harder an' harder, and was rabider
an' rabider anti-coolie, but I don't think 'e was ever particularly glad
that 'e dispelled
Ah Wee. 'E didn't put on so much
dog about it w'en we were alone as w'en 'e had the ear of a derned Spectacular
Extravaganza like you. 'E put up that headstone
and gouged the inscription accordin'
to 'is varyin' moods. It took 'im three weeks, workin' between drinks.
I gouged 'is in one day.
“When did Jo. die?” I asked rather absently. The answer took my breath:
“Pretty soon after I looked at 'im through that knot-hole, w'en you had
put something in 'is w'isky, you derned Borgia!”
Recovering somewhat from my surprise at this astounding charge, I was half-minded
to throttle the audacious accuser, but was restrained by a sudden
conviction that came to me in the
light of a revelation. I fixed a grave look upon him and asked, as calmly
as I could: “And when did you go loony?”
“Nine years ago!” he shrieked, throwing out his clenched hands-“nine years
ago, w'en that big brute killed the woman who loved him better than she
did
me!-me who had followed 'er from
San Francisco, where 'e won 'er at draw poker!-me who had watched over
'er for years w'en the scoundrel she belonged to
was ashamed to acknowledge 'er
and treat 'er white!-me who for her sake kept 'is cussed secret till it
ate 'im up!-me who w'en you poisoned the beast fulfilled 'is
last request to lay 'im alongside
'er and give 'im a stone to the head of 'im! And I've never since seen
'er grave till now, for I didn't want to meet 'im here.”
“Meet him? Why, Gopher, my poor fellow, he is dead!”
“That's why I'm afraid of 'im.”
I followed the little wretch back to his wagon and wrung his hand at parting.
It was now nightfall, and as I stood there at the roadside in the deepening
gloom, watching the blank outlines
of the receding wagon, a sound was borne to me on the evening wind-a sound
as of a series of vigorous thumps -and a voice
came out of the night:
“Gee-up, there, you derned old Geranium.”
The End
